Episode Details

Myths of the Cherokee — Part 18 of 22 (The Mother Bear's Song · The Raven Mocker)

Songs, the Raven Mocker, and the storied places. The mother bear's two songs, spoken as Mooney printed them, specimens of the old song tradition — and the Bear baby song. The Wren and the Cricket greet a newborn. Then the Raven Mocker: the fiery flight, the doctors who alone can recognize one, and the hunter who slept in the witches' own asi — recorded belief, told whole, and flagged in the script notes. Herbert's Spring, from Adair (1775): the fountain that kept travelers seven years. The part closes with the North Carolina gazetteer, compressed to its finest entries: Gregory Bald, where the Great Rabbit kept his townhouse; Nantahala, 'middle sun'; the Jutaculla rock; the blazing giant who alighted on Snowbird creek; the purple bear-wallow pond; and the cairns of Degalguñ'yi. Source: James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (1900), public domain; fresh in-house renderings faithful to Mooney's record, told in Mooney's order.

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