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 Indians are close observers, and some of their plant names are peculiarly apt. Thus the mistletoe, which never grows alone, but is found always with its roots fixed in the bark of some supporting tree or shrub from which it draws its sustenance, is called by a name which signifies "it is married" (uda'`li).
The violet is still called by a plural name, dinda'skwate'ski, "they pull each other's heads off," showing that the Cherokee children have discovered a game not unknown among our own.
The bear-grass (Eryngium), with its long, slender leaves like small blades of corn, is called salikwâ'yi, "greensnake," and the larger grass known as Job's tears, on account of its glossy, rounded grains, which the Indian children use for necklaces, is called sel-utsi', "the mother of corn."
The black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) of our children is the "deer-eye" (a`wi'-akta') of the Cherokee, and our lady-slipper (Cypripedium) is their "partridge moccasin" (gugwe'-ulasu'la).
The May-apple (Podophyllum), with its umbrella-shaped top, is called u'niskwetu'`gi, meaning "it wears a hat," while the white puffball fungus is nakwisi'-usdi', "the little star," and the common rock lichen bears the musical, if rather unpoetic, name of utsale'ta, "pot scrapings."
Some plants are named from their real or supposed place in the animal economy, as the wild rose, tsist-uni'gisti, "the rabbits eat it"--referring to the seed berries--and the shield fern (Aspidium), yân-utse'stû, "the bear lies on it."
Others, again, are named from their domestic or ceremonial uses, as the fleabane (Erigeron canadense), called atsil'-sûñ`ti, "fire maker," because its dried stalk was anciently employed in producing fire by friction, and the bugle weed (Lycopus virginicus), known as aniwani'ski, "talkers," because the chewed root, given to children to swallow, or rubbed upon their lips, is supposed to endow them with the gift of eloquence.
Some few, in addition to the ordinary term used among the common people, have a sacred or symbolic name, used only by the priests and doctors in the prayer formulas. Thus ginseng, or "sang," as it is more often called by the white mountaineers, is known to the laity as â'tali-gûli', "the mountain climber," but is addressed in the formulas as Yûñwi Usdi', "Little Man," while selu (corn) is invoked under the name of Agawe'la in myths, as, for instance, that of Prosartes lanuginosa, which bears the curious name of walâs'-unûl'sti, "frogs fight with it," from a story that in the long ago--hilahi'yu--two quarrelsome frogs once fought a duel, using its stalks as lances. In the locative form this was the name of a former Cherokee settlement in Georgia, called by the whites Fighting-town, from a misapprehension of the meaning of the word. Of the white clover, the Cherokee say that "it follows the white man."
