Extracted from: Myths of the Cherokee. Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington Government Printing Office 1902 Recorded by James Mooney (1861-1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee.
PLANT LORE
The Cherokee have always been an agricultural people, and their old country is a region of luxuriant flora, with tall trees and tangled undergrowth on the slopes and ridges, and myriad bright-tinted blossoms and sweet wild fruits along the running streams. The vegetable kingdom consequently holds a far more important place in the mythology and ceremony of the tribe than it does among the Indians of the plains and arid sage deserts of the West, most of the beliefs and customs in this connection centering around the practice of medicine, as expounded by priests and doctors in every settlement. Generally it is held that the plant world is friendly to humans, and constantly at the willing service of the doctors to counteract the jealous hostility of the animals. The sacred formulas contain many curious instructions for the gathering and preparation of the medicinal roots and barks, which are selected chiefly in accordance with the theory of correspondences.
