Ꭷ ᏃᏭᏥᎩ
"Is it the Government’s job to teach culture?" "What culture is taught if we don’t teach our own? “and [in general] what is the best way to teach?" "Until today, I didn’t think it was Cherokee Nation’s role to teach the culture. At least not the way I think of it now." "If not, then we will be taught [and will be teaching] their culture de facto at work...and school." "I think if we should start with conversations between friends and family. I don’t think enough people are talking about it and I know that we are not all talking about it. Then [we could] move it to co-workers and people we are in organizations with." "Later, if we create momentum we can [then] formalize the dialogue."
As the excerpts of my own words from conversations I have had with my friends over the last few days above suggest, I have been thinking.
The front line of the war for our language, culture and identity is in the institutional walls of the Cherokee Nation’s complex, the Immersion School, the Group Leaders’ Pod and even over at the United Keetoowah Band. We train our new workers and soldier employees that are the front line in our service teams departments to suit up in their ᏲᏁᎦ clothes and to follow the norms and expectations of the mainstream world as they march out into the Cherokee communities (ᏗᎦᏚᎯ) to help our people to be happy and healthy. Too often they find cold and mistrusting faces asking hard questions in whispered, suspicious voices. Children cling to calves and thighs, they hide behind the shelter of their mother’s legs as she stands in the doorway negotiating with the representatives of self help as they crack heads against the entitlement promised to our ancestors one or two generations ago. Those same Cherokee Nation spokesmen and women on the front line or in the trenches were once the self same children sheltered behind their mother’s doorway ten or twenty years before. We are teaching them how to act, behave and think at work and by making them professionals, we strip them of their foundations, their ᏗᎧᏃᏩᏛᏍᏗ and their ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎵᏓᏍᏗ.
Yes, we must be professionals and be successful in the mainstream world, we must even be better at it than the non-Indians. Some of us do need to be that sort of ᏗᏟᎯ, those that want to should, but why do we all need to fall into that pattern? If we employ our own people and those employees are hired to interact with other Cherokees, why do we need to support any cultural values and systems other than our own?
At one time a ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) employee woke up in the ᎦᏚᏩᎩ world from a ᎦᏚᏩᎩ dream, did ᎦᏚᏩᎩ things. Then that employee put on their ᏲᏁᎦ clothes, coat and shoes and went to work at the Cherokee Nation. There they spoke ᎠᎦᎵᏏ (ᏲᏁᎦ) and as paid to, did ᏲᏁᎦ things. At 5:00 PM they went home and took off their ᏲᏁᎦ clothes, coat, and shoes. That is when they resumed their ᎦᏚᏩᎩ life, ate ᎦᏚᏩᎩ food, and spoke ᏣᎳᎩ. These people had a Cherokee or ᎦᏚᏩᎩ world, and Cherokee Nation was their profession not their life. That world is nearly gone, and the Cherokee Nation has a new mission, happy and healthy people, through a focus on ᏧᏂᎸᏫᏍᏓᏗ jobs, ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ language and ᏍᎦᏚᎩ community. Through intensive social services the Cherokee Nation has taken over the role of BIA and IHS for many of our communities. They have replaced many of the services that would have otherwise been provided by the State or the Federal Governments. They have also taken on the roles of hegemony and colonialism created by those foreign systems and structures. Its time to renew ourselves and re-evaluate those systems. ᎠᏤ ᎢᎦᎴᏂᏍᎨᏍᏗ ᎫᏩᎵᏨᎭ ᏗᎦᏓᏲᎯᏍᏗ ᎢᏤᎮᏍᏗ Its time for a renewal.
What is "culture"? Anthropologists, Sociologists and Scholars still debate that very issue. It is more than baskets, songs, and stories. It is the whole of that which we call life. It is what makes us human, and ᎦᏚᏩᎩ. It’s vessel is our ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, and its expression is our ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎵᏓᏍᏗ life ways, all that we do. This includes our thoughts, values and beliefs. Where we ᎦᏚᏩᎩ can, we must put our ways, models, systems and culture into place. "Culture is everything" my friend told me this week, and even though I thought I already knew that - I didn’t realize what that meant. Now I do, if we cant make the Cherokee Nation a place for ᎠᏂᎦᏚᏩᎩ ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎵᏓᏍᏗ that culture will be stripped from all the Cherokee Nation serves and represents. ᎣᏏᏳ
ᎠᏯ ᏩᏕᎦᎵᏍᎨᏫ ᏥᎪᏪᎸᎦ
2 comments:
Cherokee culture is everything because it is what defines us as the Ani'gitu'hwa'gi along with our language, sovereignty and history. If we lose any one of these then by all definition we are no longer Cherokee. We then become no different then everybody else and fell in what God intended for us as a people.
Our culture is not the basketweaving, pottery or beadwork that evolved as a utilitarian art form in our daily living as children of God. It is the prayers, taboos, customs, traditional jokes, body language, philosophy, oratory skills and coping mechanisms that evolved alongside our language.
It was, unil recent times, next to impossible to seperate the two. Now, with the advent of Yoneg culture, we cast aside what we are and like a Tskili put on a yoneg skin to be something we are not.
By doing so we have sold our souls to Tseg'skin ad have eroded 10,000 years of sovereignty given to us by God with the sacred fire. In short, we are in dangerous times because we are no longer a distinct people, but in name.
I am reminded of Eli Nofire who told me that three generations back from him people pointed with their lips in the direction one intended you to go. Aspects of our cultue like these go from being daily occurances to only being remembered to being forgotten by all.
Am I suggesting that we all go around pointing with our lips, no. What I am suggesting though is that we take the time to go out to our most traditional elderly and preserve their knowledge about cultural philosophy,taboos, coping mechanisms, teasing and traditional jokes and reimpliment it into our community through pepetuation.
Our culture, in many ways,is dorment. We have the most non-fluent people of youth, socio-economic stratified individuals and people of lower blood quantum who cannot effectively bridge that cultural fluency and effectively communicate with our most traditional and elderly.
Only by waking it up, embracing it and through outreach can we truely bridge this divide and solidify our Cherokee people as a distinct and sovereign nation as our creator intended for us to do.
Thank you so much for posting and sharing. I've questioned some of the cultural information CN has posted on their website, but on the other hand, I'm glad they are educating people who might not have any other interaction with tribe. The history course, the online language classes... these might not be the answer but they are a good first step for people that might have absolutely no knowledge of Cherokee culture but are hungry to learn.
Does a tribal government OWN or CONTROL culture? Absolutely not. And maybe they need to be reminded of this every once in awhile. The community collectively controls the living, fluid culture. I continually applaud the grassroots efforts of the CAHC, CNAPs, and the SEIAA to share information and foster dialogue. The culture belongs to all of those that live it on a daily basis. ᎣᏏᏳ.
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