.MTA0OQ.Njk5NjY

150

Occasional Festivals, come at present under review. We have already stated that the elders among the Cherokee represent the [u] Ah, tah, hung, nah, [/u] as having been resorted to for relief against every case of public distress, in consequence of the express bidding of the Great Supreme.__ Hence in the earliest times it was under such exigencies celebrated entire;__ more recently, however, it became modified in reference to divers calamities, but never without retaining enough of the original to render the derivation obvious. When we say that the elders among the Cherokee attribute the occasional employ of the [u] Ah, tawh, hung, nah, [/u] to the special injunction of the Great Supreme, from whose displeasure they considered mortal diseases, and severe inflictions of every kind, to arise,__but who, tempering justice with mercy, prescribed an atonement while he doomed,__ we must not omit to mention that there is a different view of the subject, even among some of the best informed of the aged natives. These look upon the idea of a direct command from the Deity as a modern one. They believe that, as the decoction employed at the annual festival was regarded as a water