The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398 — John Shaqi
The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398Mooney, James
Religion
The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398
Mooney, James
Cherokee Indians -- Religion; Cherokee language -- Texts; Indians of North America -- Medicine
In the course of further inquiries in regard to the whereabouts of
other manuscripts of this kind we heard a great deal about Inâ´lĭ,
or “Black Fox,” who had died a few years before at an advanced age,
and who was universally admitted to have been one of their most able
men and the most prominent literary character among them, for from
what has been said it must be sufficiently evident that the Cherokees
have their native literature and literary men. Like those already
mentioned, he was a full-blood Cherokee, speaking no English, and in
the course of a long lifetime he had filled almost every position of
honor among his people, including those of councilor, keeper of the
townhouse records, Sunday-school leader, conjurer, officer in the
Confederate service, and Methodist preacher, at last dying, as he was
born, in the ancient faith of his forefathers.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVII
FACSIMILE OF GATIGWANASTI MANUSCRIPT.
Yugwilû´ formula. (Page 375.)]
On inquiring of his daughter she stated that her father had left a
great many papers, most of which were still in her possession, and
on receiving from the interpreter an explanation of our purpose she
readily gave permission to examine and make selections from them on
condition that the matter should be kept secret from outsiders. A day
was appointed for visiting her, and on arriving we found her living in
a comfortable log house, built by Inâlĭ himself, with her children
and an ancient female relative, a decrepit old woman with snow-white
hair and vacant countenance. This was the oldest woman of the tribe,
and though now so feeble and childish, she had been a veritable savage
in her young days, having carried a scalp in the scalp dance in the
Creek war 75 years before.
Having placed chairs for us in the shade Inâlĭ’s daughter brought
out a small box filled with papers of various kinds, both Cherokee and
English. The work of examining these was a tedious business, as each
paper had to be opened out and enough of it read to get the general
drift of the contents, after which the several classes were arranged
in separate piles. While in the midst of this work she brought out
another box nearly as large as a small trunk, and on setting it down
there was revealed to the astonished gaze such a mass of material as
it had not seemed possible could exist in the entire tribe.
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