A hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tla'nuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had…
- Date of account
- Material collected chiefly 1887-1890; published 1900
- Source
- Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology
- Reference
- Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology · selected passage 71
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with Cherokee names and material translated from oral testimony
- Translation
- Collected and edited by James Mooney
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
A hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tla'nuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had already seen him, and sweeping down struck its claws into his hunting pack and carried him far up into the air
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyA hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tla'nuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had already seen him, and sweeping down struck its claws into his hunting pack and carried him far up into the air. As it flew, the Tla'nuwa, which was a mother bird, spoke and told the hunter that he need not be afraid, as she would not hurt him, but only wanted him to stay for a while with her young ones to guard them until they were old enough to leave the nest. At last they alighted at the mouth of a cave in the face of a steep cliff. Inside the water was dripping from the roof, and at the farther end was a nest of sticks in which were two young birds.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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