Matthew Tooni performs beautiful flute music at the Annual Fading Voices Festival in Tutiyi (Snowbird) on May 25, 2024. (SCOTT MCKIE B.P./One Feather photos)
By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – At last year’s Kituwah Celebration, the gentle sounds of a flute could be heard wisping through the air at the ancient Mother Town of the Cherokee. The beautiful sounds were being performed by Matthew (Matt) Tooni, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), who always brings beautiful music and a passion for Cherokee language and culture wherever he goes.
Tooni’s flute music and storytelling has been featured at EBCI inaugurations, community events such as the Kituwah Celebration, groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting events for the EBCI, as well as countless performances throughout western North Carolina and beyond.
He is also an accomplished artist making gourd and turtle shell rattles and is a member of Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual, Inc., a cooperative comprised entirely of EBCI artists. According to his profile on Qualla’s website, “Matt doesn’t live in the past, he acknowledges it through his crafts.”
Tooni states on that site, “What’s now known as art once had a practical purpose, and now that purpose is to connect us to our history.”
Tooni tells a Cherokee story during the 20th Annual Cherokee Voices Festival at the Museum of the Cherokee People in Cherokee, N.C. on June 10, 2017.
In an audio interview for the Center for Cultural Preservation, he spoke to the importance of cultural preservation. “It’s who we are. We’ve been doing it for well over 10,000 years or so, and it’s survived. It’s thrived up until this point. And, even through a lot of westernized cultural influences from American society and before that, British, and Colonial society, our culture has managed to thrive.”
Tooni is also a gifted storyteller. In that same interview, he noted the importance of Cherokee traditional stories. “To keep that connection to where you live; to keep that connection to who you are…if it wasn’t for these stories, we wouldn’t know how to conduct ourselves. Not all of them have morals to them, but there’s something about them – it ties yourself to the place you live in. It gives you a stronger and deeper connection.”
He has taught Cherokee language classes and encourages people to use the language all the time.
In 2019, he addressed Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) with other members of CALL (Cherokee Adult Language Learners) on the topic of Cherokee language. “Learn as much as you can. The days of thinking ‘I’m too old to learn’ are over as well as any other excuse that we may have. It’s done with.”
On that day, he said preservation of the Cherokee language has to be a group effort, and he referenced the concept of Gadugi. “That can’t stand as an idea if we just come together during catastrophes and tragedies. It’s an all the time thing, and this language is a part of that.”
Tooni is a well-known flute player and recorded an album in 2017 entitled “Through Their Eyes Vol. 1” which garnered a nomination in the Flutist of the Year category at the Native American Music Awards (NAMMYs). Following his nomination, he told the One Feather, “My music is something that has become very important to me. I know that sounds cliché’, but it’s true. I have found an exceedingly great amount of inspiration from my culture. I believe that it helps me to express what I feel about that particular subject. Everything that comes from our hearts is genuine inspiration. That’s what my music is to me.”
For many years, he has been a cast member of the “Unto These Hills” outdoor drama production by the Cherokee Historical Association.
On the drama, he is quoted on the Visit Cherokee website as follows, “I think the importance of people coming to see ‘Unto These Hills’ is to gain an understanding about what happened in American history and in Cherokee history, because it’s connected.”
He adds, “The message is so telling. We’re still here. We haven’t gone anywhere. Most folks come in with the mindset that Cherokee are a distant memory. We tell them, ‘no, we’re here’.”
And, Tooni makes sure that everyone he comes in contact with is aware that Eastern Band Cherokee people are still in their ancestral homeland and are not going anywhere.
His last quote on Visit Cherokee sums up his messaging, “We’re still here, and we’re thriving.”
