My Dear Mr. Banak,
While I certainly enjoyed reading your message; I could not agree with it in entirity. I was born a Cherokee, a "medicine man" ADAWEHI, as my father was, his father and his father. At a young age I was taught the "Old Ways" that were even then no longer being observed and were being twisted by missionary influence. Much has been lost to my people; but not to me.
I have lived 94 years following the ways of my father and grandfather. I rejected the Christianity they tried to force upon us. I am overjoyed that young people are looking to seek the truth; but I am appalled that they seek it out in books written by white men who did not understand all they saw or spoke of.
I have seen our Three Elder Fires twisted into representation of the Christian trinity. I have heard the name of our Creator, Uhalotega twisted into this Yowah. HA! Does not a language become corrupt when an outsider cannot speak the words properly and attempt to write them in their own language? This is what happened to the language of the Cherokee.
They say the middle and lower dialect of the Cherokee is lost. I say I have spoken it since I was born. My father spoke it. And we have written it since before the white man. All true Adawehi had a written language. We kept our history safe. We kept our ceremonies safe and our way of life.
Moony--and these others come into the lives of the Cherokee after the white missionary have twisted it. Black culture had seeped into our stories. Read the "Bre'r Rabbit". This is not the real way that story was told.
I am not condemning any race. But for those authors who would take corruptions of our tradition, our stories, our culture and twist them or put into them the "melting pot" of their own, this I condemn.
Even the Cherokee are fault in this. They listen not to their elders. They took no time to record and keep the things sacred safe for their descendants. Only those who were ancient Adawehi, only we have kept these things sacred and safe.
I have been approached many times for those things I have. Papers written by ancestors about the things that occurred even before the white man. These things I will not pass to any government entity, to any museum to be stared upon, to any historian to read and then write upon and make his name with. No, I do with them what my father did and his. I pass them down to someone.
I am not fortunate to have a child left alive to pass these things to, for I have outlived my only daughter. But I had a friend who was also Adawehi. To his grandson I will pass these things, for his family were once the greatest Adawehi of the Cherokee.
If you are wondering what an Adawehi was, it was a priest. We were not medicine men, those were among the clans. We were the priests, medicine men, spiritual teachers.
Like your research of the name Iowa. There is no religious meaning, though it sounds similar to Yowah. This is what happened. They took our names and made them sound what they wished them to be.
"Ayv aginetsa!"- I have spoken!
"Dadv!" - It is so!
I thank you for your opinion.
Yours truly,
Red Hawk, Tawodi Gigage
Charles Harnage
