An Oral History of Tahlequah and The Cherokee Nation

Duvall

INTRODUCTION

Within these pages are stories, some handed down for centuries, that capture a part of the history, color, and humor of the great Cherokee Nation, from the days of legend to modern times. Some contain historic facts and detail dramatic events of the past, while others awaken memories of carefree childhood days. Some reveal wonderful secrets, which even the skeptics among us will want to believe.

Those who contributed these stories and memories reflect a broad cross section of the people who have lived and worked here for decades. They range in age from 20 to nearly 90, and come from a variety of backgrounds. Their lifestyles and views may differ, but one thing they all have in common is a deep love of their homeland, the Cherokee Nation.

Quiet Dignity—My Grandma. (Artwork by Talmadge Davis.)

The Ancient Game of Stickball, c. 1970. (Courtesy Cherokee National Archives.)

CHAPTER 1

THE CHEROKEES

Cherokees live and prosper in every corner of the world. Their achievements in business, science, and the arts are testaments to the resilience and courage of their ancestors. Since the days of Jefferson and Jackson, the tribe has endured atrocities that would never be tolerated in today’s society. But the Cherokees did not disappear. Counting only enrolled members, theirs is now the second largest tribe of Indians in the United States.

The Cherokee Nation is made up of 14 counties in the lush hills, valleys, and prairie lands of northeastern Oklahoma. The capital city of Tahlequah is centrally located in Cherokee County. Here officials of the tribe direct the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Cherokee government in modern, efficient facilities.

The years spanning Indian territory days and the coming of statehood are but a brief episode in the colorful history of the Cherokees. Theirs is a rich tradition of remembrance, preserved and passed down through centuries to each new generation since the days of legend.

The Mother Town

Recently, Cherokees reacquired the land believed to be the site of the original mother town. All future Cherokee villages and settlements in the southeast sprang from this town called Keetoowah.

Before the tribe bought it back, the land had been farmed for years. One day the owner said to her husband, We’re not going to plant here anymore. This should belong to the Cherokees.

Once Tommy Belt took Robert Conley out to visit the site. Even after being subjected to years of plowing, the temple mound was still visible. Robert says it was an unforgettable and powerful experience to stand there. This is it, Tommy told him. Where we all came from.

Robert J. Conley

Ancient Cherokee Warriors

Since their history began, the early Cherokees were continuously at war with one neighboring tribe or another, particularly the Senecas, Catawbas, Delawares, and Creeks. Likewise, they had allies among their neighbors. The act of war was one of ritual, with established ceremonies and rules of conduct. A favorite pastime for young men in those days was to abduct young women from a neighboring village. Such behavior was almost always answered with a battle, another favorite pastime.

A delegation would be sent to the offending village to issue a challenge of war. A location for the match was selected, and a date and time were set for the meeting. Fighting took place in a clearing fairly close to town so that the wounded could be carried home easily. Villages were not attacked, assuring the safety of the women, children, elders, and their homes.

Those who fought in wars relished the experience. Men had a choice of whether to fight or not, and those who did could gain honor and prestige within the tribe. An additional honor was given to the warrior chosen to be the War Dance Leader. Carved into the forehead of the red mask he wore was the emblem of a rattlesnake. He began his dance alone, shaking his rattle around the fire, and those warriors who wished to participate in the fighting joined in.

When the day arrived, the warriors carried their weapons of war, knives and lances made of wood and stone, to the battle ground. Their hunting bows and arrows were of no use to them in hand-to-hand combat. The fighting lasted for a set amount of time, and then it would simply stop. Those killed or wounded were carried home and the battle was over, sometimes with no decisive winner. Victorious or not, the returning warriors celebrated the battle with another big dance and a huge feast. A similar celebration took place in the opposing camp.

Delaware artist and historic researcher Don Secondine states that ancient warriors of his tribe became totally obsessed with the excitement of war. They were constantly going off to fight one tribe or another, until finally the Delaware women decided to put a stop to their antics. The women would find out the location for a proposed battle. When the warriors arrived at the field, they found all their women there, sitting right in the middle of it. After several such protests, the men settled down for a time.

The Cherokees were known throughout the southeast as fierce fighters, and ritualized combat was an essential element of their culture. They continued to perform the Scalp Dance until the early 1800s.

Murv Jacob

The Little Mountain People

In his Legends and Folklore of the Cherokees, Dub West includes a story of giants who once visited the Cherokees in their southeastern homeland. They came from far away in the direction of the setting sun. The giants were twice as tall as normal people, and their eyes were set in a slant. Cherokees called them the slant-eyed people. They stayed for a time with the Cherokees, where they were treated as friends. Then the giants returned to their home in the West.

War Dance Mask. (Carving by Murv Jacob. Photo by Edison Stinson.)

There was another story of a race of people who were living in the Smokey Mountains when the Cherokees first arrived there. These people were very small, frail, and meek, with pale skin. Migrating birds of a certain kind would come to the mountains once every year and attack the little people. The tribe would see the bird feathers blowing in the wind, and know that they were coming. They would hide from the birds in caves until they went away. The Cherokees felt sorry for the pale people, but were unable to do anything about the birds, which came by the thousands.

After the Cherokees had lived in the area for a few years, the pale people moved away, never to return. The story has come down through many generations that the little people left because they were somehow offended by the Cherokees.

Pat Moss

Willard Stone’s Exodus, Tribute to the Trail of Tears. (Courtesy Cherokee National Archives.)

When Women Sing

The following are two examples of the few times when women joined in the ceremonial singing of songs and prayers.

In the southeast, when the autumn stickball games took place, the Cherokees had a dance that lasted until sunrise. All the people involved in the dance performed certain ceremonies through the night. The players’ ball sticks were placed up on a rack, held up by four poles. At least four times before daylight, the Cherokee women would stand by the ball sticks and sing the ball stick song. The Cherokees stopped the practice of the ball dance after the Trail of Tears. The Creek Indians still perform the full stickball ceremony, and often they will include the old Cherokee ball dance songs in their preparations.

At one point in the Cherokee stomp dance, the line of dancers leaves the Fire and forms a tight circle around the stickball pole. The dancing ceases, and all the people, including the women, sing a most sacred song. It sounds almost like gospel music. This is supposed to be the first prayer ever sung, the primordial prayer. The meaning of its words have been lost in antiquity.

Pat Moss

Women and Song

In the traditional Cherokee religion, a stomp dance leader sings phrases of the sacred songs, which are then echoed by other men as they dance around the Fire. The women wear turtle shell shackles and keep rhythm for the dancers. Many of these women know the words to the old songs, but tradition does not allow them to sing. However, there is some mention in very ancient history of prayers being sung by women.

Those who have participated in the stomp dance can understand how all people might have the urge to join in the song. Perhaps part of the attraction to Christianity of the early Cherokees was the opportunity for women to join in the singing of hymns, as they so joyfully do today.

Murv Jacob

Living Sacrifice

Cecil Dick spent his life studying and painting the ancient Cherokee culture. One day Cecil and Robert Conley were standing on the back steps of the old Cherokee Capitol. Leaning against the porch rails and looking off in the distance, Cecil said, A long time ago, the Cherokees used to practice human sacrifice. Then they went to chickens. They don’t even do that today.

Cecil told his student Murv Jacob that in ancient times the people gave human blood to the Sacred Fire. Then the Christians came along, telling them that this was wrong, so they began to sacrifice dogs, and then chickens. The practice continued into the 1900s, and Conley said that photographs still exist showing the people on the ceremonial grounds holding sacrificial chickens.

Robert J. Conley

Cherokee Flute Players

Contemporary Cherokee flute players originated when Dick West and Woody Crumbo were teaching art at Bacone College in Muskogee. They were initiated into the Kiowa Flute Society. They taught their art students, some of whom were Cherokee, to make and play the Kiowa style flute. Years later, Cherokee musicians like Tommy Wildcat and Choogie Kingfisher continue to revive this ancient art form.

In ancient Cherokee tradition, the flute was used as a formal instrument on special occasions. In those days, Cherokees traveled only by foot or in canoes, some being huge crafts that held up to 50 people. When dignitaries went to call on neighboring villages to make offers of peace, challenge them to a game of stickball, or for any important reason, they marched into the village on foot. Leading the procession were the flute players. Imagine what a sight that was, with the Indians dressed in their finery, being heralded into town with the music of Cherokee flutes.

Murv Jacob

Music of Love

Traditionalist Perry VanBuskirk says that the ancient Cherokees had a high regard for musical talent. A young man who could play the flute well was considered a good match for a daughter. The best flute players would likely be good providers as well.

When a Cherokee girl came of age, the young men of the village would hide in the woods and play their flutes. She walked among them until she heard the flute song she liked best. The player of that song became her mate.

Perry VanBuskirk

Pluck it Out

When white men first laid eyes on the ancient Cherokees, they thought them almost hairless. The Indian men and women considered hair growing on their skin to be most unsightly. They used clam shells with both halves intact like tweezers to pull out all their body hair.

Cherokee men plucked the hair from the sides and front of their heads. The top crown was left to grow long, and it was tied in an actual knot, forming their topknot. It was much more expedient for the sides of the head to be smooth when a man ran through tree branches and undergrowth hunting game. Hair on the head also interfered with the drawing of the bow. When the Shawnees captured Daniel Boone, they plucked out most of his hair, and it never grew right again.

The Cherokees tattooed both the sides of the head and the body with geometric designs. Tattoos helped to camouflage the hunters in the woods. Ink was made from very black charcoal mixed with water and was forced into the skin with sharp fish bones.

Maidens wore their hair down, long and straight, but the married women drew theirs into a knot or bun at the back of the neck. This practice kept their long tresses from interfering with their work.

Murv Jacob

Adoption of Whites

Before Europeans made their way to the New World, there was not any knowledge of being Indian. Prisoners of war were often taken into tribes and either kept as slaves or adopted as part of the clan, or family. The same held true when the Native Americans began to capture white prisoners. Cherokee law allowed a person to claim whatever captive they might choose as either slave or family member.

Captors might offer their slave to a family in mourning as a replacement for the lost loved one. Payment for the individual was collected from all the family and relatives. According to ritual, the seller would have to carry all the items taken as payment for the slave until the collection was complete. If the seller were to lay the merchandise down, then the first person to touch it had claim to it.

Once adopted, the new family member had all the rights and privileges of the Cherokees, and essentially became one of them. This included protection and blood vengeance from the entire clan. Thus, if an adopted white man were murdered, his killer was at the mercy of his clan. But a slave not fortunate enough to be adopted could be killed by anyone with no recourse.

A white man was sometimes adopted as a brother, often to replace one lost to war. This was a powerful relationship to obtain in a clan, as all members of about the same age were considered brothers.

The Nighthawk Society of Keetoowahs

An old interpretation describes Keetoowah as a traditional, full-blooded Cherokee. According to oral history, Keetoowahs were organized in pre-Columbian times, and may even be traced to the Ani-Kutani, or the Medicine Society. The White Path Rebellion of 1828 was thought to be a Keetoowah movement. Those individuals wanted to abolish the new Cherokee constitution and return to the old, traditional ways. In 1859, and later during the Civil War, the Reverend Evan Jones reestablished the Keetoowahs to fight for the Union’s cause as abolitionists.

On July 19, 1850, Pig Smith, a full-blood and his wife, a half-German of the Wolf Clan, were traveling from their old settler home in Arkansas to the Cherokee Nation. Just as they crossed the Arkansas River into Indian Territory, Redbird Smith was born. He was to become the beloved leader of the Nighthawk Keetoowahs.

Redbird obtained his training near Notchee Town in the Illinois District of the Cherokee Nation. There the Cherokees, Natchez, and Creeks practiced their traditional beliefs. After the Civil War, the Keetoowahs held a meeting in the Saline District. Elders with the gift of vision foresaw that Redbird would one day lead the Keetoowahs. His father, Pig Smith, chose the Natchez traditionalist Creek Sam to