Native American Bird Mythology

The serpent and the bird appear sometimes separately, sometimes in strange combination, in North American mythology. The bird is always incomprehensible to the savage. Its power of flight, its appearance in the heavens where dwell the gods, and its musical song 
combine to render it in his sight a being of mystery, possessing capabilities far above his own. From it he conceives the idea of the winged spirit or god, and he frequently regards it as a messenger from the bright regions of the sun or the sky deity. The flight and song of birds have always been carefully observed by primitive people as omens of grave import. These superstitions prevailed among the Red Race no less than among our own early ancestors. Many tribes imagined that birds were the visible spirits of the deceased. Thus the Powhatans of Virginia believed that the feathered race received the souls of their chiefs at death, and they were careful to do them no harm, accordingly. The Algonquins believed that birds caused the phenomenon of wind, that they created water-spouts, and that the clouds were the spreading and agitation of their wings. The Navaho thought that a great white swan sat at each of the four points of the compass and conjured up the blasts which came therefrom, while the Dakotas believed that in the west is the home of the Wakinyjan, 'the Flyers,' the breezes that send the storms. The thunder, too, is regarded by some Indian peoples as the flapping of the pinions of a great bird, whose tracks are seen in the lightning, "like the sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony plain." Many of the tribes of the north-west coast hold the same belief, and imagine the lightning to be the flash of the thunder-bird's eye.

About Cherokee Color Symbolism

ABOUT CHEROKEE INDIAN COLOR SYMBOLISM.

Color symbolism plays an important part in the shamanistic system of the Cherokees, no less than in that of other tribes. Each one of the cardinal points has its corresponding color and each color its symbolic meaning, so that each spirit invoked corresponds in color and local habitation with the characteristics imputed to him, and is connected with other spirits of the same name, but of other colors, living in other parts of the upper world and differing widely in their characteristics. Thus the Red Man, living in the east, is the spirit of power, triumph, and success, but the Black Man, in the West, is the spirit of death. The shaman therefore invokes the Red Man to the assistance of his client and consigns his enemy to the fatal influences of the Black Man.

The symbolic color system of the Cherokees, which will be explained more fully in connection with the formulas, is as follows:

East	= red	= success; triumph.
North	= blue	= defeat; trouble.
West	= black	= death.
South	= white	= peace; happiness.
Above?	= brown	= unascertained, but propitious.
———	= yellow	= about the same as blue.

There is a great diversity in the color systems of the various tribes, both as to the location and significance of the colors, but for obvious reasons black was generally taken as the symbol of death; while white and red signified, respectively, peace and war. It is somewhat ]remarkable that red was the emblem of power and triumph among the ancient Oriental nations no less than among the modern Cherokees.