|
The Nunnehi and Other Spirit Folk
From Myths of the
Cherokee by James Mooney
From Nineteenth Annual
Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]
The Nunnehi (n��n�'h�) or
immortals, the "people who live anywhere," were a race of spirit
people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a
great many townhouses, especially in the bald mountains, the high peaks on
which no timber ever grows. They had large townhouses in Pilot knob and
under the old N�kw�s�' mound in North Carolina, and another under Blood
mountain, at the head of Nottely river, in Georgia. They were invisible
excepting when they wanted to be seen, and then they looked and spoke just
like other Indians. They were very fond of music and dancing, and hunters
in the mountains would often hear the dance, songs and the drum beating in
some invisible townhouse, but when they went toward the sound it would
shift about and they would hear it behind them or away in some other
direction, so that they could never find the place where the dance was.
They were a friendly people, too, and often brought lost wanderers to
their townhouses under the mountains and cared for them there until they
were rested and then guided them back to their home. More than once, also,
when the Cheroke |
