Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/342

 i o Journal of A merican Folk- Lore.

people are many, there you have gone and allotted that evil shall re- main. He is called thus. His soul is now released. His soul has now been lifted up. His soul has become renewed. His soul has now been lifted up.

Sge ! His clan is this. He is called thus. Evil things were being allotted for him. Where is the assigner of evil located ?

Sge ! O White Beaver, reposing up the stream, quickly you have arisen. Evil things were being allotted for him, but now it has been taken away. The evil allotted has now been turned aside. It has been scattered about where people are many. It shall utterly dis- appear. His soul has now been renewed. His pleasure-filled soul has now been lifted up. In the seventh upper world his soul has now arisen to its full height. Y-fo !

The priest stands upon the bank, while the client, stript of all clothing excepting his shirt, wades out into the shallow water. Be- fore beginning the prayer, the priest inquires of his client to what place he wishes to send the evil foreshadowed in the prophetic dream, for it is held that such dreams must be fulfilled, and that all that the priest can do is to divert their accomplishment from the intended victim. The client names some distant settlement as the place where he wishes the blow to fall, and the priest at once sum- mons the Beaver to bear the " evil thing " (tsasta) to that place and leave it there, "where people are many." As every Cherokee set- tlement is situated upon a stream, and the " evil thing," when exor- cised, is thrown into the water, it is quite natural that the Beaver should be chosen to assist in the matter. Should the priest find himself unable to send the calamity so far, the client names some nearer settlement, and a second attempt is made, and so on until a resting place is found for the tsdstd, even though it be necessary to send it to another clan or family within the settlement of the client himself. These successive trials are made by working the beads, using one color for the client and the other for the vicarious victim, as already described. After each recitation the client stoops and laves his face in the water. When the beads show that the evil is finally banisht, he wades far out into the stream and plunges under seven times. At the seventh plunge, while still under water, he tears the shirt from his body and lets it float down the stream, carrying with it all the evil of the dream, to go where the Beaver wills.

James Mooney.

Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C.

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