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Updated: June 21, 2025
And this was a grief to the head men of the town, for of all tribes the Cherokees loved and revered their dead. Thus when other cheera-taghe kindled for the municipality the "sacred fire" for a new year it was distributed to hearths far away, and Nilaque Great, deserted and depopulated, had become a "waste town."
Since peace with the Cherokees was becoming more and more precarious, some satisfaction was experienced by the Royal Governor of South Carolina, James Glen, at that time, in being able to urge upon the attention of the head-men of the tribe the fact that, although the two white strangers had obviously been captured in the act of robbing Cherokee soil of its gold, they had as evidently been unarmed, and the Irishman, a British subject, had been shot down by one of the cheera-taghe, for there was the bullet still imbedded firmly in the sternum of his broad chest.
They paid their devotions merely to the "great beneficent supreme holy spirit of fire, who resides as they think above the clouds," and he argues plausibly that if they worshiped fire itself they would not have willfully extinguished the sanctified element annually on the last day of the old year throughout the nation, the invariable custom, before the cheera-taghe of each town kindled the "holy fire" anew, this being one of their exclusive functions.
In fact, until sought with anxiety when the drought had become excessive and threatened the later crops, and the services of the cheera-taghe were necessary to invoke and with wild barbaric ceremonials bring down the lightning and thunder to clear the atmosphere and the rain to refresh the soil, it was not ascertained that the prophets had definitely disappeared.
On the contrary, they deemed the discovery might be resented by the Indians as intrusive, and, keeping the secret, they made haste to get out of the country with even more speed than their wont. Cuthbert Barnett, however, carried his information to the authorities in Charlestown, who, promptly acting upon it, solved the mystery of the fate of the cheera-taghe.
Very little to the purpose, the disaffected man of facts reflected, remembering the impression produced by his rival's display of skill. Somehow Amoyah seemed beyond the reach of logic. "Why did you not instead bewitch the woman?" Tus-ka-sah asked. But this wiliest of the cheera-taghe shook his head. "If she had been a mere woman," he said. "But a widow is a witch herself." "Eeon-a, Ha-hoo-jah!
The old year's fire was a symbol of departed values, the new year's fire being kindled with great ceremony by the Cheera-taghe, or prophets, "men of the divine fire." It is pleasant to know that this strong friendship suffered no diminution by reason of time and distance.
Then, notwithstanding his age and his fierce rheumatism, notwithstanding his long and cumbrous robe of buffalo skin, the skirt of which he seemed to clutch with difficulty, he plunged into the icy water, waded out to the young man, handed him the ball-sticks, and regained the bank just as the other cheera-taghe standing at the margin of the river began the incantations supposed to influence the success of the competition.
And old Cheesto, he reflected, was one of the cheera-taghe of Ioco, and could work a spell quite as well as the Great Bear, who had gone to bed for the winter two weeks ago, and had not heard of ball-sticks within the memory of man, perhaps not since he was a Cherokee himself, and playing with the rest on the course at Tennessee Town.
On the western side of the square the roof of the "holy cabin" showed dark against a lustrous reach of the shimmering river; despite the shadows within the broad entrance, the "sacred white seat" and the red clay transverse wall that partitioned off the sanctum sanctorum were plainly visible, but all was empty, deserted the cheera-taghe had departed for the night.
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