To the Editor:

As the tribal elections drew closer and closer, it became fairly obvious early on that Patrick Lambert would become the new principal chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. Speculations on where outgoing Chief Michell Hicks might go next and what changes Lambert might bring spread like wildfire.

After Lambert became chief-elect, Chief Hicks was offered and accepted a position as commissioner of the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise, the intermediary board between council and the casino; the same position Lambert left to run for chief.

Within 48 hours of Lambert taking office, not only was this offer rescinded, but rumors of the firing of the entire commission followed. Lambert filed a lawsuit against the old Council for the pay raises and back-pay issue of last year. For the last week, the people have told stories of losing their jobs, culminating in the phrase “Lambert is cleaning house.”

And though the people rejoice at the news of suing the old council for the allegedly illegal pay raises, they miss the bigger issue: Chief Hicks refused to hear protests from enrolled citizens in Council, breaking millennia of Cherokee tradition.

It has always been the way of the Cherokee to allow any person of the age of reason to speak before Council. In the old days, Council could not adjourn until anyone and everyone who wished to speak had been heard, and decisions were made by consensus, keeping the next seven generations in mind. 

While some enrolled members are pleased with Chief Lambert’s rapid change, others are already calling for his impeachment, going so far as to protest outside the Council House only yesterday (Thursday, Oct. 8) during the annual Fall Festival.

The outrage over financial mismanagement should be secondary to the outrage of the bucking of tradition. It isn’t.

Just last week, Elder Amanda Swimmer addressed Tribal Council over an issue of her estate. Her first language is Cherokee, and she addressed the Council in the Cherokee Language. Council assigned Beloved Woman Myrtle Driver to translate Swimmer’s address because … none of them spoke Cherokee fluently. 

The Cherokee culture is an endangered creature. Have we, as a People, become so complacent and entitled to care more for political and financial gain than for our language and tradition? 

While other nations of Indian Country battle for basic human rights as running water and electricity, the Eastern Cherokee bicker amongst each other about how to manage a multi-million dollar industry. 

While the Navajo require their Chief to speak Navajo fluently to be eligible to run for office, the EBCI Tribal Council does not have a single Cherokee speaker among them. 

Sequoyah is the only man in recorded history to create a writing system without first being literate. His creation of the Syllabary led to the first bilingual newspaper in the USA: The Cherokee Phoenix out of New Echota, Georgia, created by Rev. Worcester and Elias Boudinot was published in English and Syllabary. The Cherokee Star was the first bilingual magazine, published in Tahlequa, Oklahoma. 

The only three indigenous languages used in both world wars were the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Comanche. And while the Navajo have broadcast the Super Bowl in their own language for the last 30 or so years, you’d be hard pressed to find a fluent Cherokee speaker in Cherokee, N.C. There are more Cherokee speakers in the United Kituah Band and the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma) than there are in the EBCI. We lose 10 speakers a year as the elders pass into the next world.

So is it truly a surprise that Miss Mandy needed a translator to address her own Tribal Council?

ᎨᏗᏒᎳᏂᏩᏴᏫᎴᎢᎶᎩ

Cherokee

Editor’s note: It wasn’t Chief Patrick Lambert but the group “EBCI for Justice and Accountability” (spearheaded by a group of three Cherokee women) that filed the lawsuit over the controversial pay raises. The Tribal Council is actually the entity that shut down citizen debate in the council house, not Chief Michell Hicks.