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Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
Ayetli gadogv—to "stand in the middle"—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of elders and knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others.
Positioning our responsibilities as humans to our more-than-human relatives, this book presents teachings about the body, mind, spirit, and wellness that have been shared for generations. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity's role within it.
Positioning our responsibilities as humans to our more-than-human relatives, this book presents teachings about the body, mind, spirit, and wellness that have been shared for generations. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity's role within it.
296 pages, Paperback
Published March 14, 2023
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416 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 15, 2023
A beautiful book, physically, spiritually, intellectually. Cherokee Earth Dwellers weaves together stories, snapshots of contemporary Cherokee life, sharp illustrations of the beings that inhabit the three worlds of the Cherokee cosmos--the Sky World, the Underworld, and "elohi," the middle world where humans work through the energies in search of "tohi"--balance, harmony. Built around "word books" assembled by Hastings Shade, a crucial presence in the preservation and resurgence of Cherokee tradition, the book includes word lists--not quite dictionary entries--of hundreds of words that might otherwise have been lost.
Cherokee Earth Dwellers made me want to revisit Teuton's earlier Stories of the Turtle Island Liar's Club, which remains one of the essential books in the Cherokee specifically, and more generally, Native American literary/intellectual traditions.
Cherokee Earth Dwellers made me want to revisit Teuton's earlier Stories of the Turtle Island Liar's Club, which remains one of the essential books in the Cherokee specifically, and more generally, Native American literary/intellectual traditions.
April 12, 2024
The Good: Native wisdom, elder stories, and Cherokee words of the natural world
The Bad: Dense; best read slowly
The Literary: Combination of myth, language, and worldview, with an excellent glossary and references
The Cherokee cosmos is rich and layered and teaches us many lessons, but most importantly to "stand in the middle", or ayetli gadogv. Exploring the middle world, the sky world, and the underworld, the creatures that inhabit each, we begin to understand our relationship with them.
Lesson number one: the Cherokee word for storyteller, gayegogi, also means liar. Everyone lives their own lives and experiences the world in slightly different ways, so one person's truth may not be another's. All the stories we tell are true to us but lies to everyone else, until they consciously decide to make that story their own truth too. Put another way, other people's lies push us to understand one another truths.
It's commonly accepted that language influences how we see the world. From simple nouns to verb tense, the structure of language sets a framework for how we understand, form relationships, and categorize what we see around us. For example, the Cherokee language uses a different verb tense for what is experienced first-hand versus what happened to someone else. Two types of pronouns indicate someone acting; the other is for someone being acted upon.
The Cherokee language was nearly extinguished in government boarding schools, where young native children were sent to assimilate white ways to succeed in a modern world. Teuton bookends the middle sections of this book with an academically informed introduction, afterword, glossary, and index. But the real focus on is on the traditional stories, including how the two gifts directly from Creator are fire and language.
The core lesson of the book is to "stand in the middle", which is a way of saying that our purpose is to seek balance, peace, and interconnectedness. Humans live in the middle world between the sky world and the underworld. The sky world represents order and routine, whereas the underworld is chaotic and creative. We need both worlds to come together for us to live healthy lives.
Each section of the book includes a list of common animals and plants and their Cherokee names. My favorites include:
oginali, translates to my friend for poison ivy, to appease the plant
nvda dikani, translates to it's looking at the sun for sunflower
svgi, translates to it smells for onion
svgta, translates to it fell for apple
kanugatli, translates to it may scratch you for blackberry
koga, a sound-alike name for the sound it makes for crow
tsitsi, same word for the dart for a blow gun for sparrow hawk
tsulasgi, meaning having feet for alligator
tsudakanisdi, meaning the one who stares at you for praying mantis
These linguistic chapters also include snippets of folklore, legends, medicine, or symbols. And interspersed between are traditional stories, including origin stories of how the world was made, the first fire, the origin of corn, and the redbird. I love the moral stories too, like the crooked-faced boy who was expelled from his village for his physical deformity, only to befriend the monsters who live in the wilderness. Or how the toad got warts (because humans stepped on him while he hid underground). Or why the possum's tail is bare (a friendly prank by rabbit).
The three primary sources, elders Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and Larry Shade, all want to teach caution, respect, and "standing in the middle". Teuton manages to balance a lot of different types of teachings, interweaving through the chapters the structure of the middle world, the sky world, and the underworld. I also love how this book manages to be academic and organized but also organic, honoring the myths, legends, and unverifiable "lies" of Cherokee culture.
Highly recommended for fans of linguistics, native mythologies, and Cherokee teachings!
https://thebookonthehighshelf.com/
The Bad: Dense; best read slowly
The Literary: Combination of myth, language, and worldview, with an excellent glossary and references
The Cherokee cosmos is rich and layered and teaches us many lessons, but most importantly to "stand in the middle", or ayetli gadogv. Exploring the middle world, the sky world, and the underworld, the creatures that inhabit each, we begin to understand our relationship with them.
Lesson number one: the Cherokee word for storyteller, gayegogi, also means liar. Everyone lives their own lives and experiences the world in slightly different ways, so one person's truth may not be another's. All the stories we tell are true to us but lies to everyone else, until they consciously decide to make that story their own truth too. Put another way, other people's lies push us to understand one another truths.
It's commonly accepted that language influences how we see the world. From simple nouns to verb tense, the structure of language sets a framework for how we understand, form relationships, and categorize what we see around us. For example, the Cherokee language uses a different verb tense for what is experienced first-hand versus what happened to someone else. Two types of pronouns indicate someone acting; the other is for someone being acted upon.
The Cherokee language was nearly extinguished in government boarding schools, where young native children were sent to assimilate white ways to succeed in a modern world. Teuton bookends the middle sections of this book with an academically informed introduction, afterword, glossary, and index. But the real focus on is on the traditional stories, including how the two gifts directly from Creator are fire and language.
The core lesson of the book is to "stand in the middle", which is a way of saying that our purpose is to seek balance, peace, and interconnectedness. Humans live in the middle world between the sky world and the underworld. The sky world represents order and routine, whereas the underworld is chaotic and creative. We need both worlds to come together for us to live healthy lives.
Each section of the book includes a list of common animals and plants and their Cherokee names. My favorites include:
oginali, translates to my friend for poison ivy, to appease the plant
nvda dikani, translates to it's looking at the sun for sunflower
svgi, translates to it smells for onion
svgta, translates to it fell for apple
kanugatli, translates to it may scratch you for blackberry
koga, a sound-alike name for the sound it makes for crow
tsitsi, same word for the dart for a blow gun for sparrow hawk
tsulasgi, meaning having feet for alligator
tsudakanisdi, meaning the one who stares at you for praying mantis
These linguistic chapters also include snippets of folklore, legends, medicine, or symbols. And interspersed between are traditional stories, including origin stories of how the world was made, the first fire, the origin of corn, and the redbird. I love the moral stories too, like the crooked-faced boy who was expelled from his village for his physical deformity, only to befriend the monsters who live in the wilderness. Or how the toad got warts (because humans stepped on him while he hid underground). Or why the possum's tail is bare (a friendly prank by rabbit).
The three primary sources, elders Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and Larry Shade, all want to teach caution, respect, and "standing in the middle". Teuton manages to balance a lot of different types of teachings, interweaving through the chapters the structure of the middle world, the sky world, and the underworld. I also love how this book manages to be academic and organized but also organic, honoring the myths, legends, and unverifiable "lies" of Cherokee culture.
Highly recommended for fans of linguistics, native mythologies, and Cherokee teachings!
https://thebookonthehighshelf.com/
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December 28, 2022Christopher Teuton MA’95 PhD’03
Coauthor
From the coauthor:
Ayetli gadogv — to "stand in the middle" — is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others.
Positioning our responsibilities as humans to our more-than-human relatives, this book presents teachings about the body, mind, spirit, and wellness that have been shared for generations. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity's role within it.
Coauthor
From the coauthor:
Ayetli gadogv — to "stand in the middle" — is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others.
Positioning our responsibilities as humans to our more-than-human relatives, this book presents teachings about the body, mind, spirit, and wellness that have been shared for generations. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity's role within it.
July 22, 2023
Lots of really beautiful stories and interesting information. Some typos in the Cherokee exist, and some translations of animal or place names sort of contradict what I’ve learned from other sources, but overall this is a really wonderful book.
January 22, 2024
this was thoughtful and unlike anything i've ever read. i chose it because i wanted to learn more about symbolism and spirit within our more-than-human kin from the perspective of those indigenous to the land of north america. the stories are beautiful and resonate deeply.
October 28, 2024
I’ve been savoring this one for a while! It’s not one to pick up and read quickly cover to cover!! Hoping to join in on some of the book club zoom calls for this one with fellow KC Cherokee community relatives! Love having this book in my collection!
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March 10, 2024read this for my Native American storytelling class
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews