Religion According to Chief Jahtlohi Rogers
A PEOPLE IN EXODUS
By Chief Charles Jahtlohi Rogers, M.D.
Cherokee Nation of Mexico
CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION
(Photo - Right)
A traditional seven sided house. Seven is a sacred number for the
Cherokee.
Most historians tend to deal with the political
aspects of the Cherokee culture. The white men recognized that religion,
or wanting to live good lives, rather than politics, was at the core of
the ancient Cherokee life.
In time the fragments of the Cherokee ancient
beliefs would be lost as the whites cunningly planned to pierce the
Cherokee religion so erosion would set in. White men wanted to
capitalize on the Indians. The Cherokees had become a grand and glorious
people of influence and prosperity. They knew nothing about the outside
world or what was going on in it, and they decided they wanted to learn
what they could from the white men’s ways. What started out innocently,
turned out to be a conversion to the whites’ manner of life. Soon the
fragments of their ancient beliefs would be lost in the transformation
of their culture.
Although the whites enjoyed trade with the
Cherokees, conflicts over land and money would occur. Eventually the
Cherokees became outnumbered and outgunned, and they did not have any
other alternative but to accept what came their way, due to the fact
that the old religion was practiced by only a forty percent minority; a
larger consensus would have equaled power to resist negative changes.
They became a people of uncertainty. In doubt and confusion, some of the
clans began to let the whites guide them as trusting children. Some
Cherokees did not permit their clans to marry outsiders. The full bloods
began to be persuaded by the whites and mixed bloods, which caused the
altering of their festival procedures, and more importantly the
practical training of these procedures. For example, the green corn
festival originally taught young men to publicly proclaim their work for
and support of their mothers (remember, this was before social security
or government support).
The mixed bloods began to out number the full
bloods. As they increased in number, the power of the Cherokee religion
declined. The mixed blood parents convinced the young Cherokees that the
old ways, of which they themselves were ignorant, were heathen. Without
even knowing that they were rejecting a legacy of direct contact with
God, the children soon began to stray away from the ritual lifestyle,
while the full blood held on to their personal convictions, even though
diluted and fragmented. Ultimately, everything about the Cherokee people
became so modified and confused, the old ways began to lose their
appearance of having any effectiveness whatsoever.
In 1736, a Jesuit named Christian Priber spent 9
years with the Cherokee people. His mission was both political and
religious. He gained great favor and influence with tribal leaders.
Priber became an unofficial secretary to the principal headman.
Nevertheless, he served both the church and French government. His
primary goal was to disrupt tribal relations between the Cherokees and
the English traders and colonist. Eventually he was captured and
imprisoned by the English.
Later the Catholic Church made attempts to work as
missionaries among the Cherokee people. Their efforts to convert and
educate were unsuccessful until more contemporary times.
In 1740, Cherokees obtained their first horses and a
trail was opened between Augusta, Georgia and the Cherokee Country.
Twenty years later, the Cherokees possessed large herds of horses. By
1775, each Cherokee man owned anywhere from two to twelve mounts. They
obtained cattle, hogs and domesticated bees. The Cherokees were already
farming many European fruits, vegetables, and domesticated potatoes and
trading for coffee.
In the late eighteenth century, the English brought
over spinning wheels and looms, along with farming tools. Gradually the
Cherokee people were becoming a part of the white man’s world.
To the east of the Cherokee settlements were the
English, to the west were the French and to the south were the Spanish.
All three competed for trade advantages and for every piece of land on
which they could get their hands. Finally the cooperative trading
efforts of the Cherokees became obsolete. Skins and textiles were no
longer excepted as exchange for goods. The whites now had currency. Not
long afterwards the economic system of the Indians collapsed.
(Photo - Left)
Mr. Ridge was very typical of Cherokees with European admixture.
All wild game began to disappear as the whites grew
in population and power. Even fishing became subject to strict
restrictions set in motion by the whites. The Cherokees efforts to raise
livestock became limited by regulations. The whites began to take charge
of lumbering the forests, mining the land, excavating the ground for
chemical interests, and taking charge of the water streams and lakes by
building dams across the valley where the Cherokee homesteads had stood.
The white men’s government began changing as well.
The clan tribal loyalty was compromised by the demands of a newly formed
republican government. The French and the English became rivals.
Immediately both sides acted to pull the Cherokees apart. Although the
French were diplomatic, the English were able to supply guns and
ammunitions, as well as other militant resources the Cherokees desired.
In the mid 1700s, the French were losing control to
the British and the Cherokee leaders of Virginia, North Carolina and
Georgia were being pitted against one another. Some Cherokees did
discern what was happening and sought to turn the tables on the
foreigners.
In the last half of the eighteenth century, the
whites began a rivalry for tribal control between the leaders of the
towns of great Tellico and Chota. The Cherokees were kept in a constant
state of turmoil and their ways of life became forever interrupted by
the ways of the new world.
Throughout the late eighteenth century, tribal
leader Attakullakulla controlled tribal policy by learning the import
ways of the white colonization and began guiding tribal policy away from
the old ways of Cherokee life. He encouraged the Cherokees to cooperate
more closely with the white settlers. During Attakullakulla tribal
reign, farming replaced hunting as the dominant economic factor. The
wars between tribes stopped. He also bargained for colonial forts and
military garrisons to protect the Cherokees from warring neighbors. None
of Attakullakulla efforts resolved the Cherokees problems. Their
settlements were always in the way of relentless white settlers, which
resulted in waves of wars from 1756 to 1794. Much of the Cherokee
settlements were annihilated.
Tame Doe, the sister of Attakullakulla, gave birth
to a daughter named Nancy. Nancy grew up and married the noted war
leader Kingfisher of the Deer Clan. She was at his side in 1755 when he
was killed by the Creek warriors at the battle of Taliwa. Nancy
immediately picked up his weapons and gathered the Cherokee warriors to
an overwhelming victory. Chota chose her to fulfill the vacant position
of a Beloved Woman.
The Cherokees believe that the Supreme Beings spoke
to the people through Beloved Women. They were also given the power and
authority to make decisions on what to do with prisoners of war.
Nancy also headed up an influential women’s council
that consisted of a representative from each Cherokee Clan, and she sat
as a voting member of the council of the Chiefs. Later she married a
white leader named Bryant Ward, but after 10 years of marriage, he
returned to his white wife and children in South Carolina.
Numerous settlements had been made in Cherokee land,
which was a direct violation of the royal decree of England. When the
Revolutionary War broke out the Cherokees sided with the English They
attacked the frontier settlements of Virginia, the Carolinas and
Georgia. Seven hundred warriors attacked the settlers of Watuga.
Nancy Ward helped Isaac Thomas and two other white
men escape from Chota to warn the Watuga area. Soon after she obtained
the reputation of being a friend of the settlers.
In 1776, Colonel William Christian led two thousand
troops in a horrific raid against the Cherokee towns. Out of respect to
Nancy Ward, Chota was spared. In 1780, the Cherokees again prepared an
attack on the Watuga settlements while the men were away. Nancy Ward
once again warned the whites, but when the soldiers returned from King’s
Mountain and learned of the threat, they set out to teach the Cherokees
a lesson they would never forget.
Despite the pleas of Nancy Ward for mercy and
friendship, Chota was destroyed along with other Cherokee towns.
Afterwards, she and her family were placed into protective custody. Once
Nancy was released, she returned to help rebuild Chota. On July 20,
1781, she was the featured speaker for the Cherokees that brought about
a peace treaty between the Watugans. She continued her mission to make
dramatic pleas for peace between the Indians and the whites. After the
war years ended, Nancy Ward settled in Chota, which was no longer the
Capital of the nation, but was still a city of refuge. For years she
took orphans into her home. Nancy died in 1822 as a woman of honor among
the Cherokee and white history.
TRADITIONAL FAITH SHAKEN
From 1794 to 1836, the Cherokees fled to hill
country to build a thriving community that was run by mixed bloods.
Change after change kept coming to the tribe as a whole that eventually
shook their traditional faith and beliefs.
In confusion and doubt the Cherokees became more
open and responsive to the missionary efforts of the Moravian,
Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Quaker Churches. During the next
thirty years, the Cherokee nation underwent many changes and moved their
tribe closer to the whites to become more a part of their civilization.
They began to learn the ways of the white men. The Cherokees wanted to
learn to read and write. The full bloods did not welcome the change and
considered it bad.
The Presbyterian Church established a mission in
Hiawassee, Tennessee in 1803. Their school opened in 1804 with twenty to
thirty Cherokees in attendance. The students learned the Bible and how
to pray, and to read, spell and write. Due to the cultural differences
and the fact the students could not speak English, the first conversion
did not take place until 1810.
Domestic and religious changes, intermarriage, loss
of confidence, whiskey, contributions of the mixed bloods and the
mission schools all took their toil on the Cherokees. They began to wear
the white men’s clothes and adapt to their lifestyle. The Cherokees had
their own cabins and all other amenities just like the white settlers.
The Green Corn Festivals had now become corrupted
with guns and whiskey. The priests became known as conjurers, which
caused this once great ancient religion to struggle and waver in what
they once believed.
Payne believed the changes were caused by the influx
of pagan worshipers. It was a sure sign these were a people in exodus
because of the ways of foreigners, both Native American and European.
Sickness and tormenting evil spirits now haunted the Indians. The new
conjurers were unsuccessful in helping the people spiritually. What once
were sacred holy festivals were now tainted with new customs and beliefs
from many religious and pagan beliefs.
Before 1750, the Cherokees had a core group of
families from which came the Cherokee leaders. These families would also
supply the ministers or priests of the Cherokee religion. This system is
found in Semitic tribes and some other Native American tribes (Caddo,
for example). The thinking or reasoning was that the youths of these
families were trained from an early age because the amount of training
was considerable by any standards of modern professions; leading
families were responsible for training leaders. But as the old religion
slipped away, and these families acted in irresponsible, oppressive, and
self serving ways, things fell apart; the last trained Uku to come from
a “leading family tradition” surrendered his position and it never
existed again. However, these truths live on, smoldering, perhaps
someday to flame again. Somewhere in time, these Cherokee Native
Americans integrated with or were themselves originally a people in
exodus; either way, each group became the other. All Cherokees are their
descendants. |
