ORIGIN OF THE PLEIADES AND THE PINE
Long ago, when the world was new, there were seven boys
who used to spend all their time down by the townhouse playing the gatayű´sti
game, rolling a stone wheel along the ground and sliding a curved stick after it
to strike it. Their mothers scolded, but it did no good, so one day they
collected some gatayű´stď stones and boiled them in the pot with the corn for
dinner. When the boys came home hungry their mothers dipped out the stones
and said, "Since you like the gatayű´sti better than the cornfield, take
the stones now for your dinner."
The
boys were very angry, and went down to the townhouse, saying, "As our
mothers treat us this way, let us go where we shall never trouble them any
more." They began a dance--some say it was the Feather dance--and
went round and round the townhouse, praying to the spirits to help them.
At last their mothers were afraid something was wrong and went out to look for
them.
They saw the boys still dancing around the townhouse, and as they
watched they noticed that their feet were off the earth, and that with every
round they rose higher and higher in the air. They ran to get their
children, but it was too late, for they were already above the roof of the
townhouse--all but one, whose mother managed to pull him down with the
gatayű´sti pole, but he struck the ground with such force that he
sank into it and the earth closed over him.
The other six circled higher and higher until they went up to the sky, where we
see them now as the Pleiades, which the Cherokee still call Ani´tsutsa (The
Boys). The people grieved long after them, but the mother whose boy had
gone into the ground came every morning and every evening to cry over the spot
until the earth was damp with her tears. At last a little green shoot
sprouted up and grew day by day until it became the tall tree that we call now
the pine, and the pine is of the same nature as the stars and hold in itself the
same bright light.
From
"James Mooney's History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the
Cherokees"
Published
by Bright Mountain Books, Inc.