CHEROKEE CULTURE
The Cherokee are Native American people originally from United States (Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina).
The Cherokee tribe was represented by seven clans: The Bird, Paint, Deer, Long Hair and Paw Sylvester each clan had two agents, the first the red agent for the war, the second for the talk and he was the spokesman, in war times all the power was in the red agent.
They lived in small communities near to rivers and, her language belonged to Iroquoian language family. Their village had a principal wooden house where they met together for celebrating their rites; this house represented the seven clans. The marriage was only permitted between members of different clans.
Their typical food was thecorn, beans, pumpkin and the hunting of animals. They were mostly farmers and the only domestic animal they had was the dog.
The Cherokees always enacted the peace, in the XVII Century they established their own government shaped by 32 selected members of the tribe, they wrote their own constitution even tough they supported the English colony in the conflict against the British government.
At the time was the beginning of the independence of the United States so the confrontation began in their territory. Also, the discovering of gold provoked the beginning of the war with the “white man”, then they were expelled from their lands and in 1828 the Cherokees walked to western Mississippi, unfortunately 17.0000 died for the smallpox, hunger and coldness.
Finally, the Cherokees established themselves as an independent government in 1982; in addition they were called a civilized tribe. Actually, they have adopted the white man’s culture and are located in North Carolina.
In this picture the Cherokee tribe walk toward the new territory, much died in the travel because this travel was called “path of the tears Cherokee.
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Seal of Cherokee nation
The seven stars represent the seven clans
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Cherokee travel route
This is a basket hand-woven by the Cherokee women
Mask hand-sculpt
In the beginning when they were was fighting for their land, first they danced all night long around the fire asking for help to their mother earth and to win the war. When the war finished they had to make a religious rite for their purification before coming back to their daily routines.
Another religious rite is the corn dance, first they sow the corn they dance around the fire for a successful harvest.
The meaning of Cherokee is those who lives in the mountains.
When the children are teenagers they have to pass for a test, this consist in going to the forest and passing all night with blinded eyes without weapon for defending of dangerous animals if the boy achieve themselves to pass the test he will become a man but is not allow to speak about the experience because each one is personal, and private.
Other of their customs is regarding marriage, when a man wants to choose a woman he can´t choose one who belongs from a clan of his parents. The man has to hunt a deer then he has to take the meat as a gift to the woman he wants to marry, if the woman accepts the meat then she will marry him.
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