known in the tribe, and was told in nearly the same form by Swimmer,
Ta'gwadihi' and Suyeta. The Feather dance, also called the Eagle dance,
is one of the old favorites, and is the same as the ancient Calumet
dance of the northern tribes. For a description of the gatayû'sti game,
see note to number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." In a variant recorded by
Stansbury Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) the boys spend
their time shooting at cornstalks.
According to Squier (Serpent Symbol, p. 69), probably on the authority
of the Payne manuscript, "The Cherokees paid a kind of veneration
to the morning star, and also to the seven stars, with which they
have connected a variety of legends, all of which, no doubt, are
allegorical, although their significance is now unknown."
The corresponding Iroquois myth below, as given by Mrs Erminnie
Smith in her Myths of the Iroquois (Second Annual Report of Bureau
of Ethnology, p. 80), is practically the same so far as it goes,
and the myth was probably once common over a wide area in the East:
"Seven little Indian boys were once accustomed to bring at eve their
corn and beans to a little mound, upon the top of which, after their
feast, the sweetest of their singers would sit and sing for his mates
who danced around the mound. On one occasion they resolved on a more
sumptuous feast, and each was to contribute towards a savory soup. But
the parents refused them the needed supplies, and they met for a
feastless dance. Their heads and hearts grew lighter as they flew
around the mound, until suddenly the whole company whirled off into
the air. The inconsolable parents called in vain for them to return,
but it was too late. Higher and higher they arose, whirling around
their singer, until, transformed into bright stars, they took their
places in the firmament, where, as the Pleiades, they are dancing
still, the brightness of the singer having been dimmed, however,
on account of his desire to return to earth."
In an Eskimo tale a hunter was pursued by enemies, and as he ran he
gradually rose from the ground and finally reached the sky, where he
was turned into a star (Kroeber, Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo, in
Journal of American Folk-Lore). This transformation of human beings
into stars and constellations is one of the most common incidents of
primitive myth.