Old World Roots Of The Cherokee

Most histories of the Cherokee nation focus on its encounters with Europeans, its conflicts with the U. S. government, and its expulsion from its lands during the Trail of Tears. This work, however, traces the origins of the Cherokee people to the third century B.C.E. and follows their migrations through the Americas to their homeland in the lower Appalachian Mountains. Using a combination of DNA analysis, historical research, and classical philology, it uncovers the Jewish and Eastern Mediterranean ancestry of the Cherokee and reveals that they originally spoke Greek before adopting the Iroquoian language of their Haudenosaunee allies while the two nations dwelt together in the Ohio Valley.

What if the history of America's largest Indian nation is actually a polite modern fiction, one invented by "anthropologists and other friends"? In this sweeping revisionist study of the Cherokee Indians, a scholar trained in classical philology and the new science of genetics discloses the inside story of his tribe. Combining evidence from historical records, esoteric sources like the Keetoowah and Shalokee Warrior Society, archeology, linguistics, religion, myth, sports and music, and DNA, this first new take on the subject in a hundred years guides the reader, ever so surely, into the secret annals of the Eshelokee, whose true name and origins have remained hidden until now. The narrative starts in the third century BCE and concludes with the Cherokees' removal to Indian Territory in the nineteenth century, when all standard histories just begin. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Romans and Phoenicians have long departed from the world stage. The Cherokee remain after more than two thousand years and are their heirs.

In the world of Native Americans, oral communication takes the place of the written word in preserving their most valued “texts.” By a miracle of transmission, here is the earliest and most authenticated version of the story of the Cherokee people, from their origins in a land across the great waters to the coming of the white man. In olden times, it was recited at every Great Moon or Cherokee New Year festival so it could be learned by young people and the tribal lore perpetuated. It was set down in English in an Indian Territory newspaper by Cornsilk (the pen-name of William Eubanks) from the Cherokee language recitation of George Sahkiyah (Soggy) Sanders, a fellow Keetoowah Society priest, in 1896. We do not have anything anterior or more authoritative than Eubanks and Sanders’ “Red Man’s Origin," presented here as The Cherokee Origin Narrative. Mystic and plain-spoken at the same time, it tells how the clans became seven in number, reorganized their religion in America and struggled to maintain their “half-sphere temple of light.” You will hear in Cornsilk’s original words about the true name of the Cherokee people, the deathless Uktena serpent, divining crystals of the Urim and Thummin, “terrible Sa-ho-ni clan” and other Cherokee storytelling subjects. The brief narrative is edited with an introduction, notes and line drawings by Donald N. Yates, author of Old World Roots of the Cherokee and other titles in Cherokee history. If you own one book about the Cherokee Indians it should be this one.

Most claims of Native American ancestry rest on the mother's ethnicity. This can be verified by a DNA test determining what type of mitochondrial DNA she passed to you. A hundred participants in DNA Consultants multi-phase Cherokee DNA Study did just that. What they had in common is they were previously rejected--by commercial firms, genealogy groups, government agencies and tribes. Their mitochondrial DNA was not classified as Native American. These are the "anomalous" Cherokee. Share the journeys of discovery and self-awareness of these passionate volunteers who defied the experts and are helping write a new chapter in the Peopling of the Americas. "The Yateses' DNA findings are revolutionary." --Stephen C. Jett, Atlantic Ocean Crossings. "Monumental."--Richard L. Thornton, Apalache Foundation.

This unique book introduces the reader to the seven Cherokee clans, found in no other American Indian tribe. They are Wolf (Ani-Wahiya), Bird (Ani-Tsiskwa), Deer (Ani-Kawi), Twister (Ani-Gilohi), Wild Potato (Ani-Gotegewi), Panther (Ani-Sahoni) and Paint (Ani-Wodi). In each section of notes appear the etymology of the Cherokee name, synonyms and related clans, the clan's in-born strengths and character, mitochondrial DNA types, symbols and iconography, famous people, ceremonies, art and monuments. Illustrated and solidly documented, this down-to-earth guide is the first and last word on an ancient matriarchal kinship system that began in the dawn of human history and lives on in contemporary times.

Phase III of DNA Consultants' Cherokee DNA Studies adds more than fifty new participants to what has become a classic project. They'd all been told there was no way they could be Indian given their DNA haplotype or mother's direct line. This book underlines the unavoidable conclusion that most "Indian" lineages in Eastern North America originally came across the Atlantic Ocean, not over any land-bridge from Asia. Update your priors with this sweeping attack on "big box" companies and know-it-all experts. Includes historical Cherokee photographs, genealogies, graphs, charts, references, index and raw data.

126 myths: sacred stories, animal myths, local legends, many more. Plus background on Cherokee history, notes on the myths and parallels. Features 20 maps and illustrations.

Theda Perdue examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. While building on the research of earlier historians, she develops a uniquely complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact. Maintaining traditional gender roles actually allowed Cherokee women and men to adapt to new circumstances and adopt new industries and practices.