Art comes in many forms and the newest addition to Southwestern Community College’s Oconaluftee Institute of Cultural Arts is actually old. It’s a letterpress that will be used to print books in the Cherokee syllabary.
“We are bringing back the Cherokee history in true art form,” said Luzene Hill, OICA progam outreach coordinator.
Years ago the Eastern Band published a newspaper called Tsa la gi Tsu lehisanunhi, or the Cherokee Phoenix. This first Native American newspaper was printed on a hot-type letterpress in which each word is put together by hand, combining individual metal letters or characters.
Through a $68,846 grant from Cherokee Preservation Foundation and a $47,792 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, OICA will purchase a metal press and develop a print-making studio at its facilities on Bingo Loop Road in Cherokee.
“It opens up a whole new craft of Book Art for us, including print making, hand papermaking and hand bookbinding,” said Hill. “For our students Book Art will blend fine arts with crafts.”
Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary, recognized that conveying ideas in language was powerful so he spent 12 years developing the Cherokee syllabary, completing it in 1821. Each character represents a syllable, instead of one sound, thus the name syllabary. As in the Phoenix newspaper, the power of the Cherokee language rises through the printed word on the page, transforming from thoughts to art, Hill explained.
“You already feel the power of words but capturing them in a book through individual characters you’ve laid out in hot type and on paper you’ve made from linen or hemp fiber really helps you feel them in an art form, too,” said Hill. “To me, binding a book- accordion-style, for instance, is like producing a piece of sculpture.”
“You already feel the power of words but capturing them in a book through individual characters you’ve laid out in hot type and on paper you’ve made from linen or hemp fiber really helps you feel them in an art form, too. To me, binding a book- accordion-style, for instance, is like producing a piece of sculpture.”
As students learn to produce first the paper and then the books, they will also learn skills such as precision, technique, spacing and artistic layout composition, said Hill, who is consulting with noted instructor Frank Brannon. Brannon, who runs his own letterpress studio SpeakEasy Press in Dillsboro, earned his master of fine arts in Book Arts at the University of Alabama and has recently taught Letterpress at the Penland School of Crafts and Papermaking and Printing at the John C. Campbell Folk School.
“One of Frank’s specialties is the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper,” said Hill. “He has explored and published copies from the original hand impressions of type from the Phoenix, found in a 1954 excavation of the New Echota historic site. He hand printed and hand bound the publications for exhibition.”
“The Phoenix was a bi-lingual weekly newspaper printed in parallel columns in Cherokee and English and one of its biggest subscribers was the British Library,” said Brannon, who also teaches at Book Works in Asheville. “Most folks don’t know that the paper was distributed in Europe, too. The first issue was published Feb. 21, 1828, using the 85 character Cherokee syllabary completed by Sequoyah just seven years earlier,” he said.
The first paper that the Phoenix was printed on came from Knoxville by wagon and it took two weeks to arrive, according to Brannon. The last issue was published in 1834, shortly before the Cherokee removal to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
“Students will learn the Cherokee history right along with the history of the letterpress,” said Hill.
The Cherokee language will also be incorporated into the course since the books can be published in the Cherokee syllabary, she added.
MURPHY–An elementary and middle school in the Murphy area could be the first in the region to implement an extensive solar power array if the Cherokee County school board gives the green light.
The 4,300 panel array would cut power costs at St. Martins Elementary and Middle School by 85% over 20 years, with a total cost avoidance of over $1 million, according to school superintendent Stephen Lane.
The system would be paid for by green energy tax credits issued by Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corp.
REGIONAL–With a steady resurgence of the mountain black bear population in progress (and there was never any great shortage), its no surprise that they’re in the news so often these days. But even so, this week was a humdinger.
Bryson City is used to bears, given its proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and lots of National Forest. Still, when a female and her cub came to town, found a tree they liked, and camped out, it caused a stir.
“I’ve never seen so many people,” said retired Swain County Schools teacher Shirley Sutton, who with her husband Eugene owns the property where the tree is.
Sutton had spotted the bears early Monday morning. She called the police to report the situation.
“They said just leave (them) alone, and they would come down,” Sutton said just before noon on Tuesday, with the bears still visible out her living room window. “But they haven’t come down.”
Also this week a Cherokee man was brought up on federal charges of dealing in poached bear parts, some of which are used in homeopathic treatments in Asia and elsewhere. Jon Ostendorff at the Asheville Citizen-Timeswrote it up. His lead:
A Cherokee man must make a public apology for illegally selling 51 bear gall bladders, the U.S. Department of Justice ruled.
Last but by no means least was the misadventure in Cherokee, where a handler at one of the tourist attraction “bear parks” made famous recently by game show host Bob Barker was bitten by one of her charges. The feds are looking in to this incident.
Again, on the bear beat, Ostendorff:
Mary Clapsaddle, 75, who has been managing the park for about 20 years, was recovering at Mission Hospital from injuries to her hand and arm, said her son, Kole Clapsaddle. He owns the business.
She was airlifted to the hospital after the attack on Monday. A bear bit her while she was giving water to the animal about 12:45 p.m.
Clapsaddle said his mother broke safety rules when she stepped into a pen with a bear. He said handlers are supposed to place food and water in one part of the pen while the bear is secured in another part.
“She didn’t follow the rules,” he said. “If you follow the rules, you don’t get hurt.”
BRYSON CITY–The Smoky Mountain Times’ Lee Zion reports that an $84,300 grant from the federal government will purchase “urban” rescue equipment to be shared by the seven westernmost North Carolina counties and the Qualla Boundary.
An excerpt:
[When the money arrives], Swain County will use it to purchase a truck to haul a search-and-rescue equipment trailer. The trailer will be used by several counties, said David Breedlove, the county’s Emergency Management Agency director.
North Carolina Urban Rescue Task Force 1 is based in Swain County. The task force is staffed by rescue personnel from the seven western counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, he said.
“The grants came about after 9-11 to help with buildings coming down, or bridges or tunnels – any big structure that you need equipment to lift up heavy things, like girders of buildings. Similar with bridges and things like that,” King said.
STATEWIDE–A Wilmington Star Newsinvestigation into salaries paid to Alcoholic Beverage Commission board employees in New Hanover County has led NC Governor Bev Perdue to order a statewide survey of ABC Board salaries and ethics policies.
… in response to the StarNews’ salary information request, State ABC Commission Chairman Jonathan Williams took the matter to the office of the governor, who ordered a look at all the state’s boards.
“Our office has become aware of concerns regarding compensation in local ABC systems and of the reluctance exhibited in responding to a proper inquiry by the press,” Williams stated in a letter dated Thursday to all North Carolina ABC Boards.
The letter requests each board fill out a questionnaire asking for detailed salary and benefits information as well as questions about ethics and nepotism policies.
Meanwhile, today, the Asheville Citizen-Times’ Jordan Schrader details the arrangement between ABC boards in Bryson City and Sylva to split the proceeds of liquor sales at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, which could be enormous. Alcoholic beverage sales at the decade-old casino were approved during a recent tribal election.
The arrangements for handling the casino liquor sales took some while to work out, as the Sylva board, which holds the casino license, and the Bryson City board, which is closer to the casino, tried to reach an agreement with considerable input from the state.
Portions of ABC proceeds fund law enforcement and substance abuse programs, and so ABC sales are matters of close attention from county-to-county.
ROBBINSVILLE-Zelerie Rose at the Graham Starwrites that $120,000 of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act supports a program to control invasive plant species and support habitat of two federally-listed endangered species along the Cheoah River.
The three-year project started this fall, involves nine miles of river and will protect the Virginia Spiraea, a federally-threatened shrub, and the Appalachian Elktoe, a federally-endangered mussel.
The treatment of the non-native species such as mimosa, Oriental bittersweet, yam, privet, Japanese honeysuckle, princess tree, kudzu, and multiflora rose, is the collaborative effort of Western North Carolina Alliance, the Cherokee Environmental Natural Resource Office, and North Carolina National Forests.
“Our job is to work with the various organizations involved in the project and educate them about non-native invasive plants,” said Bob Gale, ecologist for WNC Alliance. “These plants were introduced both intentionally and accidentally and have no natural controls limiting their spread. Left untreated they can threaten or endanger native habitats and native wildlife species.”
REGIONAL–Western Carolina University associate professor Anna Fariello takes an in-depth look at the extraordinary world of Cherokee basketry in her new book “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders”, just out from the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina.
An author, editor and former research fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Fariello most recently turned her attention to Cherokee basketry, a thousands-year-old tradition, passed from mother to daughter, that she believes is integral to Cherokee culture. Fariello’s new book, titled “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders,” studies Cherokee baskets and basket-makers who lived during the first half of the 20th century.
The project reinforced Fariello’s understanding that for Cherokee people, “the making of things is significant to their culture and their identity,” a concept foreign to many people in contemporary, mainstream culture, she said. The Cherokees’ use of natural resources as basket materials gave Fariello an appreciation of the environmental sustainability and ecological balance also inherent in the culture.
CULLOWHEE – Native American artist and activist Shan Goshorn will visit Western North Carolina in November for a talk at Western Carolina University and a demonstration at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts.
“Pieced Treaty,” wood pulp splints and commercial dye, 20 by 20 by 26 inches, by Shan Goshorn, 2007.
An artist working in a variety of media, including paint, photography and mixed-media, Goshorn will speak about the progression of her work and her art as an expression of her activism during an artist’s talk at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, in Room 130 of the Fine and Performing Arts Center on the WCU campus. The event is free and open to the public.
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, Goshorn will lead a workshop demonstrate her process of hand-tinting black-and-white photography at OICA, 70 Bingo Loop in Cherokee. The workshop is limited to 25 people and includes lunch and supplies, although participants may bring their own black-and-white prints, in a matte finish. No artistic background is required.
Goshorn is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and lives in Tulsa, Okla. An artist for more than 25 years, she has exhibited work across the United States, Canada, Europe, China and Africa. Her work addresses contemporary American Indian and human rights issues, including Indian stereotypes and treaty violations. For example, Goshorn wove “Pieced Treaty,” a basket in the traditional Cherokee “spider’s web” pattern, from paper printed with tobacco agreements between the state of Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation.
“‘Pieced Treaty” refers to the continual breaking of agreements,” Goshorn said. “I deliberately left the basket unfinished because the negotiations appear to be ongoing.”
The piece won first place in the basketry division of the 2009 Red Earth Festival’s artist competition and has been purchased by the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Goshorn’s work is featured in numerous other collections, including the Institute of American Indian Art; in Cherokee, her work is in the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Harrah’s Cherokee Hotel and the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual.
The WCU School of Art and Design and the Oconaluftee Institute are co-hosts of Goshorn’s visit. The visit is funded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation and the Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources, an initiative operated through Western Carolina University’s Cherokee studies program.
The Oconaluftee Institute partners with Southwestern Community College and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to offer an associate’s degree in fine arts. An agreement with WCU allows graduates to enter the university as juniors pursuing the bachelor of fine arts degree.
CHEROKEE–Uni Watch is a nationally-popular blog that “deconstructs the finer points of sports uniforms in obsessive and excruciating detail”.
In an October 22 post, author Paul Lukas tackles the issue of Cherokee High School’s football helmet, with its mysterious — to those outside of western North Carolina — insignia.
Here’s the helmet:
Here’s Jacob Reed’s explanation:
This is the helmet for Cherokee High School in Cherokee, North Carolina. The school system is operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a sovereign governing nation (susceptible to Federal Laws, and some state laws). On their helmets, they use the Cherokee syllabary. The letters on the helmet are pronounced tsa-la-gi (roll the t and s together), so it sounds like sssa-la-gee. It means Cherokee.
FRANKLIN–On Saturday, November 7, come celebrate ten years of stewardship on the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee’s Tessentee property in Otto. The Celebration begins at 11:00 and continues until 4:00 and includes music by the Frog Town 5, tours of the property, annual conservation award presentation, and demonstrations by Cherokee artisans and others. All activities are FREE for the entire
Tessentee Bottomland Preserve. Ralph Preston photo.
family, and food may be purchased on-site from Big Mountain BB-Q. In November of 1999 LTLT purchased 60 acres at the confluence of Tessentee Creek and the Little Tennessee River. This was the first land protected on the free-flowing Little Tennessee, and now a decade later – with 30 land protection projects – more than 5200 acres and 35 miles of river frontage have been conserved.
LTLT’s purchase of the Tessentee Bottomland Preserve not only launched an extraordinary river corridor conservation initiative, it also created a laboratory for land restoration and stewardship in the valley. At Tessentee LTLT purchased an old dairy farm with diverse soils, abundant water, and an historic farmstead. LTLT conducted a detailed inventory and sought expert advice in developing a management plan to restore the rich and diverse natural and cultural heritage resources found here in the heart of the upper Little Tennessee River Valley.
The riverbanks have been stabilized and reforested, and a wetland area has been partially restored. LTLT began their invasive exotic plant control program at Tessentee and initiated the long process of converting fescue pastures to more diverse grassland habitats and open woodlands.
At Tessentee LTLT first began its collaboration with Cherokee artisans in the management and harvest of rivercane. This collaboration has expanded to the establishment of experimental plantations of butternut and white oak for production of other traditional artisan materials. The Tessentee Preserve is stop #53 on the NC Birding Trail with the preserve’s bird list at 115 species and butterfly list at 42 species and counting. Here one can hike the most extensive trail system found on any LTLT property. Volunteers have also helped to restore the historic farmstead – by restoring the apple house, smoke house, and in recent months the foundation of the historic farmhouse.
Now a decade later, the Tessentee Preserve is a rich mosaic of wildlife and plant habitats, and it serves as a microcosm of LTLT’s stewardship and restoration work in this historic valley. It is a wonderful place to walk and to appreciate the extraordinary richness and diversity of the upper Little Tennessee.
GSMNP–Great Smoky Mountains National Park managers have announced that the Park’s cooperating partner, Great Smoky Mountains Association, has just published and released its newest book, Smoky Mountain Magic, a novel by Horace Kephart.
Horace Kephart
Although completed in 1929, two years before the author’s death, the novel was never published until now.
Cathy Cook, Chief of Resource Education and Science at the Smokies said, “We had no idea that a Kephart novel even existed. The unpublished manuscript for Smoky Mountain Magic was handed down within the Kephart family until it was finally brought to the attention of park superintendent, Dale Ditmanson, by Libby Kephart Hargrave, the author’s great-granddaughter, at one of this year’s 75th Anniversary celebrations.
The typewritten manuscript was complete, having gone through numerous drafts and revisions over the course of the eight years that Horace Kephart labored over it.”
Smoky Mountain Magic’s fictional story takes place during the summer of 1925, mostly along the Deep Creek watershed in the Great Smoky Mountains, but also in a thinly-disguised Bryson City (called Kittuwa) and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Characters include a mysterious stranger (who resembles the author in his youth), a greedy land baron, a cadre of mountain folk ranging in constitution from stalwart to conniving, a beautiful botanist, a Cherokee chief, and a witch. The novel fits the adventure story genre of the day with a bit of romance interwoven.
The famed author and outdoorsman first came to the Great Smoky Mountains in 1904 looking for a fresh start in life. He moved into an abandoned cabin on a tributary of Hazel Creek, a remote area even by early 20th century southern Appalachian standards. There Kephart befriended his independent and self-reliant neighbors and pursued his passions for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and generally living off the land.
The result of his time in what Kephart described as the “back of beyond” were Our Southern Highlanders, the classic work on the people of the Smokies, and Camping and Woodcraft, the definitive work on enjoying the out of doors. Both works are still in print and continue to nurture an enthusiastic following.
During the 1920s, Kephart and his friend and fellow hiker George Masa began a vigorous campaign to have the Great Smoky Mountains protected as a national park. Kephart wrote letters, articles, and a booklet championing the cause, and Masa contributed his breath-taking landscape photographs.
Together they raised awareness of the significance and beauty of the Smokies and sounded the alarm over the devastation being caused by unsound, industrial logging operations. Both Kephart and Masa figure prominently in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park segment of a new 12-hour documentary series by Ken Burns entitled “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” which will begin September 27 on PBS.
For their successful effort, both Kephart and Masa have neighboring mountains named for them. A stream, trail, and camping shelter in the national park also bear Kephart’s name.
The 248 page Smoky Mountain Magic is now available in both paperback ($12.95) and hard cover ($19.95). All proceeds are being donated to the Horace Kephart Foundation (in support of the annual Horace Kephart Days Celebration in Bryson City), Great Smoky Mountains Association, and Friends of the Smokies.
SYLVA-Horace Kephart is well known for his explorations in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and for his writings about the area and its people. The new Ken Burns documentary on our National Parks features Kephart’s significant role in the creation of Park.
Now, a long-lost novel by Kephart has been found and just been published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, 80 years after Kephart completed the manuscript in 1929.
Video from the Great Smoky Mountains Association:
City Lights will host a reading from the novel by Kephart’s great-granddaughter, Libby Kephart Hargrave, on Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00 p.m.
Hargrave wrote a foreword for the book, detailing how it came to be published after having laid so long only in manuscript form. George Ellison wrote the introduction, which gives further background and places the novel in the full context of Kephart’s legacy. Elizabeth Ellison’s watercolor is featured on the book’s cover, and Ron Rash’s praise also appears on the cover: he calls the book “a remarkable and illuminating read.”
As Ellison points out in his introduction, Kephart was an excellent listener, and in his time in the Hazel Creek community, he listened to residents tell about their lives. Both his ear for dialogue and his appreciation for a good story are revealed in the novel, which is set in Deep Creek, near Bryson City.
The story features Cherokee lore, as well, and some fantastical elements. too. According to Ellison, “Creating a dreamscape is not the sort of stylistic device a reader familiar with Camping and Woodcraft and Our Southern Highlanders would have expected from Kephart, not even in a novel.”
But at its heart, Smoky Mountain Magic is a story of both romance and adventure.
At the City Lights program devoted to the book, Hargrave will talk about bringing the manuscript to publication and will read selections from it. She will also take questions from the audience.
Bryson City Book Premiere and Signing to be Hosted by Kephart Family
In honor of the recently rediscovered and published novel Smoky Mountain Magic, the Kephart family and the Swain County Chamber of Commerce
invites the public to a premiere party that will feature readings from the novel as well as an opportunity to have your copy signed by a relative of the famed author.The event, which will be held at the historic Calhoun House Hotel located indowntown Bryson City, is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, 1 – 5pm. After a short program that will include naturalist George Ellison, GSMNP Superintendant Dale Ditmanson, representatives of the Great Smoky Mountains Association which is responsible for the publication of the novel, and great-granddaughter Libby Kephart Hargrave, family members will be available for signing and conversation. Music will be provided by the talented Lee Knight, and refreshments will be provided.
CHEROKEE–In early September, the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Carly Harrington put together this overview of Qualla Boundary economic conditions, and talked to some folks that might not otherwise be heard in such a piece; among them, Leon Grodski and Natalie Smith, owners of Tribal Grounds Coffee and well-known multimedia artist Davy Arch.
The general theme: while the influence of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino has its pluses and minuses, the influx of cash that the casino brings is giving the Cherokee greater opportunity to control their economic destiny.
An excerpt:
While roadside shops continue to hawk their fake American Indian wares, locals say they are trying to get away from such “shot glass” tourist attractions, focusing instead on authentic Cherokee history and heritage.
“The tribe is spending money to create a nicer experience that’s more culturally oriented and authentic. The goal is to move away from the touristy trinkets from China,” Groski said.
After the park opened, people from other places were attracted to the area by the lure of tourism and its financial prospects. The tribe, in need of money, allowed them “to market their junk.”
“They wanted any kind of business they could get. We weren’t generating revenue to support the infrastructure,” Arch said, noting that there’s more tolerance and acceptance of the Cherokee culture today.
“Things are looking up. We have more control of our destiny now than the last couple hundred years. It’s changing.”
CHEROKEE-“We stand on the edge of becoming a truly unique voice in the world for indigenous art and culture,” said Joel Queen, new program coordinator and instructor at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts in Cherokee.
Queen, whose art is displayed in such places as the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum in London, says that art is the same language wherever you go. “The language of our Cherokee art is so storied with paintings, weaving, wood crafts, stonework and ceramics and I’ve spent my life creating in the Cherokee mediums,” said this enrolled member of the Eastern Band. “I’ve been able to make a successful living at it but now it’s time for me to give back and that’s why I chose to work with OICA.”
Master Cherokee potter Joel Queen, the new program coordinator and instructor at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts in Cherokee, demonstrates a unique technique of using a cloth diaper to allow movement and expansion of clay. Luzene Hill, OICA program outreach coordinator, watches as Queen molds the strip of clay inside as he begins creating a piece of pottery.
His students, like Mike Taylor of Cherokee, respect the artistic heritage Queen brings to the institute. Members of Queen’s family have been potters for nine generations. “A lot of potters will keep their family secrets but I believe in sharing and in keeping the traditions alive so they don’t get lost,” said this grandson of potter Ethel Bigmeat. “One of the reasons to create art is so people can see their past and their future.”
“Part of our strength at OICA comes from our generational teachers like Joel and John Grant, who teaches wood and stone carving,” said Luzene Hill, program outreach coordinator for the institute.
“We give students a foundation in traditional methods, but we also give them the freedom to create contemporary art,” said Hill, an artist whose work is exhibited in private and corporate collections across the country.
Students of all skill levels are welcome at the institute, a joint endeavor of the Eastern Band, Southwestern Community College and Western Carolina University.
Students can earn an associate of fine arts degree from Southwestern. If they want to continue their education they can transfer to Western Carolina University, or any other college in the state university system, as a junior to pursue a bachelor of fine arts degree.
“Not all of our students want to go for a higher degree and we help them find their place in the market,” said Queen. “That’s important- they can be a great artist but if they don’t know how to market their work, they won’t be able to make a living from it.”
“Joel has his own business and gallery so he is the perfect person to help our students with marketing,” said Hill.
At present the classes are small enough that instructors can individualize a program around the student’s skill level.
Queen said part of his job is “taking students’ love of creating and helping them through the steps to achieve the vision they think their piece should look like. My job is to challenge them, to help them push their boundaries and see just how far they can go.”
But before they push the envelope and break all the rules, Queen teaches his students just what the rules are –rules he has learned from a personal mastery of clay and from knowledge and talent passed down from eight generations before him who sifted and kneaded hand-dug clay, stamped it with hand-carved wooden paddles and fired it in traditional pit fires.
“Here at the institute we respect and honor the traditions of our Cherokee ancestors. But after students master technique, we encourage them to show innovation and creativity,” said Queen. “For our Cherokee culture to evolve, our art must evolve first…and art is the same language, no matter where you go.”
While the institute is a mix of traditional and contemporary, the students are also a mix. About half are Cherokee and the others represent a mix of cultures, according to Hill, an EBCI enrolled member.
“The more students we get, the more programs we can offer,” she said. For more information, call 497-3945 or stop by the new location at 70 Bingo Loop Road in Cherokee.
STATEWIDE–North Carolina’s senators jointly introduced legislation last Thursday that, if approved, would provide federal recognition to the state’s Lumbee Indian tribe.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan sponsored the bill.
From the Greensboro News Record:
The tribe began its quest for recognition in 1888, three years after North Carolina formally recognized it. Congress partially recognized the tribe in 1956 but denied the Lumbees federal benefits given to other American Indians.
The House approved federal recognition for the Lumbees in June. President Barack Obama has pledged to support recognition of the Lumbee Tribe. Other tribes have opposed congressional recognition of the Lumbees, questioning their ability to trace members to a historic tribe.
There are 55,000 Lumbee Indians in Robeson, Cumberland, Hoke and Scotland counties.
The Cherokee have consistently opposed recognition of the Lumbee. More about that here.
STATEWIDE–Tourism promotion is a trendy business, with lots of seminars, theories, conferences and back-patting.
And you’ve heard the resulting catch-phrases: “destination tourism”, in which travelers are drawn to a thing (say the second biggest tree in the southwest corner of the county, or a theme park); “heritage tourism” (visit because of a culture, just not the dominant one); “ecotourism” (find places that are really pristine because no one goes there, then go there); and stay tuned for “civic tourism”, in which travelers find a little town they like and immerse themselves in it, like a hot tub.
Well, heritage tourism, from a state marketing perspective, is getting a little long in the tooth. We saw evidence of that yesterday, when the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which oversees travel and tourism efforts, slashed a bunch of heritage tourism jobs.
Here’s Jordan Schrader’s lead in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
RALEIGH — Budget-trimming lawmakers mostly kept their hands off economic development efforts, figuring North Carolina needs jobs now more than ever.
They made an exception, though, for the employees who promote tourism for the state’s small-town historic and cultural attractions.
Budget knives cut deeply into the jobs known as heritage tourism development officers. Two-thirds of positions were eliminated.
[Rep. Phil] Haire, a Sylva Democrat, and Sen. Joe Sam Queen, a Waynesville Democrat who has been an advocate of adding more heritage tourism positions, said the reduction reflects the Commerce Department’s recommendations for where the budget cuts should fall.
“I think Western North Carolina has come out good on the balance here, but in the priorities of the state, the Commerce Department’s priorities, I think this was just toward the bottom,” Queen said.
Queen hopes the jobs will be restored in a better budget. He’s an advocate for heritage tourism projects like the department’s effort to have the Rutherford Trace designated a national heritage trail.
In 1776, Revolutionary War Gen. Griffith Rutherford led more than 2,000 militiamen from Old Fort to raid and burn Cherokee villages all the way to Murphy. It was a key part of the resistance to the British and their Indian allies, and the beginning of Cherokee removal, Queen said.
Queen said North Carolina’s stories — even violent ones like the Rutherford Trace — need to be told. “There’s no better way to promote your region than to promote your authentic selves,” Queen said.
NATIONAL-The story of pro football star Michael Vick’s incarceration for his involvement in organized dog fighting — and his eventual release and return to the NFL — has excited plenty of comment.
Michael Vick
Some considered it odd that pro ballplayers who have killed others when driving drunk did far less time than Vick.
In today’s Knoxville News Sentinel, though, columnist Ina Hughs takes a look at Vick from a couple of angles, and her main thrust is summed up in this excerpt:
“The second issue this debate raises is a more controversial question: What makes Vick so morally reprehensible?
As Shayne Lee puts it in an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer: It’s true that Americans are fond of dogs, but dogs are animals, and exploiting and killing animals is “as American as Apple iPods.”
In the name of science research, we expose and inject rats and chimps to all sorts of dread illnesses and lethal drugs. We dab mysterious chemicals in their eyes to test our cosmetics, with no clue as to its effect. We make sandwiches out of pigs and slaughter baby cows for scaloppini. We shoot deer for fun and mantel decor.
Fine restaurants drop live lobsters into boiling water.”
Hughs’ point is valid. Sure, dog fighting is ugly. So are a lot of things we take for granted.
This sort of contradiction, or selective outrage, or whatever, is part of what made the recent tempest over Cherokee’s tourist bear pens an eye-roller. Are the bear attractions lowbrow? Sure. Is it a particularly pleasant existence for the bears? No. But if Florida tourists think Cherokee’s pens are the worst thing that happens to black bears in this neck of the woods, they should come back later in the fall.
And if they then argue that the bear shouldn’t be hunted, they should see what’s left of a bear that wanders in front of an 18-wheeler. Bear populations are growing, and they need elbow room.
REGIONAL–Almost every morning in summer, songbirds delight us with a sunrise chorus.
On this day, as I walk in a Great Smoky Mountains spruce-fir forest with Cherokee Middle School science-campers, the avian concert includes the bouncy tunes of a winter wren and endless trills from a slate-colored junco, strangely resembling a cell phone jingle.
Up at around 6,000 feet in elevation, birds that live in an Appalachian high mountain fir forest find food in pines and berry bushes, grab insects on the wing (of which there are plenty here now), and search the leaf litter for moist and meaty invertebrates such as snails.
Contributor Blair Ogburn is Senior Naturalist at Balsam Mountain Preserve. She, her husband Jon and son Sam live in Addie Community
Ground snails feed on leafy vegetation and microscopic soil particles. Amazingly, they are able to gather and store calcium from the soil and soft rock. In spruce-fir habitat, snails make up an important part of a bird’s diet.
Thrushes, from the bird family Turdidae, which includes robins and bluebirds, eat lots of snails while on their nesting grounds. The feeding cycle from soil to snail allows for the production of strong shells (through the collection of calcium carbonate). Birds eat the snails and ingest calcium they can use for their own egg production.
Environmental changes, like an increase in pollution, may potentially alter the makeup of minerals in soil and/or air chemistry. In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, acid deposition is a form of pollution (and a by-product of the coal-fired power plants in NC and TN) that affects high elevation forests and has been shown to alter soil, air, and water chemistry which might affect the food chain.
What if land snail populations were to decline because of acid deposition? This could happen if calcium became unavailable or scarce in the soil. Could thrushes (at the top of the soil/snail/bird food chain) be negatively affected since they gather calcium from eating snails?
These are the kinds of questions being asked by scientists in the Smoky Mountains and around the globe in an effort to monitor and manage natural areas, based on biological data and changing interrelationships.
Today at Clingman’s Dome, just below 6,000 feet in elevation on the North Carolina side of the park, the science campers and I join park rangers to collect data from the spruce-fir habitat. Our goal is to capture snails and birds that live up here, so that they can be identified to species, then recorded and released. Sleepy students come alive as they leave for their “snail shell scavenger hunt”.
Our work will help biologists catalog which snails live here, and which, if any, are being affected by pollution and monitored soil chemistry. Perhaps the process will help to answer important biological questions.
RALEIGH–The union that represents North Carolina state employees and the North Carolina legislative black caucus will announce today a new and apparently invigorated effort to legalize video poker in North Carolina.
Their argument is threefold:
• It’s going to happen anyway, so we may as well regulate it and make money off of it, particularly in these lean times
• No fair that the Cherokee can do it and no one else can
• No fair that the state can run a gambling operation in the form of a lottery, but regulate competition
CHEROKEE–The Festival of Native Peoples will be held July 17 and 18 at the Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds.
The festival is an exposition of non-competitive dance, storytelling, and song performances expressing the collected history, culture, tradition, and wisdom of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Festival of Native Peoples, Cherokee, NC
Entertainment throughout the day will include a replica of an Apache dwelling with audience participation, hoop dancing, flute music, and Cherokee storytellers.
The festival will also play host to one of the southeast’s largest Native American art markets. The Cherokee Indian Art Market will feature more than 50 nationally recognized, juried craftspeople and artisans from around the country displaying and selling their handmade traditional and contemporary works of art. Arts and crafts on display include traditional Cherokee white oak and river cane baskets, black and traditional pottery, wood and stone carvings, paintings, silver and turquoise jewelry. Artists will also demonstrate techniques passed down from generation to generation.
Artists scheduled to appear represent the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Jemez Pueblo, Choctaw, Santo Domingo, Lipan Apache, Dine’, Oglala Lakota, Seminole and Muscogee Nations. Artists will include Darrin Bark, John Grant, Jeanean Hornbuckle, Mary James, Nikki Nations, Joel Queen, Bud Smith, and Mattie Welch Wildcat, Shan Goshorn, Ramona Lossie, Lori Reed, Lucille Lossiah, Betty Maney and Louise Goings among others.
Gates open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily with performances throughout the day. Adult admission $10; children six and under are free. For discount ticket packages or more information, call 800.438.1601.
