Reading Notes: Cherokee Myths, Part B

I really enjoyed the story of the ball game between the birds and the animals. It's such a creative origin story for the bat. It also reminds me a bit of Dirty Paws.
The race between the Crane and the Hummingbird is a lot like the Tortoise and the Hare.
What is a huhu? Turns out it's probably a screech owl, a wahuhu. I'm more curious as to why people keep accidentally marrying animals, such as an owl or a frog.

Wow, the Uktena and the Ulunsu'ti are really fascinating. Snakes seem to play a really large role in these stories. Yet they do not seem necessarily evil, more just large and dangerous. I suppose snakes are one of the more dangerous creatures that live in the original Cherokee homeland. The snake with feet, the Ustu'tli, reminds me of a dinosaur. Perhaps it is based off one. I could write a story about how a dinosaur in a museum came to life and turned out to be the Ustu'tli. It would then have to be defeated with fire, like in the original story, but in a way that does not destroy the city, just cracks its scales. The other snake story I liked, about the boy with the unkind family who turned into a snake, makes the snakes seem even less evil. For him it is an escape. I am really curious as to whether snakes really dislike the smell of sweat, though I don't think I will experiment.

Copperhead. Web Source.

Cottonmouth. Web Source.

It's interesting that the hero, Agan-uni'tsi, who gets the diamond from the Uktena is not himself Cherokee. Medicine does not seem like quite an accurate translation of the power that Agan-uni'tsi and the Red Man of Lightning have. I wonder why it is called that. Perhaps because it is used in healing as well.

I really enjoyed this unit because of the combination of unfamiliar stories and familiar wildlife.

Bibliography: James Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee, link.