Research source

297): The belief in the great Uktena and the magic power of the Ûlûñsû'ti is firmly implanted in the Cherokee…

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 143
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

297): The belief in the great Uktena and the magic power of the Ûlûñsû'ti is firmly implanted in the Cherokee breast

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 only

50. The Uktena and the Ûlûñsû'ti (p. 297): The belief in the great Uktena and the magic power of the Ûlûñsû'ti is firmly implanted in the Cherokee breast. The Uktena has its parallel in the Gitchi-Kenebig or Great Horned Serpent of the northern Algonquian tribes, and is somewhat analogous to the Zemo`gu'ani or Great Horned Alligator of the Kiowa. Myths of a jewel in the head of a serpent or of a toad are so common to all Aryan nations as to have become proverbial. Talismanic and prophetic stones, which are carefully guarded, and to which prayer and sacrifice are offered, are kept in many tribes (see Dorsey, Teton Folklore, in American Anthropologist, April, 1889). The name of the serpent is derived from akta, "eye," and may be rendered "strong looker," i.e., "keen eyed," because nothing within the range of its vision can escape discovery. From the same root is derived akta'ti, "to look into," "to examine closely," the Cherokee name for a field glass or telescope. By the English-speaking Indians the serpent is sometimes called the diamond rattlesnake.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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