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The Cherokee Ogress
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2021/07 – July
The Highlands-Cashiers Plateau was a dangerous place when U’tlun’ta ruled from her throne on Whiteside Mountain.
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When times are tough – pandemics, worldwide catastrophes, talk of the Apocalypse – Hollywood reflects those disasters in horror movies.
We Pandemicans were stuck at home last year, and the movie industry cranked out horror movie videos to an anxious, yet willing audience.
The public’s collective fear taps into the themes of scary movies or vice versa.
And when it’s make-believe fear, we can superimpose our real fear onto the movie.
It’s a release.
But before Hollywood and group therapy, how did ancient civilizations anthropomorphize fear?
Through word-of-mouth myths like the Cherokee ogress legend, U’tlun’ta (Spear-Finger). The forefinger on her right hand was a spear or obsidian knife, a handy utensil for extracting livers and kabobbing them while she slurped and gobbled.
She walked the borders of western Tennessee and North Carolina. Her favorite home was the Thunder Mountain, our own Whiteside. Think about her next time you’re hiking Old Whitey, and a chilly wind snaps your neck hair to attention.
If you do have a Spear-Finger encounter, U’tlun’ta, like all villains, has a weak spot: her heart was in her right palm. All you have to do is get past that Swiss-Army Finger.
She was a chunky babe. Made of stone, she thundered, crushing rocks as she rumbled across a mountainside. Her voice echoed through the passes and scared birds away. When the birds were silent/gone, it was a sign U’tlun’ta was nearby.
Running away from a lumbering rock doesn’t sound that hard, but U’tlun’ta could shape-shift into one of your children or a seemingly harmless old lady.
One time she picked up a huge boulder bridge and carried it in the air to Whiteside. Higher Beings thought U’tlun’ta was getting too uppity and too close to the Upper World, so they smashed it. You can see the bridge remains today in Whiteside Cove.
Ran Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge is rife with interesting tales, some tall, some true. Visit highlandshistory.com or email [email protected] for more info.
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