Myths of the Cherokee · 34 of 220

Myth 17b

The Rabbit took the Otter’s coat and put it on, leaving his own instead, and went on to the council.

All the animals were there, every one looking out for the Otter.

At last they saw him in the distance, and they said one to the other, “The Otter is coming!” and sent one of the small animals to show him the best seat.

They were all glad to see him and went up in turn to welcome him, but the Otter kept his head down, with one paw over his face.

They wondered that he was so bashful, until the Bear came up and pulled the paw away, and there was the Rabbit with his split nose.

He sprang up and started to run, when the Bear struck at him and pulled his tail off, but the Rabbit was too quick for them and got away.

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Themes

◆Animismcosmology

The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.

The passage depicts a world populated entirely by animals (Rabbit, Otter, Bear) who possess human-like agency, speech, social structures (councils), and emotions, embodying the core animist worldview where nature is inhabited by plural, embodied spiritual agents.

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