Darrell J. Pursiful

The Creek peoples speak of a creature called the Water Master or ue pucase (roughly prounounced oy poo-chah-see).

There is a bit of a debate, though, about what sort of creature this is. Some say ue pucase is just another term for the tie snake. Others, apparently among the eastern Creeks, say it is an aquatic feline creature, perhaps similar to the underwater panther of Algonquian lore.

Water Masters are cunning and deceitful creatures. According to one Hitchiti legend,

In some Muskogee accounts, “tie snake” is basically synonymous with “horned serpent.” In other versions of the myth, they are two separate creatures, of which the tie snake properly so called is much smaller than the horned serpent, and not quite as malevolent.

Tie snakes are most often associated with Muskogee culture, but they are also known, for example, to the Hitchiti, Yuchi, Natchez, and Chickasaw. In the Muskogee language, they are called estakwvnayv (ee-stah-kwuh-nah-yuh). In outward appearance, they aren’t terribly different from any ordinary snake. They are usually either black or dark blue in color. In some legends, their head is crooked over like the beak of a hawk.

But appearances can be deceiving. Tie snakes are almost always depicted as immensely strong. They often drag humans underwater, so be careful when you go near the water!

Tie snakes also exert control over water. One account has a tie snake summoning a flood large enough to overwhelm an entire town. Furthermore, these creatures are often shape-shifters. By some accounts, the tie snake was originally a man who was transformed into a serpent-like being after eating taboo food.

The most powerful tie snakes are expert animal charmers, able to command ordinary snakes to do their bidding. The “king of the tie snakes” is an almost godlike underworld being who claims to know “all things that are under the earth.” This figure might be depicted seated on a throne made of writhing snakes. He can be both frightening and demanding, but also willing to assist those who are worthy.

Tsul ‘kalu is a Cherokee word that roughly translates as “slant-eyed.” In the singular, the word refers an individual, a “lord of the hunt” in the spirit of “master (or mistress) of animals” figures in many world mythologies. He is said to live in Tsunegunyi, on the Tanasee Bald in Jackson County, North Carolina. European settlers sometimes garbled Tsul ‘kalu to Judaculla, from which the mysterious Judaculla Rock in western North Carolina gets its name.

The Cherokee of northern Georgia no doubt would have also been familiar with Tsul ‘kalu. But this “lord of the hunt” was not merely an individual. The plural form, tsunil ‘kalu refers to a race of mythological giants that live in the far west. According to James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee (1900),

James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had beard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil’kälû’, “The Slant-eyed people,” because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul’kälû’.… They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west.

In Children of Pride, my protagonists pass by Judaculla Rock on a couple of occasions, although I don’t bring up its associations with Tsul ‘kalu. In Oak, Ash, and Thorn, however, I did manage to find room for a slant-eyed giant as a secondary character.

The honka is sometimes referred to as “Hairy Man.” More specifically, it is a hairy, man-eating ogre in Creek mythology. Another Creek term for this creature is kolowa, a term originally used by the Crow people but adopted by the Creeks after their forced removal to Oklahoma. Some recent Creek storytellers have translated kolowa as “gorilla.”

In many ways, the honka or kolowa is the Creeks’ answer to “Bigfoot”—although it is questionable whether Native Americans ever had a “Bigfoot legend” such as white Americans would conceive it.

Honkas are malicious creatures. One story reported by Michelle Smith in Legends, Lore and True Tales of the Chattahoochee (The History Press, 2013) describes how a female kolowa killed and ate the wife of a hunter—and other members of his village—while the hunter was away from home.

Here’s another creature described in Bill Grantham’s Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians (University Press of Florida, 2002):

The nokos oma (“like-a-bear”) is an obscure creature from Muskogee folklore. It is described in Bill Grantham’s Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians (University Press of Florida, 2002):