Cherokee Witchcraft: How the medicine men dealt with a Raven Mocker

Part 4

The Raven Mocker witch
could shape-shift into a raven

The most feared Cherokee witch, the one they called “Raven Mocker”,  was not completely invincible.  The skilled medicine man knew the signs of the Raven Mocker and its malicious intents.  He knew that the Raven Mocker preferred the nights and that he preferred preying on the sick and the weak.  So, when a loved one was sick, these special medicine men (or women) were sought out and asked to sit with their loved one through the night.

 
There were numerous methods that were known to enable the detection of the witch.  The Raven Mocker, according to accounts recorded by James Mooney, “… flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind … Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven”.  [refer to the previous article from Native American Antiquity:  Cherokee Witches: Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï]

Ayunini (Swimmer)
Famous Cherokee Medicine Man

Another method, quoting from “The Swimmer Manuscript” by James Mooney, revised and edited by Frans Olbrects (Swimmer was a famous Cherokee medicine man that was Mooney’s principle informant on the history, mythology, … medicine and botany of the Cherokee), “This work consists in smoothing a small heap of ashes, about 20-25 centimeters in diameter, aside from the hearth, and occasionally dropping a tiny pinch of finely crushed tso’ lagayo-nli (“old tobacco,” Nicotiana rustica L) on it; the center of the hot ashes are thought of as representing the patient’s cabin; any particle of the tobacco dust catching fire, to the right or to the left of the center, indicates the position from where the witch is approaching.  If the dust alights on the center of the ashes it is a sign that the witch is right overhead, and should the tobacco, as it drops on the center, take fire with a crack or a burst, it shows that the witch has already entered the room.  In this case the burst will cause the death of the witch within four days, if she is one of the kind that has fasted for four days to attain her occult power; within seven days if she is one of the kind that ‘has got the utmost’”

It was also believed that by drinking a special mixture, sometimes called the “witch’s tea”, the

consumer could “see” the witch in his natural form and, thereby, cause the witch’s death.  According to Alan Kilpatrick, in his book “The Night Has a Naked Soul”, “… the four ingredients of this exotic brew (which were crushed and steeped in water) were algae collected from rocks in a mountain stream, phosphorescent wood extracted from a putrified stump, and two species of insect plants (Cordyceps) that contain the hallucinatory properties of ergot and lysergic acid diethylamide.”

Witches, whether a Raven Mocker or just a common witch, were blamed for a person’s sickness.  When interrogating a patient, the medicine man would usually ask if the patient knew “who put the thing [curse] under them” that disrupted their healthy condition.  The medicine man didn’t treat the sickness as we think of it today, they worked to remove that which was interrupting their health by restoring harmony and balance.  So, a treatment would not only include medicine but required the appropriate prayers or conjures to address the complete health of the patient.  A person’s physical health was linked with his mental health and both had to be addressed to be well.  It bothers me that our doctors today have not learned this and rarely address both when treating their patients.  It is too easy to just prescribe a drug and hope it drives out the sickness. 

Raven Mockers may still exist.  Please refer to the comments on last week’s blog.

 

-- Courtney Miller

Link to Part 1 of the Cherokee Witchcraft series
 

 

Click here to view a video of my upcoming novel featuring the Raven Mocker

Cherokee Witches: Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï

"Of all the Cherokee wizards or witches the most dreaded is the Raven Mocker (Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï), the one that robs the dying man of life. They are of either sex and there is no sure way to know one, though they usually look withered and old, because they have added so many lives to their own.

He flies through the air in fiery shape

"At night, when someone is sick or dying in the settlement, the Raven Mocker goes to the place to take the life. He flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind, and a rushing sound like the noise of a strong wind. Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven when it "dives" in the air--not like the common raven cry--and those who hear are afraid, because they know that some man's life will soon go out. When the Raven Mocker comes to the house he finds others of his kind waiting there, and unless there is a doctor on guard who knows how to drive them away they go inside, all invisible, and frighten and torment the sick

man until they kill him. Sometimes to do this they even lift him from the bed and throw him on the floor, but his friends who are with him think he is only struggling for breath.

"After the witches kill him they take out his heart and eat it, and so add to their own lives as many days or years as they have taken from his. No one in the room can see them, and there is no sear where they take out the heart, but yet there is no heart left in the body.  ...

 

"The following is told on the reservation as an actual happening:

"A young man had been out on a hunting trip and was on his way home when night came on while he was still a long distance from the settlement. He knew of a house not far off the trail where an old man and his wife lived, so he turned in that direction to look for a place to sleep until morning. When he got to the house there was nobody in it. He looked into the âsï and found no one there either. He thought maybe they had gone after water, and so stretched himself out in the farther corner to sleep. Very soon he heard a raven cry outside, and in a little while afterwards the old man came into the âsï and sat down by the fire without noticing the young man, who kept still in the dark corner. Soon there was another raven cry outside, and the old man said to himself, "Now my wife is coming," and sure enough in a little while the old woman came in and sat down by her husband. Then the young man knew they were Raven Mockers and he was frightened and kept very quiet.



Typical Cherokee house

"Said the old man to his wife, "Well, what luck did you have?" "None," said the old woman, "there were too many doctors watching. What luck did you have?" "I got what I went for," said the old man, "there is no reason to fail, but you never have luck. Take this and cook it and lees have something to eat." She fixed the fire and then the young man smelled meat roasting and thought it smelled sweeter than any meat he had ever tasted. He peeped out from one eye, and it looked like a man's heart roasting on a stick.

"Suddenly the old woman said to her husband, "Who is over in the corner?" "Nobody," said the old man. "Yes, there is," said the old woman, "I hear him snoring," and she stirred the fire until it blazed and lighted up the whole place, and there was the young man lying in the corner. He kept quiet and pretended to be asleep. The old man made a noise at the fire to wake him, but still he pretended to sleep. Then the old man came over and shook him, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep all the time.

"Now it was near daylight and the old woman was out in the other house getting breakfast ready, but the hunter could hear her crying to herself. "Why is your wife crying?" he asked the old man. "Oh, she has lost some of her friends lately and feels lonesome," said her husband; but the young man knew that she was crying because he had heard them talking.

"When they came out to breakfast the old man put a bowl of corn mush before him and said, "This is all we have--we have had no meat for a long time." After breakfast the young man started on again, but when he had gone a little way the old man ran after him with a fine piece of beadwork and gave it to him, saying, "Take this, and don't tell anybody what you heard last, night, because my wife and I are always quarreling that way." The young man took the piece, but when he came to the first creek he threw it into the water and then went on to the settlement. There he told the whole story, and a party of warriors started back with him to kill the Raven Mockers. When they reached the place it was seven days after the first night. They found the old man and his wife lying dead in the house, so they set fire to it and burned it and the witches together."

From James Mooney, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]:

 

Next week we will take a look at how the Cherokee medicine men dealt with the Raven Mockers.

 

 

-- Courtney Miller

 

Link to Part 1

 

Watch a video of my upcoming book: The First Raven Mocker, a novel

Cherokee Witchcraft: Conquering Stone Clad

Mayan ballplayer
wearing stone "donut"

Last week I introduced a particularly frieghtening and evil Cherokee witch, Nûñ'yunu'wï, which means “dressed in stone” or “Stone Clad”.  I promised to tell how the evil witch was finally conquered.  Quoting, again, from James Mooney:

“The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nûñ'yunu'wï, "Dressed in Stone," who lived in that part of the country, and was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save themselves …

“He could not bear to look upon a menstrual woman, and if they could find seven menstrual women to stand in the path as he came along the sight would kill him.
 

“So they asked among all the women, and found seven who were sick in that way, and with one of them it had just begun. By the order of the medicine-man they stripped themselves and stood along the path where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nûñ'yunu'wï coming through the woods, feeling his way with his stone cane. He came along the trail to where the first woman was standing, and as soon as he saw her he started and cried out: "Yu! my grandchild; you are in a very bad state!" He hurried past her, but in a moment he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu! my child; you are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting blood. He hurried on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew weaker until when he came to the last one, with whom the sickness had just begun, the blood poured from his mouth and he fell down on the trail.

“Then the medicine-man drove seven sourwood stakes through his body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nûñ'yunu'wï was a great ada'wehï and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and the deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank low and lower, until at last when daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still.



Cherokee Medicine Man Swimmer

“Then the medicine-man told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of red wâ'dï paint and a magic u'lûñsû'ti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he painted them, on face and breast, with the red wâ'dï, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done-whether for hunting success, for working skill, or for a long life-that gift was his.”

In his book, “The Night Has a Naked Soul”, Alan Kilpatrick explains, “Much of the prestige bestowed upon the Cherokee conjuror can be traced to the ancient myth surrounding the ritual murder of the monster, Stone-Clad, by a medicine man. … This man-eating monster, who operates outside the moral community of humans, is brought under control by the polluting force of ‘unclean’ women.  Then Stone-Clad (and his secret powers) are consecrated and “re-purified” by the cleansing action of the ancient fire.”

Next week we’ll take a look at another evil Cherokee witch and how the medicine man dealt with him.

 

-- Courtney Miller

 

Link to Part 1:  Cherokee Witchcraft: Nûñ'yunu'wï

 

Preview the upcoming book featuring Stone Clad