Thursday, July 31, 2014

Cherokee Fables: The Journey to the Sunrise

Cherokee festival of friendship -- by Mails
A long time ago several young men made up their minds to find the place where the Sun lives and see what the Sun is like. They got ready their bows and arrows, their parched corn and extra moccasins, and started out toward the east. At first they met tribes they knew, then they came to tribes they had only heard about, and at last to others of which they had never heard.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Cherokee Fables: How They Brought Back Tobacco

 
Branta_canadensis_in_flight,_Great_Meadows_National_Wildlife_RefugeIn the beginning of the world, when people and animals were all the same, there was only one tobacco plant, to which they all came for their tobacco until the Dagûl`kû geese stole it and carried it far away to the south. The people were suffering without it, and there was one old woman who grew so thin and weak that everybody said she would soon die unless she could get tobacco to keep her alive.
 

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Cherokee Fables: The Daughter of the Sun

Autumn Equinox 9-21-2 01The Sun lived on the other side of the sky vault, but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky, directly above the earth, and every day as the Sun was climbing along the sky arch to the west she used to stop at her daughter’s house for dinner.
 
Now, the Sun hated the people on the earth, because they could never look straight at her without screwing up their faces. She said to her brother, the Moon, “My grandchildren are ugly; they grin all over their faces when they look at me.” But the Moon said, “I like my younger brothers; I think they are very handsome “–because they always smiled pleasantly when they saw him in the sky at night, for his rays were milder.
 

Thursday, July 10, 2014

“Cherokee Fables: Origin of Disease and Medicine”


Cherokee Hunter by Mails
In the old days the beasts, birds, fishes, insects, and plants could all talk, and they and the people lived together in peace and friendship. But as time went on the people increased so rapidly that their settlements spread over the whole earth, and the poor animals found themselves beginning to be cramped for room. This was bad enough, but to make it worse Man invented bows, knives, blowguns, spears, and hooks, and began to slaughter the larger animals, birds, and fishes for their flesh or their skins, while the smaller creatures, such as the frogs and worms, were crushed and trodden upon without thought, out of pure carelessness or contempt. So the animals resolved to consult upon measures for their common safety.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

“Part 2, Kana’tï And Selu: The Origin Of Game And Corn”

 Cultures, Legends, Native American Antiquity  No Responses »
Jul032014
 
letting the deer get awayPart 2: Wild Game