The spot where Valley river joins Hiwassee, at Murphy, in North
Carolina, is known among the Cherokees as Tlanusi'yi, "The Leech
place," and this is the story they tell of it:
Just above the junction is a deep hole in Valley river, and above it
is a ledge of rock running across the stream, over which people used
to go as on a bridge. On the south side the trail ascended a high bank,
from which they could look down into the water. One day some men going
along the trail saw a great red object, full as large as a house,
lying on the rock ledge in the middle of the stream below them. As
they stood wondering what it could be they saw it unroll--and then
they knew it was alive--and stretch itself out along the rock until it
looked like a great leech with red and white stripes along its body. It
rolled up into a ball and again stretched out at full length, and at
last crawled down the rock and was out of sight in the deep water. The
water began to boil and foam, and a great column of white spray was
thrown high in the air and came down like a waterspout upon the very
spot where the men had been standing, and would have swept them all
into the water but that they saw it in time and ran from the place.
More than one person was carried down in this way, and their friends
would find the body afterwards lying upon the bank with the ears and
nose eaten off, until at last the people were afraid to go across the
ledge any more, on account of the great leech, or even to go along
that part of the trail. But there was one young fellow who laughed at
the whole story, and said that he was not afraid of anything in Valley
river, as he would show them. So one day he painted his face and put
on his finest buckskin and started off toward the river, while all
the people followed at a distance to see what might happen. Down the
trail he went and out upon the ledge of rock, singing in high spirits:
Tlanu'si gane'ga digi'gage
Dakwa'nitlaste'sti.
I'll tie red leech skins
On my legs for garters.
But before he was half way across the water began to boil into white
foam and a great wave rose and swept over the rock and carried him
down, and he was never seen again.
Just before the Removal, sixty years ago, two women went out upon the
ledge to fish. Their friends warned them of the danger, but one woman
who had her baby on her back said, "There are fish there and I'm going
to have some; I'm tired of this fat meat." She laid the child down on
the rock and was preparing the line when the water suddenly rose and
swept over the ledge, and would have carried off the child but that
the mother ran in time to save it. The great leech is still there in
the deep hole, because when people look down they see something alive
moving about on the bottom, and although they can not distinguish its
shape on account of the ripples on the water, yet they know it is the
leech. Some say there is an underground waterway across to Nottely
river, not far above the mouth, where the river bends over toward
Murphy, and sometimes the leech goes over there and makes the water
boil as it used to at the rock ledge. They call this spot on Nottely
"The Leech place" also.