Retold by Barbara A. Warren aka Shining Woman
Back when the world was young, there weren’t many stars in the nighttime sky.
In those days, the Cherokee grew a lot of corn. The Cherokee word for corn is se-lu. The People depended on corn for their very survival. When the corn was harvested, a great portion of it was dried and saved for winter. Some of the dried corn was pounded into cornmeal, which would be stored in large woven baskets. During the cold winter months when food was scarce, the cornmeal could be made into bread or mush.
One cold winter morning, an elderly couple went to their storage basket for some cornmeal. They discovered that someone or something had broken into the cornmeal during the night! This upset them very much as no one in a Cherokee village stole from someone else.
As they began to search the area, they noticed that a great deal of cornmeal was scattered over the ground. In the middle of the spilled cornmeal, they found giant dog prints! These dog prints were so large that they knew this was no ordinary dog.
The elderly couple immediately alerted the people of the village, and a council was called. It was decided that this must be a spirit dog from another world! The people did not want the spirit dog coming to their village, and they decided to get rid of it by frightening the spirit dog so badly that it would never return. So, they made a plan! They gathered their drums and rattles, and later that evening,, they hid around the area where the cornmeal was kept.
Then, later into the night, they heard a whirring sound like many bird wings. They look up to see the form of a giant dog swooping down from the night sky. It landed near the basket and began to eat great mouthfuls of cornmeal.
Suddenly, the people jumped up shouting and making the loudest noises they could. The racket was so loud it sounded like thunder! Frightened, the giant dog turned and began to run down the path, the people chasing after him. That dog ran to the top of a hill and leaped into the northern sky, the cornmeal spilling out the sides of its mouth.
The giant dog ran across the black night sky until it disappeared from sight…but the cornmeal that spilled from its mouth made a pathway across the sky. Each gain of cornmeal became a star.
The Cherokee call that pattern of stars, gi’li’ utsunstanun’yi * (gil-TLEE-oot-soon stan-UNH-yee), “The Place Where the Dog Ran.”
And that is how the Cherokee People say the Milky Way came to be.
(Adapted from “History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee” by James Mooney)