THE EAGLE’S REVENGE

THE EAGLE’S REVENGE

Once a hunter in the mountains heard a noise at night like a rushing wind outside
the cabin, and on going out he found that an eagle had just alighted on the drying
pole and was tearing at the body of a deer hanging there. Without thinking of the
danger, he shot the eagle. In the morning he took the deer and started back to the
settlement, where he told what he had done, and the chief sent out some men to
bring in the eagle and arrange for an Eagle dance. They brought back the dead
eagle, everything was made ready, and that night they started the dance in the
townhouse.
About midnight there was a whoop outside and a strange warrior came into the
circle and began to recite his exploits. No one knew him, but they thought he had
come from one of the farther Cherokee towns. He told how he had killed a man,
and at the end of the story he gave a hoarse yell, Hi! that startled the wholecompany, and one of the seven men with the rattles fell over dead. He sang of
another deed, and at the end straightened up with another loud yell. A second
rattler fell dead, and the people were so full of fear that they could not stir from
their places. Still he kept on, and at every pause there came again that terrible
scream, until the last of the seven rattlers fell dead, and then the stranger went
out into the darkness. Long afterward they learned from the eagle killer that it
was the brother of the eagle shot the hunter.

 

Source:
Myths of the Cherokee, James Mooney