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                                                                                       Cherokee Feasts                 297

The National feasts, anciently, were as follows, viz the first, at the appearance of the first new Moon in Spring, about the time grass began to grow, The Second was the Green corn feast, when green corn became fit to eat. The Third, or second green corn feast, was kept forty or fifty days after the first. The fourth was at the first appearance of the first autumnal new moon. The fifth about ten days after the last mentioned tied the sixth some later. Aside from the above annual feasts the ancient Cherokees held a feast every seventh year about the time of the appearance scratched out: of the appearance of the first autumnal new moon. They had also occasional feasts, observed as circumstances dictated.

  The above feasts are often called Dances, on account of the dancing which accompanied them. This dance was a religious ceremony the performers always moved in a circle, or circles, with the left hand toward the centre of the circle. Anciently they had but one kind of dance at all their feasts, which was called A ta hu na (u in the 2nd syllable nasal) In this dance, each company i.e. all who moved in the same circle, followed a leader, whom they had selected, whose step they imitated. This leader sometimes led the music, but generally the women when dancing alone, had a musician appointed for them. Special attention, it seems, was paid to purity of manners at these feasts. Wives were obliged to follow their own husbands, and single women their own brothers, or persons of their own clan, whom they could no sooner marry than their own brothers. Each clan also, when seated, occupied is own side of the council house; as that house always had seven sides.
  As the fruits of the earth began to come forward about the time the first spring new moon made its