By Robert Jumper with Dr. Barbara Duncan (contributor)
By and large, we claim to be a community that values history and culture. The Cherokee people who live on the Qualla Boundary have roots that go deep in history, some say tens of thousands of years. We have lands that we say memorialize our history, like Kituwah, that tell of the birth of the nation. We just completed a many-year-long quest to regain the Noquisiyi Mound in Franklin, a mystical and culturally significant landmark of the Cherokee people. Along those lines, many Cherokee people have been involved in reclaiming the names of places that were “modified” at or after contact with the outside world. Cherokee names had real-world significance, Kuwohi (formerly Clingman’s Dome) being the most recent example.
So, I have been watching the debate over the prospect of tribal elk hunting evolving. And as I have observed and listened, it was curious to me how much our discussions sounded like the outside world and not that of culturally sensitive people. Surely, one of the intentions of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a major player in the reintroduction of elk to this region, was to build an elk population large enough to hunt, and I am not an anti-hunting advocate at all. It is just that I have questions that so far have received vague responses from our leadership.
So, not being an expert on the traditional hunting practices of the Cherokee, I reached out to Dr. Barbara Duncan for answers. She brought forth things that I never thought of, and I am sure many haven’t bothered to even consider. Barbara retired from 23 years of service in 2019 at the Museum of the Cherokee People as its education director. Her doctorate is in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, and she has written and co-written several books about Cherokee culture and history. She is still lending her time and efforts to the preservation of Cherokee culture and history today. In short, she is a reliable source and I value her insights. She shared her thoughts on the relationship between the elk and the Cherokee people.
Barbara wrote, “Regarding hunting elk for food, profit, or sport”:
— Food- Elk were an important food source for Cherokee ancestors from 15,000 years ago until about 1800 AD, when they became very scarce due to overhunting and loss of habitat. (A recent study analyzed blood on Paleo points from NC and SC and found traces of blood from mammoths/mammoths/mastodons, horses, buffalo, elk, white-tailed deer, bear, and dogs/wolves, about 13,000 to 15,000 years before the present (Moore, C., Kimball, L, et. al. Paleoamerican exploitation of extinct megafauna revealed through immunological blood residue and microwear analysis, North and South Carolina, USA https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36617-z.)
–Food – I would assume that elk were hunted with the same ceremonies and respect as the other animals. We know that prayers were said and gifts were offered in exchange for the animal’s life for food. This whole process was carried out with seriousness and respect. Giving in return for getting something–reciprocity–is a fundamental value of indigenous cultures going back to the days of hunter-gatherers. These traditions are probably thousands of years old. (See information from Swimmer, Inoli, and others from the 1800s, in Myths, Legends, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, ed. James Mooney, 1900.)
–Profit – Things changed in the 1700s, when elk hides became part of the southeastern fur trade. Deer skins were the greatest volume of trade, but the skins of elk, beaver, and buffalo were also traded. Elk hides are heavier than buckskins and very desirable as leather. In the 1800s and 1900s, Cherokees used groundhog hides for heavier leather–on the soles of moccasins, for example. (Artifacts from Qualla collected by M.R. Harrington in 1908 in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.)
–Also, just FYI, elk meat was NOT on the menu of a Thanksgiving Feast at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in 1949. Bear, deer, speckled trout, bison, raccoon, and wild turkey WERE on the menu. This makes me wonder if, by then, people had forgotten about eating elk, or if it was just too hard to get.
–Sport – 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.
Regarding how people kept elk out of their gardens:
–Cherokee women did not tolerate destructive intruders in their gardens. My educated guess is that if an elk got into the garden, they would have killed and eaten the elk, and then the elk in general would have learned to avoid the gardens. (I can say from personal experience that a couple of deer can destroy a vegetable garden overnight.)
–For example, in the 1700s, the trader at Cowee, Galahan, a Scot, raised herds of Cherokee horses from which some were sold in Charleston every spring. The Cherokee women had directed him to keep his horses at a distance from the town and gardens, and William Bartram describes visiting Galahan at his “horse stamp,” an enclosed area outside of town, in 1775. (Bartram’s Travels 1793:354.)
–Deer, elk, and other animals would also have been a problem. The Cherokees kept semi-domesticated herds of deer and flocks of wild turkeys near their towns. They were not penned up and not inside the town, but were encouraged (by feeding) to stay a short distance from the town, where a hunter could easily kill one for food if needed. In other words, they were encouraged to go to a particular spot because they would find food there. Again, my educated guess is that if they wandered into the gardens, they would be shot.
–In the Cherokee gardens, especially those at a little distance from town, platforms were built and occupied by old women who kept watch for crows and other animals that would eat the crops. They also watched for enemies and were sometimes killed by enemies approaching to ambush the town.
These are my thoughts and the evidence I have. Hope this is helpful.”
As we reached out to the readership for comments on whether the elk should be hunted, the overwhelming response was a decisive “no”. Granted, those responses were a mix of community members and off-Boundary readers. And there are some legitimate justifications for killing elk, for example, to stop the destruction of crops and property when other deterrents fail. That form of killing is a separate issue from the recreational, commercial desire to kill elk.
I know that hunting advocates would prefer to term it “hunt” elk instead of “kill” elk, but that is a hard argument to make on the Boundary, where the elk will literally saunter up to vehicles and people. And “hunting” an animal that is roughly the size of a van, that is more likely to give you a lick than gore you, in the confines of the Boundary’s mountains, where there are very few open ranges to make a shot that would give an elk a sporting chance, just seems a little gross and certainly counter to the culture that we claim as Cherokee people.
As our leaders ponder the possibility of instituting elk hunting on the Boundary. – proposed Ord. No. 135 (2026) sits in a tabled state but could be heard and voted on as early as June – urge your representatives to consider the cultural norms of the Cherokee people in their decisions. As Dr. Duncan so expertly pointed out, our people killed out of practical necessity, not for sport.
