Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1891-05-20
HOW AN INDIAN PRAYS,
INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHER
OKEES IN NORTH CAROLINA.
IariOus Spirits to Talk to and Earnest
Supplications

he widest a. nd toughest hills of the
Alleghenies, are POO pure bred Cher
,kees on a reservation of 73 900 acres"
said James Mooney, chronological ex-
)ert. ''The missionaries claim that
most of them are Christians, but ex-
ended observation has convinced me
hat very few of them do anything
more than profess the white mans re-
igion. They like to gather at meet
ng and crafty their musical instinct
oy singing hymns, but that is usually
ls far as their conversion carries
hem. At heart, in nearly all cases,
hey remain true TO their ancient faith.
The final test, however, is found in the
,ick Indian. When in good health, he
nay be the most promising convert i'm
iginable, but the moment he feels in
disposed he calls in the native medicine
men with their charms and incanta-
ions. The latter address formule in
he ancient ritual language, among
other things, to various animals"
"And why to animals?" he was
asked.
at is the custom to address prayers
| % animals in sickness always. The
Cherokee religion, you must under
stand, is a worship of nature and all
ler manifestations-bird beasts, fish,
water, the sun and moon, the noun
tains, storms, thunder and lightning.
and so OH indefinitely. If the patient
| mas toothache, for instance, the med
cine man tells him that it is worm
in the tooth, and he prays: 90 good
squirrel, do come and take out the
worm from this tooth and carry it
away to the dark side of the mountain,
and put it inside of an old dead log
A certain small fish is supposed to
cause a great deal of sickness. You
see, the fish are angry at being caught
and eaten, and their ghosts often come
back to torture the people who de-
voured them, with various complaints.
| When a person is thus attacked by
fish ghost, prayer is addressed TO the
blue cat, who is king of all the fishes,
to come and drive out the other fish.
If the case is bad the red man, the
tblue man, the white man and the black
man are invoked"
"Water and fire are worshipped,
too?''
| "With great awe. Water is prayed
TO under the name of the long man,
who has his head in the mountains and
| his foot in the ocean. To the Chero-
KEGS the river is live person. ooh
make me like you,' they say, who are
so big and so strong that you carry
immense logs vast distances and no
power can resist YOU And fire Is
called the ancient white, becaus3 it is
very old, the dead ashes are white and
the flame is white. We don't call
flame white, but they do, their differ
entiation of colors being less distinct
than ours. The red-hot Goals are the
ancient red. Lightning and thunder
together they call the great red men.
He is red, you see, because he is pow
erful, red being the color signitiying
power. The sun is called the measur-
er, because it measures time. When
he is in love, the Cherokee prays to
beautiful birds, to the river, to the
sun, and to the moon.
'.Most frequently he addresses the
yellow-hammer beseeching it to make
him handsome and attractive to the
women. Also, he prays to the red
spider-red being symbolic of success
Ito wind its meshes around the heart
of his loved one. OF the prayer form
ule used in supplicating all these OBJ
iects and many more | have brought
back with me from North Carolina a
very complete collection. They are
all wonderfully poetical. Very pref
lily imaginative is the prayer addressed
TO an approaching storm that threatens
The corn crop, which supplies their
staple food. The priest stands at the
corner of the corn-patch with one
hand uplifted as if to warn the storm
away"
"Do they worship the mountainsT
.'Yes; and all the plants that grow
,n them. For instance, they pray to
the ginseng, which has a forked root
crudeE resembling the shape of a
human being. They call it the very
great man, and when they find one of
the plants they repeat formula taught
them by the priests, for a considera-
tion, saying: % mountain, have
come to take a small piece from your
side Then the finder digs the plant
up and puts a glass head into the hole,
10 paw the mountain for the plant.
The seventh plant found has an espe-
cial medicinal value, and the first four
plants discovered must not be touched,
though after others have been gath
cred the searcher may go back and
collect those four"
Chow do these people live"
e.In the simplest log cabins, many of
them without windows or floors. The
people are often very cold in winter,
but thew don't seem TO mind it. They
are purely agricultural and corn bread
and salt pork chiefly compose their
diet. Such game as they get-rabblts,
squirrels, birds and other small fry
is shot with blowguns made of hollow
ishpole cane with the joints bored out.
In the use of this weapon they are so
expert that they can bring down a small
bird from the top of a tall tree with
one of the light reed arrows feathered
with thistle-down which they employ
for proiectiles. The canes thev need
for making the blowguns are obtained
from brakes in South Carolina mostly,
100 to 200 miles away.
To illustrate the value set by Cher
okce upon his time, it occurs to me to
mention that on one occasion when
wanted a blow-gun, possibly worth 70
cents, | asked one of the Indians to
sell me one. He said he had none to
spare, but would go over to South
Carolina-perhaps three weeks jour-
ney there and back-and get a reed for
he purpose. The fish, whose ghosts
.orture them so much, they catch in
great numbers by traps in the stream ;.
he finny prey is led into sort of
pound and dipped out with baskets or
;peared The men handle the spears
nod the women the baskets. When
L. ,nn,hnl fniIS n section Of O stream