does she still won’t play nothing but revival. Iffen I try to talk about the Little Things, she sulls up and says they’s likely demons and I will go to the bad place if I keep on messing with them.
Granny knows about the Little Things. She don’t think they’s demons either. She says their real name is Yunwi Tsunsdi. She told me all about them when she gave me the little cross made from their tears—and she told me about them crying when Jesus died. I thought Lilah Bel would like that story for it had Jesus in it but she put her fingers in her ears and said she would go home if I said any more about the Little Things.
Granny Beck’s papaw was full blood Cherokee and it was her papaw who told Granny Beck about Cherokee Magic, which Granny is teaching me. She says it has to be passed on by kin, knee to knee, and it can’t be learned from a book.
There are lots of good stories and some scary ones—I hate the one about the Raven Mockers that eat the hearts of dead people. Another bad one is Old Spearfinger, a dreadful kind of a witch with one long finger made of bone and she will stab people with that finger and kill them and eat their liver. The worst is that, being magic, she can make herself look like someone you know and then, when you aren’t paying attention, she will stab you with that finger. Sometimes I have bad dreams about Old Spearfinger and think that she is standing in our room at night, just staring at me and Granny Beck and biding her time.
But Granny says I must learn all the stories, every bit, so I will know how to use the Gifts. I had thought maybe the Gifts was things like the fairy cross she give me, butGranny says no, the Gifts ain’t things you can see. She says I will understand better later on.
I know all about the Yunwi Tsunsdi now—how they live away up on the mountains in caves or under big rocks or in the places some call laurel hells on account of how the laurel grows so close and twisted a man or dog can get hung up in it and never get out. Back when I told Granny that I had seen the Little People dancing and playing their drums, she scowled and looked at me hard.
“Best not go lookin for the Yunwi Tsunsdi, child. People who see them are like to be bumfuzzled all their lives,” said she, and I wondered was it the Little People who made me take spells. I asked her but she wouldn’t talk no more of them just then for, she said, night was coming on fast and it’s reckoned unlucky to talk of these things after dark.
It’s not all that late now but the sun is down behind the trees, so when I take Granny her bowl of buttermilk and bread I don’t ask for no Cherokee Magic stories; instead I ask her to tell me the story about John Goingsnake and the Trail of Tears.
“Law, child, I reckon you could tell it to me by now, you’ve heard it so many times.” She sops a piece of cornbread and bites into it.
“Please, Granny Beck—one more time.”
Granny finishes up her cornbread. She wipes her hands good on her apron. Then she takes up her rug machine and goes to poking the black strips into the burlap backing of the rug.
“I’ll tell it, honey, but we both got to work fast now, while it’s yet light.”
So I take up my rug machine and some of the red stripsand begin to fill in the poppy outlines while Granny Beck tells her story.
“It was almost a hundred years ago, in eighteen and thirty-eight, the army rounded up the Cherokee people who had lived in these mountains long before the white man had come. The soldiers burnt the Cherokees’ houses and fields, cut down their peach trees, and said that all the Injuns would have to go west where a new home was waiting for them. The people tried to fight back but there was too many soldiers with too many guns. So the soldiers herded the Cherokee people up in a bunch to drive them like cattle to a place in Tennessee from where they would commence the long walk.
“Now, one of these Cherokees was John Goingsnake, who had been
Granny knows about the Little Things. She don’t think they’s demons either. She says their real name is Yunwi Tsunsdi. She told me all about them when she gave me the little cross made from their tears—and she told me about them crying when Jesus died. I thought Lilah Bel would like that story for it had Jesus in it but she put her fingers in her ears and said she would go home if I said any more about the Little Things.
Granny Beck’s papaw was full blood Cherokee and it was her papaw who told Granny Beck about Cherokee Magic, which Granny is teaching me. She says it has to be passed on by kin, knee to knee, and it can’t be learned from a book.
There are lots of good stories and some scary ones—I hate the one about the Raven Mockers that eat the hearts of dead people. Another bad one is Old Spearfinger, a dreadful kind of a witch with one long finger made of bone and she will stab people with that finger and kill them and eat their liver. The worst is that, being magic, she can make herself look like someone you know and then, when you aren’t paying attention, she will stab you with that finger. Sometimes I have bad dreams about Old Spearfinger and think that she is standing in our room at night, just staring at me and Granny Beck and biding her time.
But Granny says I must learn all the stories, every bit, so I will know how to use the Gifts. I had thought maybe the Gifts was things like the fairy cross she give me, butGranny says no, the Gifts ain’t things you can see. She says I will understand better later on.
I know all about the Yunwi Tsunsdi now—how they live away up on the mountains in caves or under big rocks or in the places some call laurel hells on account of how the laurel grows so close and twisted a man or dog can get hung up in it and never get out. Back when I told Granny that I had seen the Little People dancing and playing their drums, she scowled and looked at me hard.
“Best not go lookin for the Yunwi Tsunsdi, child. People who see them are like to be bumfuzzled all their lives,” said she, and I wondered was it the Little People who made me take spells. I asked her but she wouldn’t talk no more of them just then for, she said, night was coming on fast and it’s reckoned unlucky to talk of these things after dark.
It’s not all that late now but the sun is down behind the trees, so when I take Granny her bowl of buttermilk and bread I don’t ask for no Cherokee Magic stories; instead I ask her to tell me the story about John Goingsnake and the Trail of Tears.
“Law, child, I reckon you could tell it to me by now, you’ve heard it so many times.” She sops a piece of cornbread and bites into it.
“Please, Granny Beck—one more time.”
Granny finishes up her cornbread. She wipes her hands good on her apron. Then she takes up her rug machine and goes to poking the black strips into the burlap backing of the rug.
“I’ll tell it, honey, but we both got to work fast now, while it’s yet light.”
So I take up my rug machine and some of the red stripsand begin to fill in the poppy outlines while Granny Beck tells her story.
“It was almost a hundred years ago, in eighteen and thirty-eight, the army rounded up the Cherokee people who had lived in these mountains long before the white man had come. The soldiers burnt the Cherokees’ houses and fields, cut down their peach trees, and said that all the Injuns would have to go west where a new home was waiting for them. The people tried to fight back but there was too many soldiers with too many guns. So the soldiers herded the Cherokee people up in a bunch to drive them like cattle to a place in Tennessee from where they would commence the long walk.
“Now, one of these Cherokees was John Goingsnake, who had been
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