Native Americans: The Cherokee Culture

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians are indigenous of parts of the Southeastern United States. They have members all the way south as Georgia and are spread out across the Appalachian mountain trail in both North and South Carolina and stretching across into Tennessee. The land in which each tribe is from has a particular way is shaping how they live and defines the important aspects of that culture. In the Eighteenth Century the Cherokee Indians were one of the most heavily populated Indian societies in the Southeastern United States. These Indians have many unique political and spiritual ideas and world views.

The Cherokee are a culturally rich and interesting tribe. They write amazing myths, focusing on creation and nature. In its prime, the Cherokee nation spanned over an estimated 100,000 miles. The people in it respected the universe. They only took from the what was needed from the environment. They were a peaceful tribe that knew very well how the land around them worked.

Though American Indians are enjoying an independent public health system with above $3 billion funds provided by Congress annually for delivering healthcare services to them, still figure and facts on health status of American Indians reveal that they are facing many difficulties and have to suffer from diverse type of illness and disease at a misappropriate level. Since long it was identified by medical communities that there are wide spread diseases diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, unintentional injuries, and other health conditions among American Indian and they are dying of these diseases at shocking rates (American Heart Association [AHA], 2010). Through this essay I want to discuss the healthcare status of American Indians in the perspective of their culture as how it impacted and lead to develop mistrust between amongst the medical community and American Indians.

The Cherokee Indians were one of the civilized tribes in the United States. They were located in the southeastern part of the U.S. This includes the western parts of North and South Carolina, The northern parts of Alabama and Georgia, Southwest Virginia and the Cumberland basin of Tennessee. It appears the Cherokee settled in 1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D. Their development took place in two stages or phases. The Pisgah which took place 1300 A.D. to 1540 A.D. and the Qualla which took place 1540 A.D. to 1750 A.D. The first period was primitive and the second was influenced by European contact. They were a large tribe that was part of the Iroquian language group even though their language is very different. Despite this the

The Cherokee Tribe is among the more popularly known Native American tribes in the United States. They are mainly remembered for their fight against the U.S. government and the Supreme Court and their forced migration in the Trail of Tears. However, as mentioned by North Carolina Digital History and Robert Conley, because of their written language, many of their traditions and history is well known and taught in schools as an example of Native American culture (10.2 and 105). Michael D. Green and Theda Perdure introduce Cherokee history in the book, The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents. The tribe originally inhabited southeast North America in what is currently Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and into northern Georgia and Alabama “1). From 1836 to 1839 the Cherokee Tribe was forcibly and harshly removed and relocated in Oklahoma in what is known as The Trail of Tears (Green 160) Throughout all the changes the Cherokee had to undergo as they lost their traditional land and home, they were able to keep their traditions, rituals, and ceremonies and some, such as the dance and medicine use, are still practiced today. Traditions and rituals are repeated over and over, year after year. For an event to have this much significance in a society it must have been important from the time it began. As Miller Williams, a poet from 1930-2015, said, “Ritual is important to us as human beings. It ties us to our

Around the 1800s, the Cherokee began taking up the economics and politics of the white settlers around them. Some owned plantations and even kept slaves. Many Cherokee’s embraced “white” names. They developed gradually and became one of the successful tribes in the United States. They form a system by which they were controlled called the Cherokee Nation, which was similar to the United States of America government, which included a Chief , a vice-Chief and 32 Council members. A constitution of code laws also in place. The principal chief is the equivalent to the President, the legislative branch of the tribal council to the supreme court and the house of representatives, and the judicial branch called the tribunal is made up of the three tribal

Chelsea Carriere Professor Ferruccio Trabalzi Introduction to Anthropology October 13, 2015 The Seven Clans of the Cherokee With over 314,000 recorded members, the Cherokee Nation is the largest federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States. In ancient times, this tribe was just as formidable, having conquered over 135,000 square miles of territory throughout eight states; North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Much of the traditional culture remains the same in today’s world though some things have evolved out of necessity to fit modern society (Reese). Despite some of these changes however, the Cherokee nation is working hard to preserve their native traditions

Faced with a sudden and forced eviction from the very land, interactions with which embodies and defines one’s identity, tragic experiences of unwarranted deaths in one’s family due to hardships of travelling in the harshest of the weather with limiting resources, unforeseen conflicts arising due to cohesions with cultures different than one’s own, and annihilation of one’s sense of identity and culture resulting from the public education Cherokee community’s identity and memory undergoes cultural and psychological changes. “The Trail of tears”, ensued by the signing of the Indian Removal Act (1830) and Treaty of New Echota (1835) between the United States and a few “accultured” Cherokees, led to the subsequent loss of oneness with the world

…that it is the policy of this Nation, in fulfillment of its special responsibility and legal obligation to the American Indian people, to meet the national goal of providing the highest possible health status to Indians and urban Indians and to provide all resources necessary to effect that policy ("25 U.S.C. 18 § 1602," 2005)

When the shamans failed to end the smallpox epidemic that ravaged Cherokee society in 1738 their power fell and they were no longer considered as leaders (Aboutnorthgeorgia.com, 1994).”

In the Cherokee tribes, there’s a saying about an elderly Cherokee chief who was teaching his grandson about life, "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too." The young boy questions his grandfather asking which wolf wins. And his grandfather responded “The one you feed” (Cherokee proverb). This saying gets me through my daily life, I tell myself to never feed the evil wolf because that will lead to all the sadness I have fought so hard to get out of.

To start off I am gonna tell you a few little things about the cherokee tribe. The cherokee tribe mainly lived up in the mountains, mostly around a river and some land to live and grow crops on. They would have 2 different types of houses for the summer and the winter. The summer homes would be open to get fresh air inside so it would not be as hot, the winter homes would be totally different they would have thick walls made of things such as grass and clay or otherwise called a daub. Their daily lives were mainly hunting, fishing, cooking, cleaning, or anything else that involved creating or building. The cherokee people would call them self the real people because they thought that they were the real native americans. Most of the cherokee

A large part of the formation of our country and Western society involved interaction with tribes of Native Americans that inhabited North America well before Europeans settled it. It started with Spanish conquistadors and explorers, then British colonies which would mold and change into the revolutionized American Colonists. Along this succession, the Indian tribes on the east coast experienced extreme prejudice, regime changes and war. Among these tribes are the Cherokee. The Cherokee were at the forefront of Indian-European relations. They remained strong in the southeast, despite war and epidemic. The Cherokee underwent significant culture changes yet not always by choice. War and disease tore apart the Cherokee as well other tribes but

"Native American medicine is based on widely held beliefs about healthy living, the repercussions of disease-producing behavior, and the spiritual principles that restore balance." -Ken "Bear Hawk" Cohen (Chrisman 1).

I am humbled and honored to be a member of the Lumbee Tribe, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River. Brooke Medicine Eagle once said, “Being Indian is an attitude, a state of mind, a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet; to allow feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes; bringing aliveness up from the Earth and from the Sky, putting it in and giving it out from the heart.” From Medicine Eagles’ words, energy is forever flowing within nature. In my health profession experience I have seen the heart damaged from lack of good health practices, for instance cigarette smoking.