Ta'gwadihi' and is well known in the tribe. The version from the
Wahnenauhi manuscript differs considerably from that here given. In
the Bible translation the word dakwa' is used as the equivalent of
whale. Haywood thus alludes to the story (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn.,
p. 244): "One of the ancient traditions of the Cherokees is that once
a whale swallowed a little boy, and after some time spewed him upon
the land."
It is pretty certain that the Cherokee formerly had some acquaintance
with whales, which, about the year 1700, according to Lawson, were
"very numerous" on the coast of North Carolina, being frequently
stranded along the shore, so that settlers derived considerable
profit from the oil and blubber. He enumerates four species there
known, and adds a general statement that "some Indians in America"
hunted them at sea (History of Carolina, pp. 251-252).
In almost every age and country we find a myth of a great fish
swallowing a man, who afterward finds his way out alive. Near to the
Cherokee myth are the Bible story of Jonah, and the Greek story of
Hercules, swallowed by a fish and coming out afterward alive, but
bald. For parallels and theories of the origin and meaning of the
myth among the ancient nations, see chapter IX of Bouton's Bible Myths.
In an Ojibwa story, the great Manabozho is swallowed, canoe and all,
by the king of the fishes. With his war club he strikes repeated blows
upon the heart of the fish, which attempts to spew him out. Fearing
that he might drown in deep water, Manabozho frustrates the endeavor by
placing his canoe crosswise in the throat of the fish, and continues
striking at the heart until the monster makes for the shore and there
dies, when the hero makes his escape through a hole which the gulls
have torn in the side of the carcass (Schoolcraft, Algic Researches,
I, pp. 145-146).