I have always been fascinated by mythology and folk tales of all kinds. When I was a teenager, I devoured every book on mythology that I could get my hands on, mostly in the Greco-Roman traditions as those were what my local libraries stocked.

Later, after wandering through other majors, I finally settled on archaeology and expanded my mythological readings into other cultures like those of the tribal peoples of the United States. I grew up in Cherokee country, so this was a natural direction for my interests.

In my readings, I discovered History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, one volume containing two books based on the tales and history of the Cherokee as collected and compiled by James Mooney. Mooney's work eventually became the basis of later histories on the tribal peoples he studied, and was so important to the tribes themselves, that they often referred back to his work as a way to cement their own historical memories.

I have only partially delved into History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, but the pieces I've read have had a great deal of influence on my fiction. When it came time to expand the Sunshine Walkingstick Series past the first book, Greenwood Cove, I remembered Mooney's work and used it to create the backstory for the Panther Clan.

But the other myth I used, of the man-killing Spearfinger, was one I already had in my mind. Way back in the days when I only dreamed of writing fiction, I created a story centered on two siblings who were torn between the worlds of their parents, one white, the other Cherokee. Spearfinger would've been the monster they fought to draw them closer to one another and their families.

Alas! That was years before I understood how to take an idea and turn it into a full-length story. The story still sits in my idea box, gathering dust.

Enter Sunshine

Sunshine Walkingstick eventually became the character into which my interest in Cherokee mythology flowed. As the daughter of an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Sunny straddled the intersection between the Cherokee and their mountain neighbors. Through her, I could explore the long and rich traditions of both cultures.

And I have, so far, to the best of my abilities to do so, though I've often used the myths of other cultures as well. I've already discussed the local folklore used as the basis of Greenwood Cove in the Facebook group. One of the other primary myths I used was that found in Bullfinch's Legends of Charlamagne concerning a magic ring and a sorceress. No spoilers, as those all came to head in Witch Hollow, the fourth book.

The fifth book (working title Devil's Branch) falls back to my original mythology love and draws heavily from the Greco-Roman myths that provided such a huge foundation for the various Western civilizations. If I continue the series beyond that, the sixth book will possibly return to the story introduced in Death Omen. Later books, however, will likely return to the Cherokee and mountain roots from which Sunny was born.

But that's getting ahead of things. Below are the two Cherokee myths used thus far in various Sunny stories, as taken from Mooney's History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees.

The Underground Panthers

After hearing about the Jane Yellowrock Series by Faith Hunter, I looked through Mooney for Cherokee myths of skinwalkers or humans shifting form into other animals. I couldn't find any.

In fact, the closest I could come (without reading this massive book from cover to cover) was the legend of the hunter and the underground panthers. I related this partially in The Deep Wood, in which painters first appear, but here's a fuller version as taken from Mooney.

A hunter was in the woods one day in winter when suddenly he saw a panther coming toward him and at once prepared to defend himself.

Please note here that panthers, also known as cougars and mountain lions, are large cats and apex predators. Yes, they are beautiful creatures, but they are quite deadly. Any adult human who sees one and isn't afraid deserves to be eaten. Thankfully, our ancestors were more prudent than we are.

Mooney continues the story:

The panther continued to approach, and the hunter was just about to shoot when the animal spoke, and at once it seemed to the man as if there was no difference between them, and they were both of the same nature. The panther asked him where he was going, and the man said that he was looking for a deer. "Well," said the panther, "we are getting ready for a Green-corn dance, and there are seven of us out after a buck, so we may as well hunt together."

Talking animals are a staple not only of tribal mythologies across North America, but also of many other cultures' mythologies.

At any rate, the hunter agreed to the panther's proposition and out the party went, hunting deer. They searched and searched, and after a few tries, finally found one large enough.

They started up another large deer, and this the panther killed without trouble, and then, wrapping his tail around it, threw it across his back. "Now come to our townhouse," he said to the hunter.

The hunter followed the panther and his kin

...up a little stream branch until they came to the head spring, when it seemed as if a door opened in the side of the hill and they went in. Now the hunter found himself in front of a large townhouse, with the finest detsanun'li he had ever seen, and the trees around were green, and the air was warm, as in summer. There was a great company there getting ready for the dance, and they were all panthers, but somehow it all seemed natural to the hunter. After a while the others who had been out came in with the deer they had taken, and the dance began. The hunter danced several rounds, and then said it was growing late and he must be getting home.

And that's where my suspension-of-disbelief snapped, as I've never known a hunter who willingly headed for home unless it was absolutely necessary, and sometimes not even then. Maybe I'm a bit biased on that. My brother is a hunter. He often disappears for days on end during deer season. Sometimes we know where he is and sometimes we don't, and we for sure never know when he'll come back home.

Our hunter, however imprudent his desire, wished to return home.

So the panthers opened the door and he went out, and at once found himself alone in the woods again, and it was winter and very cold, with snow on the ground and on all the trees. When he reached the settlement he found a party just starting out to search for him. They asked him where he had been so long, and he told them the story, and then he found out that he had been in the panther townhouse several days instead of only a very short time, as he had thought.

I guess this was well before the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" idea, but those panthers sure did know how to party.

Sadly, the hunter was forever changed by his encounter with the underground panthers. Mooney concludes the tale on this note:

He died within seven days after his return, because he had already begun to take on the panther nature, and so could not live again with men. If he had stayed with the panthers he would have lived.

The panthers' home sounds very much like the fairy homes described in fairy tales from across the Atlantic. I would be interested in reading an academic comparison, a la Joseph Campbell. But I'm a little odd, so there's that.

Fans of the Sunshine Walkingstick Series will recognize several key crossovers between this myth and the Panther Clan. It seemed a natural thing to me, that people who had been heavily exposed to the underground panthers would absorb enough of their nature to become two-natured; that this nature would be passed on to children; and that, once exposed, a "normal" human would need to continue being exposed or would die.

Hence why Sunny is so wary of having Riley spend too much time with her Panther kin. She's willing to risk her own hide. The hides of others, not so much.

Spearfinger

Mooney described the monster known as U'tlun'ta and Spear-finger in this way:

Long, long ago...there dwelt in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape or appearance to suit her purpose, but in her right form she looked very much like an old woman, excepting that her whole body was covered with a skin as hard as a rock that no weapon could wound or penetrate, and that on her right hand she had a long, stony forefinger of bone, like an awl or spearhead, with which she slashed everyone to whom she could get near enough.

Thus the name Spearfinger. She was also called Nun'yunu'wi (Stone-dress). Mooney noted that "there was another stone-clothed monster that killed people, but that is a different story." This story is related just after Spearfinger's in a section titled "Nun'yunu'wi, the Stone Man."

Mooney continued with this amazing description of Spearfinger:

Spear-finger had such powers over stone that she could easily lift and carry immense rocks, and could cement them together by merely striking one against another. To get over the rough country more easily she undertook to build a great rock bridge through the air from Nunya'tlu'gun'yi, the "Tree rock," on Hiwassee, over to Sanigila'gi (Whiteside mountain), on the Blue Ridge, and had it well started from the top of the "Tree rock" when the lightning struck it and scattered the fragments along the whole ridge, where the pieces can still be seen by those who go there.

Hiwassee probably refers to the Hiwassee River, which has its headwaters near the town of Hiawassee in Towns Co., GA, one county west of where I grew up in Rabun County. Whiteside Mountain is one mile from where I live now between Cashiers (Jackson County) and Highlands (Macon County), both in North Carolina. The two locations are roughly sixty-three miles apart and take about an hour and a half to drive, so you can see why Spearfinger, or anyone, for that matter, may have wanted a quicker way to travel from one to the other.

Mooney said that Spearfinger roamed all over, but her favorite haunts were Nantahala (possibly the community in Macon Co., NC, or the river by the same name) and near Chilhowee Mountain in Tennessee.

Spearfinger would lure people in with her appearance as an old woman, which was apparently a favorite way to coax children nearer. The following relates how brutal Spearfinger truly was.

When some little girl ran up and laid her head in the old woman's lap to be petted and combed the old witch would gently run her fingers through the child's hair until it went to sleep, when she would stab the little one through the heart or back of the neck with the long awl finger, which she had kept hidden under her robe. Then she would take out the liver and eat it.

Spearfinger's canniness extended beyond a simple disguise as an old woman, however. She was known to "enter a house by taking the appearance of one of the family who happened to have gone out for a short time" and could steal away someone's liver with her awl finger without them even knowing it. A lone hunter might see her in her true form from a distance, "an old woman, with a queer-looking hand."

Apparently, the Cherokee came to a point where they'd had enough of Spearfinger sneaking around and stealing livers. They held a "great council."

...and after much talk it was decided that the best way [to get rid of her] would be to trap her in a pitfall where all the warriors could attack her at once...

The old woman came slowly along the trail, with one hand under her blanket, until she stepped upon the pitfall and tumbled through the brush top into the deep hole below. Then, at once, she showed her true nature, and instead of the feeble old woman there was the terrible U'tlun'ta with her stony skin,, and her sharp awl finger reaching out in every direction for some one to stab.

The hunters rushed forward and shot many arrows at her, but as soon as the arrows struck her skin, they broke and fell away. Spearfinger taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit. The hunters stayed back, but they tried furiously to think of a way to destroy her once and for all, to no avail. Nothing worked.

Then, at last, a solution presented itself.

...little Tsi-kilili', the chickadee, flew down from a tree and alighted upon the witch's right hand. The warriors took this as a sign that they must aim there, and they were right, for her heart was on the inside of her hand, which she kept doubled into a fist, this same awl hand with which she had stabbed so many people...

Thus was Spearfinger killed and the Cherokee made safe from her murderous mischief. Mooney ended the story of Spearfinger with this interesting tidbit:

Ever since the tsi'kilili' is known as a truth teller, and when a man is away on a journey, if this bird comes and perches near the house and chirps its song, his friends know he will soon be safe home.

Good to know, eh?

I simplified Spearfinger into a stone monster for her appearance in Cemetery Hill, which seemed prudent at the time. I am, however, quite aware that I missed a huge opportunity to exploit her chameleon-like abilities for the purposes of intrigue and suspense.

Wait. Wasn't there a third Cherokee myth?

Astute readers may remember the Ewah in The Deep Wood, book two in the series, and the Wampus Cat that could take care of it. Those came not from Mooney's work, but from Appalachian History, an interesting blog maintained by Dave Tabler.

At any rate, these two myths played huge roles within the Sunshine Wakingstick Series. If you're at all interested in exploring Cherokee myths and history, I highly recommend Mooney's work.