Originally posted by Chakotay
Byrd, my brother, ask Dr. Jordan one simple question: does she know everything there is to know about Cherokee origins.
She never brags on herself, but I have found out from other sources that she is honored and respected by the tribes and that when she says something,
it's true. She's an invitee to sweat lodge ceremonies, to Sun Dances, and other religious activities. I suspect she's been adopted into a tribe
but she is not one who would say this and I haven't gone prying.
I would say she would not claim that.
It is our myth, and is not part of the federally-recognized tribal gov't structure but rather a teaching of the Elders. I would not share it
in public except that it is widely published now.
The tribal gov't now admits that Sequoyah resettled in Mexico while investigating these origin stories.
Indeed he did, but there's a slight misconception in those words.
At the time of his death, the territory of Mexico extended far into what is now the United States. And Sequoyah did indeed go to find another
reportedly "lost" branch of the Cherokee in what was Mexico then.
It's now Texas. He died in East Texas, near the place where my daughter lives (Tyler) and there's plenty of documentation on this (numerous tribal
and other sources but this is the most concise: www.tulsalibrary.org...
) He apparently was looking for Chief Bowles' band:
I admit I don't have a complete biography on him; this is merely material that matches other material with good provenance that was presented to
The roots of the words Atlantis, Atlan, Aztlan and so on in the original tribal languages point to an original name for the continents common
to both sides of the Atl-antic.
Erm... well... no.
You see, if it was the same root language then it would have the same root references. The words are obviously UNrelated to Cherokee (as a simple
glance through any Cherokee dictionary will show) and the meaning of the words are quite different. "Aztla" root is Incan (not the oldest of the
languages) and refers to herons ("Aztlan" meant "the place of the herons") while "Atlantis" refers to "The Sea of Atlas" and is Greek.
Reference here for the rest of youse guys:
Aztlan is the mythical place of origin of the Aztec peoples. In their language (Nahuatl), the roots of Aztlan are the two words:
aztatl - tlan(tli)
meaning "heron" and "place of," respectively. 'Tlantli' proper means tooth, and as a characteristic of a good tooth is that it is firmly rooted
in place, and does not move, the prefix of this word is commonly used in Nahuatl to denote settlements, or place names,
I will spare everyone the lecture on the origins of the Aztecs (everyone heave a sigh of relief now!) except to note that this is a good page on their
history and they are a fairly modern group: www.indians.org...
Please support your statement that Tsalagi do not have their origins at the beginning of time.
Lemme 'splain the anthropological view here:
A people's true beliefs are considered to be a "true belief." So yes, I believe that the Tsalagi have an origin story that they believe is true
and is part of what makes them what they are... as other folk and other tribes have their own true beliefs in their origin stories.
For the Hawai'ians, Maui fished the islands out of the sea with his fishing gear. This is a true belief to them, and it is part of their culture.
It makes them true on the scale of "do we believe this and does it have a place in our culture."
This does not make these beliefs science. For example, it can be pretty conclusively demonstrated that the Hawaiian islands are volcanic and grew
over milennia and not instant fish hook-ic in origin.
A search for the variations of the root words of Cherokee shows distribution worldwide throughout time, and we do not define ourselves
geographically within the limits set by Yo Ne Ga.
I can accept it as a belief/religious teaching, but I don't find any evidence of it as science.
What science shows is that it is a language and culture that developed sometime in the last 8,000 years from an older Iriquoian culture, and that the
culture and technology of the "Five Civilized Tribes" put them light-years ahead of the other Native Americans.
However, the language isn't related to (say) Ancient Egyptian. That might be a religious belief (and I'd find it hard to accept as anything but a
modern belief since the People weren't aware of other countries before other countries landed on them,) but as a scientific idea, it's easily
knocked over by a simple study of linguistics. The roots aren't the same, and the grammar structure isn't the same. Heck, the phonemes aren't the
All the tests of "language relatedness" flunk promptly.