Week 11 Story: The Rattlesnake Bite
One day in the old times when humans and the beasts of the world could still communicate with one another. Some children were playing with one another outside of their house when their mother heard them scream. She ran out to find that a rattlesnake had crawled from the grass and was climbing up a rope in the yard by the children. The mom screamed at the children to get inside pointing at the snake. They ran screaming inside and the snake leaped off the rope and towards the children. In her mother's instinct, she took the knife that she was holding and she threw it at the snake. Its head rolled on the floor and she took her kids inside.
The father was out doing work for their tribe in the mountains and when he came home he heard a loud wailing he went inside and grabbed his wife. They went to the source of the wailing and found that they had come into the midst of a whole company of rattlesnakes. They man and wife asked the rattlesnake why they cried so much for their dead. The rattlesnake responded that the wife had that day killed the chief of the rattlesnakes and that they wanted revenge.
The man and wife felt bad and each of them offered their on lives to pay for the loss of the groups leader. The man said that I should not have been away and left you alone with fear for the children. While the wife responded that it was my action and fear that got us into this perdicament in the first place. The rattlesnakes however grew impacient and bit both the man and the wife.
The rattlesnakes however were set apon by grief for their actions seeing that the man and wife were good people who loved one another. The rattlesnakes taught the prayer song to the man and wife saying "When you meet any of us hereafter sing this song and we will not hurt you, but if by accident one of us should bite one of your people then sing this song over him and he will recover." And the Cherokee have kept the song to this day.
Bibliography
Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).
Hi Pierce,
ReplyDeleteThis was a really cool story! I'm not familiar with this particular tale, or Cherokee mythology as a whole. I do like native american mythology alot because there is a common theme of human relationships with animals and they think very highly of them. good work and good luck with the rest of your semester!