Bookshelf

UPCOMING

EASTERN CHEROKEE FISHING

EASTERN CHEROKEE FISHING. (Heidi M. Altman, University of Alabama Press, 168 pp., paperback - $22.95)

Life histories, folktales and reminiscences about fish gathered from interviews with Cherokee and non-Cherokee people provide a clear and personal picture of the changes in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' Qualla Boundary in the last 75 years.

Coupled with documentary research, these ethnographic histories illuminate changes in the language, culture and environment since contact with Europeans and examine the role these changes have played in the traditions and lives of the contemporary Cherokee.

Interviews include Native Cherokee speakers with knowledge of traditional fishing methods to Euro-American English speakers whose families have lived in North Carolina for many generations and know about contemporary fishing practices in the area. The topic of fishing offers perspective on the Cherokee language, the vigor of the Cherokee system of knowledge and the relationship between Cherokee people and the local environment. Altman also examines the role of fishing as a tourist enterprise and how fishing practices affect tribal waters.

Altman is assistant professor of anthropology at Georgia Southern University. (July)

RECENT

THE RHETORIC OF DISAPPEARANCE: Racialized discourse and the Cherokee Removal. (Beverly Kay Tronsen, ProQuest/UMI, 287 pp., paperback - $69.99)

In 1838, the Cherokees were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in an event known as the Trail of Tears. Leading up to the actual removal was eight years of oppression and struggle.

Public protests in the form of petitions, called memorials, were sent to Congress protesting the Removal Bill of 1830 and later, the pending removal. The memorials provided a rhetorical presence that could not be ignored and led to over 100 hours of debate in Congress.

This dissertation is an analysis of the various racial discourses at work at these different public sites, which embodied ideologies that defined the Cherokee as "disappearing" and "savage," lacking even the rudimentary ability to become "civilized." Such discourses made the Trail of Tears a reality. (March 2006)

EASTERN CHEROKEE CENSUS: Volume IV, 1921-1922. (Jeff Bowen, Clearfield Company, 169 pp., paperback - $21.50)

This is the fourth and final volume in Jeff Bowen's transcription of a census of the Eastern Band of Cherokees Indians taken by Indian agent James E. Henderson between 1915 and 1922.

Bowen's transcription is based on a microfilm copy of a typescript originally on file at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. This volume consists of Henderson's census commentary for the years 1921-22. The series marks the first time the Eastern Cherokee data has been made available as a publication.

Volume IV concerns the Eastern Band Cherokees living on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina. Individuals enumerated in the census are descendants of the Cherokees who were not removed to Indian Territory during the period 1838-39 in the migration known as the Trail of Tears. While there is sometimes additional data, information provided in the census almost invariably gives the individual's name, family relationship, date of birth and sex - information that is critical in any genealogical research. In some cases, Henderson also compiled Cherokee birth and death dates or the names of children living apart from their parents. In all, the final volume refers to another 4,000 Cherokees who inhabited the Qualla Boundary. (January 2006)

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE. (James Mooney, Transaction Publisher, 287 pp., paperback - $29.95)

When James Mooney lived with and studied the Cherokee between 1887 and 1900, they were the largest and most important Indian tribe in the U.S. His dispassionate account of their history from the time of their first contact with whites until the end of the 19th century is more than a sequence of battles won and lost, treaties signed and broken, towns destroyed and people massacred.

There is humanity along with inhumanity in the relations between the Cherokee and other groups, Indian and non-Indian. There is fortitude and persistence balanced with disillusionment and frustration. In these respects, the history of the Cherokee epitomizes the experience of most Native Americans.

In the introduction to the original publication in 1900, Mooney commented that "there is change indeed in dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own." This history was originally included in the 19th annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

It was republished under the auspices of the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History at the request of the Cherokee Nation in 1975 with new introductory material and supplementary illustrations from the archives.

Mooney's main interest of study was the Cherokee people. Many say he wrote the most accurate accounts of the Cherokee culture and history. He spent years living with the Cherokee people in North Carolina and was able to gain their acceptance and trust, which allowed him to write more firsthand accounts. (2005)

WATER ON A FLAT ROCK: The Cherokee Love Story of John and Annie Coker

WATER ON A FLAT ROCK: The Cherokee Love Story of John and Annie Coker. (Kathy Lynn, Outskirts Press, 120 pp., paperback - $13.95)

WATER ON A FLAT ROCK gives readers an intimate portrayal of John and Annie Coker, from their marriage in 1819 through the Trail of Tears and the Civil War.

The story takes place in 1800s Tennessee where 16-year-old Annie Ratliff meets and marries 41-year-old John Coker. Drawing on the known facts of John and Annie Coker, the author offers a vivid picture, credibly filling in the gaps with imaginative fiction, a compelling love story of two Cherokee people, living in times of turbulence and change.

Author Kathy Lynn was born and raised in Texas where she learned her Cherokee heritage from her mother. With imagination and an eye for detail, she decided to "share the tale that was lost" in a series of books. She lives outside Siloam Springs, Ark. (2005)

- Travis Snell