History &

        Legends

 

        By Douglas Belcher

A Story Of The Origin Of Corn And Tobacco – Koasati

 

Six Indian brothers traveled about. The youngest did not have enough to eat, so he left the people and went off by himself. He took nothing with him except an earthen pot which he carried on his back. He went on, camping each night and traveling in the daytime. Going on camping in this way he settled at a certain place near which he saw that two persons had built a fire. But he stayed by his own fire watching it. In the morning the two persons saw him and called to him to come over. When he got there they said, "Cook and eat," and they gave him food which he cooked and ate. He remained to watch the camp, but when day came those two men started out to hunt. After they were gone that Indian took the little earthen pot, made it grow large by snapping his fingers against it, set it in the fireplace filled with water in which he had placed some food, and kept up a fire beneath until it boiled.

 

The two persons traveled about and came back. When they got there he said, "I am cooking for you." "Alas! (Hiha)," they said, "it is spoiled for us. Now we must leave you."[1]

 

"To-morrow I will drive bear," said one of them. Together they went on to drive the game toward him. They went on and camped four nights driving bear, and saying to him, "You must drive bear this way." Then he himself went along the trail. The Indian went. When he got where the men were standing together they said, "We shot in this direction. The ground is bloody." Following the trail for a while, they saw some red corn dropped on the ground. The Indian took it and went on with it. Again they found two ears (or kernels) of corn in the trail. He picked them up and carried them on. Again they found two or three lying in the trail which he picked up and carried along. Presently it was bright in front of them because there was a big field there. When they reached it, it was something ripe (grain). The men said, "You must stay here," and they went off. They showed him how to make corncribs before they went. Then they left him alone. But they also gave him tobacco seed, saying, "Plant some of this tobacco and smoke it."

 

Footnotes

[1] This is not clear. Perhaps he should not have cooked the food for them because they were supernatural beings. They leave him after showing him how to hunt bear and giving him corn and tobacco.

 

Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians, by John R. Swanton; Smithsonian Institution, USGPO, Washington, D.C.; Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 88 [1929] and is now in the public domain.( Koasati )

 

Bear Legend - Cherokee

 

http://www.indians.org/welker/cherbear.htm

 

In the long ago time, there was a Cherokee Clan call the Ani-Tsa-gu-hi (Ahnee-Jah-goo-hee), and in one family of this clan was a boy who used to leave home and be gone all day in the mountains. After a while he went oftener and stayed longer, until at last he would not eat in the house at all, but started off at daybreak and did not come back until night. His parents scolded, but that did no good, and the boy still went every day until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow out all over his body. Then they wondered and asked him why it was that he wanted to be so much in the woods that he would not even eat at home. Said the boy, "I find plenty to eat there, and it is better than the corn and beans we have in the settlements, and pretty soon I am going into the woods to say all the time." His parents were worried and begged him not leave them, but he said, "It is better there than here, and you see I am beginning to be different already, so that I can not live here any longer. If you will come with me, there is plenty for all of us and you will never have to work for it; but if you want to come, you must first fast seven days."

 

The father and mother talked it over and then told the headmen of the clan. They held a council about the matter and after everything had been said they decided: "Here we must work hard and have not always enough. There he says is always plenty without work. We will go with him." So they fasted seven days, and on the seventh morning al the Ani-Tsa-gu-hi left the settlement and started for the mountains as the boy led the way.

 

When the people of the other towns heard of it they were very sorry and sent their headmen to persuade the Ani Tsaguhi to stay at home and not go into the woods to live. The messengers found them already on the way, and were surprised to notice that their bodies were beginning to be covered with hair like that of animals, because for seven days they had not taken human food and their nature was changing. The Ani Tsaguhi would not come back, but said, "We are going where there is always plenty to eat. Hereafter we shall be called Yonv(a) (bears), and when you yourselves are hungry come into the woods and call us and we shall shall come to give you our own flesh. You need not be afraid to kill us, for we shall live always." Then they taught the messengers the songs with which to call them and bear hunters have these songs still. When they had finished the songs, the Ani Tsaguhi started on again and the messengers turned back to the settlements, but after going a little way they looked back and saw a drove of bears going into the woods.

 

As retold by Barbara Shining Woman Warren