Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation 09

Cherokee Study Abroad for 2010 expanded!

2009-11-02T10:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone out there.

Good news! Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery will be running Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation for 2010 and is expanding it to 6 credit hours over 5 weeks, traveling from NC to OK. More details to follow but this is the website prospective students should look for:

http://www.burchseminars.unc.edu/index.php/students/summer09

Welcome to the Cherokee Nation

2009-07-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to let everyone know that the Cherokee Phoenix just published an article on UNC's Study Abroad with a video, and just in time for the opening of this blog to the public eye.

Congrats and Wado to all of the participants of the course as well as the Cherokee People who made this such a rich and wonderful experience for us all.

See ya next year, and if you're in the course in '09, stop by my office sometime for your capy of the Cherokee Phoenix paper with an article on us.

- Tol

Final Blog

2009-06-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

So I know many of you have probably never even seen Gossip Girl, but NY Magazine does a hilarious review of it after every episode. I thought I’d do my final response in that format…it’s basically a pro/con list with point values. Here goes…

(Almost) Better than Boo Radley:

- The National Heritage Museum. It was a good way to start of the course. The exhibit about the syllabary was awesome and the one about the history of the Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears was informative. Plus 5.

- Immersion School and Cherokee Animators. From my previous post about these topics, you can tell that I loved this part of the course. I think what these guys and the school are doing for future generations is amazing. Plus 25.

- Indian Child Welfare Visit. I loved this part of the course! The women who talked to us seemed so passionate about their work and helping out children. Plus 5. However, we definitely could have used more time there. Minus 2.

- Stickball. AWESOME! I usually shy away from sports, I’m not terribly athletic and I have horrible hand-eye coordination. Luckily, stickball didn’t really require that. I have never had so much fun getting muddy, sweaty, and bruised. Plus 20.

- Stomp Dance. My “Course up to this point” blog says my feelings about this. Seriously one of the best all-nighters I’ve pulled. Plus 25.

- Films. I love Sterlin Harjo’s films and I am so glad that we got to meet him! I also enjoyed The Doe Boy and the documentaries about the stomp dance and Tar Creek. Each one of these films helped me to understand Indian culture and practices better. Plus 10.

- Coates Course. Dr. Coates was extremely intelligent and knowledgeable and seemed passionate about the history of her people. I learned so much from this class and I’m glad to have the manual they gave us to refer back to. Plus 10. The days were SUPER long, and it was kind of a bummer that the class took up two of our weekends. Minus 5.

- Meeting Wilma Mankiller. During lunch, Wilma said: “Sorry, I’m allergic to my cats and dogs, but I refuse to get rid of them.” Although that seems totally irrelevant, I’m in the same boat as her and it made me like her that much more. She’s an animal lover and the former Chief of the Cherokee Nation. I also really love hearing her speak about the Bell Project and visiting other indigenous people. Basically she is just an awesome person and I’m really glad that we had the opportunity to meet her. Plus 20.

- Float Trip. I had so much fun on the float trip! We played games, swam, tanned, and attempted to paddle our way out of danger. Plus 15. We also got super sunburned. Minus 3.

- Will Rogers, Gilcrease, And Philbrook Museums. All three of these were beautiful museums! I especially liked the paintings in the Philbrook and the exhibit about the wood artist. Plus 10.

- Phyllis, Ed, Wyman, Dede, Travis, Kinsey, Chris, and Dr. Foster. Every single one of these people gave up their time and energy to help us learn and I could not be more appreciative! I loved learning the language, history, and culture of the Cherokees. I want to say thanks to everyone for making it such a great learning experience! Plus 40.

- Staying busy. I am so happy that we stayed busy during those three weeks! Even though we were pretty tired and maybe a little cranky by the end of the trip, I feel like we got a well-rounded view of the Cherokees and that it couldn’t have been accomplished if we had cut things out. Plus 20.

- The people. I had so much fun with the other students on this trip! We had a really remarkable mix of backgrounds, majors, ages, and interests, and this made the experience much more exciting! Plus 20.

Slight Drawbacks:

- Blogging and Reading. Because we did stay so busy, it was pretty hard to get all of the assigned work done during the course. Most of the readings were pretty useful, especially Wilma Mankiller’s autobiography and Robert Conley’s Cherokee Thoughts. I have to say though that I ended up skimming a lot of the other assigned readings because I simply didn’t have time to do it all! Minus 10.

- Reading again. Having the readings in a course pack would have been much better. I hate reading things on my laptop because you can’t highlight or make notes. Having a course pack would have made reading on the way to things much easier as well. Minus 10.

- Sequoyah’s House. Although the story of how Sequoyah developed the syllabary is unique and impressive, his house wasn’t really either of those. I’m not sure if I would recommend going there again…there just wasn’t that much to see and the information provided there wasn’t anything I hadn’t read previously. Minus 5.

- (Lack of) Free time. I know I said I was glad that we stayed busy, but one entire free day would have been nice. I would definitely suggest having it after the stomp dance. People were tired and grumpy, which made the amount of complaining escalate. Having a free day would have given people the alone time they needed. Minus 2.

- Not enough language instruction. It would have been great if we could have learned more of the language. We barely skimmed the surface! We also didn’t have any language instruction the last week, so it felt slightly crammed in the first two. Minus 4.

- Only going to the Bible Study. Although it was neat to hear a Bible Study in Cherokee, I feel like it would have been much more beneficial to actually attend a church service. Since so many Cherokees are Christians, it would have been useful to see how their services are run. Minus 3.

- Visiting the UKB. Although it is great to get perspectives from both the Cherokee Nation and the UKB, I left our visit with them angry and saddened. They seemed very immature and defensive. It was not a positive experience! Minus 12.

TOTAL: 149

Judging from the astronomically high positive number, I would have to say that this course was awesome! I have seriously never learned so much in such a short amount of time, and I am so grateful that I had this opportunity!

Final Report

2009-06-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

The experience was outstanding. I cannot remember a time that I have learned so much, so fast, in such an experiential way (the best way to learn). I loved learning about the contemporary Cherokee up close, face to face, with legitimate contemporary Cherokees and making lasting relationships with them as it went. I look forward to informing my friends about this quasi-sovereign culture working within our country's borders and hopefully aid the American Indian cause because knowledge is power, baby. That reminds me of one aspect of the course I wish was slightly different. That would be the tunnel vision focus on strictly the Cherokees. I would have liked it if we were at least informed upon most everything we learned about the Cherokee whether or not other tribes did the same, because there is a lot of overlap. I feel that incorporation of this global approach would make the course fuller and more useful.
The stomp dance was absolutely the best experience of the trip. That was amazing, I wrote about it in another blog though so I'll leave it at that. The other two experiences that stand out brilliantly were the stickball game and marbles. Genuine Cherokee/Indian activities, and getting to do them ourselves, just as Indians past and present do (for the most part). And the Coates lectures were outstanding as well. As for the language, I'm glad we learned it, and it is important that we learn it, but something felt lacking or wrong about the way we went about doing it... can't put my finger on it. The last week was really cool with the higher level topics such as the freedmen and the child welfare and the UKB splinter. Learning about the superfund site on Quapaw grounds was absolutely awesome to see. Meeting with other groups such as the UArkansas and the UGA kids really gave some personality and juice to the trip. Made it better. Some of the 'higher level' topic didn't seem quite as relevant such as the Optometry school and the Will Rogers tour, but all the same, those were two of my favorite events, and variety is the spice of life/learning/avoiding boredom.

Negs- The biggest negative was probably having too much stuff and getting burnt out starting around the middle of week two (a lot b/c week one was so intense). At the same time, I'm glad we did so much, but I would still consider it the biggest issue that was obviously pretty universal for most of us during the trip. Aside from fatigue, it made some of the smaller readings due within the trip very difficult to complete. Other negs... Many of the speakers/learnings were biased. On the whole, I think there should be more guidance/explanations of what is going on and perhaps quizzes of information not necessarily for a grade but for self-checks and reviews.

Indian humor

2009-06-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

When we met with Sterlin Harjo to view his film Barking Water, he told us that Indian humor is "hard to explain, but you just know it" if you grew up with it. It's a combination of coping with the struggles Indian people have faced and continue to face, a sometimes bleak, dry, and merciless wit. It's a wit most often aimed at one another, constantly ragging on your friends. As one of us observed, "to keep people in line," to remind them they are no better than anyone, they're all in this together. Almost like an inside joke, or story. The attitude is reminsicent of Janelle Adair recounting the story of the Possum, whose vanity caused Rabbit to take him down a notch by making his tail into the ugly bald tail it is today. Humility is important to Cherokees. Given names are not usually noble, as we learned from Professor Coates, but come from everyday events and are sometimes even embarrassing, as we noticed on one treaty signed by a man named She Reigns (probably a Hen-pecked husband), or another chief Standing Turkey because he had a limp. It's even evident in the "names" our friends Ed Jumper and Travis Wolfe bestowed on us--Becky earned the name Ulvnotisgi, or "Crazy," Caroline earned a name meaning "Crybaby," while Ben earned the illustrious Asaki (sp), or "Fart."

From watching Sterlin's films, and other films by native people (Smoke Signals, Skins, Atanarjuat), I think the films' bouts of humor serve as a reality check--they serve to deflect stereotypes, and serve as reminders of the humanity and reality of the people they portray.

One night I heard Kinsey laughing uproariously in the other room. When I went to investigate it turned out she was watching this Youtube video:

"Sacred talk," shows a guy walking through the forest, talking in the stilted, spiritually-heavy manner of stereotypical Indians. His friends, just regular Indian guys messing around, think he's nuts as he loudly yammers on.

Kinsey and Chelsie (Creek) and I watched various videos by these guys over a few nights. The stereotypical Indian is always contrasted to modern, everyday Indians for hilarious results. These videos, along with Sterlin's films who have drawn such a following in the area, are perfect examples of Indian people using forms of modern media to show who they are. Sterlin and other Indian filmmakers are very important for determining how people view Indians, as many popular ideas of who Indians are have stemmed from years of romanticizations or misconceptions in movies. Now that Indian actors and filmmakers can control their own modes of media, they can start controlling how people perceive American Indians.

As we also stopped to look around in the Will Rogers museum and Will Rogers homestead, and saw how he kept Presidents like Silent Cal in line or Franklin Roosevelt in stitches, just with a few snappy remarks, we are reminded that Indian people are doing this today and have been doing it since the first films, in which Will Rogers was a star. The immensity of Will Rogers' stardom can't be underestimated, as we saw in the museum, supposedly the single biggest museum devoted to any one person. Satirists and huge public personalities like Will Rogers had and continue to have enormous influence on politics and popular opinion. Today that legacy is followed by Stephen Colbert, who is partly Chickasaw (and shares his last name with prominent Chicksaw Chief Levi Colbert).

They are also important for redefining who an Indian is in the eyes of others. Will Rogers showed that Indians weren't stereotypical; many are still surprised that he was Cherokee because he didn't "look" Indian, but his unique brand of Indian humor made him into the star and popular commentator that he was. For Will, being Indian was a state of mind, a wily eye on the world, keeping leaders in check, and giving an honest, humble voice.

Indian humor continues to be a powerful tool for Indian people to reach non-Indian people, continuing just as Will Rogers started when he began in the first silent films.

Final Post

2009-06-16T15:20:00.001-07:00

I got back to North Carolina late last night, and I've spent the past couple days thinking about what I would write for my final blog post. I decided that I should keep it as academic as possible--if I wander too far into the personal, this could get awfully sentimental, and nobody wants that.

While turning over the past three weeks in my head, I tried my hardest to find some strand of unity in all the diversity of the Cherokee experience. What, I wondered, makes Cherokee culture unique? It is not, as some outsiders assume, some kind of living, breathing cultural relic. Nor is it, as some policymakers past and present would like to believe, obsolete and fully assimilated. Rather, it seems to me that the Cherokee have not been assimilated, but are the products of an assimilative system. In short, the Cherokee are able to incorporate elements of European-American culture without being incorporated in it. They have been able to twist around elements of other cultures and make it distinctly Cherokee.

At the Philbrook museum, I saw an early piece of evidence for this idea in Indian material culture. In one of the collections, our group was shown a pair of Delaware moccasins that used trade beads as part of its design. Though the moccasins were not Cherokee, it demonstrates the principle that Indian cultures are able to incorporate the "non-traditional" into the "traditional."

In spiritual life, the same idea holds true. While at the stomp dance at the Echota grounds, I saw this assimilative system at work yet again. For example, I stomped behind a young woman wearing a set of tin-can shackles, a long skirt, and an Army T-shirt. I'm not sure I could have found a better representation of the modern Cherokee experience. This spiritual blending is also present in the Cherokee Christian tradition, as we observed at the Sunday School session at the Indian Baptist Church. Although these particular Cherokees were firmly devoted to a Western religion, they gave it a Cherokee twist, using the bible as a vehicle to teach Cherokee language and literacy.

This trend is present in media as well, as Will Rogers pretty clearly demonstrates. Rogers, an enrolled Cherokee who received allotment land, crafted a public persona that made him one of the earliest and most successful figures of modern American mass culture. Though he used the mainstream media, his jokes and commentary drew on distinctly Indian humor, and he made more references to his Cherokee membership than most Rogers experts acknowledge.

I have come to believe that the Cherokee system is an extremely elastic one. From the development of a centralized tribal government, to the invention of a Cherokee system of writing, to the founding of the modern-day Cherokee immersion school, the Cherokee people and government have found ways to make their culture adaptive, without losing the kernel of Cherokeeness. As Chief Smith likes to emphasize, the Cherokee are not a backward-looking people. They venerate their ancestors and their heritage, but they generally do not view their culture as a relic to be preserved and coddled. Cherokee culture and modernity grew up together and influenced one another: American modernity is in many ways as Cherokee as Cherokee culture is modern. Cherokee culture is living, breathing, and changing, but it is rooted.

Cherokee Study Abroad Final Blog Post

2009-06-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I had my first experience attempting to correct misconceptions that people have about the Cherokee. I found myself attacking each misconception with a flood of the information I took away from this course, but I really didn't have a central point to my arguments. It is much too soon for me to reflect on what I did, what I saw, what I learned in the Cherokee Nation and to see some central theme to it all. I'll have to think about the experience a lot longer before that becomes apparent to me.

As an academic overview, I think we definitely covered as many of the bases of Cherokee culture and history as we possibly could have in three weeks. We learned about Cherokee history, government, law, social services, sports, religion, infrastructure, economy, education, health care, and current controversies. As someone who knew nothing about the Cherokee except for the limited (and somewhat incorrect) facts I was taught in middle and high school, I feel that after three weeks, I have a solid grasp on Cherokee culture, history, and how that history has led to the current issues in the Cherokee Nation.

For next year, I would incorporate a couple of hours more of language instruction, with some of that time devoted to writing in syllabary. I felt that was the only element missing academically. Also, I would incorporate more free time next year. I think anyone who spent a significant time with the folks from NSU would agree that the interactions with them are some of the most important things we'll be taking away from this trip. And the students next year should not be surprised when people talk to them on the street or in restaurants.

It will probably take me a month, or a few months even, to be able to put everything that I learned and that happened in Oklahoma, on the way there, and on the way back into some sort of perspective. But if I have to end with something right now, which I do, it's that almost every day something happened that by itself would have made the entire three weeks worth it.

Study Abroad in Review

2009-06-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

Like Marsha, I don't know if I would through out anything from the course, because everything was relevant in some way. I enjoyed both the topics that connected us with the past and the current conditions of the Cherokee Nation.

I think that rather than removing any of the activities, I would only change them to allow for more free time, or other activities. I would have really enjoyed more time either in the evenings or afternoons, to have free time to spend with one another or with our NSU hosts. I really enjoyed spending time with everyone and I would have liked to have more time. There were a few instances when I could not spend time with anyone because I was too busy trying to keep up with our schedule. I would have also liked to have a second afternoon of half day to have to ourselves, without having the option of a day trip like floating on the river. I thought the river trip was really fun, but I would have liked to have a day where I didn't have to chose between sleeping in and doing something else.

The one thing that I enjoyed the most, as I think other people did too, was learning Cherokee. I feel like the Cherokee language lessons were the glue that brought the entire course together. Learning the language I had no idea that Cherokee was such a difficult language, and that for someone to become a fluent speaker, they needed something like 3,000 hours of training and classes. I had no idea that Cherokee was on the same level as languages like Japanese and Arabic. I would have liked to have a bit more time time spent learning more of the language. I really loved going to the immersion school as practice for the language, and it really helped me to feel connected with all the work the Cherokees are doing to maintain the small remainder of fluent speakers.

One of my other favorite activities was the Native American film festival day we had. I really began to understand some of the norms and traditions of current Cherokee and Indian communities. I thought that as well as visiting as the Cherokee Nation Hospital, and the Indian Child Welfare Services, helped us to gain a better idea of the contemporary Cherokee Nation, and I would have enjoyed more activities like these.

As far as the Cherokee Nation history course goes, I really felt like this was an effective way for us to learn about the history we needed to learn so that we could connect the past to the present. Without this course, I do not know if we would have been able to be so well informed when meeting the Keetoowahs and the Freedmen, which I think both of those meetings were imperative to the course and our learning. I also thought that meeting the Principal Cheif Chad Smith was a great way for us to become more apart of hte Cherokee Nation. After hearing him talk about what was in store for the Cherokee Nation and what they want to achieve in the future, I feel that I as a non member, can now educate my friends and family on the things that can make the most difference and cause the greatest changes needed there.

As a Native American Studies minor, I have taken plenty of courses, all with excellent professors on the histories of many tribes, but never have I taken one like this before. A full immersion program like this one gave me a chance to get a great deal of information in a short time. I got more information than I could ever deal with, and the best study of a tribe I could have had. With all of the information I gained at the Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation, and with all the help I've gotten from all the people we've met I think I have a great opportunity to make a difference not only in our native communities, but also the native communities around the United States.

United Keetoowah Band

2009-06-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

When I was thinking about whom to write my post on for this particular entry, I took a lot of things into consideration. I enjoyed meeting with both the Keetoowahs and the Freedmen, but both in very different ways. I thought that the Freedmen had an amazing story to tell, and that they gave us so much to look at, it was almost too much to take in. The Keetoowahs, I thought were a very different experience Not only from the Freedmen, but also from the Cherokees. While the Keetoowahs and the Cherokees are in a very basic sense the same tribe, they both tell very different stories, and the way in which the Keetoowahs told theirs was incredibly bothersome to me.
For starters, when people repeat things over and over, it has a tenancy of convincing me of the exact opposite. That was one of the things that really bothered me about the Keetoowahs, they continued to allude to the fact that they had documentation to prove their case. However, unlike the Freedmen and the Cherokees, they never provided us with any of this documentation. I am not suggesting that such documentation does not exist, merely that it would be much more convincing if they would have provided copies of it. There were many other things that they continued to repeat, and most of them are not worth repeating in the first place.
When I first when into the meeting with the Keetoowahs, I really tried to keep an open mind. However, the more and more I listened the more and more I became unconvinced of their story and claims. It wasn't that I didn't believe what they were saying, its just the way that they were telling their story made them sound very immature. They continued to refer to the Cherokees as "that other group," or "those people down the road." I realized soon after that whenever the Cherokees referred to the Keetoowahs, while they did disagree with them, they never referred to them in such an immature way. I thought that the way the Keetoowahs talked about the Cherokees was very discrediting to their story.
While I did think that our meeting with the Keetoowahs was interesting, it was not as eye opening as I had hoped. Hopefully next year they can have their documentation ready and waiting.

Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation in review

2009-06-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

Thinking back on this study abroad, it is difficult to say what I would have thrown out from the itinerary. Everything we did was in some way culturally relevant to the Cherokee Nation. The most important facets of our learning experience involved lessons in language, history, contemporary issues, and everyday life.

Though impossible to learn over a three week span of time, coming away from this trip having learned just a little bit of Cherokee is an accomplishment. A language so difficult it takes years to master, we tasted a mere morsel of what it is like to converse in Cherokee during these few weeks. We learned barely enough to understand what was going on in the three-year-old class at the Immersion school, but we went away with enough resources (notes, language packets, interactive CDs) to continue to practice the language and study a bit further. I wish we had had a greater amount of time for language instruction. We can come back home, however, and convey to others the importance of preserving the Cherokee language and share some of the efforts Cherokee Nation is making toward that preservation.

The Cherokee Nation history course we took with Dr. Coates was the skeleton holding the rest of the study together. Without knowing Cherokee Nation's history, it is near impossible to understand its culture or how it operates as a sovereign entity. For example, we learned about the Supreme Court case, Samuel Worcester v. Georgia, where the question was raised whether the state of Georgia had the jurisdiction to assert its power in the Cherokee Nation. Georgia attempted to gain control over missionaries by requiring by law any American citizen working for Cherokee Nation to get a license from the state that swears that citizen's allegiance to Georgia. Another one of these laws, known as the Georgia Harrassment Laws, included a nullification of Cherokee law and basically forbidding people from essentially being Cherokee. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Samuel Worcester, and by extension the Cherokee Nation, stating that tribal nations "hold a status higher than states" and hold the same authority as the Federal Government. So the ruling gives way to tribal sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation, which is upheld to this day.

What I would like to have had more time on the schedule for would have been a greater focus on contemporary issues facing the Cherokee Nation and other surrounding tribal nations. We touched on a few like the issues with the Freedmen, the United Keetoowah Band, Indian Child Welfare (I wish we had much more time there.), Tar Creek and the Superfund site in Picher, and other political and economic issues. It would have been great to have had time for a service project to do throughout our stay. I feel that an equal amount of time should have been devoted to contemporary issues as well as the Nation's history.

I also would have liked more time to spend with our NSU hosts. We did not really get to hang out with the NSU students except during our blocks of unscheduled time, which were few and far between. I think being able to interact with people on a personal level is important to truly learning what a culture is about. Not only that, it is nice just to be able to relax, make friends and have fun. The time we got to spend with Kinsey, Chris, Dedi, Asa, Eric, Travis, Chelsie, Sedelta, et al, I believe, was just as important as any classroom instruction. I am happy many of them chose to join us on our field trips, which made it slightly easier to accept that we had little free time.

All in all, I am happy to have gone to study abroad in the Cherokee Nation. It was an exhausting, challenging three weeks and a wonderful experience. We may have complained about being overworked/scheduled, but I am glad we were so busy. It was definitely preferable to being confined to a room or library with required reading. I hope those who choose to study abroad in the Cherokee Nation in the coming years have as great or even better experience than we did.

Dennis Sixkiller

2009-06-15T10:31:00.002-07:00

We first met Dennis Sixkiller at the First Indian Baptist when he and other elders were having Bible study in Cherokee in Sunday School. I found this activity very moving, it was such an amazing example of how the Cherokees are trying to hold onto their culture by maintaining their language. The elders would read from the New Testament, and then they discussed it with us. I found the experience a very interesting look at the ways in which the Cherokees are holding onto their traditions and culture. And it was not the last time we would encounter Mr. Sixkiller.
I first learned about Cherokee Marbles in the book Ned Christie's War by Robert J. Conley, and when I read about it, it seemed easy. And then, of course, I got on the field, and people were passing me right and left, going on to hole after hole, and then coming back again. Even though I was not the most skilled Marbles (ask anyone else and they'll tell you that is a severe understatement!), I still had a great time playing. I thought that the game was really hard, but it was a great way to hang out and talk to Mr. Sixkiller, as well as everyone else. Even if I was the last person on my team to get done, and my team may or may not have lost because of me,I still had so much fun hanging out with my friends, and learning more about Cherokee culture through the game of Marbles.

Cherokee Nation Course

2009-06-15T10:31:00.001-07:00

While I would change possibly the hours of it, I thought the Cherokee Nation History course was interesting, and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the layout of it was the most beneficial to the learning process and the material with which we were presented. Some courses don't always present the material in a chronological order (which I've never understood), and it's always confusing. I thought that the class was interesting, however, sometimes I felt that it was a bit one-sided and biased. I can understand how the material would be more favorable towards the Cherokee Nation, because the majority of students of the class will be or are employees of the Cherokee Nation, but I still think some of the material could have been covered more neutrally. But, when we went to see the Keetoowahs, they were much more one sided, but I'll talk about that later

Ned Christie's War

2009-06-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, Ned Christie’s War was not my favorite book, but it was an interesting way to examine Cherokee history through a work of fiction.

A theme during the days of Indian Territory that was central to Robert Conley’s novel is the relationship between Indians and the illegal settlers. Ned and the other Cherokees of Tahlequah who were running a totally functional community were constantly confronted with the fact that “they want to turn us into white men.” This was Federally-recognized Indian territory, a place where white settlers initially were not even allowed to live, yet these white men stepped in and assumed their own cultural dominance (as usual).

Isaac Parker assumed that Indians are “woefully incapable of making the great transition from dark savagery to enlightened civilization alone.” This is Conley’s sarcastic humor, adding in characters like Parker to point fun at the general incorrect assumptions about Indian during that time period. Sure, “lawlessness was rampant in the nations,” but that was most likely due to the presence of the white men. In reality, rather than serving as important law enforcement in the territory, the white men were the root of the problem.

As a consequence of the white settlers moving into Indian territory, there were “lots of mixed-blood citizens. Some of them are almost white.” According to Ned, “they think like whites” and were infiltrating and slowly changing the Cherokee government. Julia Coates’ class dealt with this issue of mixed-bloods in the government in her class by showing that although there have been mixed-blood chiefs throughout history; they all have uncles who were chiefs, giving them much legitimacy. In Cherokee matrilineal society, the maternal uncles are responsible for teaching the boys the ways of their clan, and therefore it makes sense that an uncle who is a chief might pass this duty onto his nephew. Nevertheless, what Ned Christie is more referring to is some mixed-bloods who were trying to change the Cherokee Nation, perhaps highly affected by white society. This is just one of the issues that the book deals with. Although the style of historical fiction was not my favorite, I could see how this book could engage people and teach them about the days of Indian Territory. I, however, preferred Robert Conley’s Cherokee Thought.

2009-06-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

Watching Barking Waters, Four Sheets to the Wind, and Doe Boy as lenses into contemporary Indian subjects and culture was one of my favorite parts of the study abroad experience. The films were all entertaining and enriching, but mostly, they were the first of may experiences that put Indian art on the map for me.

Sterlin Harjo’s Barking Waters was a true piece of art. The plot moves along slowly, which allows the actors and landscapes to paint a picture of Frankie and Irene’s road trip. The filming Harjo did for this movie is just amazing, and some of the shots (think of the one with the peeling paint on the stop sign) really reveal the artistry behind filmmaking. The film deals with the themes of interrupted love and discovering what “home” really is. Irene has agreed to drive a sick Frankie home to see his grandbaby before he dies, even though their relationship ended long ago. Yet, they are brought back together by circumstance, which forces Irene to deal with their love which has never actually gone away. When Frankie dies in the car, just a day away from his daughters house and holding Irene’s hand (as requested), it is apparent that for him, this is where home is – with Irene. It is not about meeting his grandbaby; it’s about being with Irene and “introducing” her to his family. Though the film is sad, it is also hopeful and beautiful, and I would recommend it to many.

Four Sheets to the Wind, also by Harjo, is faster-paced and more similar to other contemporary feature-films. Though it is still clearly a work of art, this film is more plot-oriented and improved by better acting. Despite being a “better” movie, I do not necessarily prefer it over Barking Waters. Four Sheets to the Wind also deals with more stereotypical Indian problems, such as alcoholism and estrangement from family members in a constructive way. I was very entertained by the film. Although it was sad (like every film we watched), I did find it a bit more uplifting.

Doe Boy is a more “professional” movie that I think could be marketed to a large audience. It mainly deals with the Indian concept of blood. A topic of interest among American Indian communities is blood – what kind and how much Indian blood you have. What they are not referring to, however, is the blood running through our veins, but rather a concept of heritage. For Hunter, a hemophiliac, blood is what is keeping him back, preventing him from living up to his name and Indian heritage. Hunter’s character can be frustrating at times (it sometimes appears that he is creating his own misery), but his tragic story is eventually one of perseverance and creating one’s own destiny. His father’s death coincides with his discovery that he might have been infected with HIV, and out of these tragedies, Hunter is able to discover himself as an Indian and come to terms (kind of) with his disease. I can see why some of my classmates disliked the film – it is extremely sad and Hunter is not always likable. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the film, as well as the two others, and value these glances into modern Indian lives.

Course in review

2009-06-14T22:33:00.001-07:00

The major components of the study abroad program included Cherokee language training, learning history, and first-hand cultural experiences. I really enjoyed and benefitted from the language component of the trip. Learning Cherokee is relevant to the current struggles within the community to revitalize the language as a means of preserving the entire culture. I wish we could have had more hours of training, but I appreciated that the language hours were often consecutive and allowed us to get deeper into our language study. The visit to the language immersion school was particularly inspiring. It would be great to interact with the kids more next year, maybe even using the iChat functions that the older students enjoy so much. We knew very little to the language, but I think more interaction with the immersion school students could be mutually-beneficial and very fun.

The Coates history course, as well as the variety of other lectures we received about Cherokee history, were the focus of the course and have completely changed my perception of the Cherokee. I think that the Coates class was well worth the 33 hours. It provided a strong base for everything else we studied on the trip. The Cherokee are probably the Indian tribe that children are most likely to study in schools across the United States. Therefore, Coates lectures fleshed out this history as well as adjusted some of the incorrect statistics taught in schools and in books. I was also grateful to visit the UKB and the Freedmen after attending Coates’ lectures in order to explore other perspectives on Cherokee history.

One way we were exposed to the modern Native American community was through watching films. I enjoyed every film we watched and particularly appreciated hearing Sterlin Harjo talk about his works.

We were all so lucky to be able to attend a stomp dance at Mr. Comingdeer’s grounds. Stomp dances really cannot be understood or described without actually attending. I was grateful to see how the stomp dance worked and begin to grasp the spirituality that the event encompasses for the Cherokee. I definitely was glad that we had a few hours to sleep after the stomp dance and before the last session of Coates’ class, although I never quite felt caught up with sleep after staying awake that entire night.

The games of stickball and marbles were two of my favorite events while in Tahlequah. I enjoyed learning these historical games among locals. I enjoyed making corn husk dolls and double-walled baskets with our host NSU students. I think that these two activities should be formally incorporated into the program in the future. I would have really enjoyed more hands-on Cherokee art demonstrations/lessons, although the museum and gallery trips did teach me a lot about the art scene among American Indians in that part of the country.

I could obviously go on for days about each element of the trip. I would recommend this study abroad to anyone (even vegetarians!)– not only did I enjoy myself, but I learned so much and have been able to really change my perspective of the Cherokee and American Indian studies.

p.s. I kind of missed the gun on the "course evaluation up to this point" post, so I hope this one suffices for both.

2009-06-14T21:25:00.001-07:00

The Cherokee language training and trip to the immersion school were indispensible pieces of the study abroad program. Currently, Chief Chad Smith is focusing on the sectors of language, culture, and economics to revitalize the Cherokee people during his term in office. In this era of recovery of the Cherokee language, it is fitting that we began learning Cherokee while in Tahlequah and that UNC will be starting a Cherokee language program this year.

Spoken Cherokee and Sequoya’s syllabary are both so beautiful. I am grateful that we got to hear native speakers using Cherokee. Through listening to Ed, I realized that the language is spoken much more slowly and meticulously than English, perhaps due to the tonality or general complexities of Cherokee. At any rate, English speakers are accustomed to just spitting out thoughts, and I had to consciously speak more slowly when learning Cherokee.

I was really intrigued by the complexity of the language in contrast to the elegant simplicity of the syllabary. I had no idea that Cherokee was so complex, and I now have no doubt in my mind that Cherokee can truly fulfill UNC’s foreign language requirement.

The Cherokee Immersion School is truly an amazing program and (I think) will save the dying language. The children are engaged and nurtured at school, and are very important to the future of the Cherokee language. The facility and the resources that the children experience are phenomenal, and many people have worked very hard to get to where the school is now. Integrating the Apple computers into the coursework of the older children is an inspired idea, as it is both modernizing the use of the language as well as keeping the kids engaged in their learning. They are very skilled with their computers, which will certainly serve them well as students in the future, and are able to spend more time interacting with each other and the teacher in Cherokee using many of the computers’ innovative features. I am interested to see how the school adapts as its students get older, and how the transition from the Immersion School to the 7-12 Sequoia Schools is negotiated. I hope for nothing more than to see the language revitalized and thriving in a few years.

Donadagohv’i.

2009-06-14T21:05:00.001-07:00

One sentiment expressed both in Mankiller and in Wilma Mankiller’s podcasted speech is that Indians gain common values from understanding that our lives are inseparable from the natural world despite differences between people. Cherokees and other Indians gain knowledge from living in the same place for many generations and somehow inheriting a familiarity with Mother Earth.

Wilma Makiller’s autobiography is unique in that she is able to tell her own history by telling the history of her people, the Cherokee, and vice versa. The emphasis of community on Native cultures allows for the history of a person to describe their entire nation and for the history of a community to describe one of its members. As Wilma explains in her speech, one difference between indigenous and non-indigenous people is that Natives have a constant reminder of connectedness with land and each other through stories, passed down from generation to generation, or as in this situation, recorded in an autobiography.

Cherokees, Makiller explains, are particularly conscious of future generations – plants, animals, and people – and realize the power that we as humans have to irreparably damage our landscapes. Mankiller grew up with a firm understanding about her relation to the natural world given to her by Cherokee elders and her own family members. This early sense of reciprocity and self-efficacy is what allowed Mankiller to excel as the first female principal chief of the Cherokees.

Mankiller suggests that being an Indigenous person in 21^st century means utilizing reciprocal relationships to gather the most valuable and ancient knowledge and then trusting that knowledge again. We all live in a troubled world, and by employing some of the ideals Mankiller outlines in her autobiography and in her speech, Indians and non-Indians alike can employ ancient worldviews to move us all into a new era of awareness.

Post 11 - Final Overview

2009-06-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

Summing up what I learned would take about three weeks because I learned something every day. It was really interesting comparing what we learned at the Cultural Heritage Center with what we learned through the history course taught by Julia Coates. For instance, we were told how violent and abusive the forced removal was at the Heritage Center. Then Julia demystified the experience as being something the Cherokees and soldiers anticipated and that the soldiers allowed the Cherokee to say one last prayer or water their gardens one last time. Then at the Heritage Center we were told at the end of the tour to close our eyes and imagine a baby ripped from its mother’s breast or a boy’s toy ripped from his arms, men and women yanked out of their beds. It wasn’t like that from what we discussed in our history class. Also, the soldiers weren’t on the trail with the Cherokees. The Cherokees went on their own accord and found their own way without any enforcement. It was really nice to know two different sides of the story. I feel a lot more informed and now better able to explain to others out in the world that may have a false impression.

I really liked becoming familiar with the syllabary and language. Although we didn’t get into the complex verbs and grammatical prepositions, we overviewed it and got a sense of how hard a class IV language can be. I think that my exposure to the language was helpful in learning how the Cherokees think and process the world. What I mean is that they are conscientious and methodical thinkers. It was impressive to see how the younger children in the Immersion School have fun with language and also are the future of the Cherokee People. Learning that the Eastern Band and the Cherokee Nation work together to create contemporary words and conceptualize them into their already know words was interesting. I really appreciated that day and learning about the language in general. To go along with the Cherokee Nation’s educational efforts was our experience with the Sequoyah High School. What an amazing facility. I could see the future of the Cherokee people by touring that school. What a special place and I am sure it will produce special people.

One thing that bothered me the entire time was the attitude and efforts toward green living and recycling. I think I saw one recycling bin in NSU’s seminary hall. But in the Conference Area where we had our history course there was only a place for cans, no plastic, no paper, etc. I think that the Cherokee Nation has so much to deal with and establish on a social level that recycling is the last thing. In my opinion it should be the first. I initiated a small clean-up effort when a couple of us were at the Sequoyah City Park. I said that we should pick up ten pieces of trash each before we left. Four out of the five of us did just that. It felt good to help clean up the park. I think next year a volunteer clean-up effort of a specific area in need should be incorporated into the program.

I’ve only touched on a very small part of the experience I had at the Cherokee Nation and what I learned. There’s just so much. I took so many notes and will be reflecting upon everything for the rest of my life. I can certainly see how useful all the information will be to me in my future as I plan to continue working in the humanities. One last thing I have to say is that I still crave Dr. Fife’s wild onions and fried bread. Thanks to everyone, it certainly was a special experience for me.

Post 10 - Keetoowah

2009-06-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

Learning about the United Keetoowah Band was helpful because it proved how there’s always a yin and a yang side of everything in life: politics, ceremonies, war, personalities, behavior, etc. In other ways it was very uncomfortable. The Keetoowah/Cherokee Nation separation was felt a lot more strongly being at the UKB than being with the Cherokee Nation. Chief Smith seemed more calm, positive, and confident about his side of the story than Chief Wickliffe who seemed defensive, negative, but also very confident. This confidence is what keeps both sides advocating for their side of the story. It almost feels like a competition not a harmonious relationship. My philosophy for this is if you can’t beat them, join em’. There is a reason why our program was named Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation and not Study Abroad with the UKB in the Cherokee Nation. There’s a reason why the Cherokee Nation has identified themselves after the name of their territory. It makes things a whole lot easier and more homogeneous.

I understand how the UKB was in Oklahoma before forced removal, by ten years, but that doesn’t mean that the two can’t adapt and get along – they’re from the same place, with the same cultural background. The divisive split between chiefs continues today. Yes, the UKB represents the people and does great things like their elder center and daycare, but so does the Cherokee Nation. However, there was just a different feeling walking around the UKB’s property. I really felt how less-populated it was and how different their attitude and thought processes have manifested.

Here are a couple of things that were said to us by Chief Wickliffe that were perplexing and limiting to them as a community…

“We don’t believe in the creation story started with the buzzard.”

“We were the first people before the Cherokee Nation. Ten years earlier we welcomed them as immigrants.”

“We are the full-bloods, the higher-blooded group.”

“We got the truth behind us. We don’t make up our history like some people. Those people down the road have sections of history. We tell you like it is. We got the people. We got their prayers.”

“The elders did not tell stories, they told the truth. I don’t even like the word ‘story’.”

“Theirs is a selected version of history – don’t be fooled.”

“They’re the group made up by the government and appointed a president. We wasn’t. We are a group of the people.”

“We’re recognized under OIWA. The only one, and do we have land – no! because we don’t have money. We had clergy.”

“They have oil, we have people.”

There is always two sides to an argument and its sad how heartfelt the situation has become to both sides. It was a good experience to have witnessed both sides, especially from both chiefs. It was a rare opportunity that most people never get. I hope that some day the situation will be mended because right now there are just a lot of deep, open wounds that need healing.

Post 9 - Overall Experience

2009-06-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

I am proud to be one of the first students to intimately explore the Cherokee Nation. I have confidence that this program can only get better and better. Its potential I have seen and experienced and want to help further its longevity.

It’s difficult to sum up everything that I’ve done and learned in a blog post. The three weeks have gone by so fast. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing or neither. The time spent here was so productive that it made the time go by fast. Sometimes I had to stop and take a breath or look at some beautiful blooming summer flowers to refocus. The whirlwind tour of Tahlequah and surrounding area complemented the tornado-prone state of Oklahoma (Choctaw for ‘Red People’). I often felt like I was caught up in a tornado.

I was impressed by the people and commitment to welcoming us everywhere we went. The Heritage Center was first and what a nice tour, then there was Marshal Service, people like Harry, Ed, Kinsey, Dr. Fife, Wyman, Councilman Baker, Travis, Chris, Dedi, Dalala, Sedelta, the Fosters, the Youngs, Freeman, Keetoowah’s, Sterlin Harjo, IHS, Child Welfare Services, the list goes on.

The most exciting and engaging parts were the ones that gave some freedom to them. For example, one day a few of us went exploring around Tahlequah and discovered the “Where the Red Fern Grows” statue. Then we took some time to play on the swings, jungle-jim, and merry-go-round in Sequoyah City Park. Eating at Sam and Ella’s or the Iguana Café was convenient and good. Playing stickball on campus or swimming and volleyball were all independently arranged. All these extra activities, that weren’t planned or on the schedule were the best. A few of us discovered shaved ice trailers and indulged on a hot evening in some sugar-infused flavored ice. I wanted to try the dill pickle flavor but never got to.

Then there were the evenings when Kinsey taught us how to make corn husk dolls and double-weave baskets. I gave them away as one is supposed to do with crafts made for the first time, but the experience and understanding of Cherokee life and experience was further deepened in my mind by these activities.

My two favorite scheduled events were visiting the Will Rogers museum and touring Picher, OK. I think that everyone should learn about the Superfund Site and all that is involved with environmental problems and native culture. Tar Creek was a mess and the vicinity was dead but we are still alive and healthy and perfectly capable at looking at the situation in a positive way to change and make changes. This was the most emotional and educational part of the experience for me on all different levels. It was such a pleasure to meet Rebecca Jim and to see and feel and hear in her voice, the impact the area has on the people, and on just one activist. Her efforts are needed and she has such an open heart and mind that it’s beyond inspirational.

Overall, the course was well worth all my time and money. I would do it all again and again. Every summer will be a different experience but having Tol Foster there was the most helpful. His connections to people and places and intellectual perspectives changed my perspective on the United States and the Native American Experience. I love this country and hate it all at the same time; the diversity and humanity are worth seeing in person and coming to understand in a whole new way and light.

Cherokee Nation History Course with Dr. Julia Coates

2009-06-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am happy to have had the opportunity to sit in on a course required of all employees of Cherokee Nation. The course provided a strong base for what we were learning about throughout the rest of the course. It made us aware of historical fact versus myth, such as the military not being present on the Trail of Tears, and the Cherokees knowing exactly when the military was coming to ask them to leave their homes. The course provided an historical perspective, a Cherokee perspective, for understanding and appreciating the strength and endurance of the Cherokee Nation.
During the last session of the course, Principal Chief Chad Smith visited and spoke with us about how the course is more of a lesson in strategy than in history with a purpose to "incite and instill patriotism." Chief Smith illustrated history as a pendulum swinging back and forth between times of hostile and more favorable federal policy. He said the strategy is to look at the history and apply it to today: "If you know where you want to go, everything is on the books."
He also mentioned the idea of Cherokee legacy as a gift from the ancestors. Chief Smith described Cherokees as a "people who face adversity, survive, adapt, and excel." I think this legacy was greatly conveyed through this course.
Dr. Coates also mentioned early on for us to "feel free to become part of the 'we'." I must say that I felt part of the 'we' after the first couple of sessions. Even as a non-Indian, I feel the course is empowering and a wonderful means of learning Cherokee history.

Cherokee Freedmen

2009-06-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

The Reconstruction Treaty of July 19, 1866 incorporated all freed slaves of Cherokees as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. There was a six month window of opportunity put on this in attempt to limit freedmen's claim on citizenship. The treaty also designated land that allowed for freedmen to establish families if they wished to do so. As taught in the Cherokee Nation history course, this "imposition of freedmen citizenship" is one of the retributions of the United States on the Cherokee Nation for siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Pretty much ever since, there have been some Cherokees who wanted the freedmen removed from the Cherokee Nation as noncitizens. Littlefield indicates that "most of the freedmen were farmers...Some owned businesses...others worked for the Cherokees...[and] others were teachers." Some of these freedmen could not speak English and spoke only Cherokee. These freedmen had been assimilated into Cherokee culture. They had family ties to full-blood and other mixed-blood Cherokees. In spite of the practice of segregation among Cherokee Nation, freedmen were allowed to vote and run for council office. Eventually rolls were taken of the Cherokee freedmen, omitting any degree of Indian blood and listing each as a freedman. What followed was a controversy regarding the citizenship of these freedmen; to those whose citizenship was not disputed, per capita payments were refused (Conley 140). After the passing of the Curtis Act in 1892 and the closing of the Dawes Roll, the issue lay dead until the late 1970s-80s when the Cherokee Nation had been reconstituted and began functioning again.

The Descendants of Freedmen of the Cherokees began to press their case once again. After much debate, the Cherokee Nation held a vote on March 3, 2007 to determine who could be a Cherokee citizen. The result restricted tribal citizenship to descendants listed by blood on the Dawes Roll. Conley clarifies: "Thus, any black who has Cherokee blood and whose ancestor was listed on the Dawes Roll can be a citizen, but any black descended from any former Cherokee slave listed on the Dawes Roll as a freedman cannot" (141). Many Cherokee officials have hailed it as an exercise of tribal sovereignty to amend the constitution and determine its own membership.

I agree that a tribe has the right to determine its own membership, but if they look to the Dawes Roll for membership of all citizens it just seems wrong to exclude those who had ancestors who had been forcibly assimilated as slaves, grew up in Cherokee culture, and are by cultural definition, Cherokee. The convenient omittance of blood-degree seems to make a case for the Cherokee Nation, saying that freedmen are not of Indian blood. However, many people listed on the Dawes were given a blood-degree when they had none, and others had it taken away when they were full-blood Cherokee. The Dawes Roll was commissioned out of greed for native land. How can Cherokee Nation fully trust and acknowledge a faulty document (despite it being the "most reliable roll"), when it is fully aware of its history and the fraud committed by the Dawes Commission? Many full-blooded Cherokees refused to sign up with the rolls for allotment. As such, several "true, higher-blooded Cherokees" have been unable to obtain citizenship by law since they cannot trace their ancestry back to the Dawes Roll.

When we went to hear the Descendants of Freedmen panel, their ancestries and lineages were presented to us with documentation. For me, this ruled out all doubt that those going before the courts lacked "Indian blood." The freedmen just want an acknowledgement of their heritage and ancestry without having Cherokee Nation take it away from them.
From the other side, we had been told that the freedmen have no interest in being Cherokee and are only after benefits and reparations. This did not seem to be the case at all when we met with the freedmen. Several even explicitly stated that they have no need for services provided by Cherokee Nation and that they have never even utilized such services. The freedmen just want to uphold their ancestry and make connections with who they come from.

It is ironic to me that Cherokee Nation, who one would think would be able to identify with the want and need to preserve one's own history, is voting to get rid of the freedmen as citizens, particularly when they have documentation to support their claims.
As I was lightly discussing the issue and the 2007 vote with one of the NSU students one evening during the last week, she expressed that she was glad to have had a chance to go with us to the Freedmen's panel. She was not fully aware of the argument on the Freedmen's side and had only heard the side of the Cherokee Nation. She expressed that she thinks more people might have voted differently, in favor of the Freedmen, had they known and been fully aware of both sides of the issue.

I support the 2007 vote being ruled as illegal, and I hope the Freedmen continue to get their story out there and more people take the time to decide for themselves their stance on the issue. It would be preferable to backing the one sided argument of the Cherokee Nation officials claiming the entire issue is over money and based upon the idea that "they do not know the freedmen" so they cannot be included as citizens.

Freedmen

2009-06-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

I thought that the presentation by the descendants of the Freedmen was one of the highlights of the last week. I am going to keep my response and arguments away from tribal sovereignty and focus instead on what I think it means to be a part of a culture.

The ancestors of the Freedmen, and in some cases, the Freedmen themselves, were incorporated into Cherokee society against their will. Treated as property, the Freedmen were bought and sold by the Cherokees as they were bought and sold by whites. Slaves were taken across the country during the Trail of Tears and the relocation of the Cherokee nation and were forced to adapt to the new environment just like the Cherokees were. Slaves took the Cherokee language just like slaves in the American southeast used the English language. Slaves also adopted elements of Cherokee culture, just like slaves in the southeast adopted elements of Southern white culture.

After the Civil War, the United States and the states themselves gave citizenship to the Freedmen, and so did the Cherokee Nation. I say there is no real justification for taking that citizenship away. If the argument is that they cannot speak the language, then much of the current membership of the Cherokee nation should have their citizenship taken away. If the argument is that they have no connection to Cherokee culture, then those Cherokees not living within the Cherokee nation, or (to be fair) the state of Oklahoma, should have their citizenship taken away. If the reason is that they just want benefits, that is not enough of a reason. Other sovereign nations cannot denationalize people simply for taking advantage of benefits, and I am sure that there have to be some descendants of Cherokees who are enrolled in the tribe for the benefits. In addition, the representatives of the descendants of the Freedmen said nothing whatsoever about wanting the benefits or that feared word, reparations. They simply wanted to have their history and heritage acknowledged. I did not hear any other reasons for the denationalization of descendants of Freedmen.

While the Cherokee nation does have the right to determine who can and cannot be a member of the tribe, it is an unstated rule of modern nations that a person should be able to go to sleep a citizen and wake up the next day knowing that they still are a citizen. Denationalizing the descendants of Freedmen seems to me like a public relations nightmare. But I also don’t see any legitimate cultural reason for denying them membership, especially for a nation that so deemphasizes blood quanta.

History as Connection

2009-06-11T21:55:00.001-07:00

Following the Vowell sisters' podcasted trip along the Trail of Tears, I couldn't help but compare it to my own trip in getting to Oklahoma. Our routes in getting here were disparate, but many of our reactions were the same. We were silly, we were somber, we were confused at what we saw. We sought connection, but how to really connect to something nebulous like history? We went in with the heavy and serious intent of knowing something of ourselves. For the Vowell sisters, it was to discover something of their own past, as people of Cherokee descent. For me, it was to feel something of the past as a part of the place I call my home, North Carolina--how I should think of this space in terms of that past, what part do I have in it. Remnants of that past still play a role here in our mountains, where there's still Cherokee land; our state is also the home for one of the biggest populations of American Indians east of the Mississippi. How is it that most people have no idea of it? It's a past that is distant for most Americans; hardly known, it seems--but a past not distant at all for a great many Cherokees. So I began my trip there in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Like Sarah, I often recused myself from the heavy or lofty purpose of the cultural tour I was embarking upon. I stopped in at the Harrah's Casino, ate at the sprawling and beautiful hotel. That was one of the first of several Casinos we'd go on to see, each seemingly larger than the last--complete with man-made waterfalls, gaming floors with gleaming cars and motorcycles, resorts towering into the sky. I also went to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and learned of history dating into the BCs, a place rife with arrowheads and ancient dug canoes. I soon found out that in Indian Country, there was always a juxtaposition of past and present, with a flashing casino right near the marker designating a Trail depot or the burial site of a prominent Cherokee leader. Here the past and present exist simultaneously, in a much more conspicuous way than we're used to. It can be jarring.

Sarah tells us how she had trouble reconciling with this, as kids tromped and played over the site where Cherokees began their deadly and anguished Trail. At times it is too much to handle. Just as she giggled staying at the Chattanooga Choo Choo, I laughed at myself amid the gaudy purple and chrome cars in Elvis's personal collection at Graceland. We needed the detours. (Besides, some say Elvis was Cherokee.)

Yet you can't really ever take a full detour. Even at Graceland I had to face up to the sprawl of poverty around the mansion grounds. The same could be said of the casino--as soon as I came upon the sign "Entering the Cherokee Reservation" in NC, trailers and old, rusted out cars lined the narrow shoulder of winding mountain road. The same poverty could be seen in the rural northeastern Oklahoma...in Briggs, Stilwell, Marble City, Bell. The struggles of the past aren't distant. They still continue.

I was particularly struck by this as I neared the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the day before coming to Tahlequah. Now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, seeing the empty balcony where Martin Luther King had stood, now adorned with a flowered wreath, yellow ribbon rustling in the wind, with crumbling brick buildings, windows broken out, all around--I thought to myself, there is still so much farther to go.

There is a continuing class struggle in Indian country. Wilma Mankiller writes about it in her book, about the self-respect poor people can earn for themselves by taking things into their own hands. While the Museum standing in dedication to Dr. King marks that we have come some way, along with an African American US President, and a female former Principal Chief of the Cherokees, there is more work to do. If anything, Chief Mankiller's book showed that Indian people exemplify the poorest of the US, but this struggle is not just an Indian struggle.

Freedmen Controversy

2009-06-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

In one of my earlier blog posts, I touched on the Freedmen Controversy and gave my very rough analysis of the situation. After meeting with the Freedmen, I feel that I need to add a bit to my previous ideas.

First of all, any question about the Freedmen's sincerity about tribal membership was cleared up, at least in my opinion. Those Freedmen descendents I spoke to--and I had a pretty lengthy conversation over dinner with Marilyn Vann and one of her colleagues--seemed to want acceptance in the Cherokee Nation as a sort of validation or recognition of their own heritage. The accusation that they simply want tribal benefits, or that they don't have any sense of belonging to the Cherokee Nation strikes me as patently ridiculous after my conversation with them. Several of those who spoke with us became visibly emotional when speaking about their heritage--one woman's voice got shaky when she told me that all she wanted was to understand where she had come from and to have some sense of belonging to the Nation. I've never known that kind of emotion to be motivated by anything other than sincerity.

Also, Marilyn Vann made me much more aware of the other side of the tribal sovereignty argument. Though the official CN government position is that the federal government should not be in the business of determining tribal membership, the flip side is that revoking Freedmen citizenship is a pretty flagrant violation of the 1866 treaty with the United States. The Coates course left me with the distinct impression that the Cherokee Nation bases its legal claim to sovereignty on its treaties with the US, so for the modern CN government to violate a US treaty could potentially jeopardize the CN's legal status, or even threaten tribal sovereignty in general. That seems like a pretty dangerous game to be playing for so little benefit.

Some of Vann's other arguments were a bit more colorful. She has made allegations of significant voter fraud in the Cherokee Nation electoral process. She told me that while circulating the petition to launch the referendum, CN officials misled signers about the document they were signing, etc. She also claimed that the CN does not purge its voter rolls and that votes in the referendum were cast by people who have been dead for decades. Now, I try to view things with a healthy dose of cynicism, but these sorts of allegations seem a bit over the top. Without any documentary evidence--or even stronger eyewitness/word-of-mouth evidence--it probably would be irresponsible to believe that. However, the amendment referendum is of significant interest to me, and I would be interested in sorting out the different versions of events. The motivation behind the referendum and the circumstances surrounding the vote are still a little hazy for me, and I have no doubt that there's more to it than what I know and have heard.

Week 2 – Course So Far…

2009-06-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Stomp Dance definitely stands out the strongest from week two. It was an experience like no other for sure. I had been excited about this part of the course since I first heard we would be going to one. Whenever someone would ask about the trip and what we would be doing, that was one of the first things that would spring to mind. The dinner we had when we first arrived was absolutely delicious, and the ritualistic nature of the serving process (with the men and guests going first, then the children, then the women) was fascinating to learn about. I have never been very religious, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could really connect with the dance on a spiritual level. I felt like I was truly a part of the ceremony every time I danced around the fire, it was a good mood-setter. Since religion is normally a very private thing for most individuals, it was great to be welcomed so openly into their ceremony.

I did end up laying down to sleep later into the night, but the entire time I was laying in Vanessa’s hammock I wasn’t so much asleep as I was drifting. I could still hear the men chanting and women’s shakers, and I still felt caught up in the dance despite the fact that I wasn’t actually out there stomping around the fire. The final dance we all participated in (except for the women who were menstruating or pregnant) made me feel closer to everyone on the grounds that morning, it was a wonderful climatic ending. Throughout the night I learned a lot about from talking to members of the grounds, everyone was very generous and forthcoming. The whole experience was kind of surreal, but it was an experience I’ll never forget.

Response to Coates Course

2009-06-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

The Coates course was a very essential part of the study abroad program. Most of us came into this course with little prior knowledge of the Cherokee Nation. I did have some previous instruction on Cherokee history coming into the course but the information Julia Coates provided us with was more in-depth than any history I had learned before. I know the long days were hard on all of us, still the amount and quality of the information we were presented with definitely outweighs that difficulty.

Councilwomen Coates took a great approach to most of her information; her presentation of the information on the Trail of Tears was amazing. I had never questioned information such as the number of deaths or U.S. military involvement, so it was great to have this information presented to us intellectually without the terribleness of this event being down-played. I also thought the video dissection exercise we did near the very beginning of the course was very beneficial. Watching that video and then having all the false information in it identified directly after caused me to seriously think about all the false information that is presented to the general public about Native Americans, and how easily all that information is swallowed. I think it served as a good reminder that we all need to take everything with a grain of salt when it comes to learning about history. I know I definitely kept that lesson in mind, especially when it came to the later parts of the course where we discussed the UKB and the Freedmen. Although, there was a bit of bias in some of the information presented in the course, overall it was a great precursor to the rest of the study abroad trip. Other than that I don’t know that I could say anything on the Coates course that Walker, Andrei, and others have not already said better.

2009-06-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

Stickball.

The game the Cherokees traditionally call “little brother to war.” Yeah. junk is intense. Next to boxing, this is probably the most physical game I have ever played. Chris Smith has told me there are usually ambulances on standby at men vs. men games and he has seen a guy get a broken jaw and have a seizure before. Back in the day, many warriors would die in games that would go on for days. Aside from the rocky exit of one or two horrendous relationships, I have rarely seen girls be so vicious.
Men vs. Women, that’s right. And men barely stand a chance. For anyone who doesn’t know, the rules are that guys have to use two sticks with tiny nets at the top to grab and shoot (you never pass) the ball whereas girls have no rules whatsoever. The goal is to hit the fish (statue) atop the pole for two points or to hit the pole 3/4ths of the way to the top (above a marked line) for one point. It’s not easy. Anyways, we played along with the UGA crew, Scott Ennis, Chris Smith, his friends, and a couple other Talequah natives. It started slow, but quickly the women got rough and it became an incredibly fierce, intense game. By the end of the game, most of us looked like we had just gotten done mud wrestling, which was almost accurate.
Kelsey spent a good deal of the game on her knees in the mud. I was hugged, grabbed, clawed, elbowed, choked… the list of abuses goes on. While taking the beating, it almost seems like a way for women to vent years of pent up physical frustrations towards men. And in a way, I almost see it as foreplay. But in review, stickball was awesome and even playing against girls will make a man out of you.

2009-06-10T21:42:00.001-07:00

The Cherokee Nation history course taught by Dr. Coates was edifying despite its one-sidedness. The anthropological survey of the Cherokees from the first weekend was particularly insightful. Information about the matrilineal clan system and about how the people lived pre-contact has provided me with a strong base for everything else I have learned in Oklahoma.

My only real complaint is that Coates’ lectures were (understandably) one-sided, or as Jessi put it, “nationalistic.” Coates’ audience is typically entirely made up of Cherokee Nation employees, so it is not surprising that she, as a Cherokee, is mainly representing the Cherokee side of history. I am glad, therefore, that we have had the opportunity to meet with people with different perspectives, such as the Freedmen and the UKB. As a course on the Cherokee Nation, it is equally important to cover the history of the people from the inside as well as from the outside.

We committed a lot of time to the course (our only two weekends), which some people have complained about. Personally, Coates’ course was essential to my learning here in Oklahoma – I was able to get a precise and concise history of the Cherokees from someone who is truly an expert in her field. The things I learned in Coates class I will take with me back to North Carolina and have definitely helped carry me through the rest of this course. Learning about the Cherokee in the Coates course enabled me to get more out of many of the experiences that I have had here, such as the stomp dance, the game of marbles, our visit to the UKB and Freedmen – the list goes on. Basically, I think that the history course is an essential part of the Cherokee Nation course despite the large time commitment.

Indian by Blood, Culture, and Nation : The "real" Indian?

2009-06-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life." - Richard Bach

What makes one Indian? Who is Indian and who is not? It's something that people may think they know, something that has even been legislated, but that remains unclear to many. When we first got to Tahlequah, I tried to ask Jessi Bardill, a graduate student from Duke accompanying us on our trip, more about her field of concentration. When she told me she was studying "genetics and genomics in Native American populations," this seemingly vast topic eluded me. What exactly about their genetics? What about their genomics? I couldn't put my finger on it.

I knew Jessi was a descendent of the Eastern Band of Cherokee back in North Carolina, with family in the ancestral Cherokee homeland of northwest Georgia. Knowing little about her, I struggled to afix something more specific to her course of study. I couldn't help but wonder if she somehow tied this to her own background, whether she was going to observe certain traits about the people she best knew, her own family, perhaps to compare to the broader population. Making conversation, I asked, "So have you looked at genetics of your own family? Have you...traced your own lineage through this?"

She was a bit surprised, even irritated, by my question. Looking back on it, though, I can pretty much see why. She probably gets asked this sort of thing all the time. For all that broader society is concerned, Jessi is "white." But as a person who is not "identifiably" Indian and claims Indian ancestry, people tend to inquire, "So how much Indian are you?" As Tuscarora classmate back in NC once retorted in response, "Well, how much monkey are you?!"

I cringe at the necessity of using the phrase "she's part Indian," or even "she's part Cherokee," to describe Jessi, or other descendants of native people, for lack of any better way to put it. It reminds me of the way you'd refer to a dog as "part Labrador" or "part Dalmatian"--it just can't be that rudimentary, that cut and dry. Because it has spots it must be part Dalmatian. Because a person has tan skin, dark eyes, high cheekbones, whatever, they must be part Indian. No, it can't be as crude as that.

Historically, it has been said that if you have "one drop of black blood, then you're black" and for all societal purposes it is so. But it takes a whole lot of Indian blood to be Indian. At least that's what many would have us believe, or what we mainstream Americans stereotypically imagine when we picture an Indian...a bronze-skinned, hard-nosed warrior, with dark hair flowing behind them. This is probably for a simple reason. At home in North Carolina, despite having one of the largest populations of Indians (if not the largest) on the east coast, it's still strange to really know or meet an Indian. The sheer unfamiliarity with Indian people is obvious just based on the behavior of those we left behind in NC. Walker's grandmother somehow came to the conclusion that he was going on a mission trip to minister to the poor Indians. My grandmother sent me some cards with brightly-feathered powwow dancers on them, while so many others asked me, "So how is the reservation?" Ideas like this must only be exacerbated in places with even fewer Indian people. We only know the Indians we make up in our heads. From what I've seen here in Oklahoma, chances are you've met an Indian and didn't even know it.

The notion of race and identity is very different and much more complicated in Indian Country. There are fluent Cherokee speakers and ceremonial callers who are, for all intensive purposes, like Jessi--"white." There are "identifiably" Indian people who have been raised speaking their native tongue and some who know not a lick of it, and there are many more people who don't necessarily look "white" but aren't necessarily identifiable as Indian, either--perhaps more often mistaken for "Asian" or "Hispanic." Any of these people, regardless of appearance, can think of themselves and feel themselves to be Indian...and can, of course, place varying importance on the role that being Indian plays in their life, from the smallest role to the most central. Here the bounds of skin color to culture have been blurred; Indian cannot be consolidated as a race but rather as an amalgam of people united by thought--the thought that they are Indian.

Onlookers like myself, from outside Indian country, may often find themselves filtering "who is Indian" through the lens of color, the way we've been conditioned to do (whether we like it or not). It is much different to face this blurring of "the color line" through experience rather than through academic discourse. I went through other classes back at home where I could easily accept and conceptualize from academic articles that Indian identity went beyond race. But it's different confronting it in real space, coming into Indian Country, where so many people of varying shades, blood degrees, and a multitude of tribes are represented. It forces you to check your assumptions about "who Indians are" every day, just as I did in my simple conversation with Jessi, where one unwitting comment stirred an entire mode of thought. It turned out that her "study of genetics and genomics in Native people" was really a study of identity of Indian people, how closely (or not) those genetics are linked to Indian identity, and how using the Dawes Rolls, and blood descent from those Rolls, is problematic for determining who is or is not Indian.

We got this first hand on our trip by meeting with two controversial groups whose controversy is entirely centered around this question of race. First, we met with the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, a tribal band who began as a political organization working in conjunction with the Cherokee Nation, but has recently moved toward separatism. The Keetoowah leaders we met insisted that it was they who were the "full bloods," the "real" Cherokee people, the traditional people who when you saw them, you knew they were Indian.

The room held an air of racial superiority and tension I have never felt before. The attitude was xenophobic (anyone outside the area wasn't a true Cherokee) and narrowly focused on race (anyone mixed in appearance was not truly a Cherokee). They made sure to distinguish that they were better than "those people down the street" or "those people over there" (Cherokee Nation). Chief Wickliffe insisted he was "not a racist" so many times that the phrase began to fall on deaf ears. There must be some reason he felt he needed to repeat this so often; perhaps because something repeated can make it seem true, or perhaps because his arguments for the basis of his separate tribe were based almost entirely upon race. His concept of the Keetoowahs was one that depended fully on breaking people down into severely limiting polarities: us and them, fullblood and mixed blood, dark and light skinned. I had come into the meeting with willingness to listen, and left with a feeling of complete exasperation. The color line is blurred in Indian Country, but this does not eliminate racism. It only makes racism more complex.

The Cherokee Nation is not without its own controversy over racial designations. We also met with the Freedmen, a group of people who, for all appearances, are "African-American." They met with us because many of them are advocating for full rights as Cherokee citizens, but have been denied it because they cannot trace an ancestor back to the Dawes rolls. Their ancestors were registered on separate rolls other than the Dawes Rolls, rolls specifically created for descendents of slaves owned by Cherokees. However, this does not mean they have no Indian ancestry. At the time of registering with the rolls, if a person had one slave ancestor, no matter if other ancestors were Indian, they were registered on the Freedmen rolls. Thus, descendents of these people registered as Freedmen may have significant Cherokee ancestry but be unable to become citizens of the Cherokee Nation because they cannot provide an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls. This controversy continues, and though many accuse the Freedmen of seeking tribal membership only for its benefits, or playing "the race card," they are not recognizing that just like other Indian people with mixed-race heritage, the Freedmen think of themselves as Indian and only want to be recognized as such. Are people who are black and Indian recognized as black, while people who are white and Indian recognized as Indian? It is a prime example of the problems that using the Dawes Rolls to designate "who is Indian" presents. It is the very same as asking, "How much Indian are you?" Is it relevant? Is it necessary?

As Jessi pointed out, are blood and nationality tied? With the Freedmen, it is mostly a question of citizenry, of nationality, not of blood. What has blood to do with whether you participated in a nation, helped build it, even served as leaders (as some Freedmen did in the Cherokee nation). And the Keetoowahs' idea of a separate nationality is based on race; they cannot separate the idea of "being Cherokee" from "being full blood," and thus they divide themselves from the Cherokee Nation.

Indian Country seems as divided on the question of blood and nationality as the Cherokees and Keetoowahs. The Keetoowahs require the standard amount, 1/4 blood quantum, in order to become an enrolled tribal member. The Cherokee Nation has no minimum blood requirement. The distribution of blood quantum requirements are as follows (as quoted from Professor Michael Green):

Blood quantum requirements for US Tribes

5/8 - 1 tribe
1/2 - 19 tribes
3/8 - 1 tribe
1/4 - 147 tribes
1/3 - 27 tribes
1/16 - 9 tribes
No minimum required - 98 tribe

Most tribes do require some kind of blood quantum (204 total). This includes the second largest tribe in the US, the Navajo Nation, which requires 1/4 blood quantum. Yet a very significant amount (nearly 100), including the Cherokee Nation, the largest tribe in the US, do not require a minimum blood quantum. As more tribes are admitted, perhaps without solid ties to Dawes Rolls, such as North Carolina's Lumbee, and as tribes grow and change, the blood quantum requirements will have to adapt.

Ultimately, my attempt to understand what Jessi sought to study was mistaken. I wanted to make it something specific, finite. The term "genetics and genomics" lends itself to an idea that identity can be measured precisely by mapping genomes or tracing genes. Yet identity extends beyond these finite markers. Our families are who raised us, who were around us, and who were there for us, not merely those whose blood and genes match our own.

So "who is Indian?" I think my newest friend, a Cherokee, Kinsey Shade, explained it best to me. "It's not about what you look like. It's about what you know."

Coates Course Response

2009-06-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

Overall, I really enjoyed the history course taught by Dr. Coates. As I'm sure you've heard me say before, I haven't taken a history class in a very long time, so it was nice to refresh my memory on things I had forgotten about as well as to learn a ton of new things. I really enjoyed learning about Cherokee culture prior to European contact. I had no concept of what mound-building societies encompassed, or knowledge of elaborate and corrupt priesthoods. I also thought that Dr. Coates did a great job explaining blood law and emphasizing that it wasn't about revenge. She definitely got the point across that the clans and blood law were about balance. I also agree with her to some extent that the Cherokee's matrilineal system is superior to our patrilineal descent today. It seemed as though it was much easier on the children, especially when there was a divorce or death of a parent. However, I would like to research more about her claim that there were no social stigmas regarding premarital sex and children born out of wedlock.

Like everyone else who has posted about the course, I also like that she presented the Trail of Tears in a factual manner. I can't tell you how many times I've come across the number 4,000 in the past few days...everywhere from Robert Conley's book to the article in the Native American Times about our trip. I also had the misconception that soldiers accompanied the people on the Trail of Tears and terrorized them. One thing that I left the course wondering was why the Cherokees (as a whole) didn't better prepare for the journey, especially if they knew that it was imminent. Whatever the reason, like Dr. Coates said, even losing one life on the Trail of Tears was one too many.

I am not completley advocating extending the course to forty hours (it was already pretty long), but I did feel as though the end of the course was cut short and that there is still much that I would like to know about issues in the 20th century. Overall, I learned a great deal from this course and I am so thankful that we had Dr. Coates to teach it!

Movie Response

2009-06-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, I don't cry in every movie. But, the three movies we watched definitely hit a soft spot in me. Each one dealt with themes of love, loss, culture, and heritage, and each one was fairly relatable, even to non-Indians. I guess I'll just give my analysis and opinion of each one...

The Doe Boy was by far my least favorite of the three. To me, the entire thing seemed a little too straightforward. Walker noted that the movie dealt with masculinity, blood, and irony in hunting, the main character being named Hunter, and his dad being killed by hunters. I felt this was all completely obvious (no offense Walker), almost in a hokey sort of way for me. Hunter's battle with hemophilia added a unique dimension to the film and definitely helped to add complexity to the plot. I think my main qualm with the film was the characters; I simply didn't like them. Hunter was kind of a jerk. I understand that he had a difficult childhood, a strained relationship with his father, and was limited by his hemophilia. I still just didn't like his personality by the end of the movie. I also never understood his obsession with the doe and hunting. Although I'm sure it was a traumatizing event, I really just wanted to scream "get over it!" The father was also unlikable to me. He was definitely a jerk and always seemed to have a beer in his hand. He picked on his child...that's just not excusable, even if they can't grow up to be who you want them to be. I know that he loved Hunter deep down, but I resented how he acted towards him throughout the movie. I also resented the fact that Hunter's mother did not take more action to facilitate a healthy relationship between the father and son. I'm pretty sure if my husband ever picked on my son in that way, I would have a lot more to say than a couple of chastising words. The final aspect of the movie that I disliked was the ambiguous ending. I hate to be left hanging, and I'm going to interpret the ending as him breaking down due to stress and his father dying, not as him confiding that he has AIDS. I didn't entirely hate The Doe Boy. It was definitely a moving film that focused on identity and love, and it wasn't completely one-dimensional.

Four Sheets to the Wind was more my style of movie. It was completely honest and heart-wrenching and was composed of realistic and complex characters. I love that it dealt with real-life problems, such as death, depression, suicide, and alcoholism. I also loved that it showed that even people with those problems have things such as love, family ties, and humor in their lives. I thought Harjo incorporated Native American values and culture into the movie well, especially with the father partially narrating the movie. To me, the best thing about the movie was that it could be understood and felt deeply by anyone, no matter what their heritage.

The same can be said about Barking Water. This was one of the most touching and beautiful movies I have ever seen. I'm not a great writer, but this quote from the Sundance Film Festival website sums it up for me: "In this sparingly sentimental and achingly poignant film, Harjo claims his place as one of the most truthful and honest voices working in American cinema today. Barking Water is an expression of gratitude for the ability to have lived and loved." I see the movie is exactly that...a movie about love and life and all the awesome and terrible things that come with them. Frankie and Irene by no means had an easy or straightforward love, but it was the complexity that made it all that much more realistic and vulnerable. I really liked what Andrei said about the movie, that it was about the characters and that the purpose of the journey was unimportant. Frankie never even made it to see his grandbaby, but he died holding Irene's hand, just as he had wanted. Everything about this movie touched me, from the beautiful cinematography and landscapes to the equally as beautiful music (that really helped take the movie to another level for me). Meeting Sterlin was also an amazing experience and I can't wait until his next movie comes out!

2009-06-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was completely frustrated and a little disgusted by our trip to the United Keetoowah Band. I was looking forward to hearing another opinion after Chad Smith and Julia Coates both said that the UKB has no future. The CN/UKB problem is contentious and relevant, and I feel particularly lucky to be able to learn about the tensions from inside the Cherokee Nation. That being said, I got almost no constructive information and mainly felt attacked during the sessions with UKB Chief George Wickliffe and Assistant Chief Charles Locust.

The UKB has a blood quantum requirement of ¼. Assistant Chief Locust told us that the UKB are “higher blood people.” A sovereign nation has the right to choose its membership, but this kind of overt elitism creates hierarchies that are threatening and divisive. The Chief justified the blood quantum requirement by saying that it was “not because we’re racist, it’s because of who we come from.” He asserted multiple times that the UKB are “not racists like Adolf Hitler.” However, almost everything else Chief Wickliffe said was aggressive statements of the UKB’s cultural authenticity and dominance. Assistant Chief Locust even said that “real Indians will have the value of being respectful.” Interesting…

Despite my frustration with how the chiefs spoke to us, I do think that their defensiveness and aggression stems from being the underdog, which is never easy. Attacks come from both side, and until this trend ends, no hospitable solution to UKB/CN problems will evolve. Neither side wants the other to exist, which is an unrealistic goal and rather insensitive. Yet the UKB is obviously disadvantaged in every way – economically and educationally, in terms of size and leadership experience. The Cherokee Nation cannot write off these disadvantages as reasons that the UKB should not exist. Instead, both sides need to compromise in order to reach a mutually-beneficial solution.

In the meeting with the Freedmen, I felt appreciated and respected, and altogether I got much more out of the panel. Instead of militantly defending their position, the Freemen were able to show us just how important their heritage is to them and how denying them rights in the Cherokee Nation is basically an unjust political strategy. I would benefit substantially another UKB panel where instead of telling me that “you don’t know what I’m telling you,” I am instead told the truth and shown historic documentation. The UKB issue in Cherokee Nation is one that requires a great deal of attention. For the sake of their cause, I hope Chief Wickliffe and Assistant Chief Locust learn that they will receive much more support and sympathy if they treat people outside the UKB with respect instead of as ignoramuses.

Keetoowahs

2009-06-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

I know there was something of a consensus of feelings after speaking with the Chief and Deputy Chief. I agree. Factually, a lot of these guys' argument was ridiculous. Mostly, the incredibly defensive/aggressive nature of everything Chief Wickliffe and Locust said showed some obvious insecurities. However, I will say that this presentation was incredible for me in terms of me seeing the big picture in terms of education (false teachings and educ. as credibility), history applying to today, politics and culture clash.

I've always thought about how strange it must have been/ must be now for all American Indians to be forced to assimilate into a culture that took over, and to have to be forced to change and adapt to this new culture so fast. Seeing these two Cherokee tribes, which are both obviously very similar, pitted against each other in this fashion made me realize something. Two of the largest differences between the two are money and numbers, which CN has a hell of a lot more of both. With more people and money (aka power), CN is able to make much more progress and achieve more goals than UKB. UKB can boast blood, and "tradition," but because of it they have much less money and numbers and little besides their pride to work with. I see this as a strange anthropological conundrum, but I definitely see CN as the most successful Indian nation (not that I have studied others, but being the biggest it cant be too far fetched an assumption) in terms of playing our (USA! govt.) game, working politically and ADAPTING to a forced situation in the better manner. Unfortunately, desertion of certain cultural aspects has been necessary to achieve these means, but I guess clinging to the past just isn't the practical approach in this situation. That last sentence was my way of avoiding exploring plenty of other complicated paths of thought to that very intricate and controversial issue which now faces Amer-Indian cultures.

As a history major it was really awesome to see history being so relevant to a current situation in front of my face with the CN-UKB battle. Historical events and bitterness towards them/clinging on to them/ trying to move on - really spurns people to action.
Seeing these multiple re-interpretations of history has taught me to question spoon-fed history and any other information I come across in the future. Also, politics rule the world. That and money. Mainly money. Power in numbers is crucial too.

Coates Course

2009-06-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

For being the one aspect of this course that was intensive in-class lecture historical learning (and the 9-hour Saturdays were real intense), the Coates lectures were excellent. The nature of the course as the officially sanctioned requirement for CN employees by the Chief combined with the esteemed Dr./Councilwoman Coates leading the course gave it much legitimacy as well. Learning a course of virtually brand new information that elementary through collegiate history has overlooked was very exciting as well. Having a tag team of Cherokee Nation politicians having written the book and feeding it to us is obviously potentially susceptible for bias, especially for certain issues such as the freedmen and the UKB, but on the whole it was fine, and having other established scholars helped to avoid that kind of riff-raff.

In regard to the course intensity, the catered Saturday lunches, unlimited drinks, coffee and bagels made the long days much more tolerable. And the chairs were awesome as well.

Post 8 - Coates

2009-06-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

The interesting part of the Cherokee Nation’s History Course, or “Course in Strategy” as Chief Smith would say, was the discussions on blood law. I can see how many people could misinterpret or conflate the true meaning of how the Cherokees keep their community of clans in balance. I see how the Cherokee philosophy makes sense but I also believe that treating an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not the most effective way of dealing with problems. I like non-violent approaches because two wrongs, to me, do not make a right. But for the Cherokees it does. It is great to know the thought processes behind the dog eats dog world of the Cherokees.

The video that we watched made by Oral Roberts University falsely interpreted the Cherokee system of blood law – revenge as they call it. The Cherokees ways are not to be mixed with war. Once the balance was made or the green corn came, the skirmish brawls were over and reset. It was nice to have reaffirmed that the Cherokees were not constantly at war. I have never seen them as that and for all the others who do need to rethink passing judgment upon a very sensitive and conscientious group of people. By going through the course I felt less and less like an outsider which was one thought I pondered before the program started. A lot of terms and phrases are outsider phrases and the more I was taken in by the wonderful story that Julia was telling, the better I felt about reacting to that world from an insider’s point of view.

After we leave this program we’re all going off to our own places, to meet more people, and with us we will always have the information that we gained from this intensive history drive-by. The reason why it’s a drive-by is because we had more questions to ask but only so much time to look loosely at a topic and move on to the next hundred or so odd years. Frustrating as it was and rewarding as it was, now we all have an overview and notes to explore on our own. If the current governments of the world thought less about politics and more about balance that we would all be better off. The Cherokees way of processing justice and their system of keeping a community in balanced through clan reparations and exchanges is a model to study and I’m glad I did. It could be used today, with some major modern adjustments, but it could be done.

Stomp Dance

2009-06-08T18:16:00.001-07:00

From the very beginning of the course, I was excited about the stomp dance. But the excitement mostly came from my real curiosity about the practice, so I expected to connect to it on an intellectual level. So it was a real (and pleasant) surprise to find out that I actually connected to it in a religious and emotional way.

I was not raised in any particular religious tradition, so it’s a little bit difficult to explain to people what I actually believe. When I’m asked, I usually joke that I’m “religious but not spiritual,” since I don’t put a lot of stock into the existence of the supernatural, but I firmly believe there’s a kernel of real religious value in any religion. I just tend to think of religion as a feeling and as a way of relating to other people, rather than as a set of moral or theological beliefs or institutional practices.

The stomp dance, though, really stirred my religious core in a way that’s difficult to explain. I felt myself losing my individual consciousness and immersing myself into the group consciousness. I felt connected with the people around me, but also to people in general, and I’m not sure what part of the service did that to me. It might have been spiraling counterclockwise around the fire with friends and strangers. It might have been the experience of finding my mouth forming words I didn’t really understand. Or hell, it might even have been sitting in the shelter, smoking a cigarette, drinking black coffee, and listening to one of the grounds members tell me about the time a brown recluse bit him in the testicle. Whatever it was, it made me feel good and at peace. I guess that’s all I can say about it.

Three Rivers and Optometry School

2009-06-08T17:38:00.001-07:00

As someone who is highly interested in the medical fields, I found the activities we did related to medicine in the Cherokee Nation very interesting. The presentation at Three Rivers Medical Center in Muskogee was very helpful in showing me what goes into the administration of hospitals and health systems in American Indian nations. I initially viewed the Indian Health Service as an organization just dealing with hospitals and healthcare provisions before I knew all of what it was. I think it’s great that the IHS is also involved in sanitation and the promotion of healthy living through support of the farmers’ market, etc. Improved sanitation and the availability of potable water eliminate health problems such as cholera and tuberculosis. And the promotion of healthy eating and living can combat diabetes, which is a huge problem in Oklahoma in general, not just in Indian communities. Only having dealt with hospitals my entire life, these crucial elements in health service simply slipped my mind.

I gained a lot of insight into the state of health in American Indian and Alaskan Native communities in general from the information we were given in the packets. I had a couple of other questions about the presentation. I would have liked to see statistics for the state of health only in the Cherokee Nation. I have heard that diabetes is a major problem in the Cherokee Nation – the figure was given at 30%. I would like to know how that compares with the next leading health problem. Also, I would like to know how being a doctor at an IHS clinic or hospital is different than working for a university or private hospital on a day to day basis. I would also like to know what kinds of cases primary care doctors get. Sometimes a cluster of similar but unrelated cases can reveal an uninvestigated problem. For example, there seem to be a disproportionate number of pancreatitis cases in some areas of North Carolina. I don’t know why.

The optometry school tour also helped me understand the state of health care in the Cherokee Nation. The most telling thing was finding out that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness seen at the optometry school. Considering all the causes of blindness, and how probable some of them are (like aging), the fact that diabetes leads reveals just how serious an issue diabetes is.

What made me happiest, though, was hearing that the IHS gives educational assistance to American Indians pursuing educations in medical and health related fields. This is great because if you look at the annual cost of going to medical school, pharmacy school, optometry school, and even a lot of universities for undergraduate study, that is a bunch of money. That fact alone deters many highly qualified people from considering those occupations. I’m glad that the IHS is supporting medical education – that is one of the best ways to improve health in Indian communities.

Coates Course and Removal

2009-06-08T17:01:00.001-07:00

The Coates course on Cherokee history was very intensive. In the short time span we have for the Cherokee Nation Study Abroad program, the course is the best way to learn about and get a handle on general Cherokee history from pre contact to the modern day. I feel as if I came out of the course with a solid understanding of where the Cherokee came from historically.

That being said, the part of the course that I think I internalized the most was the section on the removal and the Trail of Tears. It was amazing to me how in under an hour, Dr. Coates eliminated years of misconceptions about what the Trail of Tears actually was. Since middle school, I have consistently been taught, as Dr. Coates put it, the melodramatic version of the removal; the version with Cherokees in the middle of supper having their doors broken down by violent and bloodthirsty federal troops, forced to leave at bayonet point; the version where the removal came with no warning; the version in which federal troops marched the Cherokees all the way to Indian Territory and punted dying babies across the Mississippi. I believed it all. With the pre Civil Rights attitude of the federal government towards race, it is not something hard to believe. I was absolutely astounded to hear that the Cherokee knew for weeks the day on which they were to be removed, that some had time to collect that one prized possession, and especially that the Cherokees managed their own removal and there were basically no federal troops directing them to Indian Territory by force.

Having thought about the removal since that day, I have come up with a couple of conclusions. First of all, I realize that the Indian history I have been taught in previous years has an angle. It is a legitimate angle based in the fact that the United States government committed genocide against the American Indians. That is true and nobody who knows even a bit of American history can deny it. The whole purpose of making the whole story melodramatic is to incense us into not questioning that it was genocide and that the United States government was wrong. In some ways that is an admirable goal. But I think it accomplishes something more subtly sinister – labeling American Indians in the minds of American children as nothing more than victims, helpless in the face of the powerful American government. This undermines Indian populations across America and honestly doesn’t give the Cherokees the credit they deserve. It is true that teaching schoolchildren that the Cherokees managed their own removal (and were the only tribe to do so) would open the floodgates to arguments like “the U.S. government isn’t responsible for those deaths because they were results of bad management.” But it forces children to recognize that the Cherokees were not powerless and are not powerless. Once an entire group of people is ascribed the characteristic of victim, people learn to view individuals of that group that way. This leads to a pervasive patronizing and subtly racist view of American Indians. I wish I had been taught the reality of the situation before now.

Second of all, I was made to think of the complexity of ethnic cleansing and genocide as terms. When I thought that the federal government was marching the Cherokees eighty miles a day and impaling them with bayonets, there was no doubt in my mind that the removal was ethnic cleansing. And in my mind it was no different than the Rwandan genocide or Nazi Germany. I had the same basic definitions of genocide and ethnic cleansing, as I understood the terms, reinforced, and I was not made to question my views. Knowing what I know now, that the Cherokees managed their own removal, that they didn’t have to march eighty miles a day under the threat of death from soldiers, I have had to rethink my definitions of genocide and ethnic cleansing. There is still no doubt in my mind that the removal was ethnic cleansing and the deaths on the way were the result of genocide. My new definition of ethnic cleansing is what the Indian policy then was: removal. This covers it because removal can be done in many ways: most modern ethnic cleansing removes ethnic groups by killing their members. The Cherokee ethnic cleansing just happened to be something else – population displacement. Genocide is a little more tricky. It starts with ethnic cleansing, but the question is responsibility. The argument could be made that the Cherokee just didn’t manage the removal well, and that led to the deaths of 10% of the Cherokee population. Even if this were true, which it isn’t, the ultimate responsibility still lies with the U.S. government, because the U.S. government set off the displacement that led to those deaths. My new definition of genocide includes ethnic cleansing as a prerequisite and then who is responsible for the deaths.

Finally, I learned why history professors are so serious about citing sources.

Coates Course

2009-06-08T16:27:00.001-07:00

I found Dr. Coates' course in Cherokee history generally to be engaging, and her skill in lecturing is undeniable. I was also pleased with her refreshing iconoclasm, particularly on the subject of Indian removal policy. Rather than viewing the Trail of Tears with misty-eyed emotionalism, she demonstrated a strong commitment to factual accuracy and presented us with a meticulously researched, largely non-traditional interpretation. Though she clearly condemned federal removal policy, Dr. Coates recognized the important role that careful research plays in maintaining the credibility of a historical narrative. I learned a tremendous amount on the subject--I have to admit, I had unthinkingly swallowed the eighth-grade textbook narrative. I had thoroughly internalized the 4,000-deaths figure and the account of military brutality along the trail, only to learn that the deaths figure had no significant documentary support and that there was no US military presence along the trail. That’s a pretty intellectually bold position, and Coates deserves credit for presenting that information while keeping the tragedy of the removal largely intact. That sort of commitment to nuance and research is the mark of a good historian.

On the other hand, at times I was acutely aware of the fact that I was in a government-sanctioned history class taught by an elected official. I was extremely bothered by her handling of the Freedmen controversy, which sounded more like propaganda than objective history. At least as far as I can recall, her argument for the official Cherokee Nation position on the Freedmen was twofold. For one, she argued that the Freedmen had been culturally separated from Cherokee life for “100 years,” if I remember correctly. Her second justification is largely that the federal intervention on behalf of the Freedmen is a threat to tribal sovereignty—in short, the US government can’t tell an Indian nation how to manage its citizenship.

In response to the first assertion, I’m probably not qualified to question that judgment. But Coates’ assertion to be seemed more visceral than intellectual, and she did not include any justification for this idea. I feel there is probably a good bit of evidence to refute that claim. Additionally, I wonder who gets to decide who is and isn’t culturally Cherokee. Are only Cherokees who grew up in Oklahoma culturally connected? Are only Cherokee speakers? People with a certain blood degree? I imagine there are arguments to be made that Dr. Coates herself is not, under some definitions, “culturally connected” to the Cherokee Nation. But I don’t think she’s under any threat of being stripped of her citizenship, nor do I think she should be.

Also, the second assertion is problematic. On the one hand, I firmly agree that federal intervention would be a restriction on tribal sovereignty, and I don’t think that the federal courts—and sure as hell not Congress—should have any say-so in who gets defined as Cherokee. On the other hand, I think that by hiding behind the tribal sovereignty fortress, it masks the real issue, which isn’t a legal issue. It’s a policy issue, and it’s one that, to my mind, has pretty grave implications for tribal sovereignty. By redefining citizenship, the amendment threatens the integrity of the Nation from the inside. Independent, recognized governments generally don’t shrink their citizenship, and when a Cherokee Supreme Court decision in the Freedmen’s favor is reversed by a special election with such abysmally low turnout, it looks pretty dysfunctional. When such a tiny minority of the population can amend the constitution to revoke the citizenship eligibility of thousands of people, it undermines the Cherokee Nation's claim to be a legitimate government and one that respects the rule of law.

So no, the federal government shouldn’t intervene, and it is, in some measure, a tribal sovereignty issue. But that’s not really the main issue, and I feel that the CN government is hiding behind that in an attempt to reclaim to moral high ground. The main issue here is about maintaining a stable definition of citizenship and the viability of tribal law. Failure to do that is as much a threat to the CN’s sovereignty as federal intervention. And Dr. Coates’ failure to recognize that point demonstrated her bias as a member of the current CN government.

Ned Christie's War

2009-06-08T13:21:00.001-07:00

Ned Christie’s War was a light read compared to the other two books for the course. If I were to choose one book to drop or replace with something else from our course materials, this would be it, but I definitely think it has merits through revealing the issues of jurisdiction in the Indian Territory in the late nineteenth century. Much of the emphasis of this course has been on Cherokee history, and the other two readings we have for the course emphasize the modern Cherokee nation or the recent political history of the nation. I know that Mankiller incorporates the history of the Cherokees since before contact with Europeans, but I feel like it emphasizes the modern Cherokee Nation as a destination. I feel like a nonfiction history book to be read before the course would help put things into context a lot better if it were included. If it is not too long, one of the Angie Debo books would be good reading for this course.

Ned Christie’s War itself helped show me a Cherokee perception of the history of Indian Territory at this particular time, but the book left me with more questions than answers. What did Ned Christie symbolize to the Cherokee population? How was he significant? I have also heard clashing reviews of “Hanging Judge Parker.” He was portrayed as somewhat of a malicious man, but it is true that he went after many white outlaws that were plaguing the Indian Territory at the time. Is there another side to that story?

Barking Water and Movie Day

2009-06-08T12:59:00.001-07:00

My favorite movie of the ones we’ve watched was definitely Sterlin Harjo’s Barking Water. The movie had a definite plot: Irene takes Frankie on a road trip to his daughter’s house so he can see his newborn grandson and make amends with his daughter before he dies. Regardless of this journey plot, I felt the movie was almost completely character based, with the plot just setting up the opportunity to understand Frankie and Irene. I felt the actual purpose of the journey was beside the point. I have trouble watching plot based movies, since I feel I am just waiting for a particular event to happen the entire time – it usually feels like a waste of two hours. I like character based movies because I like learning about individuals. People don’t have a point to them, and understanding a person isn’t like waiting for the end of a story. Barking Water was the first movie I watched without getting bored since Crash four years ago. The way the movie was organized appealed to me, too. I thought Barking Water was like a movie equivalent to As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. Both are journey stories where the purpose of the journey is unimportant. The end of As I Lay Dying introduces a character that has not been mentioned nor had any importance to the book at all, while the trip between Mississippi and Alabama reveals the depth and true identity of the characters involved. As I Lay Dying also has a forward progression to the plot, but it skips back in time whenever necessary to add an important insight into the characters. Barking Water did the same thing. By the end of the movie, my eyes were not dry (I don’t think anyone else’s were either). I have never felt so much empathy for any characters in a movie – the last time I cried from a movie was The Lion King when I was seven. Barking Water was an amazing movie; I’ve already recommended it back home, and I’m going to keep up with Sterlin Harjo’s work, no doubt.

I enjoyed the other two movies as well. Four Sheets to the Wind felt very real to me – I have not yet seen a Sterlin Harjo character that seemed fabricated or overdone. Doe Boy was a very interesting concept that was well executed. Of all the movies, though, Barking Water hit me the hardest because of its appeal to humanity and because we all understand loss very well, though I think we wish we didn’t. Again, the extent of my feelings about the movie is impossible to express in words.

The movie day was one of the most rewarding and worthwhile experiences I have had so far in this program.

Post 5 - After the Stomp

2009-06-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Andrei and I left the Echota Grounds early, as you all know. What you may not know is that we were pulled over by a Tahlequah cruiser really close to campus, but not on campus property. Travis Wolfe drove us back to the dorms in his large gold Chevy truck. Those vehicles can make some wide turns and that’s exactly what the officer pulled us over for, so he said.

We were taking the back way back to the Seminary Suites and Travis pointed out a Domino’s Pizza business set off in the back of a shopping center saying how nothing can stay in business there. He said it was sad that for such a large occupied space there was no dine-in option at that Domino’s. The rest of the place looked empty. Anyway, as we continued he showed us Sequoyah City Park and we eventually made it to Muskogee Ave. As we crossed the street closest to Sam and Ella’s we came to a stop sign. I didn’t even see a police car. Travis turned right at that stop sign and then adjusted the truck to continue around the bend in the road. That’s when the lights flashed on.

We all sat there wondering why? Nothing was wrong, no one had been drinking, Travis’s tags were up to date and I couldn’t justify any reason for him to be pulled over. I then realized that when the cop asked, ‘Have you been drinking this evening?” and Travis said, “No, not a bit sir,” that we were probably pulled over because Travis’ UKB plates. It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s reality around these parts. The Natives are still approached to this day differently and seen in a different light. Travis even expressed as much himself.

Andrei mentioned how another time they (Travis and Andrei) were driving and they were pulled over. Travis said that when the cops see the green numbers on the UKB tags that they just pull you over for questioning to see if they can get someone in trouble. I felt bad for Travis, but he seemed pretty well adjusted to the fact that his reality was being unjustifiably accused of drinking just because he’s Native. At any rate the cops let us go after barely looking at the license and saying, “Y’all have a good night.” There were two cops actually. The other one was flashing lights in at Andrei and me while the other was getting Travis’s license. I was holding my keys in my hands and in particularly I remember the cop flashing his light directly at my hands.

As we drove off Travis said, “Did you see that other cop on the right side of us?”

Andrei said, “No, I didn’t.” He was surprised that he didn’t even know there was another cop right by his window.

Travis continued to describe that the cop had his club in one hand and his handgun in the other. Now, I don’t remember seeing that because I distinctly remember seeing a flashlight, but then again I didn’t look hard enough. I was still just trying to figure out why we were pulled over because having UKB plates wasn’t a justifiable reason.