Robert Frank Jarrett

“ Long ago, before the Cherokee were driven from their homes in 1838, the people on Valley river and Hiwassee heard voices of invisible spirits calling them from the skies, and warning them of wars and misfortunes which the future held in store, and inviting them to come and live with the Nunnehi, the Immortals, in their homes under the mountains and under the waters. ”

“ Chattanooga’s pretty flow,
Clear as crystal, pure as sunbeams,
Winding hither too and fro.
Drank the waters, bathed they in it,
Fished and hunted stream and plain,
Where the buffalo once wandered,
But where none now doth remain.
Like a serpent that is crawling,
Wriggling, writhing, resting not,
Fleeing from a strange invader
To some lone secluded spot,
Winds and curves and turns forever,
In its course that has no end,
Swings to starboard and to larboard,
Round the Moccasin’s great bend. ”

“ The Indian tribe has been supplanted by the American Government; and the school and church have taken the place of the chase and the feud. Where the wild flowers nodded far out on the lonely plain, vast fields of wheat and corn whisper the great name of Oklahoma.
At this writing the eastern band of Cherokee is about to be dissolved, their lands allotted, and in a few more decades the Cherokee will have passed, and the name will be presented only in old records and in the hearts of their descendants. ”

“ He left others behind him, though, nearly as large and dangerous as himself, and they hide now in the deep pools in the river and about lonely passes in the high mountains, the places which the Cherokee call, “Where the Uktena stays.”
Those who know say that the Uktena with its horns on its head has a bright blazing crest like a diamond upon its forehead, and scales glittering like sparks of [155] fire upon its body. It has rings or spots along its whole length, and cannot be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head because under this spot are its heart and its life. ”

“ Should a stray hunter come near the place he would know of it by the whirring sound of the wings of thousands of wild ducks and pigeons flying about the lake, but on reaching the spot he would find only a dry flat, without bird or animal or blade of grass, unless he had first sharpened his spiritual vision by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil. ”

“ The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky Mountains. Knowing this, the magician went first to a gap in the range on the far northern border of the Cherokee country. He searched there and found a monster blacksnake, larger than had ever been known before, but it was not what he was looking for, and he laughed at it as something too small for notice. ”

“ All along the ridge they fell, until when they reached the head of Tuckaseigee not more than half a dozen were left alive, and in their despair they sat down and cried out for mercy. The Nunnehi chief told them that they deserved their punishment for attacking a peaceful tribe, and he spared their lives and told them to go home and tell their people. It was the custom of the Indians to spare some to carry the news of battle and defeat. Then the Nunnehi went back to the mound, and have been there ever since. ”

“ The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink, the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the town-house never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the warwhoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come if they will,” said the men, and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokees. ”

“ The Uktena tried to follow, but the arrow was thru his heart, and in another moment he rolled over in his death struggle, spitting poison over all the mountainside. The poison drops could not pass the circle of fire, but only hissed and sputtered in the blaze, and the magician on the inside was untouched except by one small drop which struck upon his head as he lay close to the ground; but he did not know it. The blood, too, as poisonous as the froth, poured from the Uktena’s wound and down the slope in a stream, but it ran into the trench and left him unharmed. ”

“ Realizing that the memory of a nation is best kept aglow by its songs and the writings of its poets, I have been inspired to write OCCONEECHEE, in order that the once powerful nation known as the Cherokee may be preserved in mind, and that their myths, their legends and their traditions may linger and be transmitted to the nations yet to come. ”

“ Long, long ago, there lived in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape that she pleased, or that suited her purpose, but in her right form she looked very much like an old woman, excepting that her whole body was covered with a skin as hard as a rock, that no weapon could wound or penetrate, and that on her right hand she had a long, stony finger of bone, like an awl or spear-head, with which she stabbed everyone to whom she could get near enough. ”

“ A hunter had been tramping over the mountains all day long without finding any game, and when the sun went down, he built a fire in a hollow stump, swallowed a few mouthfuls of corn gruel and lay down to sleep, tired out and completely discouraged. ”

“ At once there was an answering shout from the town-house, and the dance came to a sudden close. The Seneca swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails [196] and were light and active runners, and managed to get away with the loss of only one man. ”

“ Had Homer seen and Michelangelo traveled among the towering hills of the happiest land of earth, the song and the chisel, instead of being draped with the vail of blood, would have inspired the world to look forward to the time when there will be no death serenely sitting upon the throne of war. ”

“ The blazing spot is called Ulunsuti, “Transparent,” and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder-worker of the tribe, but it is worth a man’s life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family. Of all the daring warriors who have started out in search of Ulunsu’ti only Agan-uni-tsi ever came back successful.
The East Cherokee still keeps the one that he bought. ”

“ A man living down in Georgia came to visit some relatives at Hickory-log. He was a great hunter, and after resting for some days, got ready to go into the mountains. His friends warned him not to go toward the north, as in that direction, near a certain large uprooted tree, there lived a dangerous monster Uksuhi snake.
It kept constant watch, and whenever it could spring upon an unwary hunter it would coil about him and crush out his life in its folds, and then drag the dead body down the mountainside into a deep hole in Hiwassee river. ”

“ Long ago a powerful unknown tribe invaded the country from the southeast, killing people and destroying settlements wherever they went. No leader could stand against them, and in a little while they had wasted all the lower settlements and advanced into the mountains. The warriors of the old town of Nikwasi, on the head of Little Tennessee, gathered their wives and their children into the town-house and kept scouts constantly on the lookout for the presence of danger. ”

“ The Nunnehi or Immortals, the “People who live everywhere,” were a race of spirit people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a great many town-houses, and especially on the tops of the bald mountains, the high peaks where no timber grows.
They had large town-houses on Pilot Knob, and in Nik-Wasi mound, in what is now Macon County, North Carolina, and another in Blood Mountain, and at the head of Nottely river in Georgia. They were invisible excepting when they wanted to be seen, and they looked and spoke just like other Indians. ”

“ The hunters rushed out from the thicket and surrounded the pit, but shoot as true and as often as they could, the arrows struck the stony mail of the witch only to be broken and fall useless at her feet, while she taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit to get at them. They kept out of her way, but were only wasting their arrows when a small bird, Utsugi, the titmous, perched on a tree overhead and began to sing, “un, un, un.” ”

“ These are the people of whom little has been said and less written than most of the children of men. Yet of all of the native Americans the Cherokee tribe was the most noble, humane and intelligent.
Somewhere in the annals of the Aborigines of America, the Cherokee separated from the great Northern tribe, the Iroquois, and by preference inhabited the hills of the Appalachian range, and here we find them early in the dawn of American history, occupying a country which affords ample environment for the artist, the poet and the painter. ”

“ Next in rank of importance comes Itagunahi, better known among the English-speaking people as John Axe, who was born in the year 1800, saw the battle of Horseshoe Bend, witnessed the removal of the Cherokee tribe in 1838. He knew its history and almost all of the myths, legends and stories, transmitted many of them to the white man for record, and while he never spoke English, he was a very versatile and interesting man of the old type of Indians, and strong to the last days; he lived to near 100 years, then passed to the Happy Hunting Grounds. ”

“ It is said that the snakes, the deer, and the ginseng act as allies, so that an injury to one is avenged by the others. The feeling toward snakes is one mingled with fear and reverence, and every precaution is taken to avoid the killing or offending one, especially the rattlesnake. He who kills a snake will soon see others; and should he kill a second one, so many will come around him, whichever way he may turn, that he will become dazed at the sight of their glistening eyes and darting tongues, and will go wandering about like a crazy man, unable to find his way out of the woods. ”

“ When De Soto’s expedition was made through the Appalachian mountains, in 1540, he encountered this great and friendly nation living peacefully in their paradise among the hills and mountains, who received him as they were wont to receive a friendly tribe; so did they ever receive and treat the white neighbor until treaty after treaty had been broken and their homes had been destroyed and every compact violated.
Hostilities were in most cases caused by encroaching whites and broken promises and intrigues of the foreigners, who were gradually drawing the cordon around the diminishing tribe. ”

“ In the water are all kinds of fish and reptiles, and swimming upon the surface or flying overhead are great flocks of ducks and pigeons, while all about the shore are bear tracks crossing in every direction. It is the medicine lake of the birds and animals, and whenever a bear is wounded by the hunter he makes his way thru the woods to this lake and plunges into the [182] water, and when he comes out upon the other side his wounds are healed, and for this reason the animals keep the lake invisible to the hunter. ”

“ Once four Nunnehi women came to dance at Nottely town, and danced half of the night with the young men there, and nobody knew that they were Nunnehi, but thought them visitors from another settlement. About midnight they left to go home, and some men who had come out from the town-house to cool off watched to see which way they went. They saw the women go down the trail to the river ford, but just as they came to the water they disappeared, although it was a plain trail, with no place where they could hide. ”

“ At Nundayeli, the wildest spot in Nantahala river, (in what is now Macon County, North Carolina) , where the overhanging cliff is highest and the river far below, there lived in the old time a great snake called the Uwtsunta (or bouncer) , because it moved by jerks like a measuring worm, with only one part of its body on the ground at a time. It stayed generally on the east side, where [166] the sun came first in the morning, and used to cross by reaching over from the highest point of the cliff until it could get a grip on the other side, when it would pull over the rest of its body. ”

“ On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are level now, but fifty years ago the stones were still heaped up in pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of Iroquois shortly before [195] the final peace between the two nations. ”

“ Then the chief led the man through the cave to the outside of the mountain and left him there, but when the man looked back he saw no cave, but only the solid rock. The people of the Lost Settlement were never seen again and they are still living in Tauwatelda. Strange things happen there, so that the Cherokee know that the mountain is haunted and do not like to go near it. Only a few years ago a party of hunters camped there, and as they sat around their fire at supper time they talked of the story and made rough jokes of the people of old Kanasta. ”

“ MYTH SEVENTEEN. The Uktena and the Ulunsuti.
Long ago—hilahiyu—when the Sun became angry at the people on earth, and sent a sickness to destroy them, the Little Men changed a man into a monster snake, as large as the trunk of a tree, with horns, which they called the Uktena, “The Keen-eyed,” and sent him to kill her. He failed to do the work, and the Rattlesnake had to be sent instead, which made the Uktena so jealous and angry that the people were afraid of him and had him taken to Galunlati, to stay with the other dangerous things. ”

“ On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount County, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about half way up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth cannot be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below. ”

“ Men were seized in the fields, women torn from the wheel and the distaff, and children frightened from the pleasures of play. The vandals who followed in the wake of the soldiery, looting and pillaging, burning and destroying, yet calling themselves civilized Christians, were such a band of outlaws as is seldom seen even among the most savage and barbaric races. ”