and Ta'gwadihi' (east) and Wafford (west). Swimmer says the dwarfs
lived in the west, but Ta'gwadihi' and Wafford locate them south from
the Cherokee country.
A story which seems to be a variant of the same myth was told to the
Spanish adventurer Ayllon by the Indians on the South Carolina coast
in 1520, and is thus given in translation from Peter Martyr's Decades,
in the Discovery and Conquest of Florida, ninth volume of the Hakluyt
Society's publications, pages XV-XVI, London, 1851.
"Another of Ayllon's strange stories refers to a country called
Inzignanin, ... The inhabitauntes, by report of their ancestors, say,
that a people as tall as the length of a man's arme, with tayles
of a spanne long, sometime arrived there, brought thither by sea,
which tayle was not movable or wavering, as in foure-footed beastes,
but solide, broad above, and sharpe beneath, as wee see in fishes
and crocodiles, and extended into a bony hardness. Wherefore, when
they desired to sitt, they used seates with holes through them, or
wanting them, digged upp the earth a spanne deepe or little more,
they must convay their tayle into the hole when they rest them."
It is given thus in Barcia, Ensayo, page 5: "Tambien llegaron a la
Provincia de Yncignavin adonde les contaron aquellos Indios, que
en cierto tiempo, avian aportado à ella, unas Gentes, que tenian
Cola ... de una quarta de largo, flexible, que les estorvaba tanto,
que para sentarse agujereaban los asientos: que el Pellejo era mui
aspero, y como escamoso, y que comìan solo Peces crudos: y aviendo
estos muerto, se acabò esta Nacion, y la Verdad del Caso, con ella."
A close parallel to the Cherokee story is found among the Nisqualli
of Washington, in a story of three [four?] brothers, who are captured
by a miraculously strong dwarf who ties them and carries them off in
his canoe. "Having rounded the distant point, where they had first
descried him, they came to a village inhabited by a race of people
as small as their captor, their houses, boats and utensils being
all in proportion to themselves. The three brothers were then taken
out and thrown, bound as they were, into a lodge, while a council
was convened to decide upon their fate. During the sitting of the
council an immense flock of birds, resembling geese, but much larger,
pounced down upon the inhabitants and commenced a violent attack. These
birds had the power of throwing their sharp quills like the porcupine,
and although the little warriors fought with great valour, they soon
became covered with the piercing darts and all sunk insensible on
the ground. When all resistance has ceased, the birds took to flight
and disappeared. The brothers had witnessed the conflict from their
place of confinement, and with much labour had succeeded in releasing
themselves from their bonds, when they went to the battle ground,
and commenced pulling the quills from the apparently lifeless bodies;
but no sooner had they done this, than all instantly returned to
consciousness" (Kane, Wanderings of an Artist, pp. 252-253).