History Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee

History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees

From the time he launched his career with the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1885, until his death in 1921, James Mooney devoted his life to detailing the various aspects of history, culture, language, religion, arts, and tradition of Native Americans.

According to Richard Bettis, President of the Tsa-La-Gi-Ya Cherokee Community in Oklahoma, "Mooney did not study from the distance of a classroom," but "lived with, ate with, even spoke with the Cherokee in their native tongue" and was therefore "privy to their innermost thoughts and practices." Because "his work has become the source for most of what is known and available about the history of the Cherokee nation today," Bettis, as well as many tribal members, east and west, grew up "holding the writings of James Mooney on the Cherokee in a reverence that is usually reserved for scripture."

Over 700 pages in length, this is a phenomenal, fascinating work. We hesitate in posting selected excerpts, because the book is so grandeur, only posting part of it here seems an injustice to the portions that, because of space limitations, simply cannot be posted. These only begin to give a portion of the magnificent flavor of the book:

"Cherokee, the name by which they are commonly known, has no meaning in their own language, and seems to be of foreign origin. As used among themselves the form is Tsa'lagi or Tsa'ragi. It first appears as Chalague in the Portuguese narrative of De Soto's expedition published originally in 1557, while we find Cheraqui in a French document of 1699, and Cherokee as an English form as early, at least, as 1708...There is evidence that it is derived from the Choctaw word choluck or chiluck, signifying a pit or cave...."

"According to Haywood, who wrote in 1823 on information obtained directly from leading members of the tribe long before the Removal, the Cherokee formerly had a long migration period, which was already lost, but which, within the memory of one informant, say about 1750, was still recited by chosen orators...From a careful sifting of the evidence Haywood concludes...."

"There is a dim but persistent tradition of a strange white race race preceeding the Cherokee, some of the stories even going so far as to locate their former settlements and to identify them as the authors of the ancient works found in this country. The earliest reference appears to be that of Barton in 1797...."

"The document of 1716 already quoted puts the strength of the Cherokee at that time at 2,370 warriors, but in this estimate the Lower Cherokee seem not to have been included. In 1715, according to a trade census compiled by Governor Johnson of South Carolina, the tribe had thirty towns, with 4,000 warriors and a total population of 11,210. Another census of 1721 gives them fifty three towns......"

"In 1736, Christian Priber, said to be a Jesuit acting in the French interest, had come among the Cherokee, and, by the facility with which he learned the language and adapted himself to the native dress and mode of life, had quickly acquired a leading influence among them. He drew up for their adoption a scheme of government modeled after the European plan, with the capital at Great Tellico, in Tennessee,...."

"The sacred formulas here given are selected from a collection of about six hundred... and covering every subject pertaining to the daily life and thought of the Indian, including medicine, love, hunting, fishing, war, self-protection, destruction of enemies, witchcraft,. the crops, the council, the ball play, etc., and in fact, embodying almost the whole of the acient religion of the Cherokees."

"The families that have made Cherokee history were nearly all of this mixed descent. The Doughterys, Galpins, and Adairs were from Ireland; the Rosses, Vanns, and McIntoshes, like the McGillivrays and Graysons among the Creeks, were of Scottish origin; the Waffords and others were Americans from Carolina or Georgia, and the father of Sequoya was a (Pennsylvania ?) German. Most of this white blood was of good stock, very different from the 'squaw man' element of the western tribes."

"The inventor, aptly called the Cadmus of his race, was a mixed blood known among his people as Sikway'yi (Sequoya) and among the whites as George Gist. Authorities generally agree his father was a white man, who drifted into the Cherokee Nation some years before the revolution and formed a temporary alliance with a Cherokee girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of the future teacher... McKenney and Hall say his father was a white man named Gist. Phillips asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed trader from georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1768. By a Kentucky family it is claimed Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist, son of a scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable excursion on the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was captured by the Cherokee..."

"The lost Cherokee - when the first lands were sold by the Cherokee, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying that if the Indians once consented to give up any of their territory, the whites would never be satisfied... they (dissatisfied Cherokee) determined to leave their homes and go far into the west... crossing the Big River (Mississippi)... no more was heard of the wanderers, and in time the story of the lost Cherokee was forgotten or remembered only as a lost tale... One of these parties pushed on across the plains and there at the foot of the great mountains - the Rockies - they found a tribe speaking the old Cherokee language and living still as the Cherokee had lived before they had ever known the white man or his ways."

"The Cherokee were now (1761) reduced to the greatest extremity. With some of the best towns in ashes, their fields and orchards wated for two successive years, their ammunition nearly exhausted, many of their bravest warriors dead, ......"

"While crossing over the mountains Rutherford's men approached a house belonging to a trader, when one of his negro slaves ran out and 'was shot by the Reverend James Hall, the Chaplain, as he ran, mistaking him for an Indian.' Soon after they captured two women and a boy. It was proposed to auction them off at once to the highest bidder, and when one of the officers protested that the matter should be left to the disposition of Congress, 'the greater part swore bloodily that if they were not sold for slaves upon the spot they would kill and scalp them immediately.' The prisoners were accordingly sold for...."

"Their (Cherokee) preference for the French was but thinly veiled... the reasons for this preference are given by Timberlake, a young Virginian officer who visited the tribe...'I found the nation much attached to the French, who have the prudence, by familiar politeness - which costs little but often does a great deal-and conforming themselves to their ways and temper... while the pride of our officers often disgusts them.'"

"The Chicamauga band, however, and those further to the south, were still bent on war, being actively encouraged in that disposition by the British agents and refugee loyalists living among them. They continued to raid both north and south, and in September 1782, Sevier, with 200 mounted men, again made descent upon their towns, destroying several of their settlements....

"Among the captives thus restored to their friends were Joseph Brown, a boy of sixteen, who, with several others, had been taken at Nickajack town while descending the Tennessee in a flatboat nearly a year before... His little sister, five years old, had become so attached to the Indian woman who had adopted her, that she refused to go to her own mother and had to be pulled along by force... McGillivray, head chief of the Creek nation, who restored them to their friends, generously refusing any compensation for his kindness."

"It is said that the Indian actors in this massacre fled across the Mississippi into Spanish territory and became the nucleus of the Cherokee Nation of the West, as will be noted elsewhere."