Nuyagi Keetoowah Society of Pomona NY

[DIGOWELI]

Wow,  

What a nasty post.   You were the one who put Boudinot together with enrollment.   I just jumped it to the impulse for the Curtis Act which is when the whole Dawes Rolls that determine CNO membership were taken.  

Do you know who Boudinot was?   He was the founder of Patterson, N.J.    Watie took the name.  Seems maybe there was a connection between Patterson where the Sand Hills are and John Ross.   Otherwise how would Watie know to take the name?     I would recommend that you read all of the Cherokee Phoenix translations that are available on the Internet.   That gives you a good feel for the history from the Christian Cherokee perspective.

You all continue to confuse the Priesthood.  I would recommend that you read "Tribes that Slumber" so you can get it straight.   Our Founder. my father,  was one of the resources for the book put out by the Univ. of Tenn.

The Nuyagi Keetoowah has only one site and you have never seen it.   The Sand Hill site is a historian site by a member of the Cherokee Nation with BIA card.   A man who is a national resource for Indian rights organizations, has an Indian Foundation and has had breakfast with the President.     He grew up in Sand Hill and his family has been there over the period of its development.   No one knows more about that then he.   When he says Keetoowah he means religion and when he says Nuyagi he means here in the "place of rocks".   He means the group that came here and has a history with a Stompground that was noted in the newspapers of the day even though it was illegal.   The whites thought it was novel and so didn't bother them.   He has notes of it in the 1928 newspapers.   His work is in the Museums.   He is a member of our Stomp Ground and former Council Member but IT IS NOT A NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, INC. website or has anything to do with our official duties, etc.   He dances also in Oklahoma where he says and their approval is between him and them.    You should read the site carefully so you understand Stokes State Forest where they met in 1928 for the fire with our Founder.     He passed that fire to me in 1984 and I have been the keeper of it down to the present.   That is not all that I keep.   But the Sand Hill site is a historian site and is subject to the same rigors as all history.     We are proud of him but you have to take his context for his paper, not what you believe in your minds or what anyone else says.

If you want to understand the quote on the Futurework site then read the whole thread.   It is much too complicated for you to judge simply by extracting that information.   Intent is always a part of the message and you miss that by not reading the thread.    The Futurework site is also NOT A NUYAGI KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, INC. website.   It is however a very good international discussion of the problems of work that we face in our pursuit of employment for our people.   Not a bad thing to know.

That being said.   You know only what I have written about us and you have to read it all to get the point.   My writing is Cherokee English.   It doesn't scan and it is often in the passive voice with a stress on the processes rather than the nouns and objects.    That is the way my family taught me English.

As for judging my tradition.   Who made you the authority on tradition?    It is not traditional to be disrespectful to a man with "gray hair."   I said all of the right things, the cues and the cliches and you didn't know them.   An Indian child would understand about snow in the hair.

I'm going to leave it at that.   You may read for a while and then I will delete the posts as I don't want to leave this around.    You have already stirred up enough mischief and taken time away from my family.     You have also started a connection with Tahlequah that I have deliberately avoided because of growing up on Indian land and having to deal with governments.   I don't do that and that is why I am here and in the private sector.  

Finally, if you don't know the power of naming then you should go ask your parents because they messed up.   Wannabe is common but so was the N word when I was growing up and they said Segregation was OK.   Accusing someone of lacking authenticity is to judge their soul.   That is the real curse not saying that someone is a shit head.    The next time someone comes to audition for me from Oklahoma and is a member of the CNO I will remember to ask them if they wannabe an opera singer or are they just faking it.  (just joking)

Goodby

REH

[educatedindian]

"You were the one who put Boudinot together with enrollment."
No, not even close. I was talking about Removal. You are the one who doesn't seem to know Removal and the Dawes Act are separated by half a century.
Not to mention being very confused about Boudinot. He couldn't have founded a town in NJ because he was executed by Ross's followers for signing the fraudulent treaty.

"My writing is Cherokee English.   It doesn't scan and it is often in the passive voice with a stress on the processes rather than the nouns and objects."
Oh please. I've read more than my share of Cherokee authors, and none of them speak in such a dense and obtuse way as you, or deliberately go off on tangents and avoid the subject as much as you.  

"As for judging my tradition. Who made you the authority on tradition?"
Gotta love the Nuage way you use the word "judge," as in "only mean people use the brains God gave them."
So now you claim it is solely your invented tradition? Not Allen's, not Vance's or Joseph's as well?

"It is not traditional to be disrespectful to a man with "gray hair.""
No one has been disrespectful to you. We've asked you simple questions, and you did everything you could to avoid straight answers.

*You* have been abusive to Dr. Allen, and that tells me you are no elder and no real priest.

"You may read for a while and then I will delete the posts as I don't want to leave this around."
No you aren't. I'm reposting these to the archive for anyone who wants to see the true you, the one who curses and throws tantrums like a child and hides from the truth.

"...you should go ask your parents because they messed up."
And now you get even more childish by insulting everyone's parents.

"Wannabe is common but so was the N word when I was growing up."
LOL! Oh please. Spoken like a true wannabe whose never faced real pejudice in their life.

"Accusing someone of lacking authenticity is to judge their soul."
Spoken like a true Nuager who is fearful they've been found out.  

"That is the real curse not saying that someone is a s**t head."
At least you finally admit to being childish and cursing at him.  

The saddest thing in all of this is the way you mislead so many Cherokee in your area searching for a connection to tradition.

[debbieredbear]

Maybe Joseph or Vance can answer this for me. But it seemed to me that I read that the Cherokees killed all the priests. In fact, I read a novel by Robert J Conley, Cherokee author, that described the killing of the priests.

[JosephSWM]

I had read about the killing off of priests and I have been looking through my library. The only reference I can find is in Thomas Mails "Cherokee People" and since this book is just a rewriting of everything else that has been written, and I don't particularly care for or believe everything he writes, my annswer is I am not sure. To me Mails is an "armchair historian", just reads other's works and then rewrites it and flavors it with christianity.

I enjoy Conley's books but as a writer he takes liberties with the facts (and he says this in his books). He wrote one book called "Ned Christie's War" which is closer to the truth than other novels about Christie but still it deviates from the facts.

I will look some more but perhaps Vance has an answer to this question.

Joseph

[Richard L. Allen]

108.  THE MASSACRE OF THE ANI' KUTA'NI

Among...perishing traditions is that relating to the Ani'Kuta'ni or Ani-Kwata'ni concerning whom the modern Cherokee know so little that their very identity is now a matter of dispute, a few hold that they were ancient people who preceded the Cherokee and built mounds, while others, with more authority, claim that they were a clan or society in the tribe and were destroyed long ago...From various statements it would seem that the Ani-Kutani were a priestly clan, having hereditary supervision of all religious ceremonies among the Cherokee, until in consequence of having abused their sacred privileges, they were attacked and completely exterminated by the rest of the tribe, leaving the priestly functions to be assumed thereafter by individual doctors and conjurers...Tradition states that such persons lived among their ancestors and were deemed superior to others, and were extirpated long ago, in consequence of the misconduct of one of the priests, who attempted to take the wife of a man who was the brother of the leading chief of the nation...A...more detailed statement, on the authority of John Ross and Dr. J. B. Evans, is given in 1866 by a writer who speaks of the massacre as having occurred about a century before, although from the dimness of the tradition it is evident that it must have been much earlier:
"The facts, though few, are interesting.  The order was hereditary; in this respect peculiar, for among Indians seldom, and among the Cherokee never, does power pertain to any family as a matter of right.  Yet the family of the Nicotani—for it seems to have been a family or clan—enjoyed this privilege.  The power they exercised was not, however, political, nor does it appear that chiefs were elected among them.
"The Nicotani were a mystical, religious body of whom the people stood in great awe, and seem to have been somewhat like the Brahmins of India.  By what means they attained their ascendancy, or how long it was maintained, can never be ascertained.  Their extinction by massacre is nearly all that can be discovered concerning them.  They became haughty, insolent, overbearing, and licentious to an intolerable degree.  Relying on their hereditary privileges and the strange awe which they inspired, they did not hesitate by fraud, or violence to rend asunder the tender relations of husband and wife when a beautiful woman excited their passions.  The people long brooded in silence over the oppressions and outrages of this high caste, whom they deeply hated but greatly feared.  At length a daring young man, a member of an influential family, organized a conspiracy among the people for the massacre of the priesthood.  The immediate provocation was the abduction of the wife of the young leader of the conspiracy.  His wife was remarkable for her beauty, and was forcibly abducted and violated by one of the Nicotani while he was absent on the chase.  On his return he found no difficulty in exciting in others the resentment which he himself experienced.  So many had suffered in the same way, so many feared that they might be made to suffer, that nothing was wanted but a leader.  A leader appearing in the person of the young brave whom we have named, the people rose under his direction and killed every Nicotani, young and old.  Thus perished a hereditary secret society, since which time no hereditary secret society, since which time no hereditary privileges have been tolerated among the Cherokees (Mooney, J. Myths of the Cherokee).

[Richard L. Allen]

I note that my post includes a typo.  The last sentence should read:

Thus perished a hereditary secret society, since which time no hereditary privileges have been tolerated among the Cherokees.

[JosephSWM]

Dr. Allen,

I was just reading that in my copy of Mooney. Thanks for posting it and thanks for saving me the time from typing it all in. It would have taken me a long time. Also, thanks for all your help in general.

Joseph

[debbieredbear]

Thank you Dr. Allen.

[DIGOWELI]

From her website.   Note what she calls the keeper of the wampum in Oklahoma. i.e. apprentice and adopted father.   Family membership is required of an apprentice to the Medicine Priest.   Her resources at Qualla are pretty good too don't you think?  REH

Dr. Noé practices traditional Cherokee medicine as taught by her Cherokee elders. This is a practice that encompasses mind, body, and spirit. She was accepted as an official apprentice in 1987 by Crosslin F. Smith, high medicine priest of the Keetoowah, cherokees of the western band of Cherokees in Tahlequah, OK. She was adopted into the Smith family shortly after starting her apprenticeship. This is a unique honor reserved for few. Prior to this she was taught by the elders of the eastern Cherokees, Mary U. Chiltoskey, "Mama" Geneva Jackson, and Amy Walker. Dr. Noé continues to study with her elders and practices traditional Cherokee ways with patients when appropriate.

http://www.drjodyenoe.com/WebPages/cherokee.html

[Richard L. Allen]

Actually, since you brought out Crosslin's name, I did check with him a couple of weeks ago to verify this claim by Dr. Noe and he validates her claim.   Some time ago, Crosslin shared with me a document--a speech--that he had written and I quote:  "In the Indian world, there are three ways to become an Indian doctor.  You can be born to it.  That is, one would then have a particular traditional heritage inherited from his parents; a skill handed down from father to son.  The second way is through traditional education and instruction by another doctor.  The third way would be by utilizing instinct involving a deliberate search through spiritual meditation, which could lead to becoming a positive receptor of the elusive holy spirits, and the knowledge of how to apply information received through spiritual means.  These means can be intermingled, and one does not necessarily exclude the other."

So according to this speech written by Crosslin, there is more than one way to acquire the knowledge to become an Indian doctor.  I note he did not refer to this as becoming a high priest.

[DIGOWELI]

I accept that.

That is the same as I was taught.   When my father died he had written for four years knowing that he would not finish my study.   When he died he left almost eighty volumes of typewritten material as my "study course."     The things he couldn't live long enough to teach me.    The courses are basically processes and besides the Tsalagi, there are all of the other that he was accredited by their peoples to teach.    
 
I understood you to imply that there were no Priests today and aligned them with the "Nicotani" of the White Man who believed there were never more than one million Indians in America.  He was so prejudiced that you have to know how to read it and he was also given information that was incomplete since reading is not for information but for remembering.  
 
Fundamentalism is always a problem in literacy.   That is why the oral is so important.  
 
I have not and do not represent myself as an "Indian Doctor" although my father was.    If you check with your office you will see what I mean.    The definition I know of Priest is there.   Its always good to talk to one's Priest before they talk to them at the end.    Priests have a responsibility for the community and its well being.

A community without one has no one to care for the souls.    That community "runs scared rather than running free."  
 
I am and always have been a teacher both by training and by generations of family.   I have also been in positions of spiritual leadership since childhood both before and after 1978.    I am a musician and have worked with sacred music in many traditions beyond simply our own.   I suppose  that is why I was selected for my job.    

I didn't ask and I didn't seek.   Anyone who wants to go do this for the fun of it is an idiot and a fool.    Just to start, my old friend and Ojibwa mentor the painter Joe Geschick used to say that "it is not easy being Indian!"     He would say this after a four day no food or water fast and then ask us to pray and refuse to drink.    I was one of Joe's sponsors at the Greengrass Sundance in 1980.     That is not an easy way and it certainly wasn't fun.   But it was right to do at the time and I learned important things that would help me with my final teacher who was a High Priest. I had called and asked him to help me with the birth of my daughter.  

Up until that time both Louis Ballard and I thought I would do a Doctor's degree at Juilliard.    I also figured that Louis would be my final teacher since he was from home and is the Hunka as well as being the grandson of a Cherokee Medicine Priest.    He is also America's greatest living native composer.   I was surprised and not all that pleased at the time, that my path was driven another way.    
 
I have terrible short term memory caused by lead poisoning at Picher and that has plagued me all my life at being able to learn languages.   Music was and is the language of my soul.   I did not want to be a Priest and was assured that I was not the one to be the Priest that I was merely a student.   Boy was I surprised when I found out my father, who was dying at the time, tricked me.     Four and 1/2 years with him were difficult and wonderful.   They were also not nearly enough for what I have had to learn over the last 17 years since his death.     He apologized to me for leaving me mid-stream and I didn't at the time realize what that meant.  But now I do since my time is also limited.    Before he died he called my birth father and sent his regards.    At the end he turned to me and said, "he doesn't know" (that he's dying).     Within a year, both of my Fathers had left this world.  
(continued)

[DIGOWELI]

One thing you are right about.   "Doctoring" doesn't travel but one shouldn't confuse that with being the only element of spirituality.   It is only one of the elements.   And because the Oklahoma bodies were shaped by Oklahoma weather, Oklahoma plants are better for you.   When I was taught I was told to study the plants and time of this place.   We are to the North of you.    So I have used my work here and the Iroquois and Delaware as my guides in much of this doctoring.   I also have one whale of french homeopathist who knows all of the herbs and is the only one to catch my lead poisoning and Lyme disease.    The VA works with him he cleansed me of what was left and prescribed a native herb for the Lyme disease.     Life has traveled on from the 1700s and we are all from many places today.    The herb worked but its a rough one.  
 
I don't know why I was selected but I only do what I was taught and is my role in life.   I have defended the ceremonials and the ways with my life and prosperity.   That was what my father taught me when we sacrificed all to develop the schools in Picher.    
 
Ceremonials help you relate to where you are.   Like language, they vary slightly from place to place amongst the same people.    I don't authenticate or judge Oklahoma because I haven't been back there in years and I do my meditations now with my Cherokee wife at her home in Tennessee and in the Mountains of Sullivan County New York on the Delaware River.    I am a Northern Cherokee now and Keetoowah is my path as well as anyone in Oklahoma but we do things our way here.  

One last thought:
There are many great Cherokee teachers both known and unknown.   Some of the most powerful that I have known said that "you could get a lot more done if no one knew you."   They always insisted I NOT give their pedigree.  

I've tried to walk a path between the two, given my business, and the need to support Indian people in the Arts with a positive example.   I've not only studied under great Cherokee school teachers but privately with many such as the Texas Cherokee master voice teacher Frederick Wilkerson.   "Wilkie" was so irritated by the Cherokee prejudice against his black father that it took four years for him to admit to me that his mother was full blood and where he was from.   Her name was Ella.   When he died it was the black community, with Roberta Flack and Maya Angelou who gave the big funeral since he was their teacher as well.   Later I did a ceremonial at the cemetary for the Cherokee side.   That and some personal things went with him so that he would have some peace with it.    He gave me a gift as I left the Cemetery in Harlem.  

[debbieredbear]

Ray,

Are you related to Louis Ballard? I have a good friend who's dad is first cousin to Louis Ballard. Just curious that's all.

[DIGOWELI]

No, Louis and I are from the same "res".   He's from Quapaw and I am from Picher, one mile apart.  We both went to the University of Tulsa and studied with the same teachers there but he was a grad student when I was a freshman with Barbara McAllister the Cherokee opera singer from Muskogee.   Burl Lane also from Picher was a part of that group and is now a section leader in the Chicago Symphony and Jazz great.   Of course there was Mickey Mantle, who is a relative.   He was from Commerce.   Moscelyn Larkin the great Indian Ballerina (Miami) was from Miami, Okla. the county seat,  ten miles down the road.

[DIGOWELI]

 Osiyo,  
This is very flattering, my very own thread in the archive section and in so short of a time.   I would suggest that the name of that be changed to the community that I belong to which is:  
 
The Nuyagi Keetoowah Societies, Inc.
 
There are four designated in our Bylaws.  
 
The Nuyagi Keetoowah Society:  A Society of illustrious Tsalagi Elder Men above 50 years old.
 
The Clan Mothers Society:   A society of illustrious Tsalagi Elder Women above 50 years of age.  
 
The Seven Clans Scribe Society:  A mixed society of Indian People and others who come to worship or study the structures of personality that contains the lessons learned in our traditions.  
 
The Youth Council:  A society of young people for the purpose of learning the lessons of our traditions both in the Eastern and Western and in the Cherokee presence in the Northeast.  
 
All are represented on the Grand Council of the Nuyagi Keetoowah Community.  
 
If you wish I will consult the Council as to what we can share on the internet with people outside the  community.     I tend to be transparent but the old privacies are deep as our leaders have been jailed only 23 years ago for practicing them.     That is not my decision but theirs.   We are not afraid of theft,  for ideas cannot be stolen, only practiced.  If you practice it, it is not the same, but yours.   We can't make people Tsalagi and we do not proselytize or seek converts.     The only way a person can become a member of the community from outside is through service or adoption by a community family who takes responsibility for that person and their actions.  
 
As for authenticity?    Well, if we are not authentic, it shouldn't bother anyone, everyone will know.   But if we are and we shouldn't have told it, then it is on their shoulders for giving us the need to defend ourselves publicly in this forum.    
 
For every question there is a counter question and for every challenge there is the same.   The people cannot be reconciled unless there is equality.    Just as people ask us what are we, we must return the question and point out that the issue of "blood" was confused by more than one child recently who drew the same conclusions as Germans have drawn when listening to Indian people traveling to Germany.   They had heard that language before and it cost dearly.    We reject that as not practicle in this time and in our situation.   We made the decision to keep the culture no matter what the blood.   That the culture was valuable and worth continuing for the sake of our children knowing and be proud of who they are.  
 
oneh dodada gohv'i  
 
Ray Evans Harrell