The Hunter in the Dăkwă′

In the old days there was a great fish called the Dăkwă′, which lived in Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Dăkwâ′ĭ, the “Dăkwă′ place,” above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man. Once a canoe filled with warriors was crossing over from the town to the other side of the river, when the Dăkwă′ suddenly rose up under the boat and threw them all into the air. As they came down it swallowed one with a single snap of its jaws and dived with him to the bottom of the river. As soon as the hunter came to his senses he found that he had not been hurt, but it was so hot and close inside the Dăkwă′ that he was nearly smothered. As he groped around in the dark his hand struck a lot of mussel shells which the fish had swallowed, and taking one of these for a knife he began to cut his way out, until soon the fish grew uneasy at the scraping inside his stomach and came up to the top of the water for air. He kept on cutting until the fish was in such pain that it swam this way and that across the stream and thrashed the water into foam with its tail. Finally the hole was so large that he could look out and saw that the Dăkwă′ was now resting in shallow water near the shore. Reaching up he climbed out from the side of the fish, moving very carefully so that the Dăkwă′ would not know it, and then waded to shore and got back to the settlement, but the juices in the stomach of the great fish had scalded all the hair from his head and he was bald ever after.