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Owls Frogs and Toads are one thing but Owls are quiet another. Owls are the messengers of death. Many different tribes believe this. Here are true some stories told by an Oklahoman woman in 1994. My grandmother, a Cherokee, told me that her grandmother had crossed the Trail of Tears. She said her grandmother had told her that reason so many Cherokees died on the Trial of Tears was because owls followed them all the way from Georgia. Whenever they would hear the owl's cry the women would tie knots in their apron strings and the men would tie knots in their shirttails. This didn't always help because at night graves where dug for the ones who died during the day. The night my grandmother died there was an owl in a tree in our front yard. We would try to run it off but it would always come back. The day my own mother died my husband and I were driving to Muskogee to visit her. We traveled along a large pasture and stopped to turn near an old tree. In the tree I saw a big white owl and it caused me to feel very strange. So, I'm very superstitious about owls. Bibliograpy This story was related by Cherokee basket maker Mavis Doering to Cynthia Longley in an interview on June24,1993. It was then retold by Steven Williams in the book Oklahoma Treasure Trails. Published by Mythic Media in 1993. (for this web page I summarized Mr. Williams version) |