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Last of the Eastern Wilderness: An Article on the Proposed Great Smoky National Park

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  • The Last of the Eastern Wilderness zAn zArticle on the Proposed Qreat ^moky U^ational Tark HORACE KEPHART Two national parks for the East are proposed—one, of about six hundred square miles in the Great Smoky Mountains on the North Carolina-Tennessee boundary, and the other, of about four hundred thousand acres, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This article deals with the Great Smoky proposal, and is by the foremost authority on the history, traditions, customs, and folklore of the region. NOBODY KNOWS who named them the Great Smoky Mountains. On the North Carolina side of the range was the ancient capital of the Cherokee Nation, and there, on the Lufty River, about two thousand of the Indians are still living. If you ask one of them what is the Cherokee name for the Smokies he will probably answer " Giuk-sus-tee," meaning smoke. But that is only their translation of the English word. The older Indians have assured me that the Cherokees have no native name for the Smoky range as a whole. They give a name to each and every peak, ridge, gap, stream, waterfall, or other definite lo cation. Ahaluna is "the place of the ambush "; Atagahi, " the enchanted lake "; Datsiyi, "where the water-monster lives," and so on.* But the Smokies as a whole are not distinguished from neighboring ranges of the Unaka system. The white mountaineers of this region never say " Great Smoky." To them the range is simply " the Smokies." Now and then they use the word in the singular, as when a bear hunter says: "I've seed the wind blow on top o' Smoky till a hoss couldn't stand up agin it." Some time, if 1 get the chance, I shall dig IN THE HEART OF THE GREAT SMOKIEsf I ig this trticle copyright by Thompson Brothers, Knoxville, Tennessee. ]l
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