Mounds

Some say that the mounds were built by another people. Others say they were built by the ancestors of the old Ani-Kituhwa-gi (the Kituwah people) for townhouse foundations, so that they townhouses would be safe when freshets came. The townhouse was always built on the level bottom lands by the river in order that the people might have smooth ground for their dances and ball plays and might be able to go down to water during the dance.

When they were ready to build the mound, they began by laying a circle of stones on the surface of the ground. Next they made a fire in the center of the circle and put near it the body of some prominent chief or priest who had lately died-some say seven chief men from the different chief clans-together with an Ulunsuti stone, an uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an eagle or great tlanuwa which lived in those days, and beads of seven colors, red, white, black, blue, purple, yellow and gray blue. The priest then conjured all these with disease, so that, if ever an enemy invaded the country, even though he should burn and destroy the town and the townhouse, he would never live to return home.

The mound was then built up with earth, which the women brought in baskets, and as they piled it above the stones, the bodies of their great men, and the sacred things, they left an open place at the fire in the center and let down a hollow cedar trunk, with the bark on, which fitted around the fire and protected it from the earth. This cedar log was cut long enough to reach nearly to the surface inside the townhouse when it was done. The earth was piled up around it, and the whole mound was finished off smoothly, and then the townhouse was built upon it. One man, called the fire keeper, stayed always in the townhouse to feed and tend the fire…

Just before the Green Corn Dance, in the old times, every fire in the settlement was extinguished, and all the people came and got new fire from the townhouse. This was called Atsila galvkqtiyu, the honored or sacred fire…Some say this everlasting fire was only in the larger mounds at Nikwasi, Kituhwa, and a few other towns, and that when the new fire was thus drawn up for the Green corn Dance, it was distributed from them to other settlements. The fire burns yet at the bottom of these great mounds, and when the Cherokee soldiers were camped near Kituhwa during the Civil War, they saw smoke still rising from the mound.

Swimmer (Ayuini), in James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee

Reprinted online by permission of the publisher.