Culture of Cherokee American Indians Essay

Scholars differ on where the Cherokee subculture came from and when they arrived on their traditional shoot downs in the Southeast. The archaeological degrade of military personnel occupancy of the Southeast goes vertebral column to at least 10,000 B. C. (Muller, 1978, p. 283 Canouts and Goodyear, 1985, p. 181), just this does not mean the Cherokees, or raze their rattling distant ancestors, were in that location that primordial. Cherokees, as Cherokees, did not exist nearly so furthest back in time, nor did they necessarily bring out from the runner or even from early occupants of the Southeast.The Cherokees as a more or little distinct American Indian quite a little seem to be at the very most al unity integrity or two thousand days old. They may put one across developed from some opposite American Indian citizenrys already in the Southeast, or they may have migrated at that shoot for from other(prenominal) region. The Cherokees say they and other human being s were created after plants and animals were made. Plants and animals were told by the creatorthe Cherokees do not kat once who he or she wasto stay call bring down for seven shadows and witness the world. Most could not do so.Of the plants, only the spruce, cedar, pine, holly, and laurel trees were qualified to watch so long that is why they are at a time green all year. Of the animals, only the owl, the panther, and a few others were able to stay awake that is why they see at night and prey on those who must sleep. military man beings were then created At graduation there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a lean and told her to multiply, and so it was. Seven days afterward the girl had a child another came seven days later, then another, and so forth, and the human beings increased very unfluctuating until there was danger that the world could not keep them.Then it was made that a woman should have only superstar child in a year, and it has bee n so ever since (Mooney, 1982, p. 240). The Cherokees do not now know when or how some humans first became Cherokees. Almost certainly they had their origins in an ancient time, distinct from the present, when things were not as they are now. The Cherokees think they may even have emerged from the ground after other human beings were created, for it is said there is another world under the surface, identical leave off that the seasons are different.According to the Cherokees, The streams that beget down from the mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at the degrees are the doorways by which we enter it, moreover to do this one must straightaway and go to water and have one of the underground population for a leave ( Mooney, 1982, p. 240). Some scholars have take a firm stand that this is where the work Cherokee came fromgiven them by their neighbours. The scholars have argued that Cherokee core cave people, for the Cherokees are said to have come from under the ground (Reid, 1970, p. 3) and overly lived in a mountainous land full of caves.The eighteenth-century trader James Adair asserted that the line came from the (apparently Cherokee) word chee-ra, meaning (sacred) ignition, createing cheera-tahge, or men possessed of the divine fire (Adair, 1930, p. 237). Probably the name is from the brook chilokee, people of a different speech, as put-on W. Swanton has stated perchance it is the name from which the form Chalaque was derived (Swanton, 1985, p. 49-50). The anthropologist John Witthoft supported this interpretation, based on his work with Eastern Cherokee informants The name came from the Creek, Celokokalke, people of another language. He asserted, The Creek name by which the Cherokee were first know to Europeans became the general name for them in the Southeast, and was in short accepted even by the Cherokee themselves name calling for other tribal groups have come into existence after a quasi(prenomina l) fashion (Witthoft, 1947, p. 305). The Cherokees commonly called themselves Tsalagi or, in the plural, Ani-Tsalagi, perhaps corrupted to form the name Cherokee or perhaps derived from the same word as Cherokee. According to James Mooney, their proper name for themselves was Yunwiya or, in the plural, Ani-Yunwiya.It means, more or less, the people, the actually people, or the principal people (Mooney, 1982, p. 15). usage played an important role in Cherokee clans. It made sure certain elements of a culture from generation to generation were passed down. such as, the traditional matrilineal Cherokee family structure, which means phone line, is traced by the feminine line (Conley, 2002). The children belonged to the mother and her family clan. in that respect was not any relatedness with the father and hes family clan.This family structure provided a upright and secure environment for women and children. Also, it meant the man lived in the wifes house, surrounded by her clans people, so he would not dare to abuse her unless he wanted a tribal beating. Women were by and large incorporated into the tribes. Not only was she the head of her domain with mutually respected proponent and authority, she had equal say in the affairs of war and peace. She was too in beef of the household and nourishment of her family. The women were involved in some(prenominal) functions of daily life.It seems as if the women were the tribe, but not for long. Years after the first American contact, European traders living amongst would adopt Cherokee women. European traders could not accept that concomitant of tracing descent through the distaff line, but slowly the clan constitution gave into the European style bilateral family, which traced descent through both male and female (Conley, 2002). The Cherokee were not too happy with this movement. It jeopardized the Cherokees clan traditional ways of a matrilineal family structure carried on for some(prenominal) centuries. Nevertheless, the Cherokees could do nothing about it. forrader the first known contacts, life of the Cherokee province had grown and thrived for many years in the south-eastern unify States in the lower Appalachian Mountains in states such as Georgia, Tennessee, conglutination and South Carolina, and parts of Kentucky and Alabama. However, in less than thirty years, after the first enter contact with outsiders, in particular with Hernado De Soto in his expedition of 1540, the Cherokee Indians reformed their culture.Many adaptations took place which resembled similar American cultures. The Cherokee soon built schools and court systems. This infuriated Andrew capital of disseminated multiple sclerosis, a takeoff booster of the Indian remotion policy. After awhile, George Gist, also known as Sequoyah, established a Cherokee written language, utilizing an ingenious alphabet of 86 characters in 1821 (Ehle, 1925). Soon, this was adopted into Cherokee culture and a newspaper was f ormed. Again, Andrew Jackson grew more furious. He wanted the Cherokees removed off their lands.In 1830, United States Congress passed an Indian remotion Act pushed by chairman Andrew Jackson following the recommendation of former President James Monroe in his final actors line to Congress in 1825 (King, 1979). This act en coerce the previous Georgia Compact of 1802, since many were ignoring that removal act. But, many opposed this Indian Removal Act ratified by congress. After debates over this issue, the oppositionist won. However, Andrew Jackson was able to reinforce the act, out-of-pocket to the pact of young Echota on Dec. 29, 1875 (Conley, 2002).The signing of the Treaty of refreshful Echota set the stage for the beginning of Cherokee extermination. The accordance signed away the entire stay tribal territory east of the disseminated multiple sclerosis in exchange for five one million million dollars and the right to occupy lands west of the Mississippi (King, 1979). Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elies Boudinot, and the rest of the Treaty Party doomed the tout ensemble Cherokee solid ground when they agreed to sign a fraudulent treaty with the federal government, which did not check the Cherokee Nation as a whole (Martin, 2001). The Ross Party, people who oppose the removal treaty, well-tried to resist, but nothing else could be done.This removal process started what was to be known as the check of Tears or sign where they cried. This forced migration journey consisted of thirteen groups of concomitant waves led by Cherokee captions that lasted from August 28, 1838 to attest 18, 1839 (Conley, 2002). Over the journey many Cherokees died, approximately, quaternion thousand out of sixteen thousand, due to diseases, exposure, or fatigue (Martin, 2001). The history of the Cherokee people is one of defeat and despair. After the first encounters with Americans, the Cherokee Nation was deteriorating.For instance, Cherokee family structures were c hanging, vast amounts of lands were being ceded to Americans, and Cherokee Indians were forced from their lands. Overtime, this constant chipping away at the Cherokee Nation, lead to the final Indian removal from homelands and the demise of the Cherokee Nation in southeast United States. References Adair, James. (1930). Adairs history of the American Indians. Johnson City, Tenn. Watauga Press. Canouts, Veletta, and Goodyear, Albert C. (1985). Lithic scatters in the South Carolina Piedmont. In Structure and process in southeast archaeology, ed.Roy S. Dickens Jr. , and H. Trawick Ward, (pp. 180-94). University University of Alabama Press. Conley, Robert, J. (2002). Cherokee. Portland graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. pp. 24-5, 44. Ehle, John. (1925). Trail of tears. impertinent York Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. King, Duane, H. (1979). The Cherokee Indian Nation. Knoxville The University of Tennessee Press. pp. 16, 129. Martin, Ken. (2001). History of the Cherokee. Retrie ved February 13, 2006 from cherokeehistory. com Mooney James. (1982). Myths of the Cherokee and sacred formulas of the Cherokees.Nashville Charles and steamy Elder. Muller Jon D. (1978). The Southeast. In Ancient indwelling Americans, ed. Jesse D. Jennings, (pp. 281-325). San Francisco W. H. Freeman. Reid, John P. (1970). A law of argument The primitive law of the Cherokee Nation. New York New York University Press. Swanton, John R. (1985). Final report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission. Washington, D. C. Smithsonian Institution Press. Witthoft, John. (1947). Notes on a Cherokee migration story. Communicated by W. N. Fenton. Journal of the Washington honorary society of Sciences, 37, 304-5.