Author Topic: Cherokee or Tsalagi?  (Read 19019 times)

Offline educatedindian

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Cherokee or Tsalagi?
« on: October 10, 2005, 06:35:18 pm »
Trisha Rose Jacobs" <naakt_engel@yahoo.com>    
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:21:47 -0000
Subject: [nafps_again] Re: Cherokee/Tsalagi

--- In nafps_again@yahoogroups.com, "barnaby_mcewan" <barnaby_mcewan@y...> wrote:
> --- In nafps_again@yahoogroups.com, "Trisha Rose Jacobs" <naakt_engel@y...> wrote:
> > You know, it's kind of strange, but the only people I ever meet who insist on saying they
> > are "Tsalagi" are over nighters.  Everyone else I know is content to just say Cherokee.
>
> Thanks for that. I had the impresion it was the other way around. I guess that comes from being a long way away.

It might depend on who you talk to. But "Tsalagi", I've always been told, isn't even a Cherokee word. Neither is Cherokee (duh *g*). So why would you go for a more ndn sounding version of word thats not even native to you anyways? It's basicly just
calling yourself whatever your neighbors did. For example - how many L/D/N people call themselves Sioux? And how many of those would insist that spelling it and pronouncing it a slightly different way is 'more traditional'? Just doesn't make any
sense.

It's just been my experience that the people using that word are over nighters and members of the Iwishiwas nation.

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Cherokee or Tsalagi?
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2005, 07:13:46 pm »
Michael Two Horses" <twohorse@u.arizona.edu>  
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 20:46:40 -0000
Subject: [nafps_again] Re: Cherokee/Tsalagi

Found this:  "Tsalagi?  The word Cherokee or Tsalagi is actually a Choctaw word for "cave-land-people". The Delawares called the tribe the same thing, but their word is "Tallageni", the root of
Allegheny. Cherokee is the way the invaders chose to pronounce Tsalagi. The Cherokee language itself does not use the ch sound or the r sound as they appear in English."  This is what Tom Holm (my
diss committee chair, who is Cherokee and Creek) told me it meant as well.

Lately it seems that in order to give themselves more credence a lot of members of the Wanabi and Iwishiwas Tribes are using the more complex versions of the names of the tribes of which they're
pretending to be members.

Personally, I say Sioux to non-Natives 'cause saying Lakota or Dakota confuses them (particularly Dakota...they think I'm related
to a Dodge pickup...), and Lakota or Dakota to other 'Skins 'cause they know what that means.  I don't run around calling White people "wasicu" either, which seems to be another popular epithet
among the Wanabis and Iwishiwases...along with the use of NobleSpeak (TM) or TontoSpeak(TM)...

I also make my students all spell the word "Sioux" each semester.  They get 3 tries...one interesting thing is when we talk in courses about how different peoples got the names they're called by today, for instance, how the Ojibway/Chippewas (Anishinaabe) got named by the Huron (Wendat), then how our name came from the Anish word "nadonesiouweg" (people who act like snakes) and got shortened by the French (who felt it needed an x on the end for some reason), then how we named the Cheyenne (Tsistsistas) from the Lakota words "ša hiena" (speak differently)...
mth

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Cherokee or Tsalagi?
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2005, 04:08:34 pm »
Trisha Rose Jacobs" <naakt_engel@yahoo.com>  
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 21:20:07 -0000
Subject: [nafps_again] Re: Cherokee/Tsalagi

I was told it was some kinda Iroquois word that meant 'the people who= turned away. Either way, it's still not tradish for Cherokee no matter what the ov=er-nighters think.


Michael Two Horses" <twohorse@u.arizona.edu>  
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 23:13:09 -0000
Subject: [nafps_again] Re: Cherokee/Tsalagi

Agreed...it's a Chahta word, not a...ahem...Cherokee word...

mth

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Cherokee or Tsalagi?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2005, 05:14:19 pm »
Trisha Rose Jacobs" <naakt_engel@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book  Add Mobile Alert  
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:07:14 -0000
Subject: [nafps_again] Re: Dance of Life

Okay, for starters, the word "Tsalagi" is basicly just the old way of saying Cherokee. Neither are words actually traditional to the people, that would be Ani
Yunwiya (and there are various spellings of that).  

I have never heard of the "Dance of Life," and certainly not the ritual described by Don Two Eagles Water Hawk.  At any rate, it's not how I was taught to start my mornings.
Maybe it is just a tradition in his family in which case I guess he can share it with whomever he wishes. But I don't think he should be implying that it is a Cherokee tradition whether he uses the word Tsalagi or not. And, given Don's other ....
contributions to the nuage movement, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he made it all up - which is pretty much what I think of it.