Jon Adkins notes from a Cherokee Guide

These are notes copied from 'Your Cherokee Guide' found at the visitor's center in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Your Cherokee Guide
Web site: http://www.cherokee-nc.com/

The Cherokee people have lived here in Western North Carolina for at least 10,000+ years. At the end of the Ice Age, their forebears hunted mastodons with spears in these very mountains. Over thousands of following years, the emerging Cherokee people or “Ani-Kituhwa-gi” developed permanent towns with flourishing agriculture, elegant handcrafts, sophisticated politics, religion, and fiercely effective arts of war.

An empire of towns

Cherokee towns typically included 350 to 500 inhabitants whose summer and winter houses ringed a central plaza used for ceremonies, dances, and games. Each family had its own garden plot, tended by the women, and every town had a communal plot to feed visitors and the poor. The interplanting of “the three sisters”-corn, beans, and squash- allowed the corn to support the beans while the squash leaves shaded out weeds, reducing the time spent in the fields. With that, Cherokee women gained more time for handcrafts, play, and worship.

Men hunted and fished, helped in the fields, enjoying games like stickball, and pursued the trade, diplomacy, and war required to maintain an empire that at its height included 36,000 people holding 140,000 square miles throughout eight present- day southern states.

Peaceable ways

Through formidable when crossed, the Cherokee inclined to peace and harmony. They guided their children more by instructive stories than force or harsh words. Women enjoyed respect and honor, owning the land and running the households. Men cultivated friendships so profound that they were formalized with vows of eternal unity, emulating the bond between each Cherokee on earth with The Creator Who Dwelt Above.

Towns governed themselves democratically, with all the adults gathering to discuss matters of import in each town’s council house. For Cherokee groups and individuals, the goal was integration and balance of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of living. Through pursuing duyuktv, “the right way,”- each Cherokee became “a real Person” or Ani-Yvwiya.

Hospitality…

Generosity was a cardinal virtue. Anyone hungry would be fed; anyone traveling would be housed. For the first 200 years of contact with Europeans coming through and into Cherokee lands, starting with the De Soto in 1540, the Cherokees extended hospitality to the newcomers, treating them as potential friends who clearly needed help.

The Cherokees also showed great curiosity, flexibility, and openness, readily adopting useful aspects of the newcomers’ culture, from peaches and watermelons to “talking leaves” as they called written language. The Cherokee genius who invented the Cherokee alphabet, Sequoyah, is the only known person to invent a written language without being literate in any language beforehand. In 1821, Sequoyah introduced his “syllabary” to the Cherokee National Council. Within months, the Cherokee nation became literate.

… and betrayal

Perhaps more than any other major Native American Tribe, the Cherokees proved themselves to be neighborly, industrious, and open to outside ideas. But the onrushing settlers and, ultimately, the U.S. Government did not want Cherokee neighbors – only Cherokee land. In 1838, this pressure culminated in the tragic Trail of Tears, the forced removal of the Cherokee in the East to Oklahoma. One quarter to half of the 16,000 Cherokee who began the long march died of exposure, disease, and the shock of exile.


Rebirth despite All

In spite of all efforts to dispossess the Cherokee of their ancestral home, today more than 12,000 Cherokee – the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) – live in North Carolina. They descend from a small number of early landowners, from those who hid in the hills, defying Removal, and from those who returned, many on foot. They have created a unique society, a sovereign nation of 100 square miles, called the Qualla boundary, where timeless ways and wisdom blend with openness to the world at large. Come to Cherokee. We welcome your discovery of the ancient, proud, and vibrant culture right in your backyard.

The Mother Tongue: once forbidden, now spoken by proud, composed toddlers

In 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Captain R. H. Pratt opened the first Native American boarding school to forcibly acculturate Indians to mainstream white society. “Kill the Indian and save the Man,” Pratt said. Towards this goal, Indian Children throughout North America were taken from their homes and families, given “white” names, wardrobes, and haircuts, and forbidden to speak any language but English.

The Cherokee Boarding School, founded in 1880, likewise maintained an English-only policy until 1933, with devastating effect on Cherokee fluency. Now, however, thanks to a Language Initiative grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, programs to foster the Cherokee language are spreading through Qualla Boundary and beyond.

For instance, in three classrooms at the Tribal Child Care Center, children ranging from infants to three year-olds hear and speak only Cherokee, learning English from their families and the broader environment. Studies find that children who are fluent in both their Mother Tongue and the mainstream language perform better academically than their monolingual peers, plans are afoot to extend The Cherokee Immersion program through the fifth grade. The preschool students now in the program have already distinguished themselves as the most dignified, respectful, and attentive children among their age – mates on the boundary.

“Cherokee speakers have a different way of carrying themselves,” notes one Immersion teacher, “and this communicates itself to and through these children.”

Older students and adults on the Boundary are also eager to improve their Cherokee, but with most fluent speakers over the age of 50 and numbers dying every year, there are not enough teachers. To address this, the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program is developing Cherokee-language video podcasts and interactive online Cherokee Classes, promoting a venerable language with cutting-edge technology. Meanwhile, nearby Western Carolina University is developing a Cherokee Language Academy. Staff members will develop Cherokee Language courses and Certification programs, recruit students to become language teachers, and create a Kituwah Teaching Fellows Program.