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 Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 6:27 pm
Cherokee Festivals
There were six main festivals or religious observances before the forced removal. These festivals were to be observed at the capital. The ugu (or ouga, or uku, which is a derivation from the Cherokee word for Chief), seven Principal Counselors and people from all seven Cherokee clans participated.
The first festival was the First New Moon of Spring. This festival was held in March. The seven Principal Counselors determined when the moons would appear and a messenger would announce the upcoming festival to all the Cherokee people. There were designated hunters to get the game for the feast, the dressing of a deer and the preparation of white deer skins, seven men were put in charge of the festival and seven men for food preparation.
The first evening was when the selected women performed the friendship dance. The second day, all went to the water for ritual purification. The third day, the people fasted. The fourth day everyone participated in friendship dances and ended the ceremony.
Afterwards the Seven Counselors scheduled the sacred night dance. They would have a religious dance, a new sacred fire was built and all old fires in the Cherokee homes were put out. They also had a scratching ceremony and medicine taking prepared by the Medicine Men. At the end, white deer skins were presented to the Festival Priests.
The Green Corn Ceremony was traditionally celebrated during late June or early July for about four days. The dates scheduled for the celebration depended upon the time the first corn ripened. The ceremony was held in the middle of the ceremonial grounds. Included in the rituals were the stomp dance, feather dance and buffalo dances.
At certain points of the ceremonies the people fasted, played stickball, had corn sacrificing and took medicine. Then after the ceremonial fasting they would feast. Another ritual observed was rinsing themselves in water and having prayer.
It is believed when you recieve a cleansing it washes away impurities or bad deeds and starts a new life. The cleansing ceremony was performed by a priest which was followed with fasting and praying and other sacred practices.
The third Cherokee festival was called the Mature Green Corn Ceremony which was held about 45 days after the New Green Corn Ceremony. Before the festival, honorable women performed a religious dance and decided when the festival would be held. Hunters were sent out to bring back game and there was a committee appointed for the festival.
An arch was built with green branches, making an arbor in the ceremonial grounds. The evening before the Green Corn Ceremony, all the clans took a branch that they used the next day during a noon ritual. Participants drank a special tea called a "Black Drink" which was used for cleansing and purifying. The people would have a dance for days while feasting on game and corn. The ceremony lasted for four days.
The Great New Moon Festival was held around October. This marked the beginning of the Cherokee New Year. It was believed that the world was created in the season of Autumn.
The main counselors determined when the new moon would appear. Again as previous festivals, hunters were sent out to catch game seven nights before the festival. Seven men were selected to take charge of all the planning and seven honorable women were chosen to prepare the food. When the Cherokee people gathered for the feast, each family gave food to the priest. Types of food were corn, pumpkin, beans among others. The evening before the main gathering, the women performed a religious dance. Again during the ceremonial part they went to the river for purifying, giving offerings to the sacred fire and praying.
The fifth festival was held about ten days after the Great New Moon Festival. It was called the Propitiation and Cementation Festival or Friends Made Ceremony. The purpose of this festival was to renew friendships, make new friends and for cleansing.
Participants were assigned tasks such as helping with the preparation of the various ceremonies, song leaders, musicians, the cleansing of the council house area, hunting game and cooking.
A new sacred Fire was built by the Fire Keeper and his assistants. The Fire keeper his assistants fasted for seven days before the festival. There was a dance the night before the festival.
Others fasted during special designated days. This festival renewed the Fire, and the people. It also brought friendship by ceremonially forgiving conflicts from the previous year. This was seen as a brand new start. There was also a cleansing ritual that was performed at the river in running water. This festival would last four days.
The sixth festival was held during the winter. Tobacco was gathered from the people who participated in the feast. The people used pine or spruce in a dance. The first dance movement was a march by alternating pairs of males and females. During the dance, women wore their turtle shells, formed a circle with the men in a single file and moved counter-clockwise in a circle. Each dancer took two twigs of the spruce and waved them up and down like pigeon wings. The fourth night, they made offerings to the sacred fire.
Today, many Cherokee traditionalists still observe these festivals. Many ceremonial grounds observe some, and a few observe all of the occassions.
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 6:29 pm
Cherokee Stomp Dance
A firekeeper and his assistant begin at dawn building a fire; one intended to last for the duration of the stomp dance. He begins with small slivers of wood from the innermost part of an oak tree (often referred to as the "sponge") using flint and rock to trigger a spark. This fire is sacred to traditional Cherokees. It is customarily built at the bottom of a pit below ground level and is tended continuously so it will burn throughout the stomp dance.
As the sun rises, the men sit around the fire talking about political issues and the women prepare a meal for the day consisting of both traditional and modern food. Later in the afternoon, sermons are given in the Cherokee language. These sermons admonish everyone to have love for all mankind. After the sermon, stickball, an ancient Cherokee game resembling present-day La Crosse, is played.
The sermons continue as the sun begins to set. The ceremonial pipe is passed to each clan member who takes seven puffs from it before passing it on. The chief, medicine men and elders gather together for a meeting, eventually calling for the first dance of the night. This dance is by invitation only and features the tribal elders, medicine men and the heads of clans. A second call for the dance is made.
The dance participants include a leader, assistants and one or more "shell-shakers" wearing leg rattles traditionally made out of turtle shells filled with pebbles. Today some use cans filled with pebbles to provide rhythmic accompaniment while they dance around the fire. The ceremonial observance involves sacrifices made by the ceremonial leaders, prayers, taking medicine, going to water or river for ritual cleansing and smoking of the pipe.
Participants visit, feast and dance far into the night. The stomp dance is considered to be a holy event for worshiping Unetlanv (God, The Creator). There is to be no littering, no consumption of liquor and no rowdy behavior of any kind. The rules are written in the Cherokee language and posted on a board hung up for the public to see.
There are seven arbors encircling the sacred fire. Each arbor represents one of these seven clans: Wolf (a-ni-wa-ya); Wild Potato (a-ni-go-da-ge-wi) also known as the Bear Clan; Paint (a-ni-wo-di); Bird Clan (a-ni-tsi-s-qua); Long Hair (a-ni-gi-lo-hi) also known as Twister or Wind; and Blind Savannah also known as Blue (a-ni-sa-ho-ni).
There are nearly 300,000 Cherokee tribal citizens today. Although many choose to worship through other religious methods and denominations, including Indian Baptist and Methodist among others, many traditional Cherokee continue to worship at stomp dances and are members of one of the several stomp dance grounds located within the Cherokee Nation.
Note: The Keetoowah's bible is not written on paper. The words are woven into seven wampum belts which are shown only in rare occasions. The belts are very old, and are made of pearls and shell beads, woven with seaweed fibers from the Gulf of Mexico. The history behind the belt is said to be that many years ago the tribe was preparing to go on to war with another tribe. The medicine men foresaw which warriors would survive the war and cut the original wampum belt into seven pieces, giving one to each warrior. After the war the belts became scattered, some being hidden and others simply disappearing. Eventually they were all recovered with the last one being found by Redbird Smith more than 80 years ago.
Shell Shaker
Women hold an important role in the Stomp Dances of the Southeastern Indian cultures: That of the Shell Shaker. The Shell Shaker is the female counterpart of the Dance Singer.
The first man leads the men and the first woman leads the other women. She wears leg rattles made from box tortoise shells on her lower legs. The woman enters the dance behind the lead singer and produces rythmic rattling sounds made by shuffling her feet. Legend has it that because of the natural designs on the tortoise shell that look like women dancing - Turtle says, "Let Women Dance."
Today, some shell shakers have begun using shackles made from milk cans. This practice originated at Medicine Springs as a form of training for young girls before they moved on to using the turtle shells. Today it is considered respectful for those who wear milk can shackles, unless they are leading in the ceremonial dance, to allow shell shakers with turtle shells to always be in front of them.
The Women's Dance
Taken from a manuscript prepared by J.P. Evans in 1835
When the hour of dancing arrives, an old man, generally the eldest in a clan or town, commences singing a dirge-like air, and beating on a skin stretched over the end of a keg. Like all Cherokee air, it does not possess much variety; some parts, however, are a little touching, and add somewhat to the gloomy feelings produced by surrounding objects, on the mind of one accustomed to civilized society. Before the old man has spent much time tuning his pipes, two or three women came forward, with terrapin shells on their legs, and keep time by stamping, moving around the fire with peculiar facility, and apparent ease; in a short time most of the women present, join in the dance. This ceremony is continued as long as the whim of the old man prompts him to sing. After resting ahalf hour, the singing is commenced again, by the same or another old man, and the dancers again enter the lsits. The night is generally wound up with a common dance.
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