American Indian History

Smithsonian Institutes 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1878 Myths of the Cherokee        There is a dim but persistent tradition of a strange white race preceding the Cherokee, some of the stories even going so far as to locate their former settlements and to identify them as the authors of the ancient works found in the country. The earliest reference appears to be that of Barton in 1797, on the stayement of a gentlemen whom he quotes as a valuable authority up[on the southern tribes. "The Cherokee tell us, that when they first arrived in the country, which they inhabit, they found it possessed by certain 'moon-eyed people', who could not see in the daytime. These wretches they expelled." He seems to consider them an albino race. Haywood, twenty-six years later, says that the invading Cherokee found 'white people' near the head of the little Tennessee, with forts extending thence down the Tennessee as far as Chickamauga Creek. He gives the loca...

Apache Fetishes Among the Athapascan Indians the Apaches, both male and female, wear fetishes which they call tzi-daltai, manufactured from lightning-riven wood, generally pine or cedar, or fir from the mountains. These are highly valued, and are never sold. They are shaved very thin, rudely carved in the semblance of the human form, and decorated with incised lines representing the lightning. They are small in size, and few of them are painted.  Bourke describes one that an Apache chief carried about with him, which was made of a piece of lath, unpainted, having a figure in yellow drawn upon it, with a narrow black band and three snake's heads with white eyes. It was further decorated with pearl buttons and small eagle-down feathers. The reverse and obverse were identical. Many of the Apaches attached a piece of malachite to their guns and bows to make them shoot accurately. Bourke mentions a class of fetishes which he terms 'phylacteries.' These are pieces of buckskin or ...