Ani - Yunwiya

Ani - Yunwiya - The real people

The Cherokee, who called themselves Ani - Yunwiya
("the real people" or "the principal people"),
were organized in settlements scattered in fertile bottom lands
among the craggy peaks of the Great Smokey Mountains.
The Cherokees took public opinion so seriously that
they usually split their villages when they became too large
to permit each adult a voice in council.
In the early eighteenth century,
the Cherokee Nation comprised sixty villages in five regions,
with each village controlling its own affairs.
Villages sent delegates to a national council
only in times of national emergency:
The villages averaged three hundred to four hundred persons each;
at about five hundred people, a village usually split in two.

In Cherokee society, each adult was regarded
as an equal in matters of politics.
Leadership titles were few and informal.
When Europeans sought "kings" or "chiefs"
with whom to negotiate treaties,
they usually did not understand that whomever
they were speaking with could not compel allegiance
or obedience of others.

As among the Iroquois,
each Cherokee was a member of a matrilineal clan:
Wolf, Deer, Bird, Blue, Red Paint, Wild Potato, or Twisters.
The clans formed an intervillage kinship system
which linked them in peaceful coexistence.
As in many other confederacies, a clan system cemented the confederacy,
giving it a strength and enduring quality
that prevented a high degree of local autonomy
from degenerating into anarchy.

Wa do
~whitewolfe~