Notebook of a Cherokee Shaman

Abstract

Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya Ga:n(i)sgawi1 was the exemplification of a type institutional in Cherokee culture for well over a hundred years: the medicine man who was also a Christian preacher; who in tribal affairs led in the manner traditionally most acceptable to his people-through precept, persuasion, and selfless activity within the framework of a sanctioned group. Almost his entire existence was expended in the social milieu in which he was born. In the hill-country community in which he resided during most of the years of his maturity, he is remembered with affection. "He was an honest man," say his old acquaintances-and Cherokees know no higher praise than that resident in the various connotations of the word "honest."<br/>Ade:lv (var. ade:la), originally a term for "bead(s)" is the presently employed word for "money"; agh(a)dhí:ya signifies "he (she) watches over it": hence Ade:lagh(a)dhi:ya&amp;equals;"he (she) watches over the bead(s) &#39;money&#39;." In contemporary usage the term equates with "treasurer." The disagreement as to precisely what bird in Oklahoma should be called ga:n(i)sgawi is evidence that the avian called thusly is not native to the country of the Western Cherokee. The true ga:n(i)sgawi is undoubtedly an aquatic bird of the bittern type.<br/>He was born near Jay, Delaware County, Oklahoma about 1896. We have no information as to the identity of his principal master in shamanism. We do know that he was a student of his art when he went into military service during World War I; the notebook under consideration here went with him into battle, and some of the most interesting entries in it pertain to his experiences as a Private in Company I, 358th Infantry. Something of the elemental cast of the man&amp;apos;s mind is revealed in such laconic jottings, as: "&amp;hellip; o:gahlil:gi tsoí:ne igá:i Duli:sdi ghal:i li vgiyo:hlv:gi (&amp;hellip; we fought the third day. On September 11th I was shot)." He never fully recovered from the abdominal wound that he received in France. To the end of his days he walked with a limp, and his wound was a contributing factor to his rather early demise on 3 July 1938.<br/>Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya must always have been something of an idealist. Early in life he became identified with the nativistic Redbird Smith movement2 and was active in its A:mó:hi Fire near his home. It is said that Redbird Smith himself persuaded Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya to take up residence in the southern part of the Cherokee country in order to be closer to the nerve center of the organization which was (and still is) a few miles northeast of Gore, in Sequoyah County.<br/>See Thomas, 1961.<br/>For some reason, Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya came to lose faith in the Redbird Smith movement and removed a few miles north to the Indian community of Gwagwó:hi, in the vicinity of the post office of Barber, in Cherokee County, where he spent the remainder of his life. Here he married and reared a family of eight or nine children, and here he affiliated himself with the Sycamore Tree Cherokee Baptist Church in which he rose to leadership, becoming church secretary, deacon, and a licensed minister. We possess a number of manuscripts in Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya&amp;apos;s precise Sequoyan that pertain to the affairs of the church he served.<br/>Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya was a medicine man before he became a Christian, and he continued to practice his profession after his conversion. We have examined a letter of his to another shaman which is a powerful apologia for the Christian religion. Ade:lagh(a)dhí:ya appears to have been known for no particular specialties. He was a full-fledged dida:hnvwi:sg(i);3 a general practitioner, so to speak. While his reputation was not awesome, it was solid. His medicine was "live," as the Cherokees say. As such collections go, his library of medicomagical manuscripts must have been rather sizable, but it was dispersed at his demise. Although we have managed to recover a part of it, much of it is no doubt irretrievably lost, and that which exists is in a poor state of preservation.<br/>"One who cures (m.a.) them, he (she)."