A production of South Carolina ETV >> Male speaker: "The Snowbird Cherokees" was funded in part by grants from... ♪ ♪ >> Male speaker: The beautiful mountains rising, row on row.

Waters washing silver on the shore.

Bird people floating in the air.

Fish in the waters.

And, one by one, each being finding out who he was, his name and powers.

>> Male narrator: Throughout the history of empires, native cultures have often been displaced by new, emerging forces, removed to remote, out-of-the-way places.

In 1830, the United States Congress narrowly passed the Indian Removal Act, which made the eviction of Native Americans from their homelands official U.S. policy.

During the bitter winter of 1838, 12,000 Cherokees were forced to march over 800 miles from the Appalachians to Oklahoma Territory.

When it was over, a quarter of them had perished on what has become known as the Trail of Tears.

In these primeval forests, deep in the Cherokee country of the Smoky Mountains, several hundred Cherokees managed to flee from their homes before the soldiers arrived and, for months, survive.

>> Male speaker: We could not bear to leave the land of our ancestors, the land the Great Spirit bestowed upon us.

While most of us were taken from our homes and forced west, some of us hid and stayed.

We became the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, the persistent ones, the people of the Qualla Boundary, and of Snowbird.

♪ >> Female speaker: People look at you like, What is Snowbird?

You know, you try to tell 'em.

It's hard to tell 'em about Snowbird because there's nothing but the road and the trees, and when they get down here, they're looking for some snowbird, and you tell 'em, "This is Snowbird."

Then they're looking around, saying, "What are you talking about?

We don't see nothing but trees and the road."

[birds chirping] >> Snowbird's Snowbird because-- and I think, really, what makes this a pretty strong community is they are kind of isolated from the reservation a little bit and they're kind of independent.

You know, if we could have rounded all of them up, I guess we'd be in Oklahoma today, so there wouldn't be no Indians here.

>> Narrator: Cherokee lands and hunting grounds once covered much of what is now the Southeastern United States.

Today, the main reservation of the Eastern Band Cherokees is the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina's Swain and Jackson Counties.

Its center is the town of Cherokee.

About 50 miles southwest near Robbinsville in Graham County lies the Snowbird community, where tribal lands are scattered among private plots belonging to both Cherokees and non-Indians.

Twenty-five miles southwest of Snowbird is Tomotla in Cherokee County, where the fewest full-blooded Cherokees live.

♪ >> Female speaker: I have great admiration for those that remained, that went and stayed.

Regardless of who was after them or whatever, they went to the mountains and stayed.

Because of those ancestors, that's what remains here.

>> Narrator: The Trail of Tears separated the tribe and isolated the Eastern Band from the larger Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, but reconnections have been made over the years at events like the Trail of Tears Sing.

Even though different Cherokee dialects are spoken-- Atali and Snowbird in Oklahoma, Kituhwa on the Qualla Boundary-- they quickly understand each other.

>> Female speaker: You know, for many years, we were separated, but now we have come and just reunited one more time.

♪ >> Narrator: Like many Oklahoma Cherokee families, Bill and Becky Drywater have been coming to the Trail of Tears Sing in Snowbird for many years.

>> Bill Drywater: We had heard about this in North Carolina since I was just a young man.

I always had the desire to come and visit, and I believe some of the people that are here had that same desire at one time or another.

And to them, kind of like me, a dream coming true.

♪ >> Narrator: It's become an annual Cherokee tradition, one which strengthens the bonds between the Eastern and Western Cherokees.

Every summer each group hosts a Trail of Tears gospel sing, and families from each group make the long trip to reunite.

♪ >> We were sort of off, you know, distanced from the Whites.

And it's sort of funny to think about it nowadays.

It seemed like they were better than us, the way we looked at it.

But the older I got, I realized that we was just like anybody else.

You know, we might be different color skin, but I'm proud to be a Cherokee.

>> Narrator: In earlier times, the Cherokees believed in the sacredness of all things.

>> Male speaker: Before the Europeans came, our lives were structured around ancient beliefs which explained the eternal order of things.

We were the Aniyunwiya, the "real people."

The flight of the first Great Buzzard created the mountains as his wings touched the earth.

This sacred land of mountains, forests, valleys, and streams became our home.

♪ Above all else, we believe that life must be lived in harmony, with others and with all things: with the sun and moon, the seasons, with plants and animals, spirits, water, fire, wind, and smoke.

To us, the earth was a flat, round disk, suspended from the dome of heaven at the four directions, resting on the vast, deep body of water.

The earth itself was delicately balanced between the upper world of benevolent, guiding spirits and the underworld of evil, whose spirits crept onto the earth through caves, springs, and deep lakes.

This delicate balance between the three worlds could only be kept through harmony between man and the elements.

Failure to keep that harmony brought disaster in all forms: drought, storms, sickness, and death.

Evil actions brought evil to others.

Everything happened for a reason.

>> My great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather was named David Owle.

In those days, the Cherokees believed in conjuring, and they felt like that they were able to transform themselves into other life forms, into animals and this type of thing, so David had changed himself into an owl.

And there's a gentleman by the name of Lambert who one night heard the screeching of an owl outside of his house, and the Cherokees are very fearful of the screech owl.

They feel like he is a bad messenger, and if he comes around their house, something terrible may happen to one of the family members.

So Lambert goes out, and he shoots the screech owl.

When the owl falls on the ground, he thinks he's killed it, so he goes on back in that night and goes on to sleep.

When he awakens the next day, he goes out, and he finds my great-grandfather, David Owle, lying upon the ground, and he's been shot in the same place that the owl had been shot.

>> You know, I heard a similar story.

You know, there was an owl and everything else.

They said he didn't die then, but they said two days later, they could hear him scream through this whole valley.

You know, every house, you could hear him scream all the way to the head, because you know he's dead.

>> Narrator: Ned Long and Ella Jackson are brother and sister.

The Longs and Jacksons are two of several extended families in the Snowbird community.

Nearly everyone in Snowbird, it seems, is somehow related to each other.

This old cemetery, where one of their baby sisters who died over 55 years ago is buried, is now part of national forestland.

Before the Forest Service claimed this land, a small Cherokee settlement was nearby.

Ella Jackson remembers.

[speaking in Cherokee] >> Female speaker: She took a lot of pride in being an Indian, and she always said, "You don't have to do these customary things.

You don't have to make a basket.

You don't have to do beadwork.

Those are good things to know, but being an Indian comes from here, in the heart."

And she said, "That's where it is.

If you've got it there, that's all you need."

>> Narrator: Ella's daughter, Lou Jones, is moving to a new home.

In the generous and sharing spirit of a Cherokee, she's given her former home to her eldest son, Bud, and his new, growing family.

Lou has moved to land which was given to her by her father's cousin, whom Lou always thought of as her aunt.

In Cherokee communities, extended family members are often called aunts and uncles by the children.

Multiple "mothers" are also common, as friends and family assume parental roles for each other's children.

>> Male speaker: If you've got a grandma and she's got sisters, they're all grandmas.

>> Female speaker: We adopted first two, and then people told us, "Well, you're gonna start having your own kids."

I said, "That's fine.

We love kids, and we won't care to have one.

We wouldn't stop it."

So then in a few days, my brother-in-law brings in five kids and said, "Would you take 'em in?"

And we only had one bedroom at the time, a living room and one bedroom and a kitchen.

And I said, I really don't have enough room."

But I said, "Bring them on."

I said, "I wouldn't turn them down."

>> Narrator: It's not even unusual for childless aunts and uncles to be given babies from large families.

The strong, traditional family bonds of the community have made this tradition work.

>> My name is Bud Jones, and I'm 21 years old.

I'm a 1/2-degree Cherokee Indian, and I live on the Snowbird reservation.

I have a 10-month-old daughter.

I just got myself a house.

The Snowbird community is just one big family.

You know, everybody has their squabbles or differences, but when something happens to a particular person, everybody pulls together and helps them out.

My cousin, he had a bad car wreck a few weeks ago, and they're gonna have a singing for him.

They always have some kind of a benefit singing or something to help out the family whenever there's hospital bills or anytime something happens.

Like when a family member dies, everybody brings the family groceries and whatever they need for the household.

That way, they won't have to worry about it, and they can concentrate on the person who's passed on.

>> In a small community, you see your cousin all the time, but you really don't do anything with him.

You don't see him every day and do things with him.

But in the time that you really need 'em, they come through for you, and I think that really is something that the Cherokees did in the past.

When it was time to build a home, everybody pitched in, and that's when they always said that ga-du-gi.

>> Narrator: The ga-du-gi tradition of free labor, of community members helping each other in work gangs, has faded away, but its spirit has not.

>> When a crisis arise, we'll come to the aid of one another, even though the free labor does not exist anymore.

But if there's a crisis here in the family, we'll still come together and stand with one another, regardless of whatever it may be.

♪ >> Male speaker: In former times, purification ceremonies in our rivers purged past grudges and cleansed bitter spirits.

Harmony was kept.

>> In obedience to the command of our blessed Lord and Savior, we baptize this our brother in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost.

>> Whew.

[gasps for breath] >> Here's a towel.

>> ♪ Shall we gather at the river, ♪ ♪ where bright angel feet have trod... ♪ >> Male speaker: Our Cherokee ritual of going to water also helped ease our transition to Christianity.

Missionaries began to preach to them in the 18th century.

>> ♪ Yes, we'll gather at the river... ♪♪ >> Male speaker: By 1818, only two Cherokees had converted to Christianity.

But today, most of Snowbird is devoutly Baptist.

In the 1930s, Chief Yonaguska of the Eastern Band refused to let missionaries circulate among our people until they had translated the Gospel of Matthew for him.

When he heard the translation, he remarked, "It seems to be a good book.

"Strange that the White people are not better, after having had it so long."

>> One of the biggest things that isn't pointed out very much is the religion of the Indians.

They were very religious.

They lived the religion whereas a White man only spoke it.

And this was one of the bad problems of why the two peoples could never really get together.

The one didn't understand, and the other didn't ask.

>> Male speaker: A former war chief, who had signed treaties with George Washington, reflected the belief of many Cherokees when he told missionaries that the Bible, the great book of the Whites, was the source of the White man's wisdom and knowledge.

When the Great Father created men, he had a great book.

He offered it to the Red men and bade them to read from it, but they could not.

Then he offered it to the Whites, and they were able to read from it at once.

This is why the Whites know so much.

>> Narrator: George Guess, given his English name at birth, grew up in a full-blooded Cherokee community.

His Cherokee name was Sequoya, the man who singlehandedly created for his people a phonetic method to write the Cherokee language, the syllabary.

>> Male speaker: When it was perfected and made public in 1821, Sequoya hoped his syllabary would be a major force in preserving Cherokee heritage and religion.

>> Narrator: The syllabary assigned one character for each of the 86 sounds in the Cherokee language.

This written expression gave the Cherokees a new faith in themselves and a power beyond themselves.

>> Male speaker: His achievement helped preserve my people's language and strengthen their pride.

Within weeks, any native speaker could become literate.

>> Male speaker: "A great part of the Cherokees "are reading and writing in their own language.

"The knowledge of Mr.

Guess's alphabet is spreading through the nation like fire among leaves."

Reverend William Chamberlain, 1824.

>> Narrator: The syllabary is very much alive today.

Jim Welch and Tom Belt are Cherokee language teachers at the elementary school in the town of Cherokee, center of the Eastern Band.

>> Let's go to the second one, "Twenty-two Cherokees want white paper."

How do you say "twenty-two"?

[student speaks in Cherokee] >> Teacher: All right.

Next one.

>> The people of the Eastern Band and the parents of students who go here have recognized the importance at this particular time in history of preserving what culture they have left.

With this new concept, with this new approach to what they're doing, they are recognizing the value of their culture, the value of their language and how much it means to their identity.

>> Female speaker: A lot of times I would ask my dad, "Dad, you're fluent Cherokee, but why didn't you teach us how to speak Cherokee?"

He came back to me, and he said, "I remembered what I had to go through, and I didn't want that for you.

I didn't want that to happen to you."

I can't blame my dad.

>> Narrator: Earlier generations of Cherokees, including her father and his grandfather before him, had to attend the Indian school in Cherokee, run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

>> Jackson: We went to government schools, and they wouldn't allow us to talk our own language.

That really took a lot out of some, but some, they still cling to their heritage.

When you're in the White man's world and when you're under his jurisdiction, you know, you just about have to do what they tell you.

It's just like being in the military service.

It was the same way when I was in the armed forces, you know, at times.

I had some Cherokee buddies, you know, we'd speak Cherokee, and he wouldn't allow that.

So you got to follow the rules, you know, or whatever.

But when you get home, then you're on your own.

Then we go to doing what our ways are.

[chanting] [chanting] [applause] >> I'm Richard Crowe.

My grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and on down, they would say we have always been here.

We were always here.

There was a time when the medicine man, he came pretty often to the house off the hill over there, walking down a trail to the house.

His name we called "Shu-we-gi."

He'd bring some herbs, some medicine.

We walked out to the creek.

Now, I know that the creek had mole crickets, so he took the mole, this cricket.

Then he said, "Stick out your tongue."

I did that, and he put scratches with the claws of the mole cricket for seven times on my tongue, and then he announced, he said, "You will be the singer."

[speaks in Cherokee] The singer.

[chanting] In the late '50s, early '60s, I did theater work.

I went to New York.

Studio One, CBS, Lloyd Bridges's "American Primitive."

>> Female speaker: I've been making baskets ever since I was small, when my mama used to make baskets.

That's what we lived on far back.

>> He was away working, but he didn't make much, and he had to pay to reside.

So he didn't make much, he didn't bring home much, and I just made baskets and raised my boys.

♪ >> Narrator: In the eyes of European Whites, America's land was a commodity to be used and exploited.

To Native Americans, land was shared communally by their tribe.

Like the new White settlers, the Cherokees were primarily farmers.

Yet the settlers believed that Indians were simply tenants at will upon the landscape of America and should be removed when in the way of progress.

This was not the inclusive vision of America shared by Washington and Jefferson and other founding fathers "that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

Yet within 50 years, most White Americans replaced these values of the Age of Enlightenment with those of the Romantic Age, assured that Whites were a superior race with a special mission to save the world.

Ironically, in 1803, it was Jefferson who first suggested the ideal solution to the Indian question: their removal to distant western lands.

This new road being built through the national forest near Snowbird will make the area more accessible to tourists.

Alfred Welch, foreman on the road project, is a Vietnam veteran of the 101st Airborne and is proud to be Cherokee.

He and his wife Mabel have raised their son to be fluent in his native tongue.

Hunter Welch is Snowbird's youngest speaker of Cherokee.

>> Alfred: All Indians ought to know how to speak their own language.

A lot of them don't see it that way.

I'd be embarrassed a whole lot if I didn't know my own language.

I was raised to-- that's all I knowed how to talk 'til I started school.

That's what my grandpa believed in too.

I guess I just believe the way he does.

>> Narrator: This new road Alfred's helping to build will also create a link to the Tellico, Tennessee, area, the sites of several extinct Cherokee towns, which are now permanently inaccessible.

In the 1930s and '40s, the first two dams were built in the area, creating a job boom where jobs have always been scarce.

Clearing land with a team of horses is an old mountain tradition.

But with the dams, men worked ten-hour days for a dollar and were glad for the work.

>> Male speaker: My daddy even walked to the Santeetlah Dam from Snowbird and worked.

I don't know how they done it.

>> Narrator: First, Alcoa Aluminum's dam on the Santeetlah Creek created Lake Santeetlah, which Snowbird borders today.

Next came the massive Fontana Dam, begun in 1940 when only one tractor existed in all of Graham County.

Built as a priority in the war effort to increase aluminum output, it became a major employer for those not already in the armed forces.

In 1979, the Tennessee Valley Authority's Tellico Lake permanently submerged the site of the sacred Cherokee town of Echota.

Dam construction was delayed over the environmental fate of the snail darter fish, not the early town sites sacred to the Cherokee.

Yet before it was flooded, John Greene, a local archaeologist who had been raised by Cherokees, found the site and led an excavation there.

>> Greene: To us, it was something that should have been preserved definitely, in honor of the Cherokee people.

Of course, many promises were made concerning its preservation, but none were kept.

Based on the writings of Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, who wrote in 1762, at the time that he visited the Cherokees, we knew definitely that we were on the right spot.

I had a sense, a feeling I'd already been there.

It had been so vividly described to me.

There were the mountains just as had been described.

There was the bend of the river just as described.

So when we discovered the entrance to the council house, as I stated, then we began looking for the burial of Oconastota.

And sure enough, there was a rectangular-shaped burial.

>> Narrator: This was a European burial, with the body laid straight, unlike the Cherokee tradition of placing the dead in a fetal position.

In the 1730s, the British were seeking powerful chiefs who could speak for all Cherokees, even though in reality none did.

Oconastota, a powerful war chief, was one of several taken to England to meet the king.

>> Greene: Oconastota was given a pair of eyeglasses, because of his poor eyesight, by the king of England.

So near the midsection of the legs, there was the eyeglasses.

Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

Echota was not only the focal point of business and religious transaction, but it was a city of peace.

Anyone that entered the boundaries of Echota were safe, regardless of crime that they might have committed.

At Echota, they had no jails.

They had no sheriff.

They had nothing to keep order like we have today.

But the point is, every Indian acted on his honor.

>> Narrator: With the help of the Snowbird youth who worked on the dig, the memory of Echota will live on.

Native American traditions are also helping some young Indians overcome addictions to drugs and alcohol.

[chanting] >> Male speaker: Native Americans are being treated for alcoholism or drug abuse in sweat houses, and it's a powerful, sacred place.

When you go through that, you're considered to be at the center of the universe.

I'm Lloyd Owle, and I work here at a center where we treat children that are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Usually the children are from maybe 10 to 21 years old, and a lot of the kids that are in treatment centers with this disease, a lot of them will be dead before they're 20 years old.

Statistics come from certain places that say 1 in 4 will be dead before they're 20 years old.

Bill developed Alcoholics Anonymous.

It just seems that a lot of the ways of having circles or group meetings or telling your problems to the community or a group, seems a lot like what Native Americans would do many years ago to solve problems or to talk about it with the tribe.

We use what we call the medicine wheel concept, kind of a wheel with the four directions.

Young people especially, they might have a problem understanding 12 steps.

At the medicine wheel, they could have a better concept to be able to understand more about what the 12 steps are about.

♪ >> Narrator: Snowbird's in a dry county of North Carolina, but the kids here are well aware of the dangers of alcohol.

Melvin Wachacha dreams of being a movie star.

He's already appeared as an extra in several Hollywood features, including "Last of the Mohicans."

>> I used to want to drink all the time and stuff, and now I feel bad to.

I don't want kids to see me walking around drinking.

I don't want to have that kind of-- 'cause if they're looking up to me and they see me walking around drinking, "Well, he's been in the movies, and he's doing this, and this is cool."

It's not, so I don't want to be out walking around drinking in front of them or anything like that.

I want to look good to 'em.

I want 'em to say, "I want to be like Melvin," and be a good image to 'em because they do look up to me.

And what I'd really like to do is further my acting career and get real deep into it and maybe be able to give 'em something, you know, come back and give these kids something, like build 'em a gym.

>> Narrator: Snowbird's always had great athletes, many of them getting their start here at the community center, which doubles as a gym.

>> Male speaker: They were 13 and 2 last year and were state champions and had a great football team.

We're looking for a good year this year.

The kids have been working hard, a good attitude and everything, and we're looking forward to a great season.

In the last few years, it seems like there's been a great bunch of Indian athletes, and thank goodness we've got a good part of 'em out here right now.

>> Female speaker: I was an athlete.

Our family, most of 'em were athletes.

And so we got along well.

Robbinsville, being the school it is, they really stress a lot on the athletic program.

So if you're an athlete, you're one of them.

You know, that's how we fit in.

So we were one of them.

We were accepted, and everybody liked us.

But you take some of those Indian kids that didn't participate in the athletic program.

They were just pushed aside.

And there's swifter Indian kids now that aren't even eligible to be playing football because of their grades or their attendance, and, mark my words, this fall, they'll be on the team because they're such good athletes.

Now, I know that the things that they taught me in high school, they didn't teach me anything.

They didn't teach me English.

They didn't prepare me to go to college.

They didn't prepare me for life.

They didn't do anything except use my athletic skills, and that's how I got promoted every year.

>> Farr: Some of our kids struggle a little bit, but we're trying to work on that and trying to get their grades up and whatever, you know.

Sometimes as an athlete, sometimes they kind of don't study as much as they should, but we're trying to do some things to work on that and whatever and stress the importance, which I'm sure they have in the past too.

>> Narrator: Lou Jones's younger son, Brandy, was one of the stars of the Robbinsville High state championship football team.

In college to be a pharmacist, he's now working a summer job with the Forest Service.

He's determined to be a leader.

>> Probably 60% of the team are made up of the Cherokee athletes, and you hear remarks, hear comments, and basically, you know, that's just kind of like a driving force for me.

I've always been determined to proves somebody wrong about something like that.

Wanting to go into pharmacy gives me a good edge so I'll be able to come back and set a good example.

There's a lot of people that talk, but basically through your actions, that's how you become leaders.

>> Narrator: Politics in the Eastern Band revolves around the tribal council.

The tribal roles include full-bloods and barely blooded.

Most of the latter are often called "White Indians."

They share a tribal council representative with Snowbird and live in the adjoining county of Cherokee.

>> Female speaker: In Cherokee County, we have very few traditional people.

Out of our population of, say, 500 or 600 people, we have maybe 12 or 15 that are over a half degree Cherokee.

We have been what we call isolated from the rest of the reservation.

We're not as familiar with the cultures and traditions of the Cherokees because our people down here have moved away from the reservation for work or education.

And so we're resented because we don't keep close ties with the tribe.

>> White people that claims to be Indian help the Indian people instead of being Indian people when you not, and I feel like your blood has run out.

If you want to be with the Indian people, work with Indian people and help 'em out every way you can help 'em, not keep takin' it and cheatin' our full-blooded Indian people.

>> Female speaker: Non-Indian people have said-- especially the men will say, "Marry an Indian woman, and you'll get a free house.

"Marry an Indian woman, and you'll get free medical services "and just a lot of freebies.

You'll get a monthly check," and so forth and so on.

And I know that a lot of the elderly, such as my grandmother, remembers being told the government will take care of you, and that has created a dependency.

But now there's talk now among the community and I've been approached that we have to take care of our own, we have to do what we can to buy insurance, health insurance, life and burial insurance, because we're not gonna be taken care of anymore.

The promises that were made back in the days of removal are no longer.

>> Narrator: Jim Welch, Lou's husband, defeated Glenda Sanders in this tribal election for one of the council seats.

It was a hard-fought campaign.

Although this council seat must represent both the traditional community of Snowbird and the White Indians of Tomotla, each group tends to vote for its own.

A bigger voter turnout in Snowbird than in Cherokee County assured Jim's victory, but the political tension between the two communities is always present.

Abe Wachacha is the other council member representing both Snowbird and Cherokee County.

>> This year I think the biggest issue is our gaming issue.

People may not see it as much here in Snowbird simply because we're not the tourist town that Cherokee is, but we reap the benefits when they get it.

If our compact could ever be signed by the state of North Carolina, then we could realize most of the benefits.

Then you'd more services.

Then you could create jobs that way.

I think they're looking at 6,000 jobs in Cherokee if we could get that gaming compact signed and be able to be going into the casino market.

>> Female speaker: Cherokee wasn't always what you see it is today.

It started building up after the late '50s.

In the last 20 years, the growth of this community has expanded enormously to accommodate the tourism, which is our economy here.

>> Male speaker: When the tourists come here-- and they are very much disillusioned that the Cherokee don't live tepees.

The Cherokee never did.

One can find on the streets Cherokee men dressed in regalia that looks like the war bonnets and the like that you see in the John Wayne Hollywood movies of cowboys and Indians, and these headdresses are of the Plains Indians style.

Well, this is what the people that come here think that the Indian looks like.

So the Cherokee will dress up like that, the tourists will have a picture made, and they make money.

Some people say that will downgrade the Cherokee man who is doing that and say that he's selling himself down the road for his own people, his own culture.

And they don't realize that what it is, is it's nothing more than street theatrics.

>> Narrator: Other tourist attractions in Cherokee are historically accurate, like the Oconaluftee Village, where traditional crafts are made and visitors can learn that Cherokees did indeed live in wooden houses rather than the tepees of the Plains Indian.

By the early 1800s, a few Cherokees in northwest Georgia were living like wealthy Whites, as innkeepers and even as slave-holding plantation owners.

Chief James Vann was both.

This was his tavern, once a popular weigh station for Whites on the frontier.

It was near his trading post on the Conasauga River.

And this was his home.

Half White and known for his explosive and violent temper, Vann owned over a hundred Black slaves and once burned alive one who escaped, forcing other slaves to witness the murder.

In 1809, Vann himself was murdered in a brawl.

The financial success of Cherokees like Vann and their ability to excel in business pursuits was a greater threat to White settlers than their fears, real and imagined, of Indian savagery.

During the 1820s, not far from the Vann plantation in northwest Georgia, the Cherokees created a new town, New Echota.

Constant losses of their tribal lands at the hands of Whites led them to create a Cherokee nation from the remaining lands, whose center had been pushed 200 miles southwest from the Carolinas.

New Echota was designed to be the capital of this new nation.

It was a determined effort to prove to the Whites that they were quite capable of handling their own affairs.

This new formal nation was even modeled after the United States, with a constitution, a legislature, and a supreme court.

>> And we were powerful.

We were very powerful.

We were very intelligent.

We had our own language, schools, newspapers, everything.

And we were always very intelligent.

Being Cherokee today is very hard.

>> Who am I?

Who really am I?

Am I Cherokee, or am I... am I not Cherokee?

Am I a non-Indian?

What's gonna be the basis of my decision here?

Which way am I gonna go?

I still have struggles with that.

[chanting] [chanting] >> Male speaker: The mound ceremony is an ancient Cherokee rite.

When my people came to me for an important occasion, everyone brought a turtle shell of dirt from their home and added it to the sacred fire mound as the ceremony ended.

Over time, the meeting mound grew with the power of past meetings.

In Snowbird, this ceremony now opens the annual Fading Voices ceremony, which commemorates the community's elders and celebrates Cherokee ways and traditions.

[chanting] >> We have a fire going, and it's made of different types of firewood.

And the seven trips that we make around the mound represent the seven clans.

>> Narrator: The clan system has largely died out among the Eastern Band.

But like most Native American clans, it once maintained a matrilineal social system, where family lineages were passed on through mothers rather than fathers and members were forbidden to marry within their clan.

>> Male speaker: On special occasions like the Fading Voices gathering, Cherokee women make traditional foods, like hominy corn, chestnut bread, and bean dumplings.

>> Narrator: Flute making is another traditional craft being revived here in Snowbird by Billy Welch, who finds a demand for his flutes in the galleries and shops of Cherokee.

>> All: Whoo-hoo!

Whoo!

Whoo-hoo!

Whoo!

Whoo-hoo!

Whoo!

Whoo-hoo!

Whoo!

Whoo-hoo!

Whoo!

>> Narrator: Ball playing is an old Cherokee sport, which is still played during the annual fall festival held every year in Cherokee.

It was once a major Cherokee social occasion, where young men could demonstrate their physical daring, stamina, and skill.

Like all elements of Cherokee life, traditional ball playing had spiritual meaning and once required intense spiritual preparation and purification, including sexual abstinence and a scratching ceremony to purify the blood from each player prior to every game.

Ball playing was once used to settle disputes within the tribe.

>> Male speaker: When I was growing up, if they would have a land dispute or something like that, they would go to the ball field.

Back then, when they would have a land dispute, that's how they settled it, by playing ball.

>> Narrator: In the 19th century, Cherokee students at mission schools were often forbidden to even attend ball plays for fear that they would be corrupted by the gambling, drinking, coarse language, and the fact that players were, quote, "practically naked."

Another Cherokee tradition, fading but still held by some, concerns the existence of Little People, small bands of elusive, elf-sized beings who live in the mountains and sometimes come in contact with both children and adults.

>> Female speaker: All I've ever heard about Little People, they related to them as being in the mountains or the woods, and I've always heard of people having Little People, as far as the Cherokees, and that was including everybody, all the Cherokees.

>> Male speaker: That little girl, the youngest girl, used to be behind the house and play, play with dolls and stuff, and my wife said every night that she'd look out the back window, and she'd see that girl playing just like she was talking to somebody, her just walking around and talking just like me and you would talk.

She'd come in and tell her mom, "I got a friend out there.

"He come to dine every evening.

When I'm playing out there, we play together."

And we asked her then what it was.

She said it was one of the Little People.

And I forget what she named it, but she knows it, and she taught it before.

She said he'd come down there every time and play.

I asked her what kind of clothes does he wear.

She said he wears old clothes and got a long, pointy hat on.

[speaking in Cherokee] >> She has no idea, and she says that's just for curiosity's sake.

You know, they were creatures that were created by our Creator, and they were to be held with respect.

And there was no purpose as she can remember that she was ever told.

Just to always treat them with respect when they were nearby.

And she told me that you knew when they were nearby because there was an aroma of like fresh cucumbers or watermelon, and when you could smell that aroma and it wafted through, then you knew they were nearby in the rocks.

>> And I remember one night we were playing, and everybody was visiting at our house.

We had a pretty big porch, and I can remember all the adults sitting there.

Several times, they would holler down at us and say, "Don't get too loud now.

The Little People's gonna play with you," meaning they were going to join you.

And at some point or other, there was a Little Person that started playing with us.

We were playing a game that was similar to Ring Around the Rosy, and this Little Person was just going around and around with us.

And nobody was afraid, and nobody said anything.

Nobody talked about him.

Nobody asked him who he was or nothing.

And as quietly as he came, he left.

>> A lot of the younger people don't believe like that no more, like the older people do, but a lot of the older people still believe in that stuff real strong.

I believe it.

>> Narrator: Belief in Jesus is very strong in Snowbird today.

With a population of under 400 people, the community supports four Baptist churches.

>> Choir: ♪ Tell me the story of Jesus.

♪ ♪ Write on my heart every word.

♪ ♪ Tell me the story most precious, ♪ ♪ sweetest that ever was heard.

♪♪ >> There was a very strong Baptist tradition among the Christians and the Cherokee.

And then when the Trail of Tears came, the ministers went with the Indians who were forced out by the criminal activity of the U.S. government.

They went along and identified and were part of that, so that's why the Baptist traditions in Oklahoma as well as Cherokee have continued, because they weren't sort of fake Christians, but they were real involved with the people and part of the society as well as just part of the church.

>> Narrator: Samuel Worcester was 27 years old when he came to New Echota in 1825 from Boston for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

This was his home in the Cherokee capital, where he helped lead the fight against removal.

He was arrested by the Georgia guard in 1831 and imprisoned for 18 months for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the state of Georgia.

A strong supporter of the Cherokee Nation, he and another missionary found themselves at the center of a national power struggle between the states and the federal government.

Georgia refused to recognize Cherokee claims to their land, while John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, did.

Former Indian fighter and now President Andrew Jackson, whose life had once been saved in the Creek Indian war by Cherokee Chief Junaluska, chose to ignore the court's ruling.

Jackson wrote to a friend, "The decision of the court has fell stillborn."

When gold had been discovered several years earlier on Cherokee land, Georgia immediately forbade Indian access to it.

When Cherokee claims on Georgia land were no longer recognized, Georgia held a state lottery, carving up the Cherokee Nation into parcels for Whites.

These are some of those lottery tickets, which randomly gave away 160-acre plots of Indian land while it was still occupied by the Cherokees themselves.

>> If you would be misbehaving or doing something that you shouldn't be doing or saying things that you shouldn't be saying, sometimes the elders or the adults or whoever was around would say, "You're acting like a White person."

>> Abrams: The Cherokee have for many decades done what they call the Booger Dance, and it's a mockery dance.

It's a mockery of the White, the Black, the Oriental, and tribes other than Cherokee.

The frustrations that had been pent up in them by these unnatural acts that these other people had done, then they could act these out.

And in a more exaggerated way, they would then show to the elders and the young people especially, this is not how you behave when you go somewhere, this is not what you should do in public.

>> We weren't discovered.

Our identity was stolen, and they were trying to change something that they had no right to mess with.

>> You know, let's quit, you know, let's stop thinking that the Indian are there for just a handout.

You know, who started giving out handouts?

We didn't ask for them.

We didn't ask the government to do these things to us.

We didn't ask them to do anything.

They wanted us to be part of this society.

But they forgot one thing.

They forgot to show us how.

>> There's times they's a little hurt, and the Indian's feeling, you know, just what the White man done to him.

They's a little hurt sometime, but that passes.

That passes, and we just fellowship with one another, just like you and him and everybody else.

All these things are past and forgotten, but there's times it comes back just a little bit, you know.

But when we get to thinking about it, you know, all is forgiven.

[speaking in Cherokee] >> That means I have to follow whatever the Indian ways were in these modern times.

>> Lou Jones: I realize the Cherokee language is dying out, but I think if we can all just work together and take these kids and tell 'em the history of the Cherokees, I think if they can keep that in their heart, I think that's the most important thing.

Every year we go to the mountains, and we love the woods.

Mom, she just always has a couple of favorite spots she likes to go to.

>> Here, put 'em in your bag.

Good girl.

>> Lou Jones: I think Bud and I both are trying real hard to keep these traditions going.

>> Male speaker: There's a lot of work in learning traditional values.

It's not something I can just tell you.

You know, you have to learn it and know it firsthand.

[woman speaking in Cherokee] >> Male speaker: In ancient times, a conjurer stole the Sacred Fire and transformed it into tiny, white crystals that held the future.

When the crystals were held, they burst into flames and showed the way of the future.

A Cherokee warrior sent to retrieve the flame threw tobacco on it, creating a huge fireball, which destroyed the conjurer and carried the Sacred Flame back to his people.

The Sacred Flame still burns in our hearts.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪