The sacred formulas of the Cherokees / by James Mooney.

  • James Mooney
Date:
[1891]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sacred formulas of the Cherokees / by James Mooney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Ayasta and her three sons, and negotiations had to he carried on with each one, although in this instance the cash amount involved was only half a dollar, in addition to another book into which to copy some family records and personal memoranda. The book con- tains only eight formulas, but these are of a character altogether unique, the directions especially throwing a curious light on Indian beliefs. There had been several other formulas of the class called Y'u'nw6lh, to cause hatred between man and wife, but these had been torn out and destroyed by Ayasta on the advice of an old shaman, in order that her sons might never learn them. In referring to the matter she spoke in a whisper, and it was evident enough that she had full faith in the deadly power of these spells. In addition to the formulas the book contains about twenty pages of Scripture extracts in the same handwriting, for Galiuni, like sev- eral others of their shamans, combined the professions of Indian con- jurer and Methodist preacher. After his death the book fell into the hands of the younger members of the family, who filled it with miscellaneous writings and scribblings. Among other things there are about seventy pages of what was intended to be a Cherokee- English pronouncing dictionary, probably written by the youngest son, already mentioned, who has attended school, and who served for some time as copyist on the formulas. This curious Indian pro- duction, of which only a few columns are filled out, consists of a list of simple English words and phrases, written in ordinary English script, followed by Cherokee characters intended to give the approxi- mate pronunciation, together with the corresponding word in the Cherokee language and characters. As the language lacks a number of sounds which are of frequent occurrence in English, the attempts to indicate the pronunciation sometimes give amusing results. Thus we find: Fox (English script); kwdgisl' (Cherokee characters); tsu‘Iu (Cherokee characters). As the Cherokee language lacks the labial f and has no compound sound equivalent to our x, kivdgisl' is as near as the Cherokee speaker can come to pronouncing our word fox. In the same way “bet” becomes wetl, and “sheep” is sikwi, while “if he has no dog ” appears in the disguise of ikwl hdsi nd dd'ga. THE INALI MANUSCRIPT. In the course of further inquiries in regard to the whereabouts of other manuscripts of this kind we heard a great deal about Ilia'll, or “Black Fox,” who had died a few years before at an advanced age, and who was universally admitted to have been one of their most able men and the most prominent literary character among them, for from what has been said it must be sufficiently evident that the Cherokees have their native literature and literary men. Like those already mentioned, lie was a full-blood Cherokee, speaking no Eng- lish, and in the course of a long lifetime he had filled almost every
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