OCR Text |
Show 254 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [ ETH. ANN. 19 They took up the box and started home toward the east. In a little while the girl came to life again and begged to be let out of the box, but they made no answer and went on. Soon she called again and said she was hungry, but still they made no answer and went on. After another while she spoke again and called for a drink and pleaded so that it was very hard to listen to her, but the men who carried the box said nothing and still went on. When at last they were very near home, she called again and begged them to raise the lid just a little, because she was smothering. They were afraid she was really dying now, so they lifted the lid a little to give her air, but as they did so there was a fluttering sound inside and something flew past them into the thicket and they heard a redbird cry, " hoisJi! Jewish! Jewish!" in the bushes. They shut down the lid and went on again to the settlements, but when they got there and opened the box it was empty. So we know the Redbird is the daughter of the Sun, and if the men had kept the box closed, as the Little Men told them to do, they would have brought her home safely, and we could bring back our other friends also from the Ghost country, but now when they die we can never bring them back. The Sun had been glad when they started to the Ghost country, but when they came back without her daughter she grieved and cried, " My daughter, my daughter," and wept. until ber tears made a flood upon the earth, and the people were afraid the world would be drowned. They held another council, and sent their handsomest young men and women to amuse her so that she would stop crying. They danced before the Sun and sang their best songs, but for a long time she kept her face covered and paid no attention, until at last the drummer suddenly changed the song, when she lifted up her face, and was so pleased at the sight that she forgot her grief and smiled. 6. HOW THEY BROUGHT BACK THE TOBACCO In the beginning of the world, when people and animals were all the same, there was only one tobacco plant, to which they all came for their tobacco until the DagfiTkfi geese stole it and carried it far away to the south. The people were suffering without it, and there was one old woman who grew so thin and weak that everybody said she would soon die unless she could get tobacco to keep her alive. Different animals offered to go for it, one after another, the larger ones first and then the smaller ones, but the Dagfilkii saw and killed every one before he could get to the plant. After the others the little Mole tried to reach it by going under the ground, but the Dag& fkfi saw his track and killed him as he came out. At last the Hummingbird offered, but the others said he was entirely too small and might as well stay at home. He begged them to let him try, so they showed him a plant in a field and told him to let them see |