Andrews Many people recently related the story of the first Thanksgiving, of how pilgrims and natives gathered to share a meal.
Many also hopefully took a chance to celebrate Native American Indian Heritage Month. One good way to do that is to learn more about the history of the Cherokee language and efforts to preserve it as a native tongue.
Documentarian Brooks Bennett said the reception was “the best moment of my career. And it was a gift from God for everyone who could who was featured in the film to attend. We were all left speechless after the screening. What a blessing.”
Three years in the making, the documentary A Sacred Thread premiered in Robbinsville. It explores the once-imminent loss of native speakers of the Cherokee language, plus efforts to revitalize and teach the language in the Snowbird community of Graham County.
Born from an initial visit along with his wife, Chelsea, to witness the 2017 eclipse, Bennett’s experience at Huckleberry Knob and in visiting mask carver BJ Welch’s shop in Robbinsville led him to want to learn more about the Cheoah Boundary and the Cherokee presence in Graham County.
‘No idea of the history’
A native North Carolinian, Bennett had already been in a working relationship with PBS-NC and filmed several shows, such as focusing on cooking and tourism. When he became involved with the Matriarch Mural in Robbinsville, he also wanted to learn about the tribal efforts to preserve the Cherokee language.
“On our visit in 2017, we saw these signs in the syllabary. I didn’t realize there was also a Cherokee presence in Graham County. I’d traveled to 90 of the 100 counties in North Carolina, but had no idea of the history here,” Bennett said.
“BJ Welch began telling me about how the land was ‘checker-boarded’ around Snowbird, and I became intrigued with learning more. Working with the Matriarch Mural gave me more exposure to the Cherokee culture in and around Robbinsville.”
That exposure also led Bennett to meet Cassidy Chekelelee, who the film follows practicing and teaching the language.
A Sacred Thread also serves as a chronicle of the history of the Snowbird Cherokee, documenting their inhabiting the land against several removal attempts. As Chekelelee describes in the film, “Snowbird is almost like the true sense of where Cherokee people come from. Snowbird is a kind of untouched Cherokee, a closer representation of who we were in the past.”
Snowbird experience
The film features native speaker and Beloved Woman Ella Bird and Gil Jackson, as well as cultural resources supervisor Angelina Jumper of the Junaluska Museum and Welch, Bennett’s initial source of inspiration.
Bennett said his experience with the Snowbird Cherokee was “important to document their preservation of their language. When I was working on the Matriarch Mural project, I noticed that the common thread between all the women being portrayed for their importance to the tribe was the language, and I wanted to showcase their efforts to preserve it since there are only about 156 native speakers alive today, and their average age is 65.
“Time is critical to the language program to ensure future speakers.”
‘I’ll be out in front’
Chekelelee is crucial to that future and, by his own admission in the film, from beginning to learn the language at 12 years of age to teaching others the language, that future is dear to him and his own family, as he is shown speaking Cherokee with his daughter. He takes that mantle seriously.
“It feels like the language is a tool to figure out who I am as a Cherokee person,” he said. “I’ll be out in front. I’ll be there to protect what they would be afraid would be lost if they pass.”
Following Chekelelee through his teaching endeavors in the first two-year program for adults that partners elders with learners, which is also known as Dadiwonisi language program, the film goes on to chronicle the growing season at JC Wachacha‘s garden in Snowbird. Several members of the community gather to teach and learn the old ways and traditions of intercropping, fishing and speaking the language.
Bennett sought to use the garden as the metaphor for the reappearance and growing interest in the native language.
“The film’s seasons are that main metaphor also in-line with the Cherokee world view, from what people have told me, in that life is not linear, but we also reap what we sow. In sowing these seeds, in what we plant in the garden is the direct line of inquiry I wanted to pose with the film,” he said. “What they’ve sown they harvest or reap at the end of the language program. We see fruits of preservation.”
Preservation is also tantamount to Bennett’s interests in western North Carolina in general – but the Cherokee land in particular, precipitating his and his wife’s move here from Raleigh.
“Growing up in Raleigh, you saw things demolished all the time. I grew up with horse and cow pastures and fields on either side of me, but those fields are now McMansions and shopping centers. I used to use my dad’s video camera to document things that were being destroyed. I did urban art, I skateboarded and in doing those I saw places demolished and built over,” he said.
“I wanted to showcase the beauty of this area of North Carolina, almost pristine, preserved and untouched, and that’s the other portion of the film I wanted to show. The love and care of the land that the Snowbird have taken and shown.”
‘Thread is in your hands’
Bennett hopes the film resonates with every local resident. He urges viewers to “pick up that sacred thread for yourself and learn some of the language, further explore the history of this area and to understand the common bonds we share.”
Those bonds were explored when the group Common Ground of Murphy showed the film in late August. Emceed by group leader Karah Thompson and held at the Cherokee County Arts Council in Murphy, the screening was well attended.
Afterward, Thompson broke the attendees into small groups to explore the themes of the film and discuss the commonalities we all share. That. Includes exploration of the emigration, the forcing of native languages not to be spoken by either institutional or familial structures and to engage with the emergence of a long-overlooked history in our area.
Though Bennett was unable to attend this screening of the film in Cherokee County, he looks forward to viewers’ engaging with the film and making larger strides to connect with native culture and history.
“With our move here, I’ve learned that I’m related to people who got married in the Murphy courthouse. I’ve learned to respect the conscious preservation of this area and to learn my place in it,” he said.
“This is happening all around us here, and you can learn to connect more fully with hopefully more knowledge of what came before, thousands of years ago up until now. The thread is in your hands.”
Details: Visit pbs.org/show/a-sacred-thread.