Jan. 13, 1912.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
45 
Red Hunters of the Unakas 
By WILLIAM PERRY BROWN 
ATCH bear by tail, he do nothing.” once 
said a semi-degenerate Cherokee within 
my hearing a few years back, but he did 
not say it exactly that way, though it was doubt¬ 
less what he inferred. 
What he really meant was that Bre’r Bear, as 
he is found under the shadow of the Great 
Smokies, the Unakas, the Nantahalas, and other 
wilder parts of our Southern Appalachian 
Mountain chain, has hardly enough tail to hold 
on by in any event. 
Under the cliffs of Cheeowah Mountain, where 
the Little Tennessee River threads a tumultuous 
course through the main range northwestwardly 
to meet the Holston, where begins the Big Ten- 
nessy, as the natives call it, still linger a few of 
a tribe which like the Florida Seminoles, de¬ 
clined to move westward with the bulk of their 
nation. This was accomplished by simply keep¬ 
ing out of the white man’s way until the remova', 
fever among the land hungry palefaces subsided, 
after they had absorbed pretty much all the 
Cherokee and Creek lands. 
This remnant, however, gradually collected 
in sundry narrow valleys in Swain and Hey- 
wood counties that were dominated by Cheeo¬ 
wah Mountain, and so this Indian name became 
typical of the center of Cherokee settlement in 
what was left to them of their old fatherland. 
I recall with interest these few remaining red 
men and their ways, as I knew them a few 
years back, when I tramped the Big Smokies and 
the Unakas during autumn vacations. 
Dextrous trappers they were, these Cheeowah 
Cherokees, and great in home-made contrivances. 
Naturally their petty farming operations were 
diversified by a good deal of hunting, trapping, 
the gathering of ginseng or “sang,” with other 
roots and herbs, beeswax, wild honey and so 
on. Around the edges of a terribly rough wild¬ 
erness in the upper laps of the Unakas, called 
Dismal, they would trap for otter, mink, musk¬ 
rats, and even beavers long deemed to be ex¬ 
tinct in all these Appalachian regions. 
I never saw any fresh beaver hides myself, 
but one of them offered to guide me to an old 
beaver dam, somewhere in the Nantahalas, I be¬ 
lieve. This was during the Spanish war, while 
I was on a hunting trip around the Hooper Bald, 
where some friends at that time had a ranch 
and cabin on the winter range for cattle. But 
owing to time limitations I was unable to ac¬ 
cept. For “six wheels” and one “bush corn,” 
besides cartridges for his rifle, our special 
“Barkis” was willing to instruct us in beaver 
lore. Undoubtedly beaver were once plentiful 
in the Unakas. A meeting house located close 
to an extinct beaver colony of the days of our 
daddies is still called Beaver Dam Church. The 
“wheels” were not wagon wheels, but good silver 
dollars, nor was the “bush corn” to be delivered 
to him in a dry state, but was the distilled es¬ 
sence thereof, to the measurement of one gallon 
in a sound, though unstamped jug, well and 
truly unwatered through the crossing of too 
many branches under the light of the moon. 
It was a common saying, current among the 
mountaineers of Swain and Cherokee counties. 
which adjoin Polk and Benton in Tennessee, 
that Indian hunters about Cheeowah used to 
bring in occasional beaver pelts. To outside in¬ 
quiry, the native reply would be: “White man 
take land; injun hide beaver.” Considering the 
grab-all policy following the years of the in- 
THE JOYS OF TAILING. 
From a W inter Sport Book. 
trusion, I do not think these people were far 
wrong in hiding anything hideable from the 
white man’s unappeasable eyes and appetite. 
Only once did I see one of them fairly startled 
out of his aboriginal calm. This was in the 
days of the original Waterbury watch, with a 
main spring several yards long. During some 
THE NEWCOMER IS ADVISED TO LEARN THE MEANING 
OF THE WARNING “ACHTUNG !” 
From a Winter Sport Book. 
local bartering with the ubic|uitous paleface afi 
old driedup red hunter had become the owner 
of one, which finally refused to “talk time” prop¬ 
erly, probably through being wound up too tight. 
Seating himself by the trail side he shook the 
watch, grunted, shook it with increasing vigor, 
holding it meanwhile by the chain only. Finally 
something parted. Down fell the watch on a 
stray pebble, the case fell apart and out sprang 
the uncoiling main spring with a rattle and force 
that was, perhaps, too suggestive of snakes in 
dog days. 
Leaping backward, his heels struck the log 
whereon he had been seated, and he fell on his 
back in the bushes, while the uncoiled spring 
spread itself clattering over him, giving him 
doubtless the impression that he was bitten by 
some unknown monster. Out he scrambled, 
uttering strange gasps, grunts and other audible 
signs of extreme terror. However, he had the 
remedy. His hand shook as he held a pint flask 
of “corn” to his mouth, but as he drained it he 
grew steadier. Then he grinned increasingly, 
feeling that he was unbitten after all and 
kicked the “talk-time snake-box” aside. A little 
later he was trying to have his flask refilled at 
a fruit distillery by trading the remains of the 
Waterbury to the man who ran the still. 
As late as ten years back a prime winter-killed 
b'ack bear hide, dressed only as these Indians 
do dress them, would be worth at Knoxville, 
Chattanooga or Asheville from fifteen to fifty 
dollars to souvenir hunters. Yet the same hide 
might go at some remote little mountain store 
for a supposable third of that sum, portioned 
out in a worthless jumble of mock jewelry, 
“sweet store tobac” and more or less slazy high- 
colored calico. If the merchant added a box 
or two of snuff, and a can of over-ripe canned 
stuff, the cold, hungry looking squaw that 
brought the hide would depart well satisfied. 
But times are less Arcadian now. Since the 
Land of the Sky has become a sort of half¬ 
way house on the route to the piney woods 
country and Florida, the Cherokee, like the 
Everglade Seminole, has profited by experience. 
As guides the North Carolina Cherokees are sim¬ 
ply at home anywhere amid the wildest parts 
of the upper ranges. The roughest, most be¬ 
wildering labyrinth in these regions is, to them, 
like the paleface map. It is as if the Mighty 
Mother had said to her sick, weary, world- 
cheated red children, ready to sink down upon 
the universal breast: “Come to me. In my 
bosom will you be sheltered until you are rested 
and well, or until you are dead.’’ 
For a time the camera in its box form held 
him in awe, but he has learned the value of 
the “talk-picture” as well as the “talk-time box,” 
even to the extent of sending his own picture 
to far-off unwary ones, personating for pelf, 
some local aboriginal celebrity other than him¬ 
self. 
The writer once bought an undressed deer skin 
of an ancient red hermit who lived under Snow 
Bird Mountain. His shack and himself were as 
primitive and far more literal than the Leather¬ 
stocking descriptions given by Fenimore Cooper 
of the Mohican companions of Natty Bumppo. 
“Send injun one bush corn, one pound peach 
pie plug tobac. All right.” 
And thus the trade was concluded. Old Conny 
(or Conesauga) received his gallon of red liquor 
and his plug of tobacco, while I became the 
owner of a really fine hide of a mountain buck. 
Conesauga was a chief, too. But nowadays they 
use steel traps, dress their skins themselves, and 
sell to genuine sportsmen that flock into the 
Great Smokies in the wake of the Vanderbilts 
and others. They ignore the country store and 
wear brogans instead of moccasins. 
“Buckskin worth heap money,” they say, and 
it is likely they are right. 
