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Source: Myths and Tales of the
Southeastern Indians, By John R. Swanton, 1929
There was a great hunter who owned many dogs, with which he would beat
up a bottom and frequently kill bear. One time he heard them barking and
thought they had discovered a bear, but when he reached them he found them
around a hollow tree on which an hatcukliba lived.
The hatcukliba would come out, take a dog, and carry it back into his den.
Then the man ran off, and when he got nearly out of sight he could hear a
few dogs still barking.
The number was presently reduced to one, and soon this one stopped. Then
the man looked back and saw the hatcukliba coming after him, glittering as
it came.
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When it came jumping up to him he shot it, but it seized him by the
middle, knocked his gun out of his hands, and started back with him. He
was not hurt, but he thought that when it got him to its young ones, they
would eat him up.
The hatcukliba took him down a valley and as they passed between two pine
trees, he caught sight of something yellow and thought, "Now they are
going to devour me."
What he had seen, however, was a Panther which jumped upon the hatcukliba
and made the hatcukliba let go of him. Then it jumped back upon the tree.
Every chance it got the Panther would jump down upon the hatcukliba and
then back to the tree, and in this way it tore the hatcukliba's back to
rags and killed it.
Then the Panther came to where the man lay and the latter thought he was
going to be eaten, but the Panther said, "Are you dead yet_"
"No," he answered, "I am not dead yet."
"Well, get up."
So he got up, and the Panther marched around him mewing like a cat, and
said, "Nothing will disturb you. Stay there."
The man started a fire, and the Panther brought up some wood for him. Then
it went off, killed a deer, and brought it back. So he cut up and roasted
the deer, and, after he got better, the Panther said to him, "Never kill
anything of my species. Get your gun and go home."
By and by the man took a notion to hunt and discovered a turkey on a tree.
He discovered, however, that a wildcat was creeping toward it, so he
stopped and watched it. But, when the wildcat jumped at the turkey, it
missed and fell to the ground with a squall as if it were hurt.
It seemed to be in pain, and in fact the man saw that one of its eyes was
out. When he came up to help it, however, the wildcat pulled out its other
eye and threw that away also and ran away.
This is said to signify the separation of man and beast.
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