The veneration of the ancient Cherokees for the element of fire, in addition to their name, its careful conservation throughout the year, their addresses to its spirit, Higayuli Tsunega, hatu ganiga (O Ancient White, you have drawn near to listen), is farther manifested by its traces found in the exploration of burial mounds, intimating a ceremonial introduction of the element at the remote period of interment,—­if, indeed, the construction of these mounds can he ascribed to the Cherokees.  Those on which their town houses were erected at a later date, the clay-covered rotunda forming a superstructure looking like a small mountain at a little distance, according to Timberlake, wherein were held the assemblies, whether for amusement or council or religious observances, served also as a substitute for the modern bulletin-board.  Two stands of colors were flying, one from the top of the town house, the other at the door.  These ensigns were white for peace, and exchanged for red when war impended.  “The news hollow,” as Timberlake phrases the cry, sounded from the summit of the mound, would occasion the assembling of all the community in the rotunda to hear the details from the lips of the chief.  How much more the:  “death hollow,” harbinger of woe!

11. Page 323.  They are hardly to be regarded as myths perhaps, rather as dislocated relics of fact.  In treating of the “Origin of American Nations,” Dr. Barton says:  “These traditions are entitled to much consideration, for, notwithstanding the rude condition of most of the tribes, they are often perpetuated in great purity, as I have discovered by much attention to their history.”  It is generally accepted that the first historical mention of the Cherokees occurs under the name of Chelaque in the chronicles of De Soto’s expedition in 1540 when they already occupied the Great Smoky Mountains and the contiguous region, but the Indians themselves had a tradition, according to Haywood’s Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, which was recited annually at the Green Corn Dance, in which they claimed that they were the earlier mound builders on the upper Ohio, whence they had migrated at a remote date.  They can be identified with the ancient Talega or Tallegwi if the records of the Walam Olum (painted sticks) may be believed, the wooden originals of which are said to have been preserved till 1822 and considered inexplicable, till their mnemonic signs and a manuscript song in the Lenni Lenape language, obtained from a remnant of the Delaware Indians, were translated by Professor C.S.  Rafinesque “with deep study of the Delaware and the aid of Zeisberger’s manuscript Dictionary in the library of the Philosophical Society.”