Tawodi
“Tawodi”
Pronounced “ta-whoa-dee”
our symbol the hawk
Newsletter of Cherokee Community Inland Empire
December 2012
Osiyo and Ulihelisdi
Osiyo to all our CCIE members and friends!
Welcome to our December 2012 edition of “Tawodi”
Upcoming Community Gathering!
Our next community gathering is being held
Saturday December 15th
We honor the month of the Snow Moon - V s gi yi
through sharing of our traditional stories
All are invited to participate!
The spirit being, brings the cold
and snow for the earth to cover
of the seasons in the windy moon
Families were busy, elders enjoyed teaching
and retelling ancient stories
Food basket distri butio n
During our December community gathering we will be
distributing our holiday food baskets to those members
who have already signed up to receive one.
No matter how you and your
family choose to celebrate winter
holidays it is a good time to join
together with those you care
about and appreciate all that is
good in your life.
Wishing you and your loved ones a
wonderful holiday season!
Gathering Schedule
Tuesday December 11th
Council Meeting
Flo’s Farmhouse Cafe
5620 Van Burren
Riverside 92503
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
All members are welcome to sit
in during the council meeting
and participate in the round
table discussion that follows.
Saturday December 15th
Community Gathering
Sherman Indian High School
9010 Magnolia Ave Riverside
Enter off Jackson and follow
signs to Bennett Hall
1pm to 4pm
Potluck Menu
A-F: Entrée & Side Dish
G-L: Side Dish, Bread &
Drinks
M-P : Entrée and Drinks
Q-Z: Desert and Drinks
Newsletter of Cherokee Community Inland Empire
Our Oral Tradition... Storytelling
Native American stories are as varied as the trees on the Earth and yet have many
common themes, whether told by the Inuit of Alaska or the Seminole of Florida.
Traditional Native stories are based on honoring all life, especially the plants and animals
we depend on, as well as our human ancestors.
Indigenous storytelling is rooted in the earth. Years upon years of a kinship with the land,
life, water and sky have produced a variety of narratives about intimate connections to
the earth. In a call and response lasting through time, Native peoples have experienced a
relationship of give and take with the natural world.
In the basket of Native stories, we find legends and history, maps and poems, the
teachings of spirit mentors, instructions for ceremony and ritual, observations of worlds,
and storehouses of ethno-ecological knowledge. Stories often live in many dimensions,
with meanings that reach from the everyday to the divine. Stories imbue places with the
power to teach, heal and reflect. Stories are possessed with such power that they have
survived for generations despite attempts at repression and assimilation.
Stories can reinforce the group's shared belief system of the tribe's origins. Stories can
personalize history by relating how it felt to live through historical and recent events. And
stories can provide surprisingly accurate records of events that occurred before any
written histories were available.
For instance, archaeological evidence shows that people were living in the southern
Appalachian mountains at least 11,000 years ago. This was the end of the last Ice Age,
the climate was colder than it is now, and the ancestors of the Eastern Band Cherokee
would have encountered mastodons and other now-extinct species. The oral histories of
the Cherokee still tell of those times. Cherokee elder Jerry Wolfe says, "My dad always
said that when the Cherokees came into this country, into these mountains, that it was
dangerous. It was a dangerous place because of all the monsters that lived here."
Anthropologists have recognized the power of oral history for at least the last 150 years.
In 1887, a young Irish ethnologist, James Mooney, began writing down many of the
Cherokee stories, songs and medicinal plant formulas. Oral history became part of the
"official" -- that is, written -- historical record. Mooney talked with the elders of the time - men like Ross Swimmer, Ayasta, Suyeta, John Ax, William Holland Thomas and Will
West Long.
Today our oral traditions continue to be shared by our fellow Cherokee’s such as Robert
Lewis. However it is important for all of us to keep these stories, our history, our culture
alive for ourselves and others. All of us must share our stories.
Newsletter of Cherokee Community Inland Empire
A Cherokee creation story,
as written down in the late 1800s. By James Mooney - From Myth s of the Cherokee
The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four
cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When
the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the
earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this.
When all was water, the animals were above in Gälûñ’lätï, beyond the arch; but it was
very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below
the water, and at last Dâyuni’sï, “Beaver’s Grandchild,” the little Water-beetle, offered to
go and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but
could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft
mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we
call the earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one
remembers who did this.
At first the earth was flat and very soft and
wet. The animals were anxious to get down,
and sent out different birds to see if it was
yet dry, but they found no place to alight
and came back again to Gälûñ’lätï. At last it
seemed to be time, and they sent out the
Buzzard and told him to go and make ready
for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the
father of all the buzzards we see now. He
flew all over the earth, low down near the
ground, and it was still soft. When he
reached the Cherokee country, he was very
tired, and his wings began to flap and strike
the ground, and wherever they struck the
earth there was a valley, and where they
turned up again there was a mountain. When
the animals above saw this, they were afraid
that the whole world would be mountains, so
they called him back, but the Cherokee
country remains full of mountains to this
day.
When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the sun
and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just overhead. It
was too hot this way, and Tsiska’gïlï’, the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright
red, so that his meat was spoiled; and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the
sun another hand-breadth higher in the air, but it was still too hot. They raised it another
time, and another, until it was seven handbreadths high and just under the sky arch.
Then it was right, and they left it so. This is why the conjurers call the highest
place Gûlkwâ’gine Di’gälûñ’lätiyûñ’, “the seventh height,” because it is seven handbreadths above the earth. Every day the sun goes along under this arch, and returns at
night on the upper side to the starting place.
There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything — animals, plants, and
people — save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the
mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at their
heads are the doorways by which we enter, it, but to do this one must fast and, go to
water and have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in
the underworld are different from ours, because the water in the springs is always
warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the outer air.
When the animals and plants were first made — we do not know by whom — they were
told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep
awake when they pray to their medicine.
They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake
through the first night, but the next night several
dropped off to sleep, and the third night others
were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh
night, of all the animals only the owl, the panther,
and one or two more were still awake. To these
were given the power to see and to go about in the
dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals
which must sleep at night. Of the trees only the
cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the
laurel were awake to the end, and to them it was
given to be always green and to
be greatest for medicine, but to the others it was
said: “Because you have not endured to the end
you shall lose your, hair every winter.”
Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until
he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was
born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until
there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman
should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.
Newsletter of Cherokee Community Inland Empire
Sharings from an Elder…
I was told as a very young man that as an
elder I would be responsible for having my
own words. Over the years I must have
asked a thousand times at every
opportunity "what was meant by words like
that" and I would get answers like
"after your 50th year if you are asked a question of substance, you must answer in your
own words in a meaningful way or don't reply at all" which raised more questions than it
offered solutions. And then one day I was asked if I knew the difference between
knowledge and wisdom. I said yes right away to such an easy question. But study on the
question and try to phrase a credible answer as I might, no worthy words came to mind.
After a long silence I heard "knowledge is what we glean from the words of others,
wisdom is the truths we reason from our knowledge".
When our words are put before a multitude of people and the large majority agree with
our words, then those words can be considered "wisdom". Defined as; a universal truth.
For most of us that is as close as we can come to an answer to a question of substance.
This in no way makes us a “tribal” elder or a "spiritual" elder or a "medicine man" or a
"seer" etc. It just means we were raised to be responsible to our young people when
they come to us with questions of life and walking in a good way. In this way we are all
required to be responsible elders after fifty for the words we offer as counsel to anyone.
There are those among us of profound intellect and superior reasoning abilities, they
become come our leaders of the people in their areas of expertise. "If you cannot
improve the silence, don't speak".
Cherokee
Community Inland
Empire
December 2012
Cherokee Language Lesson
kila tsulaski = see you later (key lah chew lah ski)
nasgiquu = that is all (nah ss gee kwu)
tsagasesdesdi = watch out (cha gah say ss day ss dee)
heya tahesdi = be careful (hay yah tah hay ss dee)
Alert!! The Cherokee Phoenix
is no longer a free publication!
tsilugi = I'm here (chee loo gee)
gado usdi ada = what did he say? (gah doe oo ss dee ah
For years Cherokee citizens
have enjoyed a free subscription dah)
to the Phoenix. Due to budget
gado usdi hada = what did you say? (gah doe oo ss dee ha
cuts mail subscriptions must
now be paid.
dah)
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a as the a in father
e as the a in ate
i as the e in eager
o as in oh
u as in oops
v like uh but nasalized
Each of the seven clans has a sacred wood. They are:
Birch = AniGatogewi, the Wild Potato Clan
Beech = AniGilohi, the Long Hair Clan
Oak = Ani Kawi, the Deer Clan
Maple = Ah-ni-tsi-sk-wa, the Bird Clan
Ash = Ah-ni-sa-ho-ni, the Blue Clan
Locust = Ah-ni-wo-di, the Paint Clan
Hickory = Ani'-Wah' Ya, the Wolf Clan
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