Spearfinger

The smoke goes up first. Every autumn the Cherokee burned the leaf litter off the mountain slopes so the chestnuts would lie bare and easy to gather, and every autumn that smoke told something in the high country exactly where the people were. Somewhere along the ridge an old woman would turn toward it and start walking, without hurry, one hand kept out of sight beneath her blanket.

She was called U’tlûñ’ta, Spear-finger, for the thing under the blanket. Her right forefinger was not flesh. It was a long spur of stone shaped like an awl or a spearhead, and she used it the way a woman uses a bone needle, quickly and without ceremony. Her second name was Nûñ’yunu’ï, Stone-dress, because her whole body was cased in a skin as hard as rock that no arrow could split. Mooney, who wrote the story down, was careful to add that there was another stone-clothed monster in the mountains and that it was a different creature with a different story, a distinction that later retellings often lose.

She did not have to keep that shape. She could take any form that suited the moment, and the form she preferred was one you already trusted. A woman steps out of the house to fetch water. A few minutes later the same woman steps back in, sits down among the family, and waits for someone to turn their back.

Children picking strawberries in the grass near the village would hear a coaxing voice from the trail. Come, my grandchildren, come to your granny and let granny dress your hair. Some girl would run over and lay her head in the old woman’s lap, and the fingers would move slowly and pleasantly through her hair until she drifted off. Then the awl went in, through the heart or the back of the neck, and the liver came out.

The worst of it was how little it announced itself. The stone finger left no wound and caused no pain, so a man could be stabbed in his own doorway, notice nothing, and go on with his work. Days later he would feel the strength draining out of his arms. Then he began to waste, and there was no cure, because the liver was already gone.

Her power over stone went well beyond her own hide. She could lift boulders that no one else could shift, and she could weld them together simply by striking one against another. Impatient with the broken country she had to cross, she once set out to build a bridge of rock through the open air, starting at Nûñyû’-tlu’gûñ’yï, the Tree Rock on the Hiwassee, and running across to Sanigilâ’gï, the mountain now called Whiteside, on the Blue Ridge. She had it well begun when lightning came down and broke it apart, and the fragments were scattered the whole length of the ridge, where people still point them out. She ranged the headwaters and the dark passes of the Nantahala, and on the Tennessee side she favored the gap where Chilhowee Mountain comes down to the river.

Now and then a hunter far from any settlement caught sight of her in her own form, an old woman with an odd-looking hand, moving through the timber and singing under her breath. Liver, I eat it. It was not an ugly tune. That was the part that stayed with him, and he went away quietly before she could look up.

Eventually the settlements held a council, because at the rate she was working there would be nobody left to hold one. What they settled on was a pit. They dug it deep across the trail and floored it over with brush and earth and grass until the ground looked untouched, then lit a broad fire of green brush beside the trail and went to lie in the laurel. The smoke was the bait. She could not resist smoke.

She came down the trail looking like a woman they all knew, walking slowly with one hand under her blanket. A few of the older men wanted to shoot and were argued out of it, since nobody wanted to put an arrow into a neighbor. Then the ground gave way, and what climbed to its feet in the bottom of the pit was not a neighbor at all. The arrows came down on her in a steady rain and shattered against her back and shoulders, dropping in pieces around her feet while she laughed at them and jumped for the rim.

A titmouse settled in the branches overhead and sang, un, un, un, and the warriors heard in it the word for heart. They shot where a heart ought to be and broke every flint they had. For that the bird lost its tongue, cut short so that everyone would know it was a liar, and when they released it, it flew straight up and out of sight and never came back. The titmouse in the woods today is only a copy of the one that lied.

Then a chickadee, tsï’kïlilï’, dropped out of a tree and landed on her right hand, the closed fist she had never once opened. Her heart was inside it. She understood in that instant what the bird had done, and she began to lunge and dodge around the pit with the awl swinging, which was the first time she had been the one who was frightened. An arrow found the joint where the stone finger met her wrist. She went down and did not get up.

What she had going for her was almost total. A hide that turned arrows, a shape for every occasion, hands that could quarry and mortar mountains, and a killing stroke her victims did not feel. She could not be tracked, because there was nothing to track. She could not be recognized, because she wore whoever was convenient.

What she did not have was patience or a hidden heart. Her hunger brought her to any smoke on the mountain, which meant a fire and a covered hole were enough to put her where she could be surrounded, and the heart she had tucked away in her fist was the one thing on her body that stone did not cover. Ever since, the chickadee has been the bird that tells the truth. When a man is away traveling and one comes to perch near the house and sing, the people there know he is coming home safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Spearfinger in Cherokee mythology?

Spearfinger, called U’tlûñ’ta in Cherokee, is a shape-shifting ogress of the southern Appalachian mountains whose food is human liver. Her body is covered in a skin as hard as rock, and her right forefinger is a long stone spike like an awl. She is also known as Nûñ’yunu’ï, or Stone-dress, for that armored hide.

What does Spearfinger do to her victims?

Spearfinger stabs people with her stone finger and takes their liver. The strike leaves no wound and causes no pain, so victims often did not know they had been attacked and went on with their day, then weakened over time and died. She approached children by offering to comb their hair, and entered homes by taking the appearance of a family member who had just stepped outside.

Where does Spearfinger live?

Spearfinger ranged the high country at the heads of the streams and through the dark passes of the Nantahala in western North Carolina. Her favored haunt on the Tennessee side was the gap on the trail where Chilhowee Mountain comes down to the river. She also tried to build a bridge of stone through the air from the Tree Rock on the Hiwassee across to Whiteside Mountain on the Blue Ridge, until lightning shattered it.

How was Spearfinger killed?

The Cherokee dug a covered pit across a trail and lit a brush fire to draw her, since smoke always brought her. She fell in, and arrows simply broke against her stone skin until a chickadee landed on her closed right fist. That showed the warriors where her heart was hidden, and an arrow through the joint where her stone finger met her wrist killed her.

Why is the chickadee a truth teller in Cherokee stories?

The chickadee earned that reputation by revealing where Spearfinger’s heart was hidden during the fight at the pit. A titmouse had misled the warriors first, and had its tongue cut short as a liar. Because the chickadee told the truth, its song near a house is taken as word that a traveler will come home safely.

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