THE PRINCIPLE PEOPLE

Cherokee women

Cherokee women had a lot of power. They were allowed to choose the man they wanted to marry. They would choose the man they liked. After the wedding the husband either built a new home or went to live with the wife's mother. The house and any children belonged to the wife. Although the women have a Lot of power, they still did quite a bit of work.

The women cooked the meals and cared for their homes. Also they would gather mushrooms, berries, nuts, and roots. The women gathered them in the woods around their village. She also raised vegetables for her family. Corn was an important crop for their tribe. Daughters and their mothers Planted and harvested in their giving community gardens.

Cherokee women did many other jobs too. They tanned animal hides to make clothing. They also made deerskin breechcloths for the men in the summer. Women also made buckskin cloths for winter. They would make deerskin skirts for themselves for summer and buffalo garments for colder months. They would also make long woven squares of material that they draped over their Shoulders in winter, which both men and women wore.

5/08/07

Art ©Sharon Evans

Translation: Happy Mother's Day

No Tutorial Used

"Add to this is the Clan Grandmothers: They told the warriors when

to go to war; the hunters to go and hunt when the meat supplies

were running low. They would take a young girl from her family to

train to be a medicine woman or clan mother when she grew up. It

was not until the white man came and told the men that They

should run the tribes business that things went wrong, when the

white man wanted to buy land, it was the white men that told them

the men should own the land not the women. And the women advised

against selling their land. How can one sell what the Creator

made? But the men sold the land and blew the money on the drink

and ended up living on a reservation.

I was raised to be strong. That I had an equal right with the

man I choose to marry...my grandmother use to say: If we only

have one glass, I will drink from it half the time and if we only

have one plate, I will eat from it half the time. She dearly

loved my grandfather, but she was the matriarch of our family.

She taught her daughters to be strong and taught me to walk tall

and hold my hand up and to walk beside my man, not behind him or in front of him.

Not all tribes treated their women with the respect that the

Cherokee did. We must remember each tribe was/is different. Also,

today, the children are taught to respect the Grandmothers, and

to treat the females with respect." ~ Bobbi