Snowbird Cherokee

A documentary detailing the lives of the Snowbird Cherokee. A small group of Eastern Band Cherokee who live in the farthest Cherokee community; Snowbird in Graham Co. NC

>> A production of South Carolina ETV. The Snowbird Cherokees was funded in part by grants from the South Carolina Humanities Council, the North Carolina Humanities Council, the Georgia Humanities Council, and SECA, the Southern Educational Communications Association.

[Flute music]

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>> The beautiful mountains rising row on row, waters washing silver on shore, bird people floating in the air. Fish in the waters and, one by one, each being finding out who he was, his name, and powers.

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>> Throughout the history of empires, native cultures have often been displaced by new, emerging forces, removed to remote, out of the way places.

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In 1830, the United States Congress narrowly passed the Indian Removal Act, which made the eviction of Native Americans from their homelands official US policy.

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During the bitter winter of 1838, 12,000 Cherokees were forced to march over 800 miles from the Appalachians to Oklahoma Territory. When it was over, a quarter of them had perished on what has become known as the Trail of Tears.

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In these primeval forests, deep in the Cherokee country of the Smoky Mountains, several hundred Cherokees managed to flee from their homes before the soldiers arrived, and for once, survive.

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>> We could not bear to leave the land of our ancestors, the land the great spirit bestowed upon us. While most of us were taken from our homes and forced west, some of us hid and stayed.

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We became the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, the persistent ones, the people of the Qualla Boundary and of Snowbird.

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>> People look at you like what is Snowbird? You try to tell them. It's hard to tell them about Snowbird because there's nothing but the road and the trees. And when they get down here, they're looking for some Snowbird. And you tell them this is Snowbird. And then they look around and say what are you talking about?

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We don't see nothing but trees and a road. [SOUND]
>> Snowbird is Snowbird because, and I think really what makes this a pretty strong community is, they kinda also isolated from the reservation a little bit. And they kindly independent. If we could rounded all of them up again, we would be in Oklahoma today.

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So there wouldn't be no Indians here.
>> Cherokee lands and hunting grounds once covered much of what is now a Southeastern United States. Today, the main reservation of the Eastern Band Cherokees is the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina's Swain and Jackson counties. Its center is the town of Cherokee.

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About 50 miles southwest, near Robbinsville in Graham County, lies the Snowbird community. Where tribal lands are scattered Among private plots belonging to both Cherokees and non-Indians. 25 miles southwest of Snowbird is Tomotla in Cherokee County, where the fewest full blooded Cherokees live.

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>> I have great admiration for those that remained that went and stayed, regardless of who was after them or whatever. They went to the mountains and stayed.

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Because of those ancestors, that's what remains here.
>> The Trail of Tears separated the tribe and isolated the Eastern Band from the larger Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. But reconnections have been made over the years at events like the Trail of Tears Sing. Even though different Cherokee dialects are spoken, Otali in Snowbird and Oklahoma, Kituhwa on the Qualla boundary, they quickly understand each other.

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>> For many years, we were separated but now we have come and just reunited one more time.

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>> Like many Oklahoma Cherokee families, Bill and Becky Drywater have been coming to the Trail of Tears Sing in Snowbird for many years.

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>> We've had heard about this North Carolina since I was just a young man, always had the desire to come and visit. And I believe some of the people that are here had that same desire at one time or another. And to them it's kinda like a dream coming true.

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[LAUGH]

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>> It's become an annual Cherokee tradition, one which strengthens the bonds between the Eastern and Western Cherokees. Every summer, each group hosts a Trail of Tears Gospel Sing. And families from each group make the long trip to reunite.

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>> When we started off, we were distant from the wise. It's sort of funny to think about it nowadays. It seemed they were better than us, the way we looked at it. But the older I got, I realized that we was just like anybody else. We might be different color skin but I'm proud to be a Cherokee.

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>> In earlier times, the Cherokees believed in the sacredness of all things.

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>> Before the Europeans came, our lives were structured around ancient beliefs which explained the eternal order of things. We were the Aniyunwiya, the Real People.

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The flight of the first great buzzard created the mountains as his wings touched the Earth.

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This sacred land of mountains, forests, valleys, and streams became our home.

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Above all else, we believed that life must be lived in harmony with others and all things. With the sun and moon, the seasons, with the plants and animals, spirits, water, fire, wind, and smoke.

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To us, the earth was a flat, round disk suspended from the dome of heaven at the four directions, resting on the vast, deep body of water. The earth itself was delicately balanced between the upper world of the benevolent guiding spirits, and the underworld of evil. Whose spirits crept onto the earth through caves, springs, and deep lakes.

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This delicate balance between the three worlds, Could only be kept through harmony between man and the elements. Failure to keep that harmony brought disaster in all forms, drought, storms, sickness, and death.

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Evil actions brought evil to others. Everything happened for a reason.
>> My great-great grandfather, great grandfather was named David Owl, in those days the Cherokees believed in conjuring. And they felt like they were able to transform themselves into other life forms, into animals and those type of things.

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So, David had changed himself into an owl. And there's a gentleman by the name of Lambert, who, one night, heard the screeching of an owl outside of his house. And the Cherokees are very fearful of the screech owl. So they feel like he is a bad messenger, and if he comes around their house, something terrible may happen to one of the family members.

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So if Lambert goes out and he shoots the screech owl,.When the owl falls to the ground he thinks he's killed it. So he goes on back in that night and goes on to sleep. When he awakens the next day, he goes out and he finds my great grandfather, David Owl, lying upon the ground.

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And he's been shot in the same place that the owl had been shot.
>> You know I heard a similar story, it was an owl, and everything else. And like I said, they said but he didn't die then but they said two days later they could hear him scream through this whole valley.

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Every house, you could hear him scream all the way to the head. Because you knew he was dead.
>> Ned Long and Ella Jackson are brother and sister. The Longs and Jacksons are two of several extended families in the Snowbird community. Nearly everyone in Snowbird it seems is somehow related to each other.

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This old cemetary, where one of their baby sisters who died over 55 years ago, is buried, is now part of National Forest land. Before the Forest Service claimed this land, a small Cherokee settlement was nearby. Ella Jackson remembers.
>> [FOREIGN]
>> She took a lot of pride in being Indian, and she always said, you don't have to do these customary things.

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You don't have to make a basket. You don't have to do be work and those are good things to know. But being Indian comes from here, in the heart. And she said, that's where it is. If you've got it there, that's all you need.

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>> Ella's daughter, Lou Jones, is moving to a new home. In the generous and sharing spirit of a Cherokee, she's given her former home to her eldest son, Bud and his new growing family.

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Lou has moved to land which was given to her by her father's cousin, who Lou always thought of as her Aunt. In Cherokee communities, extended family members are often called aunts and uncles by the children.

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Multiple mothers are also common, as friends and family assume parental roles for each other's children.
>> If you've got a grandma and she's got sisters, they're all grandmas.
>> We adopted first two, and then people tell us, well you're going to start having your own kids. I said, that's fine, we love kids, we won't care to have one, we wouldn't stop it.

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So then in a few days, my brother-in-law brings in five kids, says would you take them in? And we only had a one bedroom at the time, a living room and one bedroom and kitchen. And I said, I really don't have enough room, but I said, bring them on.

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I said, I wouldn't turn them down.
>> It's not even unusual for childless aunts and uncles to be given babies from large families. The strong traditional family bonds of the community have made this tradition work.
>> [NOISE]
>> My name is Bud Jones, I'm 21 years old. I'm a one-half degree Cherokee Indian.

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And I live on the Snowbird Reservation have a, ten month old daughter. I just got myself a house. The Snowbird community is just one big family. Everybody has their squabbles [INAUDIBLE]. But when something happens to a particular person everybody pulls together, and helps them out. Like my cousin, he had a bad car wreck a few weeks ago and they're going to have a singing for him.

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And they always have some kind of benefit singer or something to help out the family whenever there's hospital bills or anytime something happens. Like when a family member dies, everybody brings the family groceries and whatever they need for the household. That way they won't have to worry about it and they can concentrate on the person who's passed on.

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>> In a small community you see your cousin all the time but you really don't do anything with him. You don't see him every day and do things with him. But at a time that you really need them, they come through for you. And I think that that really is something that the Cherokees did in the past.

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When it was time to build a home everybody pitched in and that's when they always said that [FOREIGN]
>> The Gadugi tradition of free labor, of community members helping each other and working has faded away but its spirit has not.
>> When the crisis arise, we'll come to the aid to one another even though the free labor does not exist anymore.

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But if there's a crisis here in the family, we still come together and stand as one united. Regardless whatever may be.

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>> In former times, purification ceremonies in our rivers purged past grudges and cleansed bitter spirits. Harmony was kept.
>> In obedience to the command of our blessed lord and savior, we baptize this here brother in the name of the father, in the name of the son, in the name of the holy ghost.

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>> Our Cherokee ritual of going to water also helped ease our transition into Christianity Missionaries began to preach to them in the 18th century.

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By 1818, only two Cherokee's had converted to Christianity but today most of Snowbird is devout Baptist.

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In the 1830s Chief Yonaguska of the Eastern band refused to let missionaries circulate among our people until they had translated the gospel of Matthew for him. When he heard the translation, he remarked, it seems to be a good book. Strange that the white people are not better after having had it so long.

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>> One of the biggest things that isn't pointed out very much is the religion of the Indian, they were very religious. They lived the religion where as a white man only spoke it. And this was one of the bad problems of why the two peoples could never really get together.

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One didn't understand, and the other didn't ask.
>> A former war chief, who had signed peace treaties with George Washington, reflected the belief of many Cherokees when he told missionaries that the Bible, the great book of the whites, was the source of the white man's wisdom and knowledge.

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When the great father created men, he had a great book, he offered it to the red men, and [INAUDIBLE] to read from it, but they could not. Then he offered it to the whites, and they were able to read from it at once. This is why the whites know so much.

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George Guess, given his English name at birth, grew up in a full blooded Cherokee community. His Cherokee name was Sequoyah. The man who single-handedly created for his people a phonetic method to write the Cherokee language, the Syllabary.
>> When it was perfected and made public in 1821, Sequoyah hoped his syllabary would be a major force in preserving Cherokee heritage and religion.

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>> A syllabary assigned one character for each of the 86 sounds in the Cherokee language. This written expression gave the Cherokees a new faith in themselves and a power beyond themselves.
>> His achievement helped preserve my people's language and strengthen their pride. Within weeks, any native speaker could become literate.

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>> A great part of the Cherokees are reading and writing in their own language. The knowledge of Mr. Guess' alphabet is spreading through the nation like fire among leaves. Reverend William Chamberlain, 1824.
>> The syllabary is very much alive today. Jim Welsh and Tom Belt are Cherokee language teachers at the elementary school in the town of Cherokee, center of the eastern band.

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Fine so, let's bet for the second one. 22 Cherokees want a white paper. How do you say 22?
>> [FOREIGN]
>> Alright [FOREIGN] is going to come first. Try again [FOREIGN] Next one.
>> The people of the Eastern Band and the parents of students who go here have recognized the importance at this particular time in history of preserving what culture they have left.

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With this new concept, with this new approach to what they're doing, they are recognizing the value of their culture. The value of their language and how much it means to their identity.

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>> A lot of times I would ask my dad, dad, you're fluent Cherokee, but why didn't you need to teach us how to speak Cherokee?

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He came back to me and he said, I remembered what I had to go through, and I didn't want that for you. I didn't want that to happen to you. I can't blame my dad.
>> Earlier generations of Cherokees, including her father and his grandfather before him, had to attend the Indian School in Cherokee.

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Run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
>> We went to government school. And they wouldn't allow us to talk our own language. That really took a lot out of some, but some, they still cling to their heritage. When you're in the white man's world, when you're under his jurisdiction, you just about have to do what they tell you.

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It is like being in military service. It was the same way when I was in the Armed Forces, at times. I had some Cherokee buddies, and we'd speak Cherokee once in a while. But the first sergeant, he wouldn't allow that. So you got to do it, you got to follow the rules, whatever.

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But when you get home, then you're on your own. Then we go to doing what our ways are.

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>> [MUSIC]

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>> [APPLAUSE]
>> I'm Richard Crow, my great great grandparents were known down, they would say we have always been here. We were always here. There was a time, there was a period when the medicine man, he came pretty often to the house off the hill over there. Walking down a trail to the house, his name we called [FOREIGN].

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He'd bring some herb, some medicine. We walked out to the creek. Now I know that the creek had mole crickets so he took the mole, this cricket then, then he said, stick out your tongue. I did that and he put scratches with the claws of the mole cricket for seven times on my tongue.

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And then he announced, he said, you will be the same [FOREIGN]

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In the Late 50s, early 60s. I did fair work, I went to New York. Studio work, CBS, Royd Bridge's is American [INAUDIBLE]
>> I've been making baskets since I was small, my mama used to make baskets. That's why. He was away and working away with a company, but he didn't make much and he had to pay so he didn't make much.

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He didn't bring home much. I just made baskets and raised my boys.
>> We couldn't see no white people around here, it was in the woods. This little spot, here and there a few houses, that's all. And that's where I used to farm down here into the bottom, a big field.

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It it wasn't for Santa Claus and those cabins, then I'd be by the road by now. But I just quit, not enough work, not enough money.

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In the eyes of European whites, America's land was a commodity to be used and exploited. To Native Americans, land was shared communally by their tribe. Like the new white settlers, the Cherokees were primarily farmers. Yet the settlers believed that Indians were simply tenants at will, upon the landscape of America, and should be removed when in the way of progress.

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This was not the inclusive vision of America, shared by Washington and Jefferson and other founding fathers. That all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Yet within 50 years, most white Americans replaced these values of the age of enlightenment, with those of the romantic age.

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Assure that whites were a superior race, with a special mission to save the world. Ironically, in 1803, it was Jefferson who first suggested the ideal solution to the Indian question, their removal to distant western lands. [SOUND] This new road being built through the national forest near Snowburg, will make the area more accessable to tourists.

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[SOUND] Alfred Welsh, foreman on the road project, Is a Vietnam veteran of the 101st Airborne, and is proud to be Cherokee. He and his wife, Maybelle, have raised their son to be fluent in his native tongue. Hunter Welsh is Snowbird's youngest speaker of Cherokee.
>> And don't know how to speak their own language.

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Lot of them don't see it that way. I don't know I've been embarrassed a whole lot about if, I couldn't know my own name. I was raised to [INAUDIBLE] know how to talk. Till I started school, that's what my grandpa believed in too. I guess I just believed the way he did.

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>> [SOUND] This new road Alfred's helping to build, will also create a link to the Tellico, Tennessee area. The sites of several extinct Cherokee towns, which are now permanently inaccessible. In the 1930s and 40s, the first two dams were built in the area, creating a job boom where jobs have always been scarce.

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Clearing land with a team of horses is an old mountain tradition. But with the dams, men worked ten hour days for a dollar, and were glad for the work.
>> My daddy even logged to stay and keep the dam. Functional burn, and it worked, I don't know how they done it.

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First, Alcoa Aluminum's Dam on the Santeetlah Creek, created Lake Santeetlah which Snowbird borders today. Next came the massive Fontana Damn, begun in 1940 when only one tractor existing in all of Graham county. Built as a priority in the war effort to increase aluminum output, he became a major employer for those not already in the armed forces.

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In 1979 the Tennessee valley authorities, lake, permanently submerged the side of the sacred Cherokee town of Chota.

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Damconstruction was delayed over the entire environmental fate of the snail fish, not the early town sites sacred to the Cherokee. Yet before it was flooded John Green a local archeologist who had been raised by Cherokees, found the site and led an excavation there.
>> To us it was something that should have been preserved, definitely and honorably of the chair keeping.

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Of course many promises were made concerning his preservation, but none were kept. Based on a writings of lieutenant Henry Timberlake, who wrote in 1762 had the visited we knew definitely they were on the right spot. I had a sense of feeling, I've already been there, it have been so vividly described to me.

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Until there were the mountains just have been described, there was the bend in the river, just as have been described.
>> So when we discovered the entrance to the council house, as I stated. Then we began to look. The [INAUDIBLE] of [INAUDIBLE]. And sure enough there was a rectangular-shaped barrel.

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>> This was a European burial, with the body laid straight, unlike the Cherokee tradition of placing the dead in a fetal position. In the 1730s, the British were seeking powerful chiefs who could speak for all Cherokees, even though, in reality, none did. Oconostota, a powerful war chief, was one of several taken to England to meet the king.

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>> Oconostota was given a pair of eyeglasses because of his poor eyesight, by the king of England. So near the midsection of the legs there It was, the eyeglasses. Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Echota was not only the focal point of business and religious transaction, but it was a city of peace.

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Anyone that entered the boundaries of Echota were safe, regardless of crimes that they might have committed. At Echota, they had no jails, They had no sheriff. They had nothing to keep order like we have today. But the point is every Indian acted on his honor.
>> With the help of these Snowbird youths who worked on the dig, the memory of Ochota will live on.

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Native American traditions are also helping some young Indians, overcome addictions to drugs and alcohol.
>> Drug abuse, sweat houses, and it's a powerful, sacred place. When you go through that, you're considered to be a sinner for the universe.
>> I'm Lloyd Owle and I work here at a center, where we treat children that are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

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Here the children are from maybe 10 to 21 years old, and a lot of the kids that are in treatment centers with this disease, a lot of them, will be dead before they're 20 years old. A lot of people's statistics come from certain places, they saying one in four would be dead before their 20 years old.

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Bill developed Alcoholics Anonymous, it's just saved a lot of the ways of having circled or group. Telling your problems as a community or a group, seems a lot like Native Americans would do many years ago to solve problems, or to talk about it with the tribe. We use what we call the medicine wheel concept, kind of a wheel with the four directions at it.

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Young people especially, they might have a problem understanding 12 steps, and here at the medicine wheel. They can have a better concept, to be able to understand more about what the trail steps are about.
>> Snowbird's in a dry county of North Carolina, but the kids here are well aware of the dangers of alcohol Melvin Wachacha dreams of being a movie star, he's already appeared as an extra in several Hollywood features, including Last of the Mohicans.

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I used to wanna drink all the time and stuff and now I feel bad to, I don't want kids to see me walking around drinking. I don't want to have that kind of, cuz if they're looking up to me, and they see me walking around drinking, well he's been in the movies, and he's doing this, and this is cool.

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It's not, so I don't wanna be out walking around and drinking in front of them or anything like that. I wanna look good to them. I wanted to say, I wanna be like Melvin and be a good image to them because they do look up to me. And what I'd really like to do is further my acting career and get real deep into it.

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And maybe be able to give them something. Come back and give these kids something like build them a gym.
>> Snellberg's always had great athletes. Many of them getting their start here at the community center, which doubles as a gym. [SOUND]
>> There were 13 until last year and we're State champions, had a great football team.

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We're looking for a good year this year. The kids' been working hard, good attitude and everything. They can look forward to a great season. In the last few years, seems like there's been a great bunch of Indian athletes and thank goodness we've got a good part of them out here right now.

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[SOUND]
>> Athlete, our family were, most of them were athletes. [SOUND]
And so we got along well. Robbins, for being the school it is, I mean they really stress a lot on the athletic program. So if you're an athlete, you're one of them, that's how we fit in.

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So we were one of them, we were accepted and everybody liked us. But you take some of those Indian kids that didn't participate in athletic programs, they were just pushed aside. And we've got Indian kids now that aren't even eligible to play football because of their grades or their attendance.

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And mark my word, this fall they'll be on the team because they're such good athletes. Now I know that the things that they taught me in high school, they didn't teach me anything. They didn't teach me English, they didn't prepare me to go to college, they didn't prepare me for life, they didn't do anything except use my athletic skills.

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And that's how I got promoted every year.
>> Some of our kids struggle a little bit but we're trying to work on that and try to get your grades up, whatever. Sometimes, as an athlete sometimes I kind don't study as much as they should, but we're trying to do some things to work on that and whatever.

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And, and, you know, stress importance which I am sure they are having a blast, too.
>> [SOUND]
>> Boo Jones' younger son, Brandy, was one of the stars of the Robbinsville High State Championship football team. In college to be a pharmacist, hes now working a summer job with the forest service.

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He's determined to be a leader. [SOUND]
>> Probably 60% of the team are made up of Cherokee athletes, and you hear remarks, hear comments. And basically, thats just, kind of like a driving force for me. I've always been determined to prove somebody wrong about something like that. So, kind of wanting to go into pharmacy gives me a good edge.

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So I'll be able to come back and set a good example. There's a lot of people to talk but basically through your actions, that's how you become leaders.
>> Politics in the eastern band revolves around the tribal council. The tribal roles includes full bloods and barely blood. Most of the latter are often called White Indians.

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They share a tribal council representative with Snowburg, and leave in the adjoining county of Cherokee.
>> In Cherokee county we have very few traditional people, out of our population of say, five or 600 people. We have maybe 12 or 15 that are over a half here in Cherokee.

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We have been what we call isolated from the rest of the reservation. We are not as familiar with the cultures introduced of the Cherokees, because our people down here have moved away from the reservation for work or education. And so we receded, because we don't keep close ties with the tribe.

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>> White people claims to be Indian help the Indian people and still been Indian people when you not. And I feel like blood has run out, if you want to be with Indian people, work with Indian people and help them out every way you can help them, not keep taking it.

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Chetan are Indian full blooded Indian people.
>> Non-Indian people have said, especially the men would say marry an Indian woman and you'll get a free house. Marry an Indian woman and you'll get free medical services and free, just a lot of freebies. You get a monthly check and so forth and so on.

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And another, a lot of the elderly, such as my grandmother remembers being told the government will take care of you and that has caused or created dependency. But now, there's talk now among the community and I've been approached that we have to take care of our own. We have to do what we can to buy insurance health insurance.

[00:37:29]
Life and burial insurance because we were not going to be taken care of anymore. The promises that were made back in the days of removal are no longer.
>> Jim Welsh, Lou/g's husband, defeated Glenda Sanders in his tribal election for one of the council seats. It was a hard fought campaign.

[00:37:48]
Although this council seat must represent both the traditional community of Snowbird and the White Indians of Tomatla, each group tends to vote for its own. A bigger voter turnout in Snowbird than in Cherokee County assured Jim's victory. But the political tension between the two communities is always present.

[00:38:08]
Abe Wachacha is the other council member representing both Snowbird and Cherokee County.
>> This year, I think the biggest issue this year is our game, our gaming this year. People may not see it as much here as Snowbird simply because we're not a tourist town as Cherokee is.

[00:38:25]
But we reap the benefits when they get it, if our game or compact to be able to be signed by the state of North Carolina, then we could realize most of the benefits. Then you would have more services. Then you'd have people who could create jobs that way.

[00:38:41]
I think they're looking at 6,000 jobs at Cherokee. If we could that gaming compact signed, they will be going into the casino market.

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[MUSIC]

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>> Cherokee wasn't always what you see it is today. It started building up after the late 50s. In the last 20 years, the growth of this community has expanded enormously to accommodate tourism which is our economy here.
>> When the tourists come here and they are very much disillusion of Cherokee, the Teepees, well, the Cherokee never did.

[00:39:17]
One can find on the streets of Cherokee, Cherokee men dressed in regalia that looks like the war bonnets. And the like that you see in the John Wayne Hollywood movies that cowboys and Indians. And these head dresses are of the plains Indian style. Well, this is what the people that come here think that the Indian looks like.

[00:39:41]
So, the Cherokee will dress up like that, the tourist will have a picture made, and they will make money. Some people downgrade the Cherokee man who is doing that and say that he's selling himself down the road for his own people, his own culture. And they don't realize that what it is is it's nothing more that street theatrics.

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[MUSIC]

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>> Other tourist attractions in Cherokee are historically accurate. Like the Ocanaluftee Village, where traditional crafts are made and visitors can learn that Cherokees did indeed live in wooden houses, rather than the teepees of the Plains Indians. By the early 1800s a few Cherokees in Northwest Georgia were living like wealthy whites as innkeepers and even as slave holding plantation holders.

[00:40:35]
Chief James Vann was both. This was his tavern, once a popular way station for whites on the frontier. It was near his trading post on the Conasauga River. And this was his home. Half white and known for his explosive and violent temper, Van owned over a hundred black slaves and once burned alive one who escaped, forcing other slaves to witness the murder.

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In 1809, Van himself was murdered in a brawl. The financial success of Cherokees like Vann and their ability to excel in business pursuits was a greater threat to white settlers than their fears, real and imagined, of Indian savagery.

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[MUSIC]

[00:41:16]
During the 1820s, not far from the Vann plantation in Northwest Georgia, the Cherokees created a new town, New Echota. Constant losses of their tribal lines at the hands of whites lead them to create a Cherokee nation from the remaining lands, whose center had been pushed 200 miles southwest from the Carolinas.

[00:41:35]
New Echota was designed to be the capital of this new nation

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[MUSIC]

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It was a determined effort to prove to the Whites that they were quite capable of handling their own affairs. This new formal nation was even modeled after the United States with a Constitution, a Legislature, and a Supreme Court.
>> And we were powerful. We were very powerful, we were very intelligent.

[00:41:57]
We had our own language, schools, newspapers, everything. And we were always very intelligent. Being Cherokee today is very hard.
>> Who am I? Who really am I? Am I Cherokee or am I not Cherokee? Am I not Indian? What's gonna be the basis in my decision here? Which way am I gonna go?

[00:42:23]
I still have struggles with that.

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[MUSIC]

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>> The mound ceremony is an ancient Cherokee rite. When my people came to meet for an important occasion, everyone brought a turtle shell of dirt from their home and added it to the sacred fire ground as the ceremony ended. Over time, the meeting mound grew with the power of past meetings.

[00:43:04]
In Snowbird, this ceremony now opens the annual Fading Voices ceremony, which commemorates the communities elders and celebrates Cherokee ways and traditions.

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[MUSIC]

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>> We have a little fire going and it's made of different types of firewood and the seven trips that we make around the mound represents the seven clans.
>> The clan system has largely died out among the Eastern clan. But like most Native American clans, it once maintained matrimonial social system, where family lineages were passed on through mothers rather than fathers.

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Members were forbidden to marry within their clan.

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[MUSIC]

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>> On special occasions, like the fading voices gathering, Cherokee women make traditional foods, like harmony corn, chestnut bread and bean dumplings.

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[MUSIC]

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>> Flute making is another traditional craft, being revived here in Snowbird by Billy Welsh. He finds a demand for his flutes in the galleries and shops of Cherokee.

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[MUSIC]

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Ballplaying is an old Cherokee sport which is still played during the annual fall festival, held every year at Cherokee. It was a once a major Cherokee social occasion where young men could demonstrate their physical daring, stamina, and skill. Like all elements of Cherokee life, traditional ball playing had spiritual meaning and once required intense spiritual preparation and purification.

[00:44:56]
Including sexual abstinence and a scratching ceremony to purify the blood from each player prior to every game. Ball playing was once used to settle disputes within the tribe.
>> When I was growing up if they would have a land dispute or something like that, they'd go to the ball field.

[00:45:15]
Back then, when they had a land dispute, that's how they settled, playing ball.
>> In the 19th century, Cherokee students at mission schools were often forbidden to even attend ball plays for fear that they would be corrupted by the gambling, drinking, coarse language. And the fact that players were, quote, practically naked.

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[MUSIC]

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Another Cherokee tradition, fading, but still held by some, concerns the existence of little people. Small bands of elusive, elf-sized beings who live in the mountains. And sometimes come in contact with both children and adults
>> All I ever heard about little people related to them being in the mountains or the woods.

[00:46:00]
And I've always heard people as far as Cherokees including everybody, all the Cherokees.
>> That little girl, the youngest girl used to be behind the house playing with dolls and stuff. My wife said every now and then she'd look out that back window, and see that girl playing and it was like she was just talking to somebody.

[00:46:26]
Her just walking around and talking, just like me and you are talking well she come in, tell her mom that said, I got a friend out there. He comes down every evening when I'm playing out there, we play together. We asked her then what it was? They said they was one little people.

[00:46:46]
And I forget what she named it, but she knows it, and she called it before. The day she came down there every time and plays. I asked what kind of clothes does he wear? He said, he wears old clothes and got a long pointed hat on.
>> [FOREIGN]

[00:47:14]

>> [FOREIGN]
>> [FOREIGN]
>> She has no idea. She said there's just for curiosity's sake, they were creatures that were created by our creator. And they were to be held with respect, and there was no purpose that she could remember that she was ever told. But just to always treat them with respect when they were nearby.

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And she told me that you knew when they were nearby because you could smell
>> There was an aroma of fresh cucumbers or watermelon. And when that aroma, you smell the aroma and it wafted through them, you knew they were nearby in the rocks.
>> And I remember one night we were playing and everybody was visiting at our house and We had a pretty big porch, and I can remember all the adults sitting there.

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And several times they would holler down at us and say don't get too loud now. The little people's gonna play with you, meaning they were going to join you. And at some point or other there was a little person that started playing with us. And we were playing a game that was similar to Ring Around the Rosie.

[00:48:30]
And this is a person that just went round and round with us. And nobody was afraid, and nobody said anything. Nobody talked about him, or nobody asked him who he was or nothing. And as quietly as he came, he left.
>> A lot of the younger people don't believe in [FOREIGN].

[00:48:49]
Older people do, but a lot of the older people still believe in that stuff real strong. I believe it.
>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Belief in Jesus is very strong in Snowbird today. With a population of under 400 people, the community supports four Baptist churches.

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[MUSIC]

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>> There was a very strong Baptist tradition among the Christians and the Cherokee. And then when the Trail of Tears came, the ministers went with the Indians who were forced out by the criminal activity of the US government. And they went along and identified and were a part of that.

[00:49:40]
So that's why the Baptist traditions in Oklahoma as well as Cherokee have continued. Because they weren't sort of fake Christians, but they were real involved with the people and part of the society and well as just part of the church. Samuel Lister was 27 years old when he came to New Achota in 1825 from Boston for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

[00:50:03]
This was his home in the Cherokee capital where he helped lead the fight against removal. He was arrested by the Georgia Guard in 1831, and imprisoned for 18 months for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia. A strong supporter of the Cherokee nation, he and another missionary found themselves at the center of a national power struggle between the state and the federal government.

[00:50:26]
Georgia refused to recognize Cherokee claims to their land. But John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United State Supreme Court, did. Former Indian fighter and now president, Andrew Jackson, whose life had once been saved in the Creek Indian War by Cherokee Chief Junaluska chose to ignore the court's ruling.

[00:50:44]
Jackson wrote to a friend, the decision of the court has fell stillborn. When gold had been discovered several years earlier on Cherokee land, Georgia immediately forbade Indian access to it. When Cherokee claims on Georgia land were no longer recognized, Georgia held a state lottery, carving up the Cherokee nation into parcels for whites.

[00:51:06]
These are some of those lottery tickets, which randomly gave away 160-acre plots of Indian land while it was still occupied by the Cherokees themselves.
>> If you would be misbehaving, or doing something that you shouldn't be doing, or saying things that you shouldn't be saying, that sometimes the elders or the adults or whoever was around would say, [LAUGH] you're acting like a white person.

[00:51:36]
[LAUGH]
>> The Cherokee have, for many decades, done what they call the Booger Dance, and it's a mockery dance. So it's a mockery of the white, the black, the Oriental, and tribes other than Cherokee. The frustrations that have been pinned up in them by these unnatural acts that these other people had done, then they could act these out.

[00:52:00]
And in a more exaggerated way, they would then show to the elders, and the young people especially, this is not how you behave when you go somewhere, this is not what you should do in public.
>> We weren't discovered, we were stolen upon. And our dignity was stolen, and they were trying to change something that they had no right to mess with.

[00:52:24]

>> Let's quit. Let's stop thinking that the Indian are there for just a handout. Who started giving out handouts? We didn't ask for them. We didn't ask the government to do these things to us. We didn't ask them to do anything. They wanted us to be part of this society.

[00:52:45]
But they forgot one thing. They forgot to show us how.
>> They timed, they's a little hurt in the Indians' feeling, just what the white man done to him. Take a little hurt sometime, but that passes, that passes. And we're just fellows here with one another, like you, and him, and everybody else.

[00:53:11]
All these things are past and forgotten, but face times, it comes back just a little bit. But, when we get to thinking about it, all is forgiven.
>> [FOREIGN] That means I had to follow whatever the Indian ways were to where [INAUDIBLE] in this modern time.
>> [FOREIGN]

[00:53:42]

>> [FOREIGN]
>> The Cherokee language is [INAUDIBLE], but I think if can all just work together and help these kids and tell them the history of the Cherokees, I think if they can keep that in their heart I think that's the most important thing. Every year we would go to the mountains, and we loved the woods.

[00:54:02]
And Mom, she just always has a couple favorite spots that she likes to go to.
>> Here's your [INAUDIBLE].
>> Put them in your bag. Good girl.
>> I think Bird and I both are trying real hard to keep these traditions going.
>> There's a lot of work in learning traditional values.

[00:54:22]
It's not something they can just tell you. You have to learn it and know it firsthand.

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[MUSIC]

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[FOREIGN]
>> In ancient times, a conjuror stole the sacred fire and transformed it into tiny white crystals that held the future. When the crystals were held, they burst into flames and showed the way of the future. A Cherokee warrior, sent to retrieve the flame, threw tobacco on it, creating a huge fireball, which destroyed the conjurer, and carried the sacred flame back to his people.

[00:55:49]
The sacred flame still burns in our hearts.

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[MUSIC]