So what does it all mean? What truths can be gathered from a collection of ancient Cherokee myths and religious traditions? From these stories, we can explore the thought processes and mindset of the traditional Cherokee. It becomes clear upon examining these tales that there are many notable differences between the Cherokee and the white worldview. Through the myths about the creation, the origin of disease, and the invention of medicine, we see humans playing a very different role than in European legends and Biblical accounts.
In Genesis, mankind is given dominion over the earth and all the creatures and resources in and on it. In the Cherokee story, the humans occupy a precarious niche in a world created by animals, for animals. Humans are barely tolerated, especially when they start exploiting the animals for food and skins. Humans are seen as having much less power, being at the mercy of the animals when disease is introduced. Instead of humans having dominion over other creatures, the situation seems to have reversed itself. Humans would have been decimated by disease had they not found friends in the plant kingdom, who helped mankind of their own accord. In the Cherokee worldview, mankind does not control nature, nature controls mankind.
This is a fundamental philosophical difference with the white European mindset. Europeans saw it as their destiny to control and exploit the earth. Cherokees saw themselves in a position that was not quite at the top of the hierarchy of life. While European types saw fit to nearly exterminate all bison without remorse, the Cherokee always made sure to apologize to the spirit of a deer they had just killed, for fear of retribution by nature. The stereotype of the Indian as a natural environmentalist in the Dances With Wolves tradition may indeed be skewed, but there is a kernel of truth in it. Cherokees, at least, respected nature more than their European cousins, albeit out of fear for their wellbeing.
Another difference in the Cherokee outlook on life is with regard to the spirit world. Most Europeans generally think of the spiritual world and the world in which they live as two separate places. Not so the Cherokees. In Cherokee myths and stories, the spirit world directly affects happenings in the physical one time and time again. Supernatural happening are treated as commonplace events. A small ceremony performed by a shaman was able to drastically affect a person's spiritual life, perhaps by removing it altogether. Raven mockers were seen not as storybook characters, but as real dangers to be feared. Some might call this superstition, but what is superstition to one person is religion to another. These views formed a coherent belief system for the Cherokees, in which the spiritual world was directly accessible and performed an important role in daily life.
For centuries, the invading Europeans looked upon the philosophy of the Cherokees and other Indians as primitive and timid. Today, in an increasingly overtaxed environment, we might do well to reconsider the Cherokee philosophy and respect for the natural world. In a society of soulless automation, we could not help but profit from considering the spirituality of the Cherokee world. By studying the myths of the Cherokee, one is exposed to a new way of seeing the world and the role of mankind in it.
This is a fundamental philosophical difference with the white European mindset. Europeans saw it as their destiny to control and exploit the earth. Cherokees saw themselves in a position that was not quite at the top of the hierarchy of life. While European types saw fit to nearly exterminate all bison without remorse, the Cherokee always made sure to apologize to the spirit of a deer they had just killed, for fear of retribution by nature. The stereotype of the Indian as a natural environmentalist in the Dances With Wolves tradition may indeed be skewed, but there is a kernel of truth in it. Cherokees, at least, respected nature more than their European cousins, albeit out of fear for their wellbeing.
Another difference in the Cherokee outlook on life is with regard to the spirit world. Most Europeans generally think of the spiritual world and the world in which they live as two separate places. Not so the Cherokees. In Cherokee myths and stories, the spirit world directly affects happenings in the physical one time and time again. Supernatural happening are treated as commonplace events. A small ceremony performed by a shaman was able to drastically affect a person's spiritual life, perhaps by removing it altogether. Raven mockers were seen not as storybook characters, but as real dangers to be feared. Some might call this superstition, but what is superstition to one person is religion to another. These views formed a coherent belief system for the Cherokees, in which the spiritual world was directly accessible and performed an important role in daily life.
For centuries, the invading Europeans looked upon the philosophy of the Cherokees and other Indians as primitive and timid. Today, in an increasingly overtaxed environment, we might do well to reconsider the Cherokee philosophy and respect for the natural world. In a society of soulless automation, we could not help but profit from considering the spirituality of the Cherokee world. By studying the myths of the Cherokee, one is exposed to a new way of seeing the world and the role of mankind in it.
From the Archives of Little Mother
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