seems designed to impress upon the laity the importance of a strict
observance of the innumerable gaktûñ'ta, or tabus, which beset the
daily life of the Cherokee, whether in health or sickness, hunting,
war, or arts of peace (see the author's "Sacred Formulas of the
Cherokees," in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology).
Similar transformation myths are found all over the world. One of
the most ancient is the story of Cadmus, in Ovid's "Metamorphoses,"
with the despair of the wife as she sees the snaky change come over
her husband. "Cadmus, what means this? Where are thy feet? Where are
both thy shoulders and thy hands? Where is thy color? and, while I
speak, where all else besides?"
In a Pawnee story given by Grinnell two brothers, traveling, camp for
the night. The elder eats some tabued food, and wakes from his sleep to
find that he is changing into a great rattlesnake, the change beginning
at his feet. He rouses his brother and gives him his last instructions:
"When I have changed into a snake, take me in your arms and carry
me over to that hole. That will be my home, for that is the house of
the snakes." Having still a man's mind, he continues to talk as the
metamorphosis extends upward, until at last his head changes to that of
a snake, when his brother takes him up and carries him to the hole. The
relatives make frequent visits to the place to visit the snake, who
always comes out when they call, and the brother brings it a share of
his war trophies, including a horse and a woman, and receives in return
the protection of the snake man (Pawnee Hero Stories, pp. 171-181). A
close Omaha variant is given by Dorsey ("The warriors who were changed
to snakes," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI).