772 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



The Eagle-tail dance is still in use among the Cherokees. The design of this 

 dance is to stimulate in the minds of the young growing people the spirit of war. 

 The old warriors rehearsing in the dance the dangers they have passed through 

 in attacking their enemies, the distance they have travelled, the time they have 

 been out, &c. &c. Some victuals are usually set apart for the boys to eat at day 

 break, and when the boys have eaten they go out of the town house and are met 

 in the entry by the young men, who have a battle with mud collected for the 

 purpose. 



It is also customary to give Eagle feathers as pledges of friendship in making 

 peace among red people. (Hicks in Raleigh Register.) 



Olbrechts says that "the unportance the Cherokee ascribe to dreams 

 as causes of disease is quite remarkable," and this is a characteristic 

 which they share with their relatives the Iroquois and other related 

 tribes. Anciently dreams were regarded mainly as the causes of dis- 

 ease, but in later times there has been more of a tendency to consider 

 them as omens of coming disease or of other future happenings. Omens 

 were drawn from the howling of dogs and foxes, the hooting of the 

 night owl, the sight of a shooting star and so on, and there was the 

 usual efflorescence of taboos. Epidemics such as smallpox were usually 

 attributed, correctly enough, to the white man (Mooney, 1932, pp. 

 35-39). 



Cosmogonic myths have already been touched upon. In addition to 

 the ones noted may be mentioned myths to account for differentiation 

 between diurnal and nocturnal beasts; gift of fire by the Thunders 

 and placing of same in the bottom of a hollow sycamore tree until 

 some was obtained by Water Spider after the other animals had failed ; 

 origin of game and corn from an ancient couple, Kanati (The Lucky 

 Hunter) and Selu (Corn) ; origin of sin; liberation of animals from 

 underground cave ; invention of diseases by animals in order to cope 

 with mankind, and help furnished by the plants in supplying medi- 

 cines ; determination of the Sun to destroy mankind, diversion of her 

 determination by having Rattlesnake kill her daughter, attempted 

 recovery of the latter from the land of the dead but ultimate failure 

 resulting in irreversibility of death ; rescue of tobacco from the geese, 

 journey to the sunrise and discovery of the nature of the sky and sun ; 

 origin of spots on the moon ; nature of thunder and stars ; origin of the 

 Pleiades and the pine tree ; origin of the Milky Way ; origin of straw- 

 berries ; origin of fish and frogs, and the deluge. In addition to these 

 legends, Mooney has recorded for us a number of quadruped, bird, 

 snake, fish, and insect myths, of which the most striking are those re- 

 garding supernatural serpents, and there are various wonder stories 

 and miscellaneous myths and legends (Mooney, 1900, pp. 239-427) . 



The Creeks believed that the earth was flat and square and that 

 the sky was a solid vault which rose and fell at intervals. Meteors 

 of the more impressive kind were thought to be snakes or lions, and 

 the Milky Way was called the spirits' road. Eclipses were supposed 



