A visit to the Eastern Cherokee

Greetings everyone- I recently returned from the Ethnobiology meetings in Cherokee North Carolina.  Fascinating place.  It's the home of the Eastern Cherokee who evaded removal in the 1830s when the 5 civilized tribes were removed from their homelands in the southeastern US and marched across the continent to new homes in Oklahoma.  Many perished in that forced removal, and it is widely known as the Trail of Tears.  The Eastern Cherokee are the descendents of 700 (of about 14,000) who hid out in the Great Smoky Mountains, for a couple of years, and ultimately, through the lobbying efforts of an adopted white man who read law, were allowed to buy back their lands and become citizens of North Carolina.
They presently have a large casino which provides them income to fund language revitalization efforts, cultural activities, conservation of arts and of the materials that artists and artisans need, and a range of other benefits to the tribe. The Cherokee Preservation Foundation is funded by the casino, and one of its ethnobotanical programs is called "RTCAR" restoring the Cherokee artist's resources.  David Cozzo, the ethnobotanist who works there, was instrumental in hosting our conference.  In addition to academic sessions, we visited their museum, which tells the story of Cherokee history and contains many lovely artifacts, their artists' coop gallery, and the Oconaluftee Indian Village, which is a recreated 18th century village with crafts people doing traditional arts, dance performances, and re-enactment to interpret their history and culture for visitors.

Baskets made by the eastern Cherokee included both white oak and river cane baskets, both featuring dyed patterns coloured with blood root and black walnut.  The educational efforts sponsored by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation have revitalized basket weaving, especially the intricate river cane double weave baskets, and also enhanced the availability of materials for basket making.   Crafts we watched at the Oconaluftee village included finger weaving, traditional Cherokee pot making, wood carving, and basket weaving.

A sample of traditional Cherokee pot types. The intriguing vessel in the centre with large knobs was for carrying fire, for example to the council house, without burning your hands, the potter told us.

The finger weaving was intricate and very varied in pattern.  The weavers were using commercial yarn for the most part.

 One feature that stood out to me were weavings that featured beads added to the web in a diamond pattern.  The weavers showed us a small sample of bison wool yarn with a similar diamond bead pattern, which we were told represented the type of weaving the Cherokee did before the introduction of coloured trade wool.

weavers doing finger weaving

bison wool strap sample, decorated with beads

I had not known that Cherokee traditionally used blow guns, from smoothed lengths of river cane, to shoot light weight darts for bird hunting.  The tips were fire hardened, and they were fletched with down of the thistle Carduus!
 We learned that the number seven is sacred to Cherokee, who also have 7 clans, and the Council House in the recreated village has seven sides.  The seven is derived from the four directions, mother earth, father sky, and the centre or place of the heart.  At the opening ceremony and reception we were privileged to hear Elder and master storyteller Freeman Owle recount several key Cherokee myths (in English so we could understand), including how water spider successfully obtained fire for humans.
We also learned about the ethnobotany of Cherokee in the conference itself (along with many other fascinating papers and some videos), and on the fieldtrip, where David Cozzo showed us plants used by Cherokee in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  One thing that stuck in my mind is that "stickers" are an intermediate category (a grouping of folk species or generics), and can be used medicinally to improve memory!  David told of one young person who was treated with a decoction of various kinds of "stickers" to treat a learning disability.  Apparently this was effective and the young man went on to be successful in school and is now in college.  We also learned that one can eat the young tips of cat briar (a species of Smilax, or green briar) and that violet leaves are another good spring edible.  Towering tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulipiferum) have sweet nectar in the "tulips", and apparently very useful wood. (If you want to read more about Cherokee ethnobotany, David has a paper from his dissertation material in Stepp et al. (eds) 2002 Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity entitled "Cherokee System of Folk Classification" (pp139-151) which is published by the University of Georgia Press.)

Spring Greens

Oconaluftee River, Cherokee, North Carolina

I just got back from the Society of Ethnobiology conference which was held in Cherokee North Carolina this year, in the southern Appalachians.  David Cozzo, who was one of the meeting organizers, led our fieldtrip into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  He was describing Cherokee plant uses and ethnobotany to us, and slipped in various comments about spring edibles....tender tips of cat briar (Smilax sp.) were one edible David pointed out.  Violet leaves were another.  Today I got back out into my garden to try to clean up the perennial beds, digging out the tenacious roots and shoots of the creeping bellflower Campanula repens, an aggressive European species combining the worst of quackgrass with dandelions in the structure and depth of its roots, which infests my beds.  While digging out the campanula, I dug out some large dandelions in the same spade-fulls.  At that point I remembered that my friend Riva wanted to try to make dandelion root coffee, and I decided to dig her enough roots to try it.  (Organic and local....) My raspberry patch has quite a few old large dandelion plants among the berry plants.  I don't ordinarily till it, so they have been growing undisturbed for quite a while.  I took the spading fork in there and managed to dig out a bunch of plants with good roots. While I was digging, my friend Riva came over.  I snapped the crowns off the roots, and put the root pieces in one bowl and the tops in another.

When we took them inside to wash the roots, Riva said, "Can't you eat the tops too?"  They were larger and more open grown that dandelions I usually pick for spring greens, but the flowers still hadn't opened in my yard.  I washed the bowlful of tops in several changes of water and left them soaking when we went for a walk.  When we came back, the tops had perked up quite a bit, and I thought, well, maybe we should make a spring stir-fry with them.

When I lived on the Skeena River in BC, I would pick tender semi-shade grown leaves of dandelion, some tops of the wild nodding onion (Allium cernuum), and if possible some morrel mushrooms, and make them into a dark and flavourful stir-fry, with tamari and sesame oil.  The bitter greens taste good with the salty soy and flavourful oil, and feel very healthy as the first fresh greens.  In fact we used to call it our first greens feast, by analogy to the first salmon feast traditionally held by the Gitksen 15 km upriver in Gitwangak.
Though I was uncertain of the quality of the tops today, I decided to try them.  I enjoyed the southern collards cooked with bacon on my trip, so thought, why don't I try cutting some bacon and fry the greens in the bacon grease?  The bacon I have is from Irving's Farm Fresh, a heritage Berkshire pork producer in central Alberta who sells at the Strathcona Farmer's Market.  Since it was to be our dinner, I decided to cut a couple of chicken tenders and marinate them in tamari (gluten free for me now) and sesame oil.  Riva finds onions don't agree well, so I grated fresh ginger instead. I took the opportunity to cook quinoa to go with the stir-fry; I rinse the grain once in water to rinse out some of the saponins before I boil it (2 parts water to one part quinoa). For the main course, I took out my little Indian wok.  I started out cooking several thick meaty slices of the bacon, cut into strips, for the grease.  Then I tossed in a sliced brown crimini mushroom, and the chicken breast with the marinade and stirred in the wok for a couple of minutes, and finally added the dandelion tops, which I had cut up into sections a couple centimeters broad.  I cooked the mix until the dandelion tops had all wilted and the breast meat was cooked, and served it over the quinoa.  We sat at the table on the back deck overlooking the garden and enjoyed the flavour of the spring in our bowls and the gentle green of the opening leaves in the yard.  It was completely delicious. The first spring meal from my small plot of urban land. Our dinner tonight only used half of the tops, so we have another good meal in store.  I'll have to report back later on the dandelion root coffee. There should be about a pound of roots to roast and prepare.