By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
We hear a bunch about traditional values when it comes to, well, most everything. Many have different perspectives on what that means. Very much like language, ask one language expert about a word or a phrase, and you are sure to find another language expert to say, “That is not the way we would say it.” The same is true of many of what we call Cherokee traditions. Many of our traditions are passed down orally. If you have ever played the gossip game where you line up people and whisper a sentence to one another down the line, you know that by the time the last person announces the sentence, there is little chance that the sentence will sound anything like what it started as in the beginning. Try as we might, we simply fail to memorize sentences, language, and tradition as they were originally seen or conveyed. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying we get really heavy-handed when it comes to tradition.
The bear cage ordinance passed in the most recent session of Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) and is set to be ratified into law {Ord. No. 184 (2026)}. If you are familiar with the format of resolutions and ordinances, you know that a justification, or “whereas”, is put forth, and then a solution or execution, a “therefore”, is put forth. In most cases, the “whereas” section justifies the resolutions proposed in the “therefore” section.
In this case, the “whereas” is based on quotes from a book, “Myths of the Cherokee” by James Mooney, which is actually an extract of a larger annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Mooney, a man of Irish heritage, spent time with the Cherokee people in the late nineteenth century, documenting his interactions and observations from around 1887 through 1990, and then did periodic follow-up visits to tribal lands through 1900 (history.hanover.edu). He would have been interacting with the Eastern Band of Cherokee people roughly a generation after the Cherokee removal effort (May 25, 1838, through 1839). It was likely that he spoke to people who could relate stories from the perspective of a mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather who had directly experienced the pain, fear, and anger that were brought to their land by his people.
I was gently reminded by the staff today that we must not have blinders on when speaking of faith and tradition. In the whereas section of the bear caging ordinance, the author points out the cultural and spiritual significance of bears to Cherokee people. At first read, some of the statements as fact could certainly be considered provocative, particularly when you consider that those statements were references from a book written by a non-Indian working for a federal government entity, no matter how well-intended that documenter might have been. And having talked to our tribal elders a time or two while in service to the community, I was told that when the federal representatives would come to the Qualla Boundary to document us and our behavior, and because there was still lingering distrust of that government, our people would be less than serious and truthful when giving these non-Indians interviews.
Still, when someone expresses their faith and belief, it is important to respect that faith. We all subscribe to a spiritual belief, and most of them require some amount of faith, or trusting in something that you cannot simply prove. My particular faith believes that, at a certain time in history, a snake and a donkey spoke. It is really not that far to jump to believe that bears with human characteristics have a sacred place in Cherokee culture and tradition. They are certainly a part of the modern interpretation of culture and spirituality.
So, we weigh the facts, what we consider to be the truth, and what we are willing to take on faith. And that happens every day of our lives with many things in our lives. It is clear from the eight “whereas” statements in Ord. No. 184 that the author of the legislation believes that bears are sacred and deserving of reverence and special treatment. It is also clear that the author believes that bears “caged or held in captivity for the purposes of exhibiting the bear to the public” should be treated as sacred and that caging them is definitely not reverent or treating them as sacred animals. That is a matter of personal belief and faith, and not for me to argue for or against.
We sell a portion of our culture and tradition every time we allow an outside entity to use our culture for their gain. We sell a portion of our culture and tradition when we take the words of our elders and use them for personal gain, and when we allow others outside of our tribe to appropriate them.
In this instance, in the debate over caging bears, I am not the one to judge what is ethical. I know. Many of you have already got your black robes on and are looking down from the bench. Good for you. But when someone tells me that an animal would die without the care they provide, I must at least pause to consider that before moving on to seeking bans. Keep in mind that we are the same tribe that told Bob Barker and Company to pack up and move on when they sought to tell the tribe how to deal with this issue, and he told us to do it basically in the same fashion we are doing it now.
So, one of my challenges is knowing that, while we are appalled at the thought of bears in small enclosures for the entertainment of the public, we have no qualms about putting a bullet in them (or an elk for that matter) for comparatively the same reason. The only word that would be missing from recreational hunting and a bear zoo is the word “public”. Both are entertainment. It has been decades, if not centuries, since any of us has had to hunt for our food. Do we eat the meat from a kill? Sometimes. Do we use the hides for clothing from a kill? Sometimes. But mostly, we count the “points” on antlers and mount the heads to put in our man…or woman…cave.
In my mind, I keep going back to Dr. Barbara Duncan’s response when asked if we, as Cherokee people, ever hunted elk for sport. She said, “I have no knowledge of Cherokees ever hunting anything just for sport. That would go against traditional values and customs, according to what Cherokee people have told me and what scholars and observers have written”.
One of the whereas statements in Ordinance 184 says that caging bears “is a relic of the past and needs to be remedied”. Maybe so. But we really do mince words when we say we want to be traditional by getting rid of what we imply is a tradition.
I’m not saying Ord. No. 184 is bad law. Again, if it were a trial in court and I were on the jury, I am afraid I would cause a hung jury. While I am 100 percent a proponent of ethical treatment of all animals, big and small, I still think the jury is out concerning what that constitutes. And ethically, I think the tribe should look at all its laws that fly in the face of tradition if it is going to look at one. It is like the old saying about the mother who saw a dirty spot on her child’s face. When she took a wet cloth and cleaned the spot, she realized that the rest of the child’s face was dirty too.
