On the morning of Monday, Jan. 12, a group from Cherokee Historical Association visited the Stecoah Valley Center in Robbinsville.

Both CHA and SVC are nonprofits dedicated to the preservation of history and culture. Thus, the CHA representatives’ focus was on how Cherokee history and culture was being presented at SVC. 

The Cherokee Preservation Foundation awarded 10 grants to partners within Western North Carolina. Grants totaled more than $2.1 million and were awarded to projects advancing the Foundation’s mission of improving the quality of life for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and neighboring communities. 

Museum of the Cherokee People has been awarded a major spring grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.

Shannon Swimmer received a master’s degree in human resource management from Western Carolina University in 2007. After several years working in tribal law, Swimmer has returned to WCU in a new capacity, as director of  the Cherokee Center.

At mid-morning on Wednesday, Nov. 15, the fountain at the heart of Western Carolina University’s campus is a thoroughfare.

In January 2020, Sara Duncan was less than a year into her role as an assistant professor at Western Carolina University’s School of Health Sciences when she started talking to Lisa Lefler, director of WCU’s Culturally Based Native Health Program, about opportunities for kids to get involved in Cherokee science.

Kathi Littlejohn can get lost in stories. Especially Cherokee stories. Their origins are often moored in worlds long past, but these stories have a tendency to twist through the years to end up knocking on the door of modernity. 

“One of my first jobs as a teenager was working at the Oconaluftee Indian Village, which I absolutely loved. I was a tour guide,” recalled Littlejohn, who is now 63. “And on bad weather days when it was real slow, it was so much fun for me to sit with the people that were doing the crafts or some of the older guides and listen to stories.”

By Wil Shelton • SMN intern

Visitors of the Qualla Boundary now have the opportunity to experience Cherokee culture in a new, interactive way. 

The Cherokee Friends, a program through the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, funded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, aims to offer visitors a taste of Cherokee culture, as well as promote various sights around the community.

Former Gov. Jim Hunt toured Cherokee last week at the invitation of Cherokee Preservation Foundation.

The governor, who helped negotiate the agreements between the EBCI and the State of North Carolina that paved the way for the casino and the establishment of Cherokee Preservation Foundation, came to see how the Foundation has invested in cultural preservation, economic development and environmental preservation over the past decade.  He was accompanied by his wife and their daughter Rachel.

During the trip, he toured Cherokee, taking in new facilities and improvements made to the reservation since his last visit nearly a decade ago. He also met with tribal, cultural and community leaders to talk about progress made in recent years. It was his office that allowed the birth of casino gaming on the reservation, so this tour was a chance to see the fruits of that decision, more than 10 years on.

The Cherokee Preservation Foundation has given out more than $50 million to various Cherokee projects since its creation in 2000.

“When I last visited Cherokee ten or so years ago, the cultural organizations like Qualla Arts and Crafts, the Museum, the Drama and Village had wonderful products and programs, but the facilities were dated and not up to par with other venues around the state and region. Ten years later, I see a very different picture,” Hunt told guests at an evening dinner hosted by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.

Hunt was the governor from 1977 to 1985 and 1993 to 2001. He is the longest-serving governor in the state’s history.

Readers will be in for a surprise when thumbing through the pages of the all-Cherokee issue of Appalachian Heritage literary journal, which will be celebrated at Western Carolina University next week.

The issue turns on its head every generalization about Cherokee literature that’s been made before. Though it pays due homage to traditional Cherokee myths — in Cherokee syllabary as well as English — the journal also unveils the diversity of literary genres that underlies contemporary Cherokee works.

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, a contributing author and English teacher at Swain County High School, said the compilation of Cherokee articles, fiction, poetry and memoirs is all too rare.

“It’s a collection that I really haven’t seen, at least in recent years, in terms of diversity,” said Clapsaddle, who has also been involved in efforts to revive Cherokee children’s literature. “I think that Cherokee literature is more diverse than most people realize. Most people around here are familiar with traditional origin myths, but there’s a vibrant Cherokee writing community here and elsewhere that includes a lot of different genres of literature.”

The story she contributed to the Berea, Ky.,-based journal is a short fictional piece called “It All Comes Out in the Wash.” The story is based on a true tale Clapsaddle heard firsthand from a woman who experienced the horrors of life in a Cherokee boarding school.

“Students had been taught that all clean things are white,” said Clapsaddle. “Her skin was dark, so she thought her skin wasn’t clean. She got her skin bleached.”

Though Clapsaddle sometimes tackles grave topics, she doesn’t believe they comprise the heart of Cherokee literature.

“There’s a lot of humor in our community,” said Clapsaddle. “I like to include that in my writing.”

Clapsaddle became surprised herself when she opened the pages of the literary journal after it was released last fall. Contributing authors not only included distinguished writers like Robert J. Conley and D.L. Birchfield, but also a freshman at Cherokee High School, a chef at Harrah’s Cherokee casino and a former Principal Chief of the Eastern Band, among others.

“It’s fun to discover the talent that the people you live around have that maybe you didn’t know about,” said Clapsaddle. “Some I didn’t even know wrote.”

To get a copy of the magazine, attend Western Carolina University’s event on April 8 (see “Meet the Authors”) or visit community.berea.edu/appalachianheritage.