Finding ‘The Right Way’

There are several ways to approach the Qualla Boundary, the formal name of the 58,000 acres known as the Eastern Band of the Cherokee tribal trust lands: by the roads that lead into the valley or a more nuanced approach where time is taken to listen, watch and discover the ancient culture of the Cherokee Indians.

When descending the sharply curved Wolfetown Road, also known as Highway 19, to the home of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, the mountains momentarily block cell phone service. Transitioning into this ancient place of century old traditions and modern entertainment offers a contrast of cultures and people.

Before entering the valley, watch for green street signs with white lettering of street names and the Cherokee syllabic beneath—Tsali Enola Road, John Sneed Road, Walnut Road and others. 

Since the 1940s, Cherokee has been a popular tourist destination—a place where visitors can see, taste and experience a flavor of Cherokee culture. Faded black and white, and color photographs from that era show Cherokee men dressed in an amalgamation traditional Cherokee and feathered headdresses and clothing of western Plains Indians. Even a few tepees were raised. It’s what was expected. 

Times are different now. The teepees are gone, replaced by replica Cherokee summerhouses. Although Cherokees such as Wildcatt, Squirrel and Michael David Armachain still dress in feathers and deerskins and pose for pictures for tourists alongside the road through town, as well as dance and tell stories, their blended attire leans more toward a traditional Cherokee appearance. 

During the tourist season, people travel by car, camper, motorcycle, bicycle and bus arriving by Highway 441, the Blue Ridge Parkway or Highway 19 to visit the more than 50 shops, stay in the 31 hotels, rent cabins and cottages, camp in the 14 campgrounds and eat at the 37 restaurants in the downtown area, and at Harrah’s Cherokee Tribal Resort. 

“Unto These Hills”—the popular and world-renowned play that traces the arc of the Cherokee’s history from contact with conquistador Hernando DeSoto to the Trail of Tears—draws thousands of visitors during the late spring to early fall, as does the nearby Oconaluftee Indian Village, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, and the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual.

During the season, visitors and residents alike also enjoy tubing and wading in the cool waters of the Oconaluftee River as it ripples through downtown, or picnicking on the Oconaluftee Islands Park, fly fishing for trout in the area’s rivers and streams, hiking in the woods, and visiting the majestic Mingo and Soco falls.

Fire Mountain Trails, an 10.5-mile system of off-road bicycle paths and bridges opened in June 2017 to provide mountain bikers easy, intermediate and challenging mountain runs.

One can easily spend a full day or several days exploring Cherokee and still not see everything it has to offer.  To get your bearings, stop by the Cherokee Welcome Center, a log building in the cultural district on Talasi Road, for advice and to collect maps, brochures, a cup of coffee and a bag of popcorn.

Faye Pheasant, a travel counselor, provides information about the area’s cultural attractions, directions to Harrah’s Cherokee Tribal Resort, and can provide an overview on the Cherokee’s history.

“We also send out a lot of information packets about Cherokee and its history to school classes that are studying the Cherokees during Native American heritage month so that the teachers can make a week’s curriculum out of it,” Pheasant said.

 To start a day in Cherokee, take time to visit the Museum of the Cherokee Indian to understand the Cherokee’s more than 360 generations of cultural history. The walk through 12,000 years is guided by narrated voices of Cherokee people, music, sound effects, and soft spotlights against earth toned walls highlighting descriptive signs and artifacts. The auditory and visual experience reinforces and effectively explains the Cherokee’s vibrant history, dioramas of Cherokee Indians give life to their former world, and sculptures and massive and expressive wall murals give you a sense of their rich culture and loss. 

Be transported from a time when the Cherokee were hunters and gatherers, through the rise of a multi-generational society of artisans, farmers, hunters, traders, and mound and community builders that were (and still are) unified through seven matriarchal clans; to the development of their syllabic written language; first contact with white people and the varying outcomes—disease, wars, technological advances, betrayal, removal, martyrdom and restoration. 

Nearly all of the artifacts are original—from knapped stone arrowheads and tools, baskets and ceramics, to trade guns and uniforms.

At the end of the walk through the Cherokee’s history a store offers shelves of books about the Cherokees, as well as displays of traditional baskets, ceramics and jewelry made by local artisans. The museum derives 75 percent of its income from gift shop sales and the entry fee, with the balance from a grant by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2000 as part of the tribal-state gaming compact with North Carolina.

Also, have a conversation with Richard Saunooke, the personable artist in the lobby who draws and paints colorful Cherokee symbols and deities on canvases.

If you are part of a group or school, make an appointment with Mike Crowe, manager of the Cherokee Friends Program, for a guided museum tour or a discussion about the Cherokee. He joined me for a conversation after giving seventh graders from an Asheville girls school an introduction to the Cherokee culture. Crowe conducted a question and answer session with the girls, engaging them in a conversation about Native American life, the social issues that they deal with, and compared that with what the girls will face in their society as they get older.

“I think we reached some young people today,” said Crowe, who also descends from a family of educators and is a member of the Wolf clan.

A former Marine, Crowe returned to Cherokee in his early 20s and was introduced by his father to the managers of Oconaluftee Village and “Unto These Hills.” He worked at both locations as a guide and performer, and has played the role of Tsali and Junaluska in the play. He also has served as a Native American guide and performer at other national historical destinations. While continuing to perform in “Unto These Hills,” he also follows his inherent passion to educate. 

By visiting the museum or taking paid tours of area mounds and historic locations through the Cherokee Friends Program, Crowe hopes that visitors will see that the Cherokee are not the stereotypical Native Americans portrayed in western movies.

The Cherokee “have a rich and diverse culture, as does any community in modern and during historic times,” Crowe said. He spoke of the traditional Cherokee and beliefs about their creation, giants that once roamed the land, spirit people, and locations in the area that are connected to traditions and the stories. Spending time with Crowe and other members of the Cherokee Friends is one way to gain a deeper understanding of the Cherokee.

In the museum’s lobby a panel hangs that speaks about Duyvktv (doo-yuh-n-k-tah), which means “The Right Way”—to have balance in good and evil, the roles of male and female, life and death, war and peace, and other aspects of life, Crowe explained.

“It’s all encompassing,” Crowe explained. “It’s much more than a system of laws that was handed down at the time of our genesis as a people; it’s also a blueprint for our villages…our ceremonies and practices.”

While there are dozens of churches in the valley attended by tribal members, there are also Cherokee who still practice traditional ways and adhere to cultural and religious beliefs that extend thousands of years into the past. That heritage is reflected in familial and clan messages woven into designs of pottery, baskets, jewelry and other material items, as well as in the private tribal dances, ball games, and other ceremonies that reflect a way of life lived today.

The museum also sponsors pottery workshops, storytelling programs, guided tours, a collections tour inside the facility and dance programs—all which help expand awareness and value of the Cherokee culture.

“Culture does have power,” Crowe said.

To discover more about the Cherokee’s material culture, exit the museum and cross Drama Road to visit the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual. 

Established in 1946, the mutual was born out of a resurgence of organized interest by Cherokee artisans in the 1920s who taught their weaving, wood carving and pottery making techniques to Cherokee children attending local schools, as well as encouraged elders to teach their children at home. Coinciding with the growing interest in Cherokee culture by the blossoming post-war tourism, 59 charter members chose to voluntarily associate through the mutual to promote the social welfare and preserve the tribe’s heritage. 

Before the mutual, Cherokees walked to Waynesville, Knoxville and Asheville to sell their intricately woven river cane, honeysuckle and white oak baskets. Today, visitors from throughout the world discover the extraordinary and authentic works of Cherokee artisans at the mutual.

“Many of our visitors were brought here as a child, and today they want to show their children and grandchildren this place,” said Vicki Cruz, the mutual’s manager.

The non-profit mutual’s collection of hand-woven baskets, wood-fired pottery, jewelry, masks, drums, as well as bows, arrows, blowguns and other items for young people and collectors offers a fine cross section of artistic skills of today’s 300 mutual members. When new members are voted into the mutual their work must meet specific cultural and artistic standards. Members also accumulate equity in the mutual as artistic items are sold, which is paid out when they retire from the mutual. The mutual’s income is also supplemented by the Foundation.

The mutual also re-nourishes the community’s artistic culture, offering classes in basket weaving, pottery, beadwork, woodcarving and other artistic works.

“We are a tight community,” Cruz said. “Everyone is respectful of the arts and crafts. We are a proud group of people and how we identify as a community.”

Faye Junaluska reflects this identity. A master basket maker for more than 40 years, Junaluska at first resisted learning more than the family’s technique for weaving baskets from her mother.

“Being young and ignorant, I didn’t know that it put food on the table,” she said with a smile.

She soon learned. It took her a year for her hands and mind to know how to create the bottom of a basket and weave it up. Her mother took her into the woods and showed her which oak saplings to choose for stripping; how to cut 12 to 14 long quarter sections from the tree and use a knife to cut 600 to 700 even strips along the growth rings. Today, she knowledgably points to different plants and trees growing outside the mutual building and explains how they are used to make dyes for the baskets, or sacred pipes.

“It takes two to three weeks to get the material and prepare it to make a basket,” said Junaluska, who calls herself a basket maker and not a weaver. 

Like Junaluska’s traditional and familial basket weaving style, Cherokee was the common language woven fluently among the tribe’s families, elders and some of the younger people when her mother was young. But when her mother attended a government boarding school, as did many Cherokee, she was forced to stop speaking her language to learn and speak only English. When Junaluska attended elementary and high school within the boundary, the Cherokee language was not taught. 

Cherokee leaders realized that the language that wove their communal lives together was disappearing as fluent elders passed away. In 2004, the tribe established the Kituwah Academy. Today, the Cherokee language is being taught to kindergarten through fifth graders at the academy, as well as their parents, thanks to funding from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.

“The children are told that they leave their English outside the door when they enter the school,” Junaluska said, adding with pride that she has a niece who attends the school and is learning to speak Cherokee.

General Grant also echoes that lost and found Cherokee identity and finding the right way—Duyvktv, the balance. 

 “Every piece of jewelry that I make has a place in my culture and in my spirituality,” said Grant, who is the only silversmith in Cherokee. “Spirituality is a philosophy of life. It is how we are supposed to live in harmony and balance as a group of individuals we call the Cherokee.”

Grant creates jewelry from silver and wampum, which is made from the polished quahog clam shell, as well as other stones that he and his assistants polish and shape using modern and handcrafted tools in his shop off Big Cove Road. He also operates the Traditional Hands Native Jewelry and Art store with his wife Ute at 1045 Tsalgi Road in downtown Cherokee.

Wampum, Grant says, was for centuries woven into belts to create iconic writing that described past events, sealed treaties, and conveyed information between clans and tribes.

Silversmithing is not only Grant’s expression of his self-taught art, but was his realization of his spiritual center. Until age 36, Grant said, he lived as a white man until found his way back to his Cherokee identity with the help of another Indian and reformed alcoholic. Until that pivotal moment, Grant didn’t realize he was missing his inner spirit and an understanding of himself as a free thinker. 

Today, part of his thinking is to create a school for people like himself who are dyslexic, and other who have attention deficits to learn the art of silversmithing, and to help Native Americans and non-natives appreciate who they are, help them unfold their talents and find their balance.

Across town, Missy and Benjamin Reed opened the Front Porch Cakery and Deli in 2016 in a cavernous space at 908 Tsalagi Road—moving a 25-year-old cake-making business out of their home and into a retail location. The couple’s hardbound family Bible lays open on the front counter of the shop silently professing their religion. Missy designs, bakes and sells special-order birthday, anniversary, wedding and other celebratory cakes, cupcakes and cookies to area residents 

Reed served on the Cherokee Police Department for 20 years, the last nine as police chief. Both Cherokee and a Baptist minister at one of the 50 churches in town, Reed now spends his days making roast beef, classic reuben, ham, grilled cheese and other sandwiches with his staff and family, and serving up the food, smiles and conversation to his customers.

“We are just home folks who provide a big meal for a good price,” Reed said.

And the Bible?

“Tons of people have commented about it being here,” he said. “That is who we are and it is not going anywhere.”

In the same shopping center, Bud Lambert says he has operated the Pow Wow gift shop that sells “anything and everything” for more than 40 years.

“If we don’t have it, they won’t find it in Cherokee,” said Lambert, who helps customers with his wife, sister and her husband. Shelves of Native American jewelry, knives, collectable stones and quartz, T-shirts, hats, and an assortment of other souvenir items are inside Pow Wow at 984 Tsalagi Road.

Lambert, who is Cherokee, previously operated a family diner and gradually converted the building to selling souvenirs when McDonald’s opened in town. 

“We see very interesting people come through here from all nationalities,” he said.

Lambert’s grandson, Brett, operates Twisted Sisters gift shop at the opposite end of town at 798 Tsali Boulevard. With his partner and mother in law Katie Williamson, and his wife Monique, the three of them sell T-shirts, Cherokee and Native American jewelry, dream catchers, soaps, hats and other souvenirs. 

An assortment of brightly colored metal sculptures lining the building’s front porch    and sidewalk turn heads and draw customers to the shop.

“We get a lot of people coming over from Gatlinburg,” said Monique.

Before starting the Twisted Sisters, the couple worked at the Cherokee nursing home for 10 years, saving their money to invest in the business. It’s been five years since they opened, and they still enjoy greeting customers, talking about the brightly colored metal sculptures    and helping customers load their purchases in their vehicles.

Head over to the cultural district and visit Ed Sharpe at the Medicine Man Crafts Shop at 482 Tsali Blvd., where you will find a variety of Native American items including woven Cherokee baskets, woodcarvings, paintings, traditional healing herbs, books, musical instruments, soaps and jewelry.

Started in 1963, the shop was until recently operated by Sharpe’s mother Kay for more than 40 years. Sharpe, who recently took over the shop, grew up in the area when his father, a Baptist minister at a local church moved to Cherokee in 1966.

“We try to handle locally made crafts,” said Sharpe, adding that he also buys from other Native Americans who visit the area. Several of the stone carvings on display are from the late Cherokee master John Julius Wilnoty, which are not for sale, and woodcarvings by contemporary artists Joel Queen, Richard Owle and Paul Hornbuckle.

Lorie Marks, owner of Ravenhawk Gifts and Collectables at 686 Tsali Blvd., operates the store with her husband Tim, selling crafts and collectables, as well as T-shirts, jewelry, baskets, blankets and other souvenirs that pack into a suitcase or fit on a shelf. The store has been in the family since the 1950s and has operated at various locations in town. Ravenhawk also makes and sells various flavors of fudge in the shop.

Tim recently installed an embroidery machine in the store to personalize hats and apparel with the Cherokee name and other designs.

By crossing the Oconaluftee River which runs behind the shop, and turning north to Saunooke Village you’ll find more souvenir, ice cream, fudge, leather goods, river tubing, flying fishing, restaurants and antique stores, along with several mechanical bulls to channel your inner cowpoke.

At the corner of Acquoni Road and Big Cove Road, the Motion Makers Bicycle Shop sells mountain bikes from $500 to $8,000, and rents bicycles to ride on Fire Mountain’s network of trails or to experience the Cherokee area. Sales person Simon Farr is a knowledgeable resource for people who are just starting to ride mountain bikes and for professional riders who understand the importance of the number of teeth on a cog and the chain stay length. 

“We offer a fully custom bike service,” Farr said.

Getting to Fire Mountain is easy. Its entrance is the same parking lot as the Oconaluftee Village and “Unto These Hills”. Where mountain bikers take pleasure in vigorously riding on the Fire Mountain trails, other visitors may find an entertaining and a cerebral experience by learning about the Cherokee’s history and culture in the Village and through the renowned “Unto These Hills” live theater program, which is beginning its 69th year.

Upon entering the Oconaluftee Village, the hinted odor of wood smoke transitions visitors to a different time. A Cherokee guide introduces visitors to the village, shares a few Cherokee words and shepherds groups of up to 20 people through the locust stockade village. Inside, you will see Cherokees making basket splints and dying wood, and you will visit five artist stations where baskets, pottery, beadwork, carvings and finger weaving are explained.

The center of the tour is a replica village with a cabin representing early 1500s construction, traditional mountain cabins from the 1600s to early 1800s, and rough-hewn cabins that were more common prior to removal from 1831-1850. A replica council house features a lecture about how a community’s decisions were made and who would attend the meetings. An open square, which is a place for celebration and meetings, features Cherokee dances twice daily.

“You can ask our village staff anything about what you are seeing or experiencing,” said John Tissue, the Village and “Unto These Hills” executive director, adding that Cherokees comprise nearly all of the actors in the village.

About half of the actors in “Unto These Hills”, a live drama staged in an amphitheater, are Cherokee with the balance of the performers drawn from annual recruiting events. Originally written by Kermit Hunter in 1950, the play traces the history of the Cherokee from their first contact with DeSoto to removal during the Trail of Tears. The story pivots on the sacrifice of a Cherokee named Tsali, which enabled about 800 Cherokee to remain in the area after removal, the help of William Holland Thomas, a white man who was adopted by the Cherokee as a child, to buy back their land; and the return from Oklahoma of Junaluska, a leader of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, to his North Carolina homeland.

The play has had two re-writes to arrive at its current two-hour version that aligns more closely with the Cherokee culture and history, Tissue said. He also credits Marianne Wagner, the play’s director, with making other important modifications that remove stereotypes and create more realistic portrayals of the Cherokee’s history and people. More than six million people have seen the play since its inception.

“Visitors will see the story that they are familiar with,” Tissue said. “It is a great balance of the original play and the way that the Cherokee want it to be told. The play is probably the best place that it has been in a long time.”

“Unto These Hills”, which runs this year from June 1 to Aug. 17, and the Village are about 70 percent self-sustaining through ticket and craft sales. The Cherokee Preservation Foundation supports the balance of the organizations’ operating budgets. Tissue said “Unto These Hills” is opening a shop downtown to sell artistic works, as well as toys for children—all handcrafted in Cherokee to help make the cultural events even more self-sustaining.

The 21-year-old Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort’s financial support of the Foundation has helped evolve and preserve the tribe’s cultural heritage and attractions, as well as supported education throughout North Carolina. 

The tribe owns the resort in Cherokee, which includes a 150,000-square foot gaming area, a 1,108-room hotel tower, an elegant spa, and family-oriented multi-tainment center complete with bowling alley, dining and arcade; and the Harrah’s Valley River Casino in Murphy, N.C. The tribal government has a management agreement with Caesar’s Entertainment, which owns Harrah’s, to operate the gaming, hotel and meeting operations.

While shop owners and cultural leaders say that the gaming resort has not substantially increased visitors to their businesses and locations—an observation also acknowledged by the casino’s management—that could soon change.

Construction is underway to expand the Cherokee facility to add a 700-plus room    tower and 83,000-square-feet of meeting and convention and ballroom space, which is as large as two football fields, for trade shows and meetings.

Brian Saunooke, the gaming facility’s vice president of marketing and a Cherokee native, says construction will be completed in late 2020 or early 2021.

“The biggest focus will be to book more national trade shows and conventions,” Saunooke said. “Historically, we have had to turn away a lot of business primarily due to a lack of space.”

The additional hotel rooms enable the facility to grow more conference and convention business and more gaming.

“We do expect the demographics of our guests to change a little bit,” he said. “The customers will be a little younger and the length of stay longer” than the current average of one and a half days.

That is good news for local businesses and cultural venues.

“We expect that the conference and convention customers spend more time visiting the community than our traditional customers have,” he said.

The current hotel, which is the largest in North Carolina, and the Las Vegas-style gaming—poker, black jack, baccarat, craps, roulette and video slot machines—coupled with concerts and national circuit poker tournaments draw 2.75 million visitors to the area annually. The two Cherokee-owned gaming and hotel facilities employ about 3,500 people, including Cherokees in upper management and on the staff.

“This is a world-class gaming resort that is right here in the heart of western North Carolina and the Smoky Mountains,” Saunooke said. “It is a unique product for western North Carolina.”

Similarly, the Eastern Band of the Cherokees are uniquely rooted in the Smoky Mountains and the surrounding areas by nourishing and sharing their culture through the people who operating businesses, cultural institutions, performances, tours, annual fairs and gatherings.

And for the Cherokee, it helps them achieve Duyvktv—the right way—to restore, balance and evolve their culture.