After Visiting Cherokee, NC

The first thing I saw said, “Let Cherokee History depend on God, not alcohol!” with a big exclamation mark at the end. There was a cartoon bottle, and a pair of hands descending from a hastily painted heavens—the whole sign looked simultaneously furious, slapdash, and oddly quaint. I suppose all of those words could be used to describe the current state of Cherokee nation itself. As I was thinking about all of this, our ancient minivan pulled over the next hill and we entered Cherokee, NC, one of the oldest post-colonial settlements of Indians in the country.

Of course, both the Judeo-Christian God and alcohol were imposed upon the Cherokee nation by white settlers. The salvation the sign promised from white interventionism was just itself another form of white interventionism. I don’t doubt that the Cherokee themselves realized this, but it was still another sad reminder of the destructive effect we’ve had on other cultures, even those indigenous to what we would call home. Even the form of the sign—lettering in English, festooned with western-style illustrations—was derivative of American and European culture. The sign alone left me wondering how much harm we did to traditional Cherokee culture just by our presence.

This worry only intensified once we drove onto the main street. Combining the worst elements of both a state fair during the daytime and the gift shop of a Wild-West-themed amusement park, the street was almost painful to look at. At every corner, “native” dancers prepared to throw down for a couple of bucks. The stores were filled with cartoon redskins, “mystical” souvenirs, and, most perplexingly, beach towels. A store was actually called “DISCOUNT CIGARETTES.” Most depressingly, though, were the two largest buildings on the street: a closed amusement park with a tattered sign up proclaiming it “Santa-Land,” and a casket factory. Accurate or not, the juxtaposition sent the strange message that the Cherokee were killing themselves with the same things they were profiting off of. This point would only be strengthened by our visit to the casino. 

The casino was a disgustingly modern-looking building, and sadly the center of the reservation. Sparkling monitors recreated pat renditions of creation myths, with an animated eagle creating first the mountain range on the reservation, then the forest, and finally the casino itself. Although the reservation itself is dry, alcohol is allowed at the casino, and a horde of pasty tourists stumbled in and out of the elevators, mumbling drunkenly. Perhaps the grimmest symbol of American oppression and influence on the land was in the casino lobby: A Paula Deen restaurant. “It was modeled after Paula Deen’s own kitchen!” blurted our corpulent tour guide cheerfully.

Speaking of our tour guide: she was utterly white, oblivious to native culture, and filled with a level of enthusiasm about the casino that could charitably be called excessive. She rarely talked about Cherokee or reservation life, of course. Most of what she said was focused on the juggernaut of the casino, and how it kept itself afloat and expanding. The things she did say about Cherokee life ranged from being oblivious to actively offensive. I tried to keep a running tally of the latter, but I lost track between her assertion that the casino carpets were remodeled with earth tones and curves to make them “a representation of Cherokee culture” and her belief that legalizing alcohol for sale to residents of the reservation would be a boon to most of the tribe and would have no negative effects associated with it. While the guide undoubtedly didn’t mean any wrong, I could see centuries of white interventionism reflected upon her doughy face.

I’m admittedly unfairly representing the reservation a bit. We also went to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, one of the best museums I’ve been to in my life. It was vibrant, full of pathos, and well designed. Still, even the museum gave off a sense of regret and loss for the traditional life. “The white race is a wicked race [and needs to be] forever crushed” Tecumseh says in a speech quoted by the Museum. One can’t help but wonder what would have happened had the Cherokee fulfilled his words.