Reading Notes: Cherokee, Part A

Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).

How The World Was Made

Story Idea:

In this story, the water beetle goes down into the vast ocean from the sky to explore. He brings up some mud from the ocean floor which expands to create the earth. My idea, however, is to have the earth's surface already exist. I'll have the Water-beetle go down to the surface as a dare, but when he gets there he finds out that land is pretty cool. It's definitely a lot easier to stand on than the soft, mushy clouds. Eventually, all the animals come down to land and decide to stay there. Perhaps I could add in a small ending bit about the animals wanting to go back up, but the birds can't carry them back because they have all gotten fat and lazy.

Mountains:

Being from Virginia, it is cool to have seen the mountains that the Cherokee were talking about being molded by the wing flaps of a Great Buzzard. In the story, the Buzzard's wings were able to create mountains and valleys because the earth was still squishy and soft, as it had just been molded from the mud. When I look at the Appalachian Mountains, this kind of makes sense. They are almost more like large, glorified hills as opposed to rocky, rugged mountains. As such, the mountains really do resemble the earth being lifted and pushed down, so I see what the Cherokee saw to come up with this conclusion.

Blue Ridge Mountains along Skyline Drive in Virginia. Source: Flickr