THE HAUNTED WHIRLPOOL

THE HAUNTED WHIRLPOOL

At the mouth of Suck creek, on the Tennessee, about 8 miles below
Chattanooga, is a series of dangerous whirlpools, known as “The Suck,” and
noted among the Cherokee as the place where Ûñtsaiyĭ′, the gambler, lived long
ago (see the story). They call it Ûñ′tiguhĭ′, “Pot-in-the-water,” on account of the
appearance of the surging, tumbling water, suggesting a boiling pot. They assert
that in the old times the whirlpools were intermittent in character, and the
canoemen attempting to pass the spot used to hug the bank, keeping constantly
on the alert for signs of a coming eruption, and when they saw the water begin to
revolve more rapidly would stop and wait until it became quiet again before
attempting to proceed.
It happened once that two men, going down the river in a canoe, as they came
near this place saw the water circling rapidly ahead of them. They pulled up to
the bank to wait until it became smooth again, but the whirlpool seemed to
approach with wider and wider circles, until they were drawn into the vortex.
They were thrown out of the canoe and carried down under the water, where one
man was seized a great fish and was never seen again. The other was taken
round and round down to the very lowest center of the whirlpool, when another
circle caught him and bore him outward and upward until he was finally thrown
up again to the surface and floated out into the shallow water, whence he made
his escape to shore. He told afterwards that when he reached the narrowest circle
of the maelstrom the water seemed to open below him and he could look down
as through the roof beams of a house, and there on the bottom of the river he had
seen a great company of people, who looked up and beckoned to him to join
them, but as they put up their hands to seize him the swift current caught him
and took him out of their reach.

 

Source:
Myths of the Cherokee, James Mooney