Local indigenous tribes are proud of their culture but are often underrepresented within their communities.
By hola | Published | No Comments
(photos courtesy of the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe)
The Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribal Center and Museum in Virginia, about a two-hour drive from Washington, D.C., hosts cultural programs to pass on tribal knowledge and history that dates back hundreds of years. Active members serve as drummers, singers, dancers or assist with the Tribal Administration. The tribe has been seeking official recognition from Virginia since 2015.
I spoke with Annette Price, the curator for the Tribal Center and Museum. She is also an artist and works on the tribe’s archaeological dig site in Henrico County, Virginia, which is about 16,000 years old.
We explored the similarities between different indigenous minorities and the importance of cultural preservation through gathering for seasonal and cultural observances and with the practice of traditions such as oral storytelling, crafts and beadwork. Overall, Price stressed the tribal members’ passion for their community and their desire to be acknowledged on a larger scale.
She explained how the tribe is connected to both the Henrico County area and local Latin American communities through their shared traditions, sharing the experiences her and her husband, Chief Terry “Grey Bird” Price, have had with the Latin American communities. She also discussed the importance of educating others on the tribe’s history.
What is a major aspect of Cherokee living culture and why is it important?
One major aspect of Cherokee living culture is to keep your heritage alive. Don’t let all of the heritage of your family slip behind you. Keep it going and share it with the young people in your family. To keep your traditions alive, to keep the idea of keeping your language alive, don’t lose your language to time.
That’s one of the things that’s important with the men on the drum, they want to be learning their language through the songs. And that’s a lot easier to learn things through songs than trying to just sit there and mimic things back and forth.
A lot of the things we do on the drum or through song, because our drum is a teaching drum. And of course, we do get together very, very often with that, and we will very often take the drums and go to different places and use that in our demonstrations.
What connections do you make between the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe and Latin American Indigenous cultures? Has your organization ever partnered with Latin American organizations?
There are many connections, especially when it comes to dances. We do know a lot of people who are Latin American who are also dancers and who dance at the powwows alongside us. We have some good friends who are Latin, more specifically, those who are Mexican. Chief Terry has spent some time at their gardens and blessed their gardens for them. So we definitely do have a good relationship with the Latin American community.
Both Latin American communities and our communities value keeping our different heritages alive, as it is very important to preserve culture as well as language and traditions. Indigenous communities, both in Latin America and here in Virginia, have often been underrepresented but are working to build their voices and be seen and heard by other communities.
We have talked about having a powwow with the Latin American community and the dancers there … I think it would be a great idea to partner with Latin American organizations. It is something we’ve looked into.
What actions do you or your organization take to preserve its culture?
People will give language presentations and drumming presentations, as well as presentations that involve Native American dance and history. Archaeology is also a big thing with the Tribal Center and Museum, where people can take tables with artifacts and go to different places, and then set up and talk about the artifacts that are being dug on our personal dig site here in Henrico County.
We’re able to talk about the culture in the history of the tribe itself, and how they’re all related to one another, and where they came from at Wolf Creek Mountain, Virginia; Price Mountain and Milam Ridge in Southwest Virginia.
We like to talk to people about how they are related to other tribal people in their families. You know, sometimes people will go through their whole lives not realizing that they belong to Native American groups or tribes, so we like to talk about genealogy as well as culture.
Now here in Henrico, once a year, we will give an archeological dig that is open and free to the public, usually in October. We’ve done that for the last 10 years, attended by more than 100 people each year, where you can come out here and actually dig in … We have a lot of great finds that come from that, and then we serve everybody lunch because it’s a social activity as well.
What are some challenges that come with cultural preservation?
Well, we don’t have too many challenges, except looking for recognition from the state of Virginia. Right now, Virginia is looking at the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe to have it become the 12th state-recognized tribe. Remember, that’s not federal recognition, that’s state recognition, which affords you nothing except respect.
We have been seeking that state recognition since 2015, and we are still waiting for the state of Virginia to say, ‘Yes, we do respect you as we do the other tribes of Virginia.’
We know that as we wait for this respect, the state of Virginia is still calling on the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia, very specifically, and saying, ‘Oh, but in the meantime, we want you to be at these recreation areas and parks for Virginia. We want you to be at these colleges and libraries and schools teaching education, teaching culture, teaching heritage and teaching about the Cherokee people of Virginia.’
Do you think that Cherokee history should be offered as a school course in Virginia?
That should absolutely be offered as a course in Virginia. We know that a lot of the courses in Virginia talking about Native American people are just something that is trying to boost tourism in Virginia … but it goes much, much further.
Talking about Native American people, there are more than 110 tribes historically in the state of Virginia. Many of them just assimilated into the communities of Europeans or had to assimilate to the association of other tribal communities just to stay alive at the time. But we want to talk about everyone and who they are. Many of these people are looking at their history and coming to talk about that with the state of Virginia and being ignored, by state officials, on a huge basis.
What are some of the events that you host, and how do these contribute to the cultural preservation of the tribe?
The Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribal Center and Museum is open every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and every third Tuesday of the month. At 6 p.m., the men gather, and they have drumming at the museum, so they sing in Cherokee for about an hour and a half, and the men will sit there and drum and sing. The women gather there also, and they will stand behind the men as where that is appropriate in our culture. Women don’t drum. They will stand in behind the men, and they will sing in Cherokee and sometimes in other languages also.
This is good that we’re learning about culture. We’re learning language through the drumming and through the songs that we learn while we are there. The public is allowed to be there with us so they can enjoy that too and learn some of the cultural aspects of drumming.
— Story by Maya Kumar
— Copy edited by Findlay Drabant and Valerie Izquierdo
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