Once some young men of the Cherokee set out to see what was in the
world and traveled south until they came to a tribe of little people
called Tsundige'wi, with very queer shaped bodies, hardly tall enough
to reach up to a man's knee, who had no houses, but lived in nests
scooped in the sand and covered over with dried grass. The little
fellows were so weak and puny that they could not fight at all, and
were in constant terror from the wild geese and other birds that used
to come in great flocks from the south to make war upon them.
Just at the time that the travelers got there they found the little
men in great fear, because there was a strong wind blowing from the
south and it blew white feathers and down along the sand, so that the
Tsundige'wi knew their enemies were coming not far behind. The Cherokee
asked them why they did not defend themselves, but they said they
could not, because they did not know how. There was no time to make
bows and arrows, but the travelers told them to take sticks for clubs,
and showed them where to strike the birds on the necks to kill them.
The wind blew for several days, and at last the birds came, so many
that they were like a great cloud in the air, and alighted on the
sands. The little men ran to their nests, and the birds followed and
stuck in their long bills to pull them out and eat them. This time,
though, the Tsundige'wi had their clubs, and they struck the birds
on the neck, as the Cherokee had shown them, and killed so many that
at last the others were glad to spread their wings and fly away again
to the south.
The little men thanked the Cherokee for their help and gave them the
best they had until the travelers went on to see the other tribes. They
heard afterwards that the birds came again several times, but that
the Tsundige'wi always drove them off with their clubs, until a flock
of sandhill cranes came. They were so tall that the little men could
not reach up to strike them on the neck, and so at last the cranes
killed them all.