The Great Leech Of Tlanusi’yï

The following legend is taken from ‘Myths Of The Cherokee’ by James Mooney (Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I.) ’The spot where Valley river joins Hiwassee, at Murphy, in North Carolina, is known among the Cherokees as Tlanusi’yï, "The Leech place," and this is the story they tell of it: