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
The mythologic significance of the different colors is well shown in
this formula. Red, symbolic of success, is the color of the war club
with which the warrior is to strike the enemy and also of the other
one with which he is to shield or “cover” himself. There is no doubt
that the war whoop also should be represented as red. In conjuring
with the beads for long life, for recovery from sickness, or for
success in love, the ball play, or any other undertaking, the red
beads represent the party for whose benefit the magic spell is
wrought, and he is figuratively clothed in red and made to stand upon
a red cloth or placed upon a red seat. The red spirits invoked always
live in the east and everything pertaining to them is of the same
color.
Black is always typical of death, and in this formula the soul of the
enemy is continually beaten about by black war clubs and enveloped in
a black fog. In conjuring to destroy an enemy the shaman uses
black beads and invokes the black spirits--which always live in the
west--bidding them tear out the man’s soul, carry it to the west,
and put it into the black coffin deep in the black mud, with a black
serpent coiled above it.
Blue is emblematic of failure, disappointment, or unsatisfied desire.
“They shall never become blue” means that they shall never fail in
anything they undertake. In love charms the lover figuratively covers
himself with red and prays that his rival shall become entirely blue
and walk in a blue path. The formulistic expression, “He is entirely
blue,” closely approximates in meaning the common English phrase, “He
feels blue.” The blue spirits live in the north.
White--which occurs in this formula only by an evident error--denotes
peace and happiness. In ceremonial addresses, as at the green corn
dance and ball play, the people figuratively partake of white food
and after the dance or the game return along the white trail to their
white houses. In love charms the man, in order to induce the woman to
cast her lot with his, boasts “I am a white man,” implying that all is
happiness where he is. White beads have the same meaning in the bead
conjuring and white was the color of the stone pipe anciently used
in ratifying peace treaties. The white spirits live in the south
(Wa´hală).
Two other colors, brown and yellow, are also mentioned in the
formulas. Wâtige´ĭ, “brown,” is the term used to include brown,
bay, dun, and similar colors, especially as applied to animals. It
seldom occurs in the formulas and its mythologic significance is as
yet undetermined. Yellow is of more frequent occurrence and is typical
of trouble and all manner of vexation, the yellow spirits being
generally invoked when the shaman wishes to bring down calamities upon
the head of his victim, without actually destroying him. So far as
present knowledge goes, neither brown nor yellow can be assigned to
any particular point of the compass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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