The most feared of all First Nations Cherokee witches is the Raven Mocker, who steals the lives of the sick and dying. A Raven Mocker can be male or female. They usually look very old and decrepid, because they have stolen so many years of life for themselves. Raven Mockers have immense strength that can seldom be match and only be beaten over by their father, and the immortal, Kalona.
During the late hours of night, when someone is sick or dying, a Raven Mocker goes there to steal the life of the ill. They fly through the air with their arms, or wings, outstretched, like a bird. There will be a wild wind noise around them and every once in awhile they will dive, and make a sound quite close to a raven’s croak. Anyone who hears it should best be afraid, because they know by the call that someone’s life will be over soon. When the Raven Mocker makes it to the victim's home, they often find other Mockers there. Unless there is a Cherokee doctor watching over the ill who knows how to drive them off, being invisible to the naked eye, they will all go inside to scare and torture the victim until they kill him or her. Sometimes, those who are attending the sick think the person is just fighting for their breath.
After the Raven Mockers steal the life, they remove the heart and eat it, by doing this, they add as many lives or years the sick person had left to their own lives. Nobody who is attending the sick can see them, and there is no scar where they have stolen the heart. If an autopsy comes to order, they will find that there is no heart left in the body.
Only a medicine person with the right kind of medicine can recognize a Raven Mocker, and if that medicine person stays in the room with the sick person, the witches will be afraid to come in. When one of them has been recognized in his right shape, he must die within seven days. Often, when the friends of a traditional Cherokee know that there is no more hope, they will try to have one of these medicine people stay in the house and guard the body until it is buried. Mockers will not steal the hearts after burial.
Other witches are usually jealous of Raven Mockers and are afraid to enter the same house with one. When a Raven Mocker finally dies, the other witches sometimes take revenge by digging up the body and torturing, disfiguring, and abusing it in other ways.
