The Owl Gets Married
In this story, a girl is advised by the widow she lives with to only marry a man who is a good hunter. So when a potential suitor comes courting and claims he’s a good hunter, the girl is arranged to be married with him. He comes to live with her.
Everytime he goes out claiming to hunt, he comes back with only small things - fish, scraps of meat, a single crawdad. The old woman gets suspicious and tells the girl to follow him secretly the next time he goes out.
She does so and discovers that he transforms into an owl to collect the mere morsels for their table. The next time he comes home she tells him that he knows what he is and sends him out of her house. He spends the rest of his days pining with grief and love-longing.
See, I don’t understand why the owl didn’t just remain in the form of a man and hunt that way. Maybe he didn’t know how? But regardless, getting anything bigger than a small fish would be easier in a larger body.
The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'tï
This myth is about a great horned snake called the Uktena. The Cherokee created it to kill the Sun when she sent a sickness out upon them, but it failed. Angry and jealous of the people for choosing Rattlesnake as their champion instead, the Uktena was sent to a place where other dangerous things are kept.
Everytime he goes out claiming to hunt, he comes back with only small things - fish, scraps of meat, a single crawdad. The old woman gets suspicious and tells the girl to follow him secretly the next time he goes out.
She does so and discovers that he transforms into an owl to collect the mere morsels for their table. The next time he comes home she tells him that he knows what he is and sends him out of her house. He spends the rest of his days pining with grief and love-longing.
See, I don’t understand why the owl didn’t just remain in the form of a man and hunt that way. Maybe he didn’t know how? But regardless, getting anything bigger than a small fish would be easier in a larger body.
The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'tï
This myth is about a great horned snake called the Uktena. The Cherokee created it to kill the Sun when she sent a sickness out upon them, but it failed. Angry and jealous of the people for choosing Rattlesnake as their champion instead, the Uktena was sent to a place where other dangerous things are kept.
The Uktena as depicted by Kyoht on DeviantArt
The Ulûñsû'tï is a bright transparent crystal in the forehead of the Uktena. Whomsoever has it will have luck in all aspects of life, but especially in prophecy. It works very similarly to a crystal ball. But keeping the Ulûñsû'tï has a price - the owner must bathe it in fresh blood and keep an eye on it, lest it becomes wise and escapes from its hiding place.
The Uktena reminds me of what I’ve read of British Isles mythology. The horned God Cernunnos is often depicted as yielding two horned snakes. Do these and the Uktena have any correlation to one another, I wonder?
Âgän-uni'tsï's Search for the Uktena
A great medicine man, Âgän-uni'tsï, is captured by a warring tribe and is about to be executed, but he claims he can get the crystal from the Uktena. The tribe leader warns him of the danger, but the medicine man assures him he knows. With his life, he begins the search for the Uktena.
He goes to many places where the Uktena is rumored to live - lonely places in the mountains and deep pools of water. He encounters all sorts of monsters, like giant snakes, frogs, fish, and lizards. At last when he travels very far south he finds the Uktena in a mountain hollow asleep.
Âgän-uni'tsï devises a plan and digs a trench and sets a bunch of pine cones on fire at the base of the mountain. Then he shoots the Uktena in the heart with an arrow and races down the mountain, jumps over the fire and trench, and takes cover. The Uktena races after him but, being wounded, is stopped by the fire and uselessly spits poison at the medicine man, which sizzles in the flames. Once the Uktena dies, Âgän-uni'tsï waits seven days while the birds pick at the giant snake until all that is left are bones and the Ulûñsû'tï. He gathers his prize and becomes the most revered medicine man in the land.
I’m curious how big this Uktena actually was. Are we talking Anaconda big, or even bigger like as wide around as a sequoia tree trunk? Anway, the Cherokee have many myths about the Uktena and I still wonder if it and the horned snakes held by Cernunnos have any relation to each other.
A depiction of Cernunnos holding a horned serpent
BibliographyBook: Cherokee Myths
Author: James Mooney
Year: 1900
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