Cherokee is a large native nation, “a broad, broad tribe”, whose territory spans both the Spanish and the English spheres. It has its own language and script, is not part of the League of the Five Nations, and is a political power in its own right.
| Type | People |
| Language | Cherokee, with its own script |
| Spanish entry | Cherokee |
Territory
Its territory “touches territories of the Spanish world further south and also reaches the more northern zones”; no other nation crosses both domains. Related groups in the north, who also roam the steppes, are “their great rivals and sometimes enemies”.
Language and song
They have their own language and script, of which Sequoia is “one of the forgers”. Traditional words and songs, sung across their range, keep the people bound together. On the frontier strangers are taught by being sung old stories, as was one named Johnny. Dealings with foreigners begin in Cherokee “but then switch to the common tongue”. By language they belong to “the large group”, whether by common origin or “shared customs”.
Society and beliefs
They are matriarchal (“a culture between matriarchal”, the testimony hesitates) and egalitarian: “a place for each one, so no one will go hungry”. Without any confederation they hold “the power of the Cherokees”.
Their shamans prophesy by reading the bones of the dead. The Cherokee “have something” to do with an Ancient Cap associated with “Indian powers”. They consider that they may be Guardians of a certain door related to the chains — their own claim, not a recognized one.
Relations
They are the great non-confederated actor of the land. Offered an alliance, “the Cherokee said: We don’t want it”; who proposed it is not recorded. They share the land with Los Yonics, the Yanis and the Uropanos, factions separated politically and with unequal access to European goods. The remote past is spoken of as “before Los Yonics existed, before the Cherokees existed”.
”El Cherokee”
A figure called only El Cherokee negotiates in the camp, attempts a healing and doubts it worked (“El Cherokee thinks his healing did not work”), and is described as a bard versed in the magical arts.
Conflicting accounts
- One testimony calls them a “southern indigenous culture” roaming the steppes; another, a “people of the western region”.
- One account holds they were never in the League; another, that “once, perhaps in a remote past” they belonged to a larger confederation, and the five nations were thought possibly “six”.
Open questions
- Their dress, settlements, arms and food are not recorded.
- Whether descent and war decisions run through the maternal or paternal line.
- The medium and users of their script; how bones are read and what a prophecy costs; what the Ancient Cap is.
- Whether El Cherokee is one man or the ethnonym as nickname, and whether the bard-healer and the negotiator are one.