Myths of the Cherokee — Part 10 of 22 (The Katydid's Warning · Untsaiyi', the Gambler · The Hunter and the Tla'nuwa)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
The gambler Untsaiyi', Brass, runs through this part: his scratches are the stripes on the Bullfrog's head. A gourd trumpet with a bullfrog's voice frightens a mother into consent; a katydid answers a sneer with a prophecy. Then the great tale itself: the boy covered with sores journeys west, sits unhurt on Thunder's thorn seat, is boiled clean in the pot at Untiguhi', chooses a rattlesnake for a necklace, stands against the young Thunders — and with the endless bead string beats Brass game after game, until the shape-shifter runs and the Green Beetle knows him under every shape, even a potter and a pipe-carver. The part closes with the Tla'nuwa hawks of the Citico cliff and the hunter who escaped their cave by riding a young one down. 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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