Uksuhi, Guku, and the Water Spider's Solution

The council next sends two snakes in turn, the blacksnake Uksuhi and the little snake Guku, each of whom manages to reach the tree but is blackened trying to enter the hollow trunk, an origin Mooney's account gives for the coloring of the racer and the black snake among Cherokee tellings of the animal world's markings. With every larger and stronger animal having failed in turn, the council is left without an obvious candidate willing to risk the fire's heat again.

It is the small Water Spider who finally proposes a solution none of the larger animals had considered: rather than trying to carry a burning branch directly, which had scorched every previous attempt, she spins a small bowl, a tusti, from her own thread, fastens it to her back, crosses to the island, places a single coal inside the bowl, and carries it safely back across the water to the waiting animals, who are able to share and spread the fire from that single coal without further loss. Mooney's collection situates this tale as one of the sacred myths explaining the origin of the physical and natural order the Cherokee lived within, distinct from the purely entertaining or moralizing tales also recorded in the same volume.