Plate I. In the Cherokee mountains 11 II. Map: The Cherokee and their neighbors. 14 III. Map: The old Cherokee country 23 IV. Sequoya (Sikwâyi) 108 V. The Cherokee alphabet 112 VI. Tahchee (Tatsi) or Dutch 140 VII. Spring-frog or Tooantuh (Du'stu') 142 VIII. John Ross (Gu'wisguwi') 150 IX. Colonel W. H. Thomas (Wil-Usdi') 160 X. Chief N. J. Smith (Tsaladihi') 178 XI. Swimmer (A`yûñ'ini) 228 XII. John Ax (Itagû'nûhi) 238 XIII. Tagwadihi' 256 XIV. Ayâsta 272 XV. Sawanu'gi, a Cherokee ball player 284 XVI. Nikwasi' mound at Franklin, North Carolina 337 XVII. Annie Ax (Sadayi) 358 XVIII. Walini', a Cherokee woman 378 XIX. On Oconaluftee river 405 XX. Petroglyphs at Track-rock gap, Georgia 418 Figure 1. Feather wand of Eagle dance 282 2. Ancient Iroquois wampum belts 354 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE By James Mooney I--INTRODUCTION The myths given in this paper are part of a large body of material collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 1887 to 1890, inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medicine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theory, with twenty-eight specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of aboriginal American literature in existence.