Myths of the Cherokee · 191 of 220

Myth 117

THE MOTHER BEAR’S SONG A hunter in the woods one day heard singing in a cave. He came near and peeped in, and it was a mother bear singing to her cubs and telling them what to do when the hunters came after them. Said the mother bear to the cubs, “When you hear the hunters coming down the creek, then— Tsâ′gĭ, tsâ′gĭ, hwĭ′lahĭ′; Tsâ′gĭ, tsâ′gĭ, hwĭ′lahĭ′. Upstream, upstream, you (must) go; Upstream, upstream, you (must) go. “But if you hear them coming up the creek, children, then— Ge′ĭ, ge′ĭ, hwĭ′lahĭ′; Ge′ĭ, ge′ĭ, hwĭ′lahĭ′. Downstream, downstream, you (must) go; Downstream, downstream, you (must) go.” Another hunter out in the woods one day thought he heard a woman singing to a baby. He followed the sound up to the head of the branch until he came to a cave under the bushes, and inside was a mother bear rocking her cub in her paws and singing to it this baby song, which the Ani′-Tsâ′gûhĭ used to know before they were turned into bears: Ha′-mama′, ha′-mama′, ha′-mama′, ha′-mama′; Udâ′hale′yĭ hi′lûñnû, hi′lûñnû; Udâ′hale′yĭ hi′lûñnû, hi′lûñnû. Let me carry you on my back (four times); On the sunny side go to sleep, go to sleep; On the sunny side go to sleep, go to sleep.

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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 worldview where natural beings (bears) possess human-like consciousness, language, and social structures, embodying the core animist principle that the cosmos is populated by plural, embodied divine agents.

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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 text explicitly mentions that the Ani-Tsâ-gûhĭ (people) were once human before being turned into bears, illustrating a mythological narrative of form-mutability between human and animal states.

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