Americana & the U.S. • The Unexplained

What does the old bald eagle foot, pierced with a wrought iron nail, have to do with the huge blacksmith-made safe I’m kneeling in front of, holding something up before door, in the photo taken at a Cherokee Native American museum in North Carolina in 2002?

In 1982, an elderly Cherokee American Indian living in Kentucky contacted me in Ohio and explained he had “falling out” with Cherokee tribal elders and had removed a legendary artifact he’d had on display in tribal headquarters, and wished to present that Cherokee artifact to me, along with its amazing story. What he brought to my home in Wapak was an American Bald Eagle foot, pierced by wrought iron nail, and told me the artifact’s incredible story. The story involved payment to Cherokee in 1832 for forced acceptance of sale of their sacred land, removed from it in 1835 “Trail of Tears,” being shipped by boat up Mississippi in a huge blacksmith-made iron safe. An old Cherokee shaman was asked to put a curse on the safe full of “blood money.”

At this point in the story, the elderly indian in my kitchen pulled from the tattered leather bag the nail-pierced eagle foot, exclaiming, “Jim, this is the 1832 curse!” Legend was, as soon as nail was forced by Shaman through foot, the safe began to rock on flatbed boat until it pitched over the side into the Mississippi River!

Twenty years later in 2002, I discovered in North Carolina Cherokee museum a huge iron safe. When I asked about it, it was told there was a strange story of a CURSE having been put on it! I talked them into removing a loose nail from safe (I’m holding at safe in photo) and which, having forensically compared to the nail in eagle foot… PROVED THE NAIL IN THE EAGLE FOOT CURSE HAD COME FROM THAT SAFE!