Beyond Land Acknowledgement - Part 4 - Cherokee Museum

It's Indigenous People's Day today in the USA, and Happy Thanksgiving in Canada!

These are my photos and notes from:

"Beyond Land Acknowledgement: Toward Reparations and Healing"

Sept 30, 2023, Asheville, NC

Shenelle Feather, the Education Program Manager of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian shared some of the wealth of information about the Museum with the large group and brought 2 Cultural Specialists with her.

Note, all the presenters were Cherokee, locally living in North Carolina.

It was great to see the two younger faces, Nola and Dylan, in our slightly older Conference population!

I was entranced by Shenelle's outfit!

Then Nola gave the Cherokee history of the beginning of life on earth. She said "You would call it a story. We call it history." Her history included wonderful one arm gestures. I imagine when she gives this to tourists at the museum, she may used both arms...

Part of the history was: "And of course the earth was like soft clay, so the buzzard volunteered to go down and dry it out." (The animals were in the upper region in the Cherokee History, I don't know the name) "The buzzard was tired and his wing feathers touched the earth and brought up the soft clay into forming the mountains of Appalachia."

And then with just a bit of shuffling around...

We all were around the edges of the room in a big circle. Then we learned our part of the song that would be sung...mainly just a whoop at a certain point. 

Shenelle asked us to join hands and Nola started leading us in the biggest circle possible, while Dylan and Jarrett Wildcatt sang the chant with Shenelle...with a great beat kept by the shaker.

I took a video of the dance and almost all of the participants engaged in it!

We certainly enjoyed this activity after sitting and paying close attention to the first 3 presentations...now it was time for lunch!