Long-Ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee Read Online Free Page B

cornmeal in the basket outside their cabin once again. But this time, when it grew dark, the Father hid in the bushes around the clearing. He sat down to wait. He waited until long after midnight, when a giant Dog appeared and came down out of the northern sky. The Dog landed on the ground, walked over to the basket of cornmeal and started eating. He stayed there until he had finished all the cornmeal. Then he walked to the bushes and disappeared.

    Now the Father knew what had happened to the cornmeal. The next morning he woke up his family, gathered them around him and told them what had happened. They worked on a plan to stop this from happening again. Finally, they came up with a plan they thought would work. They ground up some more cornmeal, put it in the basket and left the basket outside their cabin once again. But this time, when it grew dark, everybody picked up drums or switches and hid themselves in the bushes around the clearing.
    They waited and waited, until finally, out of the northern sky, the giant Dog again appeared. He came down out of the sky, landed and walked over to the cornmeal. He started eating. At the Father’s signal, everybody jumped out of the bushes. They started yelling at the top of their lungs, beating on the drums or rushing toward the Dog with their switches. They started hitting the Dog with their switches and yelling and drumming. The Dog was so stunned that he whirled around, gave a mighty leap and disappeared back into the northern sky. But because he had been eating cornmeal, cornmeal streamed out of his mouth as he leaped back into the sky. And instead of falling down to the earth, this cornmeal floated up into the sky. Today we know that cornmeal as the Milky Way.
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W HY THE M INK S MELLS
    Long ago, there was nobody here but the Animals. The Mink was a great thief. He would steal from everybody, and all of the Animals got tired of the Mink stealing all the time. So they decided to teach him a lesson. They built a fire and then grabbed the Mink and threw him into the fire. He would try to escape and the Animals would throw him back. Finally, they saw his coat had turned black and he smelled like roasted meat. They decided the Mink had learned his lesson and pulled him out of the fire. His coat is still black, and whenever he gets excited he smells like roasted meat. But the Mink did not learn his lesson, and he steals to this day.
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P LEIADES AND THE P INE
    There were seven young Boys who loved to play a game. They would roll a round stone along the ground and throw a curved stick after it trying to strike it. Their Mothers would scold them for playing the game all the time, but it didn’t do any good.
    One day, all the Mothers gathered up stones and boiled them in the pot for dinner. The Boys came home hungry and their Mothers got the stones out of the pots and said, “Since you like to play better than come home, take the stones for your food.”
    The Boys were angry. They left the cabins and went down to the townhouse. They began to dance around the townhouse.
    At last, the Mothers went looking for the boys because they were afraid something was wrong. They found all of the Boys dancing around the townhouse. They noticed that the Boys were rising off the ground as they danced. Each time around, they rose higher and higher off the ground. The Mothers began jumping up to try and catch the Boys, but most of them were too high to reach. Only one of the Mothers was able to jump up and grab her son by the ankle and pull him down. But she pulled with such force that he struck the ground, sank into it and the ground closed up over him.
    The others rose higher in the sky, until finally they were lost forever to the people. We see them now as the Pleiades, which the Cherokee call “The Boys.”
    The Mother, whose son sank in the ground, came every morning and every afternoon to cry when he disappeared. Her tears were so many that they turned the ground