The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (Illustrated). James Mooney

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       James Mooney

      The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees

      (Illustrated)

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2018 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-272-4584-0

       Introduction

       How the Formulas were Obtained

       The Swimmer Manuscript

       The Gatigwanasti Manuscript

       The Gahuni Manuscript

       The Inâli Manuscript

       Other Manuscripts

       The Kanâheta Ani-Tsalagi Eti

       Character of the Formulas—The Cherokee Religion

       The Origin of Disease and Medicine

       Theory of Disease—Animals, Ghosts, Witches

       Selected List of Plants Used

       Medical Practice

       Illustration of the Tabu

       Neglect of Sanitary Regulations

       The Sweat Bath—Bleeding—Rubbing—Bathing

       Shamans and White Physicians

       Medicine Dances

       Description of Symptoms

       The Pay of the Shaman

       Ceremonies for Gathering Plants and Preparing Medicine

       The Cherokee Gods and Their Abiding Places

       Color Symbolism

       Importance Attached to Names

       Language of the Formulas

       Specimen Formulas

       Medicine

       Miscellaneous Formulas

      PL. XXIV

      A‘YUNINI (SWIMMER).

      Introduction

       Table of Contents

      The sacred formulas here given are selected from a collection of about six hundred, obtained on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina in 1887 and 1888, and covering every subject pertaining to the daily life and thought of the Indian, including medicine, love, hunting, fishing, war, self-protection, destruction of enemies, witchcraft, the crops, the council, the ball play, etc., and, in fact, embodying almost the whole of the ancient religion of the Cherokees. The original manuscripts, now in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, were written by the shamans of the tribe, for their own use, in the Cherokee characters invented by Sikwâ´ya (Sequoyah) in 1821, and were obtained, with the explanations, either from the writers themselves or from their surviving relatives.

      Some of these manuscripts are known to be at least thirty years old, and many are probably older. The medical formulas of all kinds constitute perhaps one-half of the whole number, while the love charms come next in number, closely followed by the songs and prayers used in hunting and fishing. The great number of love charms will doubtless be a surprise to those who have been educated in the old theory that the Indian is insensible to the attractions of woman. The comparatively small number of war formulas is explained by the fact that the last war in which the Cherokees, as a tribe, were engaged on their own account, closed with the Revolutionary period, so that these things were well nigh forgotten before the invention of the alphabet, a generation later. The Cherokees who engaged in the Creek war and the late American civil war fought in the interests of the whites, and their leaders were subordinated to white officers, hence there was not the same opportunity for the exercise of shamanistic rites that there would have been had Indians alone been concerned. The prayers for hunting, fishing, and the ball play being in more constant demand, have been better preserved.

      These formulas had been handed down orally from a remote antiquity until the early part of the present century, when the invention of the Cherokee syllabary enabled the priests of the tribe to put them into writing. The same invention made it possible for their rivals, the missionaries, to give to

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