A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Tlanuwa is an immense bird of prey in Cherokee public tradition; Visit Cherokee describes feathers of impenetrable metal. Mooney’s nest story places a pair in a cave on a cliff beside the Little Tennessee River, below Citico Creek. The overhanging rock makes the cave difficult to reach, and pale streaks are explained as traces from the nest. The birds seize dogs and children from settlements, while arrows glance off them. A specialist descends from the clifftop on a bark rope and swings into the opening with a hooked stick. Inside are four young birds and the bones of their victims. He throws the young into the water, where an Uktena consumes them. Returning parents find the nest empty and attack the serpent: one carries it upward, while the other tears it apart. Falling pieces mark the rocks below before the birds disappear into the sky. Thus the account links the raptors’ departure to both a human intervention and a specific river landscape.
A second Cherokee story gives a mother Tlanuwa a different purpose. She carries away a hunter to guard two young birds, promising that she will not hurt him. She brings deer and bear meat and gives him the first portion, but his longing for home grows during confinement. He eventually straps himself to a young bird and uses its spread wings to slow their descent. They land in a poplar tree; before releasing the bird, he takes a feather. Back home, the feather has become a stone. Swanton’s separately attributed Natchez narrative instead concerns a father confronting the birds after a child is taken. His informant supplied the Cherokee name because the Natchez name had been forgotten. Those accounts should be read alongside one another: the guardian’s enforced hospitality, a settlement’s rescue effort and a bereaved parent’s confrontation are different episodes, rather than parts of one reconstructed story.
Origins & earliest records
A secure written witness is Swanton's 1929 Bureau of American Ethnology collection, although its recorded story was transmitted earlier. The contemporary Visit Cherokee page documents continuing public recognition. The Natchez narrator's use of a Cherokee name is explicitly mediated by recollection; it cannot establish an original Natchez name or a dated route of borrowing.
Records & interpretation
The community page supports the giant bird and metal-feather description. Swanton's attributed narrative supports the child-taking episode and the informant's naming limitation; its indexed Smithsonian text was inspected while the large PDF resisted browser retrieval. These witnesses are compared with their cultural boundaries intact, rather than combined into an undocumented universal bird legend.
In the literature
“they have never been seen since.”
Complete story64, printed pp.315–316; corresponding complete note pp.466
The Citico cliff pair carry off animals and children; arrows glance off. Their four young are dropped into water and consumed by Uktena; the adult birds seize and dismember the serpent, then disappear rather than being killed. The rock features are the story’s explanation, not independently verified traces.
“a stone instead.”
Complete story65, printed pp.316; corresponding complete note pp.466
A mother Tlanuwa carries a hunter to guard her two young, repeatedly supplies him the first meat portion, and delays his departure. He finally descends using a young bird, releases it, and finds the removed feather has become a stone. This is a separate maternal encounter, not the four-young destruction narrative.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
The Cherokee Culture: Tlanuwa
Public giant-raptor description.
- 02
Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 88; Natchez story 18, The Tlānuwā, with collector's naming footnote.
- 03
Myths of the Cherokee
Stories 64–65, pp. 315–316: the nest and the captive hunter are separate Cherokee episodes.
- 04
Myths of the Cherokee — Tlanuwa selected encounters
Washington Government Printing Office1902 selected offprint, Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology; title independently read. English collector-mediated Cherokee narratives.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Myths of the Cherokee — Tlanuwa selected encounters
Washington Government Printing Office1902 selected offprint, Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology; title independently read. English collector-mediated Cherokee narratives.
- The Citico cliff pair carry off animals and children; arrows glance off. Their four young are dropped into water and consumed by Uktena; the adult birds seize and dismember the serpent, then disappear rather than being killed. The rock features are the story’s explanation, not independently verified traces.
Complete story64, printed pp.315–316; corresponding complete note pp.466
No whole volume, separate oral recording or present-day community confirmation reviewed. Mooney’s broad comparative generalizations are historical editorial assertions, not endorsed ethnographic universals.
Primary source witness
Washington Government Printing Office1902 selected offprint, Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology; title independently read. English collector-mediated Cherokee narratives.
- A mother Tlanuwa carries a hunter to guard her two young, repeatedly supplies him the first meat portion, and delays his departure. He finally descends using a young bird, releases it, and finds the removed feather has become a stone. This is a separate maternal encounter, not the four-young destruction narrative.
Complete story65, printed pp.316; corresponding complete note pp.466
No whole volume, separate oral recording or present-day community confirmation reviewed. Mooney’s broad comparative generalizations are historical editorial assertions, not endorsed ethnographic universals.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- CommunityVisit Cherokee: TlanuwaResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Primary textSmithsonian: Swanton's 1929 collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Primary textMooney: Tlanuwa stories 64–65Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
