The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees

Ayâsta and her three sons were involved in the negotiations, and each had to be consulted individually. In this case, the payment was only fifty cents, along with a new blank book for the family to use to copy their records and personal notes. This manuscript contains only eight formulas formulas: ritual prayers or spells used for healing or spiritual purposes, but they are entirely unique. The instructions, in particular, offer a fascinating glimpse into Cherokee beliefs. The book originally contained several other formulas of the class called Y'û'n'wěhĭ original: "Y'û'^n'wěhĭ"—meaning "to make them different," or spells intended to cause hatred between a husband and wife, but Ayâsta had torn these out and destroyed them. She did this on the advice of an elderly shaman shaman: a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits; a traditional healer or medicine man so that her sons would never be able to learn them. When she spoke about this, she whispered; it was clear she had total faith in the deadly power of those spells.

In addition to the formulas, the book contains about twenty pages of Bible passages in the same handwriting. This is because Gahuni, like several other Cherokee shamans, served as both a traditional healer and a Methodist preacher. After his death, the book passed to the younger members of his family, who filled it with various notes and scribbles. Among these additions are about seventy pages of what was meant to be a Cherokee-English pronouncing dictionary. This was likely written by the youngest son, who had attended school and helped copy the formulas.

This unusual Cherokee work—of which only a few columns were finished—consists of a list of simple English words and phrases written in standard English script. This is followed by Cherokee characters intended to represent the approximate English pronunciation, along with the corresponding Cherokee word. Because the Cherokee language lacks several sounds common in English, these attempts at pronunciation are often quite striking. For example, the word Fox is written phonetically in Cherokee characters as kwâgisĭ', followed by the Cherokee word for fox, tsû'lû'. Since the Cherokee language lacks the "f" sound and has no equivalent for the letter "x," kwâgisĭ' is the closest a Cherokee speaker can come to pronouncing "fox." Similarly, "bet" becomes wĕtĭ, "sheep" is written as sĭkwĭ, and the phrase "if he has no dog" appears as ikwĭ hâsĭ nâ dâ'ga.

THE INÂLĬ MANUSCRIPT.

While looking for other manuscripts, we heard many reports about Inâ'lĭ, also known as "Black Fox." He had died a few years earlier at an advanced age and was widely respected as one of the tribe's most capable and prominent literary figures. From these accounts, it is clear that the Cherokee people possess their own native literature and a tradition of scholarly men. Like the others mentioned, Inâ'lĭ was a full-blooded Cherokee who spoke no English. Over the course of his long life, he had held nearly every...