Veronica Hester

“Cherokees had a matrilineal society, a social system in which their descent was traced strictly through their mother's side of the family. In the Cherokees' matrilineal kinship system a person received his mother's clan at birth and retained this clan for life, and his only kinsmen were those who could be traced through her; that is her mother's mother, mother's sisters, the children of mother's sisters and, the most important and powerful man in a child's life, the mother's brother. This social structure baffled whites. ^J.' he primary responsibility for discipline and instruction in hunting and warfare rested not with the child's father but with his maternal uncle. Not even the right of the father to stay in the home was certain because Cherokee women owned the dwellings.”
― Marcelina Reed, Seven Clans of The Cherokee Society