University of Virginia Library

2. II.

“The Occonies and the Little Estatoees, or,
rather, the Brown Vipers and the Green Birds,
were both minor tribes of the Cherokee nation,
between whom, as was not unfrequently the case,
there sprung up a deadly enmity. The Estatoees
had their town on each side of the two creeks,
which, to this day, keep their name, and on the
eastern side of the Keowee river. The Occonies
occupied a much larger extent of territory, but it
lay on the opposite, or west side of the same river.

Their differences were supposed to have arisen
from the defeat of Chatuga, a favorite leader of
the Occonies, who aimed to be made a chief of
the nation at large. The Estatoee warrior, Toxaway,
was successful; and as the influence of
Chatuga was considerable with his tribe, he labored
successfully to engender in their bosoms a
bitter dislike of the Estatoees. This feeling was
made to exhibit itself on every possible occasion.
The Occonies had no word too foul by which to
describe the Estatoees. They likened them, in
familiar speech, to every thing which, in the Indian
imagination, is accounted low and contemptible.
In reference to war, they were reputed women, —
in all other respects, they were compared to dogs
and vermin; and, with something of a Christian
taste and temper, they did not scruple, now and
then, to invoke the devil of their more barbarous
creed, for the eternal disquiet of their successful
neighbors, the Little Estatoees, and their great
chief, Toxaway.

“In this condition of things there could not be
much harmony; and, accordingly, as if by mutual
consent, there was but little intercourse between
the two people. When they met, it was
either to regard one another with a cold, repulsive
distance, or else, as enemies, actively to foment

quarrel and engage in strife. But seldom, save
on national concerns, did the Estatoees cross the
Keowee to the side held by the Occonies; and
the latter, more numerous, and therefore less reluctant
for strife than their rivals, were yet not often
found on the opposite bank of the same river.
Sometimes, however, small parties of hunters from
both tribes, rambling in one direction or another,
would pass into the enemy's territory; but this
was not frequent, and when they met, quarrel and
bloodshed were sure to mark the adventure.

“But there was one young warrior of the Estatoees,
who did not give much heed to this condition
of parties, and who, moved by an errant spirit,
and wholly insensible to fear, would not hesitate,
when the humor seized him, to cross the
river, making quite as free, when he did so, with
the hunting-grounds of the Occonies as they did
themselves. This sort of conduct did not please
the latter very greatly, but Nagoochie was always
so gentle, and at the same time so brave, that the
young warriors of Occony either liked or feared
him too much to throw themselves often in his
path, or labor, at any time, to arrest his progress.

“In one of these excursion, Nagoochie made
the acquaintance of Jocassée, one of the sweetest

of the dusky daughters of Occony. He was
rambling, with bow and quiver, in pursuit of game,
as was his custom, along that beautiful enclosure,
which the whites have named after her, the Jocassée
valley. The circumstances under which they
met were all strange and exciting, and well calculated
to give her a power over the young hunter,
to which the pride of the Indian does not often
suffer him to submit. It was towards evening
when Nagoochie sprung a fine buck from a hollow
of the wood along side him, and just before you
reach the ridge of rocks which hem in and form
this beautiful valley. With the first glimpse of his
prey, flew the keen shaft of Nagoochie; but,
strange to say, though renowned as a hunter, not
less than as a warrior, the arrow failed entirely,
and flew wide of the victim. Off he bounded
headlong after the fortunate buck; but though,
every now and then, getting him within range, —
for the buck took the pursuit coolly, — the hunter
still most unaccountably failed to strike him.
Shaft after shaft had fallen seemingly hurtless from
his sides; and though, at frequent intervals, suffered
to approach so nigh to the animal that he
could not but hope still for better fortune, to his
great surprise, the wary buck would dash off
when he least expected it, bounding away in some
new direction, with as much life and vigor as
ever. What to think of this, the hunter knew
not; but such repeated disappointments at length
impressed it strongly upon his mind, that the object
he pursued was neither more nor less than an
Occony wizard, seeking to entrap him; so, with
a due feeling of superstition, and a small touch of
sectional venom aroused into action within his
heart, Nagoochie, after the manner of his people,
promised a green bird — the emblem of his tribe
— in sacrifice to the tutelar divinity of Estato, if
he could only be permitted to overcome the potent
enchanter, who had thus dazzled his aim and blunted
his arrows. He had hardly uttered this vow,
when he beheld the insolent deer mincingly grazing
upon a beautiful tuft of long grass in the valley,
just below the ledge of rock upon which he
stood. Without more ado, he pressed forward to
bring him within fair range of his arrows, little
doubting, at the moment, that the Good Spirit
had heard his prayer, and had granted his desire.
But, in his hurry, leaping too hastily forward,
and with eyes fixed only upon his proposed victim,
his foot was caught by the smallest stump in the
world, and the very next moment found him precipitated
directly over the rock and into the valley,
within a few paces of the deer, who made off
with the utmost composure, looking back, as he
did so, to the eyes of the wounded hunter, for all
the world as if he enjoyed the sport mightily.
Nagoochie, as he saw this, gravely concluded that
he had fallen a victim to the wiles of the Occony
wizard, and looked confidently to see half a score
of Occonies upon him, taking him at a vantage.
Like a brave warrior, however, he did not despond,
but determining to gather up his loins for
battle and the torture, he sought to rise and put
himself in a state of preparation. What, however,
was his horror, to find himself utterly unable
to move; — his leg had been broken in the fall,
and he was covered with bruises from head to foot.

“Nagoochie gave himself up for lost; but he
had scarcely done so, when he heard a voice, —
the sweetest, he thought, he had ever heard in his
life, — singing a wild, pleasant song, such as the
Occonies love, which, ingeniously enough, summed
up the sundry reasons why the mouth, and
not the eyes, had been endowed with the faculty
of eating. These reasons were many, but the last
is quite enough for us. According to the song,
had the eyes, and not the mouth, been employed
for this purpose, there would soon be a famine in
the land, for of all gluttons, the eyes are the greatest.
Nagoochie groaned aloud, as he heard the

song, the latter portion of which completely indicated
the cause of his present misfortune. It
was, indeed, the gluttony of the eyes which had
broken his leg. This sort of allegory the Indians
are fond of, and Jocassée knew all their legends.
Certainly, thought Nagoochie, though his leg
pained him wofully at the time, — certainly I
never heard such sweet music, and such a voice.
The singer advanced as she sung, and almost
stumbled over him.

“`Who are you?' she asked timidly, neither
retreating nor advancing; and, as the wounded
man looked into her face, he blessed the Occony
wizard, by whose management he deemed his leg
to have been broken.

“`Look?' was the reply of the young warrior,
throwing aside the bearskin which covered his
bosom, — `look, girl of Occony! 'tis the totem
of a chief;' and the green bird stamped upon his
left breast, as the badge of his tribe, showed him
a warrior of Estato, and something of an enemy.
But his eyes had no enmity, and then the broken
leg! Jocassée was a gentle maiden, and her heart
melted with the condition of the warrior. She
made him a sweet promise, in very pretty language,
and with the very same voice, the music of
which was so delicious; and then, with the fleetness

of a young doe, she went off to bring him
succor.