Cherokee Storytelling

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As he prepares to tell a story, Gregg “Kanoheski” (Storyteller) Howard hears only the voice of the fire.

The storytellers have for centuries been the ones to continue the remembering and the telling of instructions - as valid today as when Unehlvnvhi (Provider) gave them to us. Whether they told the victory stories of aniyosgi (warriors) during the honoring ceremonies, the healing stories of didanawisgi (the medicine men and women) to cure sickness, the teaching stories told to usdi diniyohli (the little ones) as they snuggled beneath their blankets on cold winter nights in front of a warm fire, or those other stories told just for fun after usdi diniyohli were sound asleep. These stories spoke of who we were, and who we were trying to be, and they still teach us.

In the words of Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) “We human beings are not just body and mind. We are also spirit and emotion. There are few things that speak as clearly as stories speak to the needed balance between all four of those components that make up human life: the body, mind, spirit and emotion.”

Stories have great power. That is why you can tell a story to five people and five people will hear different messages. Stories also have the power to destroy. If told wrongly, if told with evil intent, stories can confuse the minds and the spirits of those who hear them. They can lead the listener away from harmony and balance and into the twisting paths of hate and anger. We’ve all hard such stories - stories in which those from other cultures are portrayed as evil and dangerous. Stories used to convince people that those others are less than human and must be eliminated. Millions of people have died and are still dying because of such stories. Ethnic caricatures are further examples of the way certain stories can be used to debase and lessen the humanity of others. In a real sense, stories can be used to kill both the spirit and the body.

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Out of respect for his ancestors and all the Storytellers that came before him, Charles Ahdoelayhoeski Rogers chooses to dress in a traditional Cherokee manner.

But, through the stories we can also survive. We can do so at the expense of others - or we can survive as fully human in the Indian sense - the Cherokee sense. In other words we need to be aware of the earth below, the sky above, aware of all the beauty around us, and the necessity of “walking in balance” everywhere we go.

This awareness is the message the stories bring to us - a connection between Mother Earth and Father Sky - the bridge over which we can travel to the world of once was - to the world of what could be.

This is the conscious choice I make as a Cherokee storyteller. I believe that in those old stories can be found the guide stones that point the way for us in a very dangerous world - not only in regards to Mother Earth and how we treat her, but in our relationships with each other, our community, and our world.

There is a story among the Cherokee that says …
“Once, a long time ago, all the people lived together. But, as people do, they began to quarrel, so Unehlvnvhi decided to separate them and sent the people to the east, north, west and south and the new places changed them to the four colors of people we see today, white, black, red, and yellow. And, because these places were new to the people, Creator sent instructions in dreams as legends and stories to guide them. It is said that the world today is the way it is, because the people have forgotten their instructions.”

Come and listen to what the Cherokee were told.