The Mounds and the Constant Fire: The Old Sacred Things

Myths of the Cherokee As Told by Swimmer to James Mooney, 1887-1890.

Cherokee Mounds
Some say that the mounds were built by another people. Others say they
were built by the ancestors of the old Ani Kitu'hwagi
for townhouse foundations. The townhouse was always built on the level
bottom lands by the river in order that the people
might have smooth ground for their dances and ballplays and might be
able to go down to water during the dance.

When they were ready to build the mound they began by laying a circle
of stones on the surface of the ground. Next they made
a fire in the center of the circle and put near it the body of some
prominent chie or priest who had lately died - some say seven
chief men from the different clans - together with an Ulunsu'ti stone,
an uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an
eagle or great Tla nu wa which lived in those days, and heads of seven
colors, red, white, black, blue, purple, yellow, and
gray-blue. The priest then conjured all these with disease, so that,
if ever an enemy invaded the country, even though he should
burn and destroy the town and the townhouse, he would never live to
return home.

Sacred Fire
The mound was then built up with earth, which the women brought in
baskets, and as they piled it above the stones, the bodies
of their great men, and the sacred things, they left an open place at
the fire in the center and let down a hollow cedar trunk, with
the bark on, which fitted around the fire and protected it from the
earth. This cedar log was cut long enough to reach nearly to
the surface inside the townhouse when everything was done. The earth
was piled up around it, and the whole mound was
finished off smoothly, and then the townhouse was built upon it. One
man, called the Firekeeper, stayed always in the
townhouse to feed and tend the fire. When there was to be a dance or a
council, he pushed long stalks of atsil sun ti (fleabane),
"the fire maker" down through the opening in the cedar log to the fire
at the bottom. He left the ends of the stalks sticking out
and piled lichens and punk around, after which he prayed, and as he
prayed, the fire climbed up along the talks until it caught
the punk. Then he put on wood, and by the time the dancers were ready
there was a large fire blazing in the townhouse. After
the dance he covered the hole over again with ashes, but the fire was
always smoldering below. Just before the Green corn
dance, in the old times, every fire in the settlement was extinguished
and all the people came and got new fire from the
townhouse. This was called atsi'la galunkw it'yu "the honored or
sacred fire." Sometimes when the fire in a house went out, the
woman came to the Firekeeper, who made a new fire by rubbing an
ihya'ga stalk against the under side of a hard dry fungus
that grows along locust trees.

Some sat this everlasting fire was only in the larger mounds at
Nikwasi, Kitu'hwa, and a few other towns, and that when the
new fire was thus drawn up for the Green Corn dance it was distributed
from them to the other settlements. The fire burns yet
at the bottom of these great mounds, and when the Cherokee soldiers
were camped near Kitu'hwa during the Civil War, they
saw smoke still raising from the mound.

Sacred Things
The Cherokee once had a wooden box, nearly square and wrapped up in
buckskin, in which they kept the most sacred things
of their old religion. Upon every important expedition, two priests
carried it in turn and watched over it in camp so that nothing
could come near to disturb it. The Delawares captured it more than a
hundred years ago, and after that the old religion was
neglected and trouble came to the Nation. They had also a great peace
pipe, carved from white stone, with seven stem-holes,
so that seven men could sit around and smoke from it at once at their
peace councils. In the old town of Keowee they had a
drum of stone, cut in the shape of a turtle, which was hung up upside
the townhouse and used at all the town dances. The other
towns of the Lower Cherokee used to borrow it too, for their own
dances.

All the old things are gone now and the Indians are different.