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
These reports worried Swimmer, who was extremely sensitive in regard
to his reputation, and he became restive under the insinuations of
his rivals. Finally on coming to work one day he produced a book from
under his ragged coat as he entered the house, and said proudly:
“Look at that and now see if I don’t know something.” It was a small
day-book of about 240 pages, procured originally from a white man, and
was about half filled with writing in the Cherokee characters. A brief
examination disclosed the fact that it contained just those matters
that had proved so difficult to procure. Here were prayers, songs,
and prescriptions for the cure of all kinds of diseases--for chills,
rheumatism, frostbites, wounds, bad dreams, and witchery; love charms,
to gain the affections of a woman or to cause her to hate a detested
rival; fishing charms, hunting charms--including the songs without
which none could ever hope to kill any game; prayers to make the corn
grow, to frighten away storms, and to drive off witches; prayers for
long life, for safety among strangers, for acquiring influence in
council and success in the ball play. There were prayers to the Long
Man, the Ancient White, the Great Whirlwind, the Yellow Rattlesnake,
and to a hundred other gods of the Cherokee pantheon. It was in fact
an Indian ritual and pharmacopoeia.
After recovering in a measure from the astonishment produced by this
discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. “Yes,”
said Swimmer, “we all have them.” Here then was a clew to follow up. A
bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which
to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now
deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of
the time until the return was occupied in getting an understanding of
the contents of the book.
THE GATIGWANASTI MANUSCRIPT.
Further inquiry elicited the names of several others who might be
supposed to have such papers. Before leaving a visit was paid to one
of these, a young man named Wilnoti, whose father, Gatigwanasti, had
been during his lifetime a prominent shaman, regarded as a man of
superior intelligence. Wilnoti, who is a professing Christian, said
that his father had had such papers, and after some explanation from
the chief he consented to show them. He produced a box containing a
lot of miscellaneous papers, testaments, and hymnbooks, all in the
Cherokee alphabet. Among them was his father’s chief treasure, a
manuscript book containing 122 pages of foolscap size, completely
filled with formulas of the same kind as those contained in Swimmer’s
book. There were also a large number of loose sheets, making in all
nearly 200 foolscap pages of sacred formulas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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