Myths of the Cherokee · 58 of 220

Myth 35e

The meat of the ruffed grouse, locally known as the pheasant ( Bonasa umbellus ), is tabued to a pregnant woman, because this bird hatches a large brood, but loses most of them before maturity.

Under a stricter construction of the theory this meat is forbidden to a woman until she is past child bearing.

The redbird, tatsu′hwă , is believed to have been originally the daughter of the Sun (see the story).

The huhu , or yellow mocking-bird, occurs in several stories.

It is regarded as something supernatural, possibly on account of its imitative powers, and its heart is given to children to make them quick to learn.

The chickadee ( Parus carolinensis ), tsĭkĭlilĭ′ , and the tufted titmouse, ( Parus bicolor ), utsu′ʻgĭ , or u′stûtĭ , are both regarded as news bringers, but the one is venerated as a truth teller while the other is scoffed at as a lying messenger, for reasons which appear in the story of Nûñyunu′wĭ (q.

v.).

When the tsĭkĭlilĭ′ perches on a branch near the house and chirps its song it is taken as an omen that an absent friend will soon be heard from or that a secret enemy is plotting mischief.

Many stories are told in confirmation of this belief, among which may be instanced that of Tom Starr, a former noted outlaw of the Cherokee Nation of the West, who, on one occasion, was about to walk unwittingly into an ambush prepared for him along a narrow trail, when he heard the warning note of the tsĭkĭlilĭ′, and, turning abruptly, ran up the side of the ridge and succeeded in escaping with his life, although hotly pursued by his enemies.

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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 is a quintessential example of animism, attributing distinct spirits, personalities, and supernatural powers to various birds (ruffed grouse, redbird, chickadee) and integrating them into the social and moral fabric of the Cherokee worldview.

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Cosmic Sympathycosmology

The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.

The belief that the chirping of a chickadee serves as an omen for distant events (an absent friend returning or an enemy plotting) illustrates a hidden affinity between the bird's action and human affairs.

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Shapeshifting Transformationtheology

Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.

The mention that the redbird was 'originally the daughter of the Sun' implies a mythic transformation or change of form from a divine human-like entity to a bird.

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