Muskogean Charm Songs Among the Oklahoma Cherokees

Abstract

Manuscript works on medicine and magic among the Oklahoma Cherokees sometimes contain idi:gawé:sdi (<I>to be said, them, by one</I>) or the texts of charm songs that, although written or partially written in the Sequoyah syllabary, are not in the Cherokee language. Cherokee din(a)da:hnvwi:sg(i) (<I>those who cure them&amp;equals;medicine men</I>), who as a rule know no Indian language other than their own, are aware that such writings, in some instances handed down to them through several generations, are in either Creek or Natchez. But only rarely does one encounter a medicine man who thinks that he knows the meaning of a specific word here or there. More commonly he will not know even the general drift of what is written, and is not quite sure which particular grouping of syllables constitutes a word. But he does know that his saying or song is powerful-'alive,' as he expresses it-and there the matter rests.<br/>Since some of the phonemes of Muskogean languages are not found in Cherokee, a certain amount of ingenuity had to be exerted in representing them in the Sequoyah syllabary. The Sequoyan symbol for gwa, for example, may have been chosen to stand for pa. We have seen examples wherein new symbols had been created, or standard symbols reversed or inverted. We have also seen examples in which recourse to the English alphabet had been made in order to compensate for specific deficiencies in the Sequoyah syllabary.<br/>In addition to these Muskogean materials in the possession of din (a)da:hnvwi:sg(i), there is a corpus of charms, chiefly pertaining to hunting, that was once, and perhaps to a certain extent still is, employed by the laity. As pointed out in Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick (1967) for some reason as yet undetermined the aboriginal Cherokee hunting charms were largely supplanted by those of Muskogean origin.<br/>As one might expect, Muskogean medicomagic is most commonly encountered in the southern part of the territory of the Oklahoma Cherokees, a region containing several clearly defined and long-established Muskogean enclaves.