Cherokee Religion

The faith of the Cherokee, of the sacred fire and the Green Corn ceremony.

c. 1000 CE → (older roots) · Southern Appalachians · Indigenous & Animist

Cherokee tradition pictures the earth as an island floating on water and hung from the sky by cords. Ceremonies such as the Green Corn festival renew balance and purity, and the sacred fire is kept alive. Kituwah, the mother town, remains a sacred site.

Key figures

• The Great Spirit (Unetlanvhi)
• Grandmother Sun
• The Little People

Texts

• Oral tradition
• Myths recorded by James Mooney (1900)

Beliefs

• The world is an island hung from the sky
• Balance and purity must be kept
• The sacred fire links people to the Creator

Rituals

• The Green Corn ceremony
• Going to the water (purification)
• Keeping the sacred fire

Grew from

• Indigenous American Traditions

Connections in the atlas

• The Trail of Tears
• Little People (Yunwi Tsunsdi’)
• James Mooney
• Crops from a slain body
• Myths of the Cherokee
• The world turtle
• Into the Americas
• The Pleiades as seven sisters
• The hidden sun
• The earth-diver
• The forbidden look
• The eclipse devourer