Myths of the Cherokee — Part 6 of 22 (How the Deer Got His Horns · What Became of the Rabbit · The Bird Tribes)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
The Rabbit cycle turns to revenge: the cheated race gives the Deer his horns; the filed teeth give him his blunt bite forever; the conjured river strands the first Rabbit on the far bank for good. Then the Terrapin's reverse-pleading escapes the wolf council, the Groundhog's seven-tree dance outwits seven wolves, the animals migrate in a body out of the famine, and Kana'ti's wolf cures his brother by magic before the slow doctor can arrive. The part closes with Mooney's survey of the bird tribes — the sacred eagle and the eagle killer's prayer, the owls and their omens, the buzzard doctor, the sun-gazer, and the chickadee whose warning once saved an outlaw's life. One tale Mooney prints in this stretch, Why the Mink Smells, is not read here; the Cherokee shelf's exclusion register records it and the reason. 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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