THE RED MAN AND THE UKTENA

THE RED MAN AND THE UKTENA

Two brothers went hunting together, and when they came to a good camping
place in the mountains they made a fire, and while one gathered bark to put up a
shelter the other started up the creek to look for a deer. Soon he heard a noise on
the top of the ridge as if two animals were fighting. He hurried through the
bushes to see what it might be, and when he came to the spot he found a great
uktena coiled around a man and choking him to death. The man was fighting for
his life, and called out to the hunter: “Help me, nephew; he is your enemy as
well as mine.” The hunter took good aim, and, drawing the arrow to the head,
sent it through the body of the uktena, so that the blood spouted from the hole.
The snake loosed its coils with a snapping noise, and went tumbling down the
ridge into the valley, tearing up the earth like a water spout as it rolled.
The stranger stood up, and it was the Asga′ya Gi′găgeĭ, the Red Man of the
Lightning. He said to the hunter: “You have helped me, and now I will reward
you, and give you a medicine so that you can always find game.” They waited
until it was dark, and then went down the ridge to where the dead uktena had
rolled, but this time the birds and insects had eaten the body and only the
bones were left. In one place were flashes of light coming up from the ground,
and on digging here, just under the surface, the Red Man found a scale of the
uktena. Next he went over to a tree that had been struck lightning, and
gathering a handful of splinters he made a fire and burned the uktena scale to a
coal. He wrapped this in a piece of deerskin and gave it to the hunter, saying:
“As long as you keep this you can always kill game.” Then he told the hunter
that when he went back to camp he must hang up the medicine on a tree outside,
because it was very strong and dangerous. He told him also that when he went
into the cabin he would find his brother lying inside nearly dead on account of
the presence of the uktena’s scale, but he must take a small piece of cane, whichthe Red Man gave him, and scrape a little of it into water and give it to his
brother to drink and he would be well again. Then the Red Man was gone, and
the hunter could not see where he went. He returned to camp alone, and found
his brother very sick, but soon cured him with the medicine from the cane, and
that day and the next, and every day after, he found game whenever he went for it.

 

Source:
Myths of the Cherokee, James Mooney