Lifeways

The Cherokee placed their villages along rivers and streams, where they farmed the rich black soil. Their crops included corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and tobacco. They grew three different kinds of corn, or maize—one to roast, one to boil, and a third to

Cherokee cane-stalk blowgun plus darts

Grind into flour for cornbread. They also took advantage of the wild plant foods in their homeland, including edible roots, crab apples, berries, persimmons, cherries, grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, and chestnuts.

The rivers and streams also provided food for the Cherokee, who used spears, traps, and hooks and lines to catch different kinds of fish. Another method included poisoning an area of water to bring the unconscious fish to the surface.

The Cherokee were also skilled hunters. They hunted large animals, such as deer and bear, with bows and arrows. To get close to the deer, they wore entire deerskins, including antlers, and used deer calls to lure the animals to them. The Cherokee hunted smaller game, such as raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys, with blowguns made from the hollowed-out stems of cane plants. Through these long tubes, the hunters blew small wood-and-feather darts with deadly accuracy from as far away as 60 feet.

The products of the hunt were also used for clothing. In warm weather, Cherokee men dressed in buckskin breech-cloths and women in buckskin skirts. In cold weather, men wore buckskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins; women wore buckskin capes. Other capes, made from turkey and eagle feathers along with strips of bark, were used by Cherokee headmen for ceremonial purposes. Their leaders also wore feather headdresses on special occasions.

Ceremonies took place inside circular and domed council houses or domed seven-sided temples. The temples were usually located at the summit of flat-topped mounds in the central village plaza, a custom inherited from the earlier MOUND BUILDERS of the Southeast.

Cherokee river cane basket

Cherokee families, as is the case with other people of the Southeast, typically had two houses—a large summer home and a smaller winter home. The summer houses, rectangular in shape with peaked roofs, had pole frameworks, cane and clay walls, and bark or thatch roofs. The winter houses, which doubled as sweathouses, were placed over a pit with a cone-shaped roof of poles and earth. Cherokee villages were usually surrounded with walls of vertical logs, or palisades, for protection from hostile tribes.

The Cherokee practiced a variety of crafts, including plaited basketwork and stamped pottery. They also carved, out of wood and gourds, Booger masks, representing evil spirits. And they shaped stone pipes into animal figures, attached to wooden stems.

Cherokee Booger mask (The term booger, from which bogeyman comes, is African in origin, taken by the Cherokee from a native language of African-American slaves.)

Among the many Cherokee agricultural, hunting, and healing rituals, the most important was the Green Corn Ceremony. This annual celebration, shared by other tribes of the Southeast, such as the Creek, took place at the time of the ripening of the last corn crop.

Another important event for the Cherokee, shared with other Southeast peoples, was the game of lacrosse. This game was played between clans from the same villages as well as between clans from different villages. Chunkey, or chenco, a game played by throwing sticks at rolling stones, also was popular.

With regard to political and social organization, the many Cherokee villages, about 100, were allied in a loose confederacy. Within each village, there were two chiefs. The White Chief, also called the Most Beloved Man, helped the villagers make decisions concerning farming, lawmaking, and disputes between individuals, families, or clans. He also played an important part in religious ceremonies, along with the Cherokee shamans. The Red Chief gave advice concerning warfare. One such decision was choosing who would be the War Woman, an honored woman chosen to accompany warriors on their war parties. The War Woman did not fight but helped feed the men, offered them council, and decided which prisoners would live or die. The Red Chief also was in charge of the lacrosse games, which the Cherokee called the “little war.”