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Living Stories of the Cherokee - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Living Stories of the Cherokee

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This remarkable book, the first major new collection of Cherokee stories published in nearly a hundred years, presents seventy-two traditional and contemporary tales from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. It features stories told by Davey Arch, Robert Bushyhead, Edna Chekelelee, Marie Junaluska, Kathi Smith Littlejohn, and Freeman Owle--six Cherokee storytellers who learned their art and their stories from family and community.
The tales gathered here include animal stories, creation myths, legends, and ghost stories as well as family tales and stories about such events in Cherokee history as the Trail of Tears. Taken together, they demonstrate that storytelling is a living, vital tradition. As new stories are added and old stories are changed or forgotten, Cherokee storytelling grows and evolves.
In an introductory essay, Barbara Duncan writes about the Cherokee storytelling tradition and explains the "oral poetics" style in which the stories are presented. This format effectively conveys the rhythmic, oral quality of the living storytelling tradition, allowing the reader to "hear" the voice of the storyteller.

ISBN-13: 9780807847190

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Publication Date: 06-29-1998

Pages: 272

Product Dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.61(d)

Barbara R. Duncan is Education Director at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, and coauthor of Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

These rich and deeply delightful stories—both ancient and recent—are a great gift from a group of masterful tellers.—Charles Frazier, author of Thirteen Moons and Cold Mountain



Will have a profound influence on future publications of collections of oral history as well as those of contemporary storytellers.—Thomas Rain Crowe, Wild Mountain Times



Don't vacation in the Cherokee country without first dipping into this fine book.—Fayetteville Observer-Times



It's much more than a guidebook; this is part of our history. And the paper stock, photos and maps are reminiscent of National Geographic publications. This is a keeper.—New Orleans Times-Picayune



Wonderful! Lively and engaging. . . . Barbara Duncan has recorded these stories . . . in a free-verse prose style that makes you feel more like you are sitting at the feet of the storyteller hearing them than sitting at home reading them. You can almost smell the wood smoke and see the flickering firelight on the walls.—Highlander



This book is so needed in the storytelling world because it provides the 'real' stories from Cherokee culture and not just interpretations.—Connie Regan-Blake, storyteller



Through the years, these legends have grown and changed and become contemporary along with Cherokee people. You may have heard these legends on cassette tape. Soon you may hear them via computer, and in the next millennium we can only guess the media through which you will experience these stories. The critical message is that the stories continue. . . . The voices you hear are those of my friends and neighbors, and now they become yours.—from the foreword by Joyce Conseen Dugan, Former Principal Chief, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Charles Frazier

“These rich and deeply delightful stories--both ancient and recent--are a great gift from a group of masterful tellers.”--Charles Frazier, author of Thirteen Moons and Cold Mountain

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Joyce Conseen Dugan
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Kathi Smith Littlejohn
The Origin of Legends
The Bird with Big Feet
Me-Li and the Mud Dauber
How the World Was Made
The Origin of the Pileated Woodpecker
The Playing Boys—the Pleiades
Why the Turtle's Shell Is Cracked
Why the Mole Lives Underground
How the Possum Lost His Beautiful Tail
Getting Fire
First Man and First Woman
The Valley of the Butterflies
Spearfinger
The Birds and Animals Stickball Game
The Cherokee Little People
Nunnehi, the Gentle People

Davey Arch
Grandpa and the Turtle
The Rattlesnake in the Corn
Big Snakes
The Old Man and the Birds
The Brave, the Mighty Warrior
The Strange Husband (The Owl Man)
Legends of the Uk'tena
Removal
War
Women
Cities of Refuge
The Origin of Strawberries
How the Possum Lost His Tail
Growing Up in Cherokee
Jeannie and the Booger
Grandpa and Grandma

Edna Chekelelee
Cherokee Language
The Trees Are Alive
Mother Earth's Spring Dress
The Deer
Jesus before Columbus Time
The Legend of the Corn Beads
Santeetlah Ghost Story
Storytelling
Elders on the Mountains
The Quail Dance
Feathers
The Indian Preacher
The Trail of Tears Basket

Robert Bushyhead
The Cherokee Language
Medicine Stories
The First Time I Saw a White Person—Mrs. Lee
Yonder Mountain
Sequoyah
Formula against Screech Owls and Tskilis
The Hunter and Thunder
The Little People and the Nunnehi

Marie Junaluska
The Origin of the Milky Way

Freeman Owle
Introduction to the Nantahala Hiking Club Gathering
The Nikwasi Mound
Medicine and the Wolf Clan
The Earth
The Magic Lake
Going to Water
The Daughter of the Sun
How the Possum Lost His Tail
Storytelling
The Turtle and the Beaver
The Turtle and the Raccoon—Stealing Beauty
The Trail of Tears
The Origin of Strawberries
Corn Woman Spirit
Ganadi, the Great Hunter, and the Wild Boy
The Story of the Bat
The Removed Townhouses

Sources
Index