PROUD TO BE A CHEROKEE AND CHOCTAW

 Larry James writes...My grandmother Eula Maynard was a half-breed and offered reservation land.  He posted this on Facebook April 16, 2021.  He shared 3 old photo's that were found by another family member.

My husband Ricky Gene James' grandpa was John "Emery" James was a half-breed Cherokee. His mother was Ida Mae Green a full-blood Cherokee born in Gore, Oklahoma.  She married a white-man "Bill" William Melton James.  She owned land and the Core of Engineers of Oklahoma bought the land to put in Tinkiller Lake in Oklahoma.  Bill and Ida had 6 children but only the 5 boys lived to be grown.  The 5 boys were Emery, Jesse, Luther, Sam and Frank. I assume on her death bed, Rick's great-grandma asked that her boys be put in an orphanage at Pryor, Oklahoma, The Whittaker Orphanage until they were of age and could be on their own.  She and the baby girl Nora Jean died in 1910. The boys were put in the orphanage and were not supposed to be adopted out. Two were Luther by a family named Winfrey and Sam by a family named Best.  So at the age of 15 Rick's grandpa Emery, his brother Jesse 13 and little brother Frank who was probably about 8 years old ran away. They didn't want to be adopted and their last name changed.  Brother Jesse was indentured out for a period of three years by a man named Garner, but later returned to the orphanage. (This is per his sons information)   Emery's wife "Tennie" Ora Tennessee Norton was Choctaw. Most of the family never knew she was part Choctaw, but before she died she told her granddaughter-in-law that she was.

Larry went on to write. . .  1. The Cherokee never had princesses. This is a concept based on European folktales and has no reality in Cherokee culture, there was a balance between men and women. Although, they had different roles they both were valued.

 2. The Cherokee never lived in tipis. Only the Nomadic Plains tribes did. The Cherokee were southeastern woodland natives, and in the winter they lived in houses of woven saplings, plastered with mud and roofed with popular bark. In the summer lived in open-air dwellings roof with bark.

 3. The Cherokee have never worn feathered headdresses to please tourists. These long headdresses were worn by the Plains Natives and were made popular through the Wild West Shows and Hollywood movies. Cherokee men traditionally wore a feather or two at the crown of their heads. In the early 18th century, Cherokee men wore cotton trade shirts, loin clothes, leggings, front seamed moccasins, finger-woven beaded belts, multiple pierced earrings around the rim of their ear and a blanket over one shoulder. At that time women wore mantles of leather or feathers, skirts of leather or woven mulberry bark, front seamed moccasins and earrings pierced through the ear lob only.

By the end of the 18th Century, Cherokee men were dressing much like their white neighbors. Men were wearing shirts and pants and trade coats, with a distinct Cherokee 'turban'. Women were wearing calico skirts, blouses and shawls. Today Cherokee people dress like other Americans except for special occasions, when the men wear ribbon shirts with jeans and moccasins, and the women wear tear dresses with corn beads, woven belts and moccasins. 

 4. The Eastern ban of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are descended from the Cherokee people who had taken land under the Treaty of 1819 and were allowed to remain in North Carolina; from those who hid in the woods and mountains until the US Army left; and from those who turned around and walked back from Oklahoma. By 1850 they numbered almost a thousand. Today, the Eastern band includes about 11,000 members. While the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma claims more than 10,000 members, make the Cherokee the largest tribe in the United States.

 5. Cherokee Arts and Crafts are still practiced: basket weaving, pottery, carving, finger-weaving and bead work.

 6. The Cherokee language is spoken as a first language by fewer than a thousand people and has declined rapidly because of the policies of the Federal operated schools. However, since the tribe has begun operation of their own schools, Cherokee language is being systematically taught in the schools.

 7. Traditional Cherokee medicine, religion, and dance are practiced privately.

 8. There have never been Cherokee Shamans. Shamans is a foreign concept of North America. The Cherokee have Medicine men and women.

 9. 'aho' is not a Cherokee word and Cherokee speakers 'never' use it. Most are actually offended by the misuse of this word. It is not some kind of universal word used by all tribes, as many believe. Each individual tribe have their own languages. We can respect these languages by using them correctly or not at all.

10. In order to belong to one of the Seven Cherokee Clans, your 'mother' had to have been/be Cherokee and her Clan is passed on to you. If the maternal line has been broken by a non-Cherokee or some one had all sons, you have no clan, which is the case with many today. (My husband's great grandma had 5 boys. The one girl born didn't live. So they have no clan. We were also told that sometimes if a Cherokee woman marries a white man, the tribe can kick her out of the clan.)

11. There is only one Cherokee Tribe that consists of three bands, The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the United Keetoowah Band of Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. All others who claim a different band than on of the three above are 'not' considered a Cherokee and are a direct threat to Cherokee tribal sovereignty.  In fact, to be Cherokee, one must be registered with the tribe, as a Cherokee and granted a citizenship through documentation. One can have native DNA but not be considered Cherokee until they are a registered tribal citizen.  Via N. Bear.