Category: Native American Legends

The Great Yellow-Jacket: Origin Of Fish And Frogs

A long time ago the people of the old town of Kanu’ga`lâ’yï ("Brier place," or Briertown), on Nantahala river, in the present Macon county, North Carolina, were much annoyed by a great insect called U’la`gû’, as large as a house, which used to come from some secret hiding place, and darting swiftly through the air, would snap up children from their play and carry the

Atagâ’hï, The Enchanted Lake

Westward from the headwaters of Oconaluftee river, in the wildest depths of the, Great Smoky mountains, which form the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the enchanted lake of Atagâ’hï, "Gall place." Although all the Cherokee know that it is there, no one has ever seen it, for the way is so difficult that only the animals know how to reach it.

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The Giants From The West

According to James Mooney in his ‘Myths Of The Cherokee’ (Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I.) ‘James Wafford*, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had beard from the old people that long before her time a party of g

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Nûñ’yunu’wï, The Stone Man

This is what the old men told me when I was a boy. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side.

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Ûñtsaiyï’, The Gambler

Thunder lives in the west, or a little to the south of west, near the place where the sun goes down behind the water. In the old times he sometimes made a journey to the east, and once after he had come back from one of these journeys a child was born in the east who, the people said, was his son.

The Nest Of The Tlä’nuwä

On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about half way up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth can not be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below.

The Hunter In The Däkwä’

In the old days there was a great fish called the Däkwä’, which lived in Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Däkwä’, the "Däkwä’ place," above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man.

The Ustû’tlï

There was once a great serpent called the Ustû’tlï that made its haunt upon Cohutta mountain. It was called the Ustû’tlï or "foot" snake, because it did not glide like other snakes, but had feet at each end of its body, and moved by strides or jerks, like a great measuring worm.