Cherokee Natural World: Stories, Language, and Teachings

As our bonds to the planet’s web of life are strained and broken by exploitation and neglect, The Cherokee Natural World provides a different vision of our place in the world, one rooted in harmonious relationships that are crucial to our future. This remarkable, visually stunning digital publication offers the largest collection of terms, stories, and reflections ever gathered together in one place from knowledge keepers of the Cherokee People, the second-largest Indigenous nation in the United States. At the heart of this project is an archive of Cherokee names and teachings that refer to more than six hundred living elements of the natural world, from birds and reptiles to trees and clouds, each with its own striking illustration. Here, the visitor will find not only clear, engaging writings, but also audio and video that offer pronunciation guidance from community elders and first-language speakers, as well as testimonies and conversations that illuminate the unique role and significance of each creature and its kinship with others. Together, they promote an understanding of the natural world in which body, mind, and spirit coexist in life-giving balance. Divided into the three traditional realms of the Cherokee cosmos – Sky World, Middle World, and Under World – this active archive is the latest embodiment of the work of distinguished Cherokee elder Hastings Shade, carried out and extended in collaboration with his spouse, Loretta Shade, son Larry Shade, and scholar Christopher B. Teuton. For thirty years, Hastings Shade collected names, explanations, and anecdotes from elders and prominent knowledge keepers, in part to preserve the vocabulary and traditional concepts of a nation with over three hundred thousand citizens but little more than three thousand first-language speakers. The Cherokee Natural World is, however, no mere inventory of cultural knowledge. By its very design, the publication is relational in nature, allowing each visitor to follow their own path from one aspect of this cosmos to another through links that contextualize the knowledge in diverse patterns. Dozens of audio and video recordings of well-known Cherokee storytellers sharing oral traditional stories provide opportunities for personal reflection, demonstrating the ways Cherokee values and cultural teachings continue to be passed down. In this way, it reflects the principle of intrinsic interdependence at the heart of Cherokee life. Unprecedented in scope, consistently accessible, and enhanced throughout by luminous imagery from Cherokee artist MaryBeth Timothy, The Cherokee Natural World provides an invaluable resource for scholars in the fields of Indigenous studies and language reclamation. More importantly, it is sure to become a touchstone for generations of Cherokee people seeking to restore connection to their language and traditions, returning these fully to everyday use, and allowing them to convey wisdom more urgently relevant, and needed, than ever.