Long-Ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee by Lloyd Arneach

Author:Lloyd Arneach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

The Rabbit agreed and he said, “Possum we’re going to have a great dance, and everybody will be singing their songs and doing their dances.”

The Possum said, “You will have a place of honor for me where everybody can see my tail as they dance by.”

The Rabbit agreed, and said, “Possum will have a place of honor there in the dance arena. And I brought the Crickets with me to comb and dress the fur on your tail.”

Now, the Cherokee know the Crickets are great haircutters, and the Rabbit had given these two Crickets very special instructions.

The Rabbit told the Possum, “They will comb and clean your hair, then wrap it with bark and tie it with vines to keep it clean. And you don’t untie the bark and the vines until it’s your turn to get up to dance.”

The Possum agreed. He walked over to a stump, sat down and the Crickets started working on his tail. The Crickets trimmed the fur next to the bottom of his tail and then they wrapped it with bark and tied it in vines all the way down to the end. Then the Crickets told Possum, “Now don’t untie it until it’s your turn to get up to dance.”

Possum agreed. He went down to the dance area on the appointed day. The Animals were all gathered around waiting to get started. The Possum called, “Rabbit, Rabbit!”

The Rabbit came bounding up to the Possum. The Possum said, “Where is my place of honor?”

The Rabbit replied, “We have rolled a rock right up here, and you can sit on this rock, and everybody will dance in front of you.”

The Possum agreed and sat down on the rock and put his tail, still wrapped in the bark with the vines, behind him. They started calling Animals up. Each, in turn, would dance around a circle in front of the Possum and sing his song.

Finally they called for the Possum to dance and sing. The Possum stood up, reached behind him, untied the vines and pulled the bark off his tail. And then he started dancing and singing his song, “I am the only one who has a tail like this.”

The Animals yelled, “Ah ha!”

And the Possum thought, “They like my song. This is good.”

He sang and danced some more, “I am the only one with a tail like this in the whole world.”

And the Animals again yelled, “Ah ha!”

The Possum thought, “This is a very good song.”

He sang and danced again, “Don’t you wish you had a tail like mine?”

This time the Animals were laughing. Some of them were lying on the ground and pointing at the Possum.

The Possum looked around. He didn’t know what they were laughing at. Finally he looked behind him and he saw that all of the hair had been cut off his tail. All that was left was the naked tail that he has to this very day. The Possum was so embarrassed that he fell over in a faint, which is what he does to this very day whenever he is frightened or embarrassed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.