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SAGWU/ONE: A CALL TO ASSEMBLE
On the White Path home
dark soil gifts our dances back.
Songs rise up like corn,
turtle shell shackles shake history.
White and purple beads weave us to remember
strength that gifts our dances back.
From our ancestors' bodies
we rise up like corn.
The White Path home
gifts back our dances.
Hope, rise up
like corn.
Come on all you Two-Spirit people. Hurry!
 n Oklahoma, Stomp Dance is a central ceremonial
practice for Cherokees and other Native people from the
Southeastern "United States." The Stomp Dance is
performed to maintain duyuktv—balance, truth,
justice—a central idea to traditional Cherokee
worldviews. Wilma Mankiller tells us, "There is an old
Cherokee prophecy which instructs us that as long as the
Cherokees continue traditional dances, the world will
remain as it is, but when the dances stop, the world
will come to an end" (29, 1993). This essay is modeled
on a Stomp Dance, based on descriptions by Cherokee
ethnomusicologist Charlotte Heth. Stomp Dances begin
with a call to assemble, and so I would like to call us
together, as Cherokee Two-Spirit people, to reflect on
and imagine what it means to be who we are.
Specifically, because of the nature of this collection,
I want to call together male-embodied Cherokee
Two-Spirits to think about the very important
obligations we have to rebalance gender systems through
working to end sexism, transphobia, and queerphobia in
our communities.
 As we assemble, I know that there are non-Cherokees and
non-Two-Spirit people who are also with us, listening to
this story. I would like to ask our guests to sit and
just listen from a distance, understanding that because
I'm speaking to other Cherokee Two-Spirits/GLBTQ folks,
that there are many questions, issues, and terms that I
won't be explaining here. And since I brought up
terminology, I would like to say to other Cherokee
Two-Spirit people that we need to remember that gender
systems before invasion and colonization were not the
same as they are now. While we subsume same-sex
relationships and gender "non-conformity" under the
umbrella of "Two-Spirit," it is difficult to say if
these identities were linked together in the past. There
are numerous experiences and identities that we shove
under terms like "Two-Spirit" or "Queer" or "GLBT." I've
heard several different terms to talk about these
identities in Cherokee, but I am going to use
"Two-Spirit" as my umbrella term here, knowing that not
all of us use this term for ourselves any more than all
of us use any of the other terms available to us in
English. All of these terms and ideas are slippery and
complicated, but "Two-Spirit" carries with it a
particular commitment to decolonization and Indigenous
histories and identities that is at the center of this
particular telling.
This story—in the form of a Stomp Dance—emerges from
conversations and experiences with other Cherokee
Two-Spirits, as well as from other Native Two-Spirit
people. Over the years, my Cherokee Two-Spirit friends
and I have been imagining who we are through
conversations with each other and through a commitment
to decolonial projects. Cherokee Two-Spirit people are
currently involved in a complex process of asserting our
identities through strengthening memories of our past,
committing to who we in our present, and imagining who
we want to be in the future.
Because I weave wampum records, I find the metaphor of
re-weaving a wampum belt a useful way to think about
this particular point in the recovery, creation, and
maintenance of who we are as Cherokee Two-Spirits. While
many Cherokees have forgotten the importance of wampum
records, at one time they were central to Cherokee
diplomatic relationships, legal agreements, and
record-keeping. There are seven wampum belts that remain
important to Cherokee Stomp Dance communities, and they
are used to remember and transmit central religious
teachings. One of these belts depicts a white path
against a field of purple beads, symbolizing the
importance of walking duyuktv, of moving through
life on a path of peace, justice, and balance... (continue reading)
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2 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
Siyo Oginali Wado for this great essay! While I am not a twospirit ,I too believe that acceptence of and re-intigration of two spirit people into our society is essential to the recovery of the harmony of all our people. I live in NE Oklahoma and have found it encouraging to see more open twospirits taking part in dances and ceremonies.I have yet to see any adopt the others clothes but have seen several participate in cross gender activities.I believe your comments on pre-colonializing (Round here we refer to it as de-Yoneging) our selfs to be pertinant to all Cherokee folks. Again Wado an Happy Trails, Jisdu
ᏏᏲ ᎣᎩᎾᎵ! ᏩᏙ for your comment. So glad to hear from another Cherokee supportive of 2spirit folks. And I *love* the term "de-Yoneging." ᏩᏙ for that!
Qwo-Li