The Cherokee
Are the Cherokee part of the lost tribes of Israel?
This is claimed by various groups here in Oklahoma. Some of them made their claims to a rich Jewish man in Tulsa. This Jewish man is involved in many projects, including locating scattered Jewish groups and helping them to return to Israel.
This has been done with several groups of Jews in various places like China, India, Africa, and South America since at least the founding of Ami Shav in 1975. Since 2002, Shavei Israel has been the main NGO (Non Governmental Organization) to carry out this work. However, there has been little effort, if any, to do so in North America.
A mutual friend asked me to meet with this Jewish man for lunch.
Lunch was strange, in that this Jewish man did not want to eat anything, only discuss this claim. He wanted to make a documentary about the Cherokee being part of the lost tribes of Israel, so he could convince the State of Israel to allow Cherokees to make aliyah to Israel under the Law of Return. My friend had told him that I was quite knowledgeable in matters concerning Israel, Jewish concerns, and Native Americans. So, this Jewish man asked me to look into this for him.
I told him that I followed that Prophet, who Moses said we must obey (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). I told him because of this, the Spirit of Truth guides me into all truth (John 16:13). I told him that he did not really need me to help him, because the Spirit of Truth would guide him into the truth about this matter, if he would follow the Messiah of Israel in total surrender.
He sat there in stunned silence. (He was an Orthodox Jew.) After a few moments, he grabbed my hands in his, looked at me with pleading eyes, and asked if I would please look into this for him. I felt that the Spirit of Truth wanted me to do this, so I promised him that I would.
So, I started looking into this as I had promised. I told my friend that I wanted to discuss my initial findings with this Jewish man. My friend told me that this Jewish man was out of the country on business, but he would set up a meeting when this Jewish man returned.
That meeting has not happened, but I did not forget my promise. So, I have looked into this more thoroughly since then. I have even traveled to Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and the United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee, several times since then. Each time I asked various tribal members questions to help with my investigation of the facts.
I do not know if that Jewish man will ever make his documentary about the Cherokee, but here is what I found.
First of all, this is not a new idea.
About 20 years ago, I went on a visit to the Five Civilized Tribes museum in Muskogee. While in the gift shop, I picked up a little booklet about how the Cherokee lived prior to European contact. On page thirteen of the booklet, there was a description of their religion as described by a man who interviewed the Cherokee leaders, not long before they were forced to immigrate to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.
This man, John Howard Payne, recorded that so many of the Cherokee had came into the House of Truth in a short amount of time, because their religion before European contact was much more similar to Christianity than other tribes. This is a summary given of his writing in the booklet:
The Cherokee did not worship idols, or trees and rocks, like most tribes. Instead, they worshiped a three-in-one God that they called "Yahaweah". They had an ancient tradition that Yahaweah came down in the form of a man to interact with people from time to time. So, when missionaries, who had earned their trust, told them about how the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) came down from Heaven to become a man, died for their sins, rose again from the dead, and then returned to Heaven, it was not that strange to them. So within a generation, most of the Cherokee came into the House of Truth.
Now the thing that stood out the most to me was the name "Yahaweah". I asked the Native American lady behind the counter how this name was pronounced. She told me in a matter of fact manner, as if I had asked her how to pronounce an every day English word like "dog", that it was pronounced "Ya-Ha -Wee-Ah". She seemed to have been slightly amused that I was asking her how to pronounce something, which was pronounced the way it was spelled.
The reason that I asked, was because I wanted to know where the syllable breaks were. Her pronunciation confirmed what had caught my attention in the first place. If you transliterated this name into into Hebrew, you would throw out the vowels and be left with YHVH. (The Vwavw makes a sound between V and W, so it sometimes transliterated as V and other times as W.) So, according to what I read in this booklet, the Cherokee worshiped a three-in-one God, who had the same name as the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD).
While I found this interesting and exciting at the time, I really had not looked into this claim by John Howard Payne, until after I promised that Jewish man at lunch to look into this for him.
John Howard Payne was a famous American song writer, poet, playwright, actor, author, and diplomat in the 1800s. He was well known throughout the English speaking world. When he returned to America from London in 1832 AD, he learned of the plight of the Cherokee, who were going to be removed from their land in Georgia. He took up their cause, and petitioned congress to prevent this from happening.
In 1836 AD, John Howard Payne went to live among the Cherokee as the guest of their chief, John Ross. While living there, he began recording everything that he could about the Cherokee, including the dishes that they served for dinner. He also interviewed the oldest members of the tribe to learn as much as he could about their traditions, history and religion. William Abraham Hicks proved to be a wealth of information, particularly about the religion of the Cherokee before European contact.
William Abraham Hicks had served as the interim chief until John Ross was elected, after his brother Charles Renatus ("Born Again") Hicks had died in office. Charles Renatus Hicks had been one of the most educated men in North America, and had one of the largest library of books, public or private, in North America.
Charles had educated his brother William about the Europeans and the European Americans through many discussions. He had also groomed John Ross to become the principle chief and lead the Cherokee in adapting to a world that was going to be dominated by European Americans.
So, William was delighted to have a famous ally, who would help show the European Americans just how well the Cherokee would be able to fit into American society - without being removed from their homes.
Concerning the religion of the Cherokee before European contact, John Howard Payne recorded that William had told him the following facts:
1 ) The Cherokee had not worship idols like some tribes, or rocks and trees, like their neighbors had, but had instead worshiped a god that they commonly referred to as the Great Spirit to outsiders, but referred to as "Yahaweah" in their religious ceremonies. (Israel was commanded this - Leviticus 26:1.)
2) Yahaweah was in three forms, but the three forms never thought or did anything contrary to each other. (Israel was told that their gods were joined together as one YHWH - Deuteronomy 6:4. (It is says this in plain Hebrew.))
3) One of the forms of Yahaweah had a form like a man, but no one could look upon His face. (The people of Israel knew this as well - Exodus 33:18-23).
4) One of the forms of Yahaweah would sometimes come down in the form of a man to interact with people face to face. (This occurred many times among the people of Israel - Genesis 18, Genesis 32:24-30, Exodus 24:9-11, Joshua 5:13-15, Daniel 3:24-26.)
5) One of the forms of Yahaweah was a spirit that was invisible to people, but made things happen. (The people of Israel were also told this - Genesis 1:1-3, Zechariah 4:6-10.)
6) The Cherokee rested on the seventh day of each week. On this day, they would kneel down with their palms raised up to sky and pray to Yahaweah. They would also listen to speeches by the priest, called a U-ku-wi-a-hi, a Uku for short, who admonished them to always obey Yahaweah, because Yahaweah saw everything they did. Lastly, they were not allowed to discuss anything, except things concerning Yahaweah, on the seventh day. (Israel was commanded this - Exodus 20:9-11, Isaiah 58:13-14.)
7) Yahaweah had given the songs that the Uku had first sang to him, but they had been in an ancient language that the Cherokee had lost over time. (Israel did the same thing - Psalm 137:1-4.)
8) The Cherokee had an Ark that they carried a sacred fire in, which was never allowed to go out, and fragments of other holy things, that were evidence of their special relationship with Yahaweah. (Israel was commanded to this - Leviticus 24:1-3, Hebrews 9:4.)
9) The Cherokee had a ritual cleaning that involved self-submergence in running water, whenever they became unclean from killing someone in battle. No warrior could enter the camp until they went through this ritual and were declared clean by a priest. (Israel was commanded this - Numbers 19:16-19.)
10) The Cherokee had originally had different religious festivals given to them by Yahaweah, where they were to learn His commandments, but they had abandoned these festivals to have festivals more similar to other tribes, by the time that the Europeans arrived. (Israel was given the same commandment and did the same thing - Deuteronomy 16:1-15, 2 Chronicles 30:5-8.)
11) The original priests, the Ani-Kutani, were priests by being born into the priestly family, until they became corrupt to the point of being destroyed by the Cherokee, and replaced with the Uku. The Uku had to uphold a higher moral standard than the rest of the Cherokee to maintain their office, and could be replaced if they did not do so. (Israel was commanded this, but the priests became corrupt and were replaced by faithful priests - Numbers 18:1-7, 1 Samuel 2:22-35.)
12) If a man died and his wife had no children, then his brother was to marry her. (Israel was commanded this - Deuteronomy 25:5.)
13) The Cherokee had three cities of refuge that a man, who killed someone by accident, could flee to escape the avenger of blood. (Israel was commanded this - Numbers 35:13-15.)
14) The Cherokee had strict rules about clean and unclean food. These laws kept them from eating pork, until they were forced to do so on the Trail of Tears to avoid starvation. (Israel was commanded this - Leviticus 11.)
15) The Cherokee buried anyone that was executed before nightfall. They also buried anyone who died for any other reason, before nightfall, when possible. (Israel was commanded this - Deuteronomy 21:22-23).
So based on this, John Howard Payne concluded that the Cherokee had to be part of the lost tribes of Israel. He published essays about this in various newspapers, warning people that they had better treat the Cherokee fairly, or disaster would come upon the United States. President Jackson was not persuaded, and began forcibly removing the Cherokee from their homes in 1838 AD.
John Howard Payne never did publish his findings in a book, and was sent as a Consul to Tunisia in 1842 AD. He perhaps intended to publish them upon his return to America, but he died in Tunisia in 1852 AD. Nonetheless, his unpublished papers are considered by historians to be one of the greatest sources of early Cherokee history.
Virtually all claims that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, have their roots in the writings of John Howard Payne. (Many of them use "Ye Ho Waah" instead of "Yahaweah".) This is does not make these claims true.
John Howard Payne, or William Abraham Hicks, could have blended in facts from the Book of Truth (The Bible) with traditional Cherokee religious beliefs, to create the perception that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel. After all, both were very well educated, and very familiar with the Book of Truth.
So, this testimony of John Howard Payne concerning the testimony of William Abraham Hicks is not sufficient evidence by itself to prove that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel. Even if John Howard Payne faithfully recorded what William Abraham Hicks told him, and William Abraham Hicks told him everything as truthfully as he knew, this is still only the testimony of one man. The testimony of one man is not to be taken as conclusive proof (2 Corinthians 13:1).
This testimony of William Abraham Hicks, recorded by John William Payne, needs at least one more witness. However, there are several other witnesses, whose testimony might apply to the Cherokee as well, which collaborate the witness of William Abraham Hicks that John William Payne recorded.
In 1650 AD, Thomas Thorowgood wrote a booklet about the possibility that Native Americans that he encountered in New England were part of the lost tribes of Israel. His reasons include many of the same reasons given by John William Payne, but not all of them. Still, it shows that this idea that at least some of the Native Americans were part of the lost tribes of Israel, started long before William Abraham Hicks gave his testimony.
Roger Williams, who worked to bring Native Americans into the House of Truth from 1631 AD until his death in 1683 AD, gave witness that he agreed with the conclusions of Thomas Thorowgood, based on his own observations of the Native Americans. The same was true about John Eliot, who was an apostle to the Native Americans from 1646 AD until his death in 1690 AD. Jonathan Edwards, who evangelized among Native Americans frequently from 1741 AD until his death in 1758 AD, also agreed with the conclusions of Thomas Thorowgood.
Then in 1735 AD, James Adair, a physician, trader, and historian, went to live among the Native Americans of the Carolinas. He continued to live among them, mostly the Chickasaw, cut off from European American society almost completely, until 1775 AD. Then he published his landmark history book on Native Americans of the Catawba, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muskogee (Creek), and Cherokee tribes. The first half of his book was devoted to evidence, that at least some of the Native Americans that he had encountered, especially the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel.
So there were multiple testimonies by different men, that at least some of the Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel. These observations were further reported by Elias Boudinot, who lead the Cherokee printer with the same name into the House of Truth, in a booklet called "The Star of the West" in 1816 AD.
The observations were also reported by Daniel Sabin Butrick in his book "Indian Antiquities", that contained the history of the Cherokee. He wrote this book from the notes that he taken during interviews with Cherokee elders. He had conducted these interviews from when he first went to live as a missionary among the Cherokee in 1817 AD, until he organized them into a written history in 1830 AD.
However, the very well read William Abraham Hicks, or John Howard Payne, could have read any, or all, of these reports, and then retold them with additional details in 1836 AD.
So, it could be argued that this was all some sort of urban legend. After all, from when Thomas Thorowgood proposed this idea in 1650 AD about Native Americans in general, until John Howard Payne expanded upon it concerning the Cherokee in 1836 AD, all of these advocates of this idea had campaigned for fair treatment of Native Americans. They might have hoped to obtain more fair treatment of Native Americans, by giving testimony that the Native Americans, especially the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel.
These testimonies need another witness in the form of collaborating evidence, to ensure that the same story is not just being repeated over and over in varying forms. If these testimonies are really separate accounts of the same facts, then they should bear up under close scrutiny. Closer scrutiny is needed, starting with what the Cherokee say about themselves and their own oral history.
1. The name of the Cherokee tribe
The Cherokee do not call themselves "Cherokee". This appears to be an English mispronunciation of a Spanish mispronunciation of any of a variety of similar sounding names that other tribes called the Cherokee. (The Choctah called them "Cha-la-kee".) The meaning of the names that these other tribes called the Cherokee usually translate into either something like "people of the mountains" or "people of the cave country".
The Cherokee call themselves "Aniyvwiya". This name is usually translated as "principal people", but it would be just as accurate to translate it as "chosen people". A more literal translation would be "people of Yahaweah".
2. The migration story of the Cherokee
Many tribes of the northeastern United States have migration stories that tell of their ancestors crossing a great water into Alaska, and then migrating southeast from there, on a long journey that ended when they reached the coast of the northeastern United States. This story matches the evidence about the populating of the New World by the First Nations, long before the day when worlds collided in 1492 AD.
However, the migration story of the Cherokee is different in every way.
The Cherokee tell of how their ancestors fled from a land far to east to nine islands of refuge. They lived on these nine islands, until the tops of these nine islands caught on fire. They then fled to west across the great water in nine giant canoes, and watched the world behind them sink into the great water. Two of the canoes were lost in the great water. The other seven canoes landed on the coast of the northeast United States, and those in each canoe became a clan of the Cherokee. Then the clans of the Cherokee migrated west and south from there.
This story is quite possibly accurate oral history like the Viking sagas have proven to be.
The nine islands of the Azores are dead east of the coast of the United States. The southernmost island is almost exactly east of Virginia Beach, Virginia at a distance of about 2,300 miles. The northernmost island less than one half degree north of dead east of Atlantic City, New Jersey at a similar distance. That island about one degree south of dead east of Long Beach, New York, on the southern end of Long Island, at distance of about 2,200 miles. That island is only about four degrees south of dead east of Providence, Rhode Island, at a distance of about 2,100 miles. So the nearest land in the New World to the Azores would be in the Northeast United States, and anyone immigrating there from the Azores would come from the east.
There is evidence of human habitation of the Azores starting about 2000 years ago. The earliest known person in Europe to report their existence was a Jewish mapmaker in the Catalan Atlas in 1375 AD. (This shows that at least some Jews knew where the Azores were, before they were "discovered" by the Portuguese.) They were uninhabited, when the Portuguese first arrived in 1427 AD. Since that time, there have been 15 volcanic eruptions on the islands. There is evidence of a massive eruption on all nine islands that occurred long before the Portuguese arrived, which would have forced anyone who lived there to evacuate.
While the giant canoes could mean ships, it is also possible that they were literally giant canoes. On the fourth journey of Columbus, his brother Bartolomeo reported encountering Native American merchants off the coast of Honduras who had a canoe as large as a galley (at least 167 feet (50 m) long) on July 30, 1502 AD.
The journey from the Azores to the northeast coast of the United States would not be impossible in giant canoes. The Polynesians have regularly made voyages of that distance in much smaller canoes for centuries. The Azores would have appeared to sink into the Atlantic as these giant canoes got further away.
The oral history of other tribes and historical records of European settlers collaborate the migration path of the oral history of the Cherokee as well.
In 1142 AD, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes formed the Iroquois Confederacy under the leadership of Dekanawida (Great Peace Maker), his spokesman Hiawatha, and the mother of the Confederacy, Jigonhsasea. The Cherokee did not join, so they began being pushed out of the Great Lakes area by the Iroquois Confederacy.
In 1540 AD, the Spanish explorer De Soto might have encountered the Cherokee in southwest North Carolina in the town of Chalaque (pronounced "Cha-la-kee"). In 1567 AD, the Spanish explorer Jaun Pardo visited Cherokee towns including Nikwasi, Tocoa, and Kituwa (KeeTooWah) in South Carolina, and southwest North Carolina.
The Mohawks knew of the Cherokee, and called them by their Iroquois name, "Oyata’ge'ronoñ" when the Dutch opened their trading post in upstate New York in 1614 AD. They did not live near the Cherokee at that time, but knew of them from when the Cherokee had lived near them.
In 1654 AD, the settlers at James Town, Virginia, attacked a Cherokee town not far from the coast, who were called "Rechahecrian" by the Pamunkey tribe who assisted them in the attack.
In 1660 AD, the Cherokee took in a band of Shawnee who were fleeing from the Iroquois, because they considered the Shawnee allies from when they had lived among the Algonquin speaking tribes of the northeast United States.
In 1670 AD, German trader James Lederer encountered the Cherokee in western North Carolina, who the Catawba that he traded with called "Rickahockan". In 1690 AD, Cornelius Dority lived among the Cherokee in Virginia not far from James Town.
In 1708 AD, the Lenni Lanape (Delaware) destroyed the last known Cherokee town in the Great Lakes area in the upper Ohio River area in Pennsylvania. The survivors fled south into join the rest of the Cherokee.
3. The clan structure of the Cherokees
The Cherokee have seven clans that correspond to the seven canoes that arrived in the New World. However, several of those clans are contain two or three subdivisions. It is thought that some of these subdivisions were smaller clans joined together to form a clan, or some smaller clans were joined to a larger clan. The Cherokee took great care to keep the size of the seven clans about equal, even killing a member of a second clan to maintain balance, if one of their members accidentally killed a member of the first clan. One clan was separate and in charge of healing, as well as spiritual matters.
So, if the subdivisions were originally different clans, then the Cherokee originally had twelve regular clans and one special clan that dealt with spiritual matters on behalf of the whole tribe. (This would correspond with the people of Israel having twelve regular tribes (the tribe of Joseph was divided into the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim - Joshua 14:4) and one special tribe (the Levites) that dealt with spiritual matters on behalf of the whole nation - Ezekiel 48:2-27.)
4. The Cherokee Language
The Cherokee language is an Iroquois language, which is not surprising considering how long they lived among the Iroquois throughout the Iroquois territory as they migrated west. However, it became almost mutually unintelligible with the other Iroquois languages. It has sounds that do not exist in other Iroquois languages. Some of these sounds are also not found in the languages of the tribes, who they lived among after migrating south to escape the Iroquois Confederacy.
This is not because the Cherokee were isolated from the other Iroquois speaking tribes for a long time. In fact, the last Cherokee to be driven from the land of the Iroquois Confederacy did not leave until 1708 AD. Yet, the Tuscarora tribe was driven back into those same lands in 1715 AD, after being driven out of them hundreds of years earlier, and was able to speak to the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their dialect was mutually understood enough by those five tribes. So, the Tuscarora were allowed to join as the sixth tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1722 AD.
The best explanation by linguists for this much variation, is that the Cherokee originally spoke another language, before they began using the Iroquois language. This would make sense, if they migrated from the northeast United States into Iroquois territory as their oral history states. This would also explain some words and phrases that they appeared to have acquired from Algonquin speakers.
However, there is also evidence of another source language for Cherokee that does not fit the language patterns common to most Native American languages. The rare remnants of this original source language do correspond with their oral history of migrating from lands in the East to the northeast United States long ago.
This foreign language seems to be the least pervasive in the influence of Cherokee, by the time that Sequoia invented the Cherokee syllabary around 1820 AD. The rareness of the remnants of this source language speak of it being the original language of the Cherokees, which would have been the source language to have lost the most influence over time as the Cherokee language evolved.
(Similar to how English evolved from a North Germanic language through the infusion of various other languages. Very few words of the original language are still in use today.)
In fact, the original Cherokee syllabary had an eighty-sixth syllable, which was rarely spoken in 1820 AD, and has completely fallen out use today. That eighty-sixth syllable appears to be one of the last remnants of the original source language, which had remained in use until that time.
However, the rareness of the remnants of this original source language, also make it impossible to clearly identify this original source language from these remnants. It is impossible to determine what that original source language was, if it was not an unknown extinct language. It may or may not have been Hebrew.
6. The traditional clothing and decorations of the Cherokee
Everything about the clothing and customs of the Cherokee were different than all of the tribes around them, when they first made contact with Europeans. They were different in two notable ways.
They had many clothing and decorations that were common among Algonquin speaking people, but not were not worn by either the Iroquois, or the southern tribes like the Muskogee or Choctah. In 1761 AD, Henry Timberlake described some of these decorations that the Cherokee had learned to wear from Algonquin tribes of the northeast United States. Among these were wampum collars and slitting their ears, to stretch them using ornaments like rings and silver pendants. They also pluck out their hair except for a patch in the back, like many of the Algonquin tribes.
The Cherokee also traditionally wore clothing that was not found among other tribes at all, like turbans, broad decorative belts, and cloaks with decorative boarders, according to eye-witness accounts. For example, J. P. Evans gave eye-witness account of this in 1835 AD. Sequoia dressed in this manner, which he said had always been the custom of the Cherokee.
These clothing items were similar to those worn by the Umayyads from the Middle East, who invaded modern Spain and Portugal in 711 AD.
7. The physical appearance of the Cherokee
The physical appearance of the Cherokee were remarkably different than the tribes around them, and other Native Americans in general. These physical difference were noted from the earliest records and consistently recorded. They were noted for being noticeably different in facial features, hair texture, and general body build than other tribes.
Most notable of these differences was their skin color. Eye witness accounts say, that all other Native American tribes either had red skin, similar to that of sun burned white people, in the northern United States, or brown skin in the southern United States (possible darker due to exposure to more sunlight). However, the Cherokee were consistently reported as having olive skin color similar to people of the Mediterranean or Middle East. Every early source that records the appearance of the Cherokee, including that of Henry Timberlake in 1761 AD, states this.
Henry Timberlake also reported that the Cherokee took to rubbing gun powder over their face and arms, and then etching patterns in gunpowder on their skin for decoration. This gave them a black appearance when they did this, but their skin color was still olive.
8. Artifacts in Cherokee lands
A number of artifacts with Hebrew writing have been found in historic Cherokee lands. Five artifacts, called the Newark Holy Stones, were discovered in a cluster of Native American burial mounds near Newark, Ohio in 1860 AD. A sixth artifact, the Bat Creek Stone, was discovered in a Native American burial mound in 1889 AD. All of these artifacts were were found during supervised archeological digs, and all had Hebrew writing on them.
The Hebrew on the artifacts varied between Paleo-Hebrew, which used the Phoenician alphabet, and block Hebrew, which used the Aramaic alphabet. Both versions were possibly in use during the time frame of the migration to the New World by the Cherokee in their oral history. None of the artifacts contained diacritic marks (vowel points and cantillation marks) used by the Masoretic text after about 1000 AD.
Some experts have aged the stones to have been created about the time that the Cherokee arrived in each area, based on carbon dating of other artifacts made of wood found in the same locations. These experts generally regard these artifacts as genuine. However, other experts have concluded that these artifacts are hoaxes.
The truth is, that there is no way age a rock. It is not impossible, that someone manufactured these stone artifacts, and placed them in the dig site to be "discovered", or "discovered" the artifacts themselves. Even if these artifacts are genuine, there is no way to know for certain the identity of the creator of each artifact, although the person they were buried with seems likely. There is no way to identify the person they were buried with either. The person may or may not have been an ancient Cherokee.
So, these artifacts might have been made by ancient Cherokees and then buried with them, but they are at least as likely to have come from some other source. There is simply no way to know the truth about these artifacts at this time.
9. Cherokee DNA
Numerous studies have been done on Cherokee DNA. These studies were done primarily on members of the three federally recognized tribes: The Cherokee Nation and The United Keetoowah Band in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee at the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina.
The studies have produced a very wide genetic profile. In fact, the Cherokee Nation website warns people to not be taken in by people offering DNA testing to prove that they are Cherokee. The fact is, that no distinct Cherokee markers have ever been discovered.
Some Cherokee members, who have documentation showing their linage back to at least 1800 AD, do not have any of genetic markers common to Native Americans. In fact, the DNA of tested Cherokees has been found to be literally, all over the map.
While many showed the expected Native American markers, numerous Cherokee also had Northern European, Middle Eastern, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Mediterranean DNA markers as well. A few even had Oriental and Polynesian DNA markers.
In particular, the Eastern Band of Cherokee at the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina had a DNA profile that was much heavier in Middle Eastern, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Mediterranean DNA markers, than those in Oklahoma. However, there was even a distinguishable difference between the DNA profiles of the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band, even though both tribes are headquartered in the same town!
The reason for this is that the Cherokee have long been noted for their willingness to participate in inter-racial marriage. In fact, Chief John Ross, who lead the Cherokee Nation through the difficult years of the Trail of Tears, settlement in Oklahoma, the Civil War, and reconciliation with the Old Settler Cherokees, was only one eighth Cherokee. Like Wampanoags and Pilgrims, the Cherokee and the Scots particularly got along well, and married each other.
Part of the reason for their willingness to marry people, who are not Cherokees, is their clan system. Each Cherokee is considered a member of the clan of their mother. They may not marry anyone from either their own clan, or the clan of their father. In times and places where the Cherokee population available for marriage had already been low, this restriction reduced the marriage pool even further. This was especially a problem in towns, where most of the people were from only a couple of clans.
On top of that, the Cherokee often divided into groups like Lower Cherokee, Upper Cherokee, and Overhill Cherokee. The leaders of these groups would then forbid members of their group from marrying a Cherokee from any other group. This shrunk an already small marriage pool even more.
However, if someone that was not a Cherokee wanted to marry a Cherokee, they could be "adopted" into one of the eligible clans by a mother in that clan. This adoption model greatly increased the marriage pool. So by the time the Europeans made contact with the Cherokee, they had already been adopting members of various Native American tribes into their clans for the purpose of increasing the marriage pool for hundreds of years.
Separation from each other, and exposure to other ethnic groups, has caused the Cherokee to have a very wide collective DNA profile. The groups of Cherokee, who had the most exposure to other groups for the longest time, have had the greatest opportunity to widen the DNA profile of their group. In like manner, those who were the most isolated with the least exposure, have had the least opportunity.
The requirements of being counted as a member of the tribe, also affects the DNA profile of each federally recognized tribe. The Cherokee Nation requires an ancestor on the Dawes role, or proof of freeman status. The United Keetoowah Band requires a blood quantum of at least one quarter Cherokee ancestry. The Eastern Band simply counts anyone who was born among them since their founding. This has included many people with Portuguese, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Middle Eastern ancestry, who immigrated into the area of the Qualla Boundary (often involuntarily) since they split off from the rest of the Cherokee in 1824 AD.
So, the Eastern Band at the Qualla Boundary has the greatest variation from the typical Native American profile, and the United Keetoowah Band has the least. The Cherokee Nation has the highest occurrence of Northern European DNA among their members.
However, among the Cherokee with DNA closest to a typical Native American profile, they were still found to be genetically different than the other four tribes that they lived among, who make up the Five Civilized Tribes. The DNA of Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole tribes show that their ancestors included Chibcha people, who migrated up from South America through the Caribbean Islands and into Florida, before migrating into Georgia. The DNA of the Chickasaw and Choctah tribes show that they are indistinguishable from most Native Americans in the United States.
So the DNA of the Cherokee does not prove, or disprove, that they are part of the lost tribes of Israel. The truth is, that no one can prove that they are part of the real Israelites with a DNA test. If there is a way to do so based on DNA, it has not been found yet. For this reason, the state of Israel also warns people, against being taken in by people offering DNA testing to prove that they are Jewish. There is no way of knowing, if Israelite ancestry accounts for the differences between Cherokee DNA and typical Native American DNA.
So, in conclusion, there is a lot of evidence that testifies that the Cherokee might be part of the lost tribes of Israel, beyond the assertions of white men, who advocated fair treatment of Native Americans.
In summary, if the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, then a timeline of events similar to this occurred:
Descendants of Israel began fleeing to the Azores to escape persecution, perhaps in waves, mostly likely from modern Portugal, between 100 AD and 750 AD. Volcanic eruptions on the Azores forced these Israelites to flee westward, until they reached the northeast United States around 800 AD. These Israelites began intermarrying with the Algonquin Tribes, and adopting many of their customs. Then they were forced to flee westward into the land of the Iroquois south of the Great Lakes around 1000 AD. They began adapting their language to speak to their Iroquois neighbors. Sometime after five of the Iroquois tribes created the Iroquois confederacy in 1142 AD, the Cherokee began to slowly migrate southward into the southeast United States. This migration continued until the last Cherokee town in the Great Lakes area was destroyed in 1708 AD. The Cherokee had been living among, and intermarrying with Native Americans for about a thousand years, by the time that they made contact with the Europeans. Yet, they still looked distinctly different from all of the Native American tribes around them.
This continual migration and intermarriage with other tribes, would also explain why other tribes throughout the eastern United States would have some traditions similar to those of ancient Israelites. The Cherokee would not have just been influenced in their customs by these tribes, but these tribes would have been influence by the Cherokee as well. This would be similar to how Americans adopted Spring Break from the practice of Jews in America removing the leaven from their homes for Pesach (Passover).
This has already been demonstrated to have possibly happened, but it is not certain. However, some thing are certain, and they are worth considering.
The descendants of Israel were scattered among all ethnic groups, including the Native Americans, where they were a minority in that host ethnic group (Deuteronomy 4:27). They were scattered from one end to the Earth to the other, which would include North America (Deuteronomy 28:64). While living among these host ethnic groups, including Native Americans, they had continual trouble with their neighbors, and be forced to frequently relocate to save their lives (Deuteronomy 28:65-66).
The descendants of Israel have frequently been given over to mingling Hebrew with the languages of these ethnic groups, including Native Americans, to form a new language that speakers of the original languages could not understand (Nehemiah 13:23-24). They have always been inclined to marry from the ethnic groups around them, including Native Americans (Nehemiah 13:25-27).
The descendants of Israel have always been distinctly different from the ethnic groups, including Native Americans, that they were scattered among (Isaiah 66:22). They would never be able to completely assimilate with these nations, including Native Americans, no matter how much they came to look like them through intermarriage (Jeremiah 31:35-37).
So it is certain, that there are descendants of Israel scattered among the Native Americans. It is certain, that there is no better candidate tribe for being these descendants of Israel among the Native Americans, than the Cherokee. It is also certain, that the state of Israel has allowed other people groups with far less evidence of being descendants of Israel, to return to the land of Israel under the Law of Return.
It is very certain, that the Cherokee in 1700 AD looked more like the ancient Israelites, than the white skinned Ashkenazi Jews, who were used to form the Impossible Country of Israel. Yet, it is certain that the Ashkenazi Jews are the real Jews, but they are not all of the descendants of Israel. It is certain that, it is not far fetch to say that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel.
If the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, then the prophecy given by Sequoia, that they will have a final exodus in the future back to the land of their ancestors across the Great Waters, will certainly come to pass.
This is what the Father of Truth will do with all of the descendants of Israel in the future, including those scattered among the Native Americans in North America (Isaiah 11:11-13). If the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, and the state of Israel does not let them return to the land of Israel, then they will return when the Man of Truth comes to rule this Earth, and has all of the descendants of Israel, including those scattered among the Native Americans in North America, finished being gathered to the land of Israel (Mark 13:24-27).
If the Cherokee are not part of the lost tribes of Israel, then they still have hope, for there is hope for the Almodadi. (The Native Americans are descendants of Almodad.)
The Man of Truth has been raised up to give light to all people, including Cherokee people (Isaiah 42:1-6). His suffering on the cross was too great to not include all people, including Cherokee people (Isaiah 49:1-6). He was born to save Cherokee people (Luke 2:27-32)!
The Man of Truth was not born to just save Cherokee people, but to save all the people of the world (John 3:16-17)! He came into the world to save Cherokee people and all other sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)! The Father of Truth sent him to be savior of the Cherokee and the entire world (1 John 4:14)!
Cherokee people, and all people, are saved when they come into the House of Truth (Acts 2:21-24). Cherokee people, and all people, come into the House of Truth when they make the Man of Truth their king, because they believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
This is claimed by various groups here in Oklahoma. Some of them made their claims to a rich Jewish man in Tulsa. This Jewish man is involved in many projects, including locating scattered Jewish groups and helping them to return to Israel.
This has been done with several groups of Jews in various places like China, India, Africa, and South America since at least the founding of Ami Shav in 1975. Since 2002, Shavei Israel has been the main NGO (Non Governmental Organization) to carry out this work. However, there has been little effort, if any, to do so in North America.
A mutual friend asked me to meet with this Jewish man for lunch.
Lunch was strange, in that this Jewish man did not want to eat anything, only discuss this claim. He wanted to make a documentary about the Cherokee being part of the lost tribes of Israel, so he could convince the State of Israel to allow Cherokees to make aliyah to Israel under the Law of Return. My friend had told him that I was quite knowledgeable in matters concerning Israel, Jewish concerns, and Native Americans. So, this Jewish man asked me to look into this for him.
I told him that I followed that Prophet, who Moses said we must obey (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). I told him because of this, the Spirit of Truth guides me into all truth (John 16:13). I told him that he did not really need me to help him, because the Spirit of Truth would guide him into the truth about this matter, if he would follow the Messiah of Israel in total surrender.
He sat there in stunned silence. (He was an Orthodox Jew.) After a few moments, he grabbed my hands in his, looked at me with pleading eyes, and asked if I would please look into this for him. I felt that the Spirit of Truth wanted me to do this, so I promised him that I would.
So, I started looking into this as I had promised. I told my friend that I wanted to discuss my initial findings with this Jewish man. My friend told me that this Jewish man was out of the country on business, but he would set up a meeting when this Jewish man returned.
That meeting has not happened, but I did not forget my promise. So, I have looked into this more thoroughly since then. I have even traveled to Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and the United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee, several times since then. Each time I asked various tribal members questions to help with my investigation of the facts.
I do not know if that Jewish man will ever make his documentary about the Cherokee, but here is what I found.
First of all, this is not a new idea.
About 20 years ago, I went on a visit to the Five Civilized Tribes museum in Muskogee. While in the gift shop, I picked up a little booklet about how the Cherokee lived prior to European contact. On page thirteen of the booklet, there was a description of their religion as described by a man who interviewed the Cherokee leaders, not long before they were forced to immigrate to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.
This man, John Howard Payne, recorded that so many of the Cherokee had came into the House of Truth in a short amount of time, because their religion before European contact was much more similar to Christianity than other tribes. This is a summary given of his writing in the booklet:
The Cherokee did not worship idols, or trees and rocks, like most tribes. Instead, they worshiped a three-in-one God that they called "Yahaweah". They had an ancient tradition that Yahaweah came down in the form of a man to interact with people from time to time. So, when missionaries, who had earned their trust, told them about how the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) came down from Heaven to become a man, died for their sins, rose again from the dead, and then returned to Heaven, it was not that strange to them. So within a generation, most of the Cherokee came into the House of Truth.
Now the thing that stood out the most to me was the name "Yahaweah". I asked the Native American lady behind the counter how this name was pronounced. She told me in a matter of fact manner, as if I had asked her how to pronounce an every day English word like "dog", that it was pronounced "Ya-Ha -Wee-Ah". She seemed to have been slightly amused that I was asking her how to pronounce something, which was pronounced the way it was spelled.
The reason that I asked, was because I wanted to know where the syllable breaks were. Her pronunciation confirmed what had caught my attention in the first place. If you transliterated this name into into Hebrew, you would throw out the vowels and be left with YHVH. (The Vwavw makes a sound between V and W, so it sometimes transliterated as V and other times as W.) So, according to what I read in this booklet, the Cherokee worshiped a three-in-one God, who had the same name as the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD).
While I found this interesting and exciting at the time, I really had not looked into this claim by John Howard Payne, until after I promised that Jewish man at lunch to look into this for him.
John Howard Payne was a famous American song writer, poet, playwright, actor, author, and diplomat in the 1800s. He was well known throughout the English speaking world. When he returned to America from London in 1832 AD, he learned of the plight of the Cherokee, who were going to be removed from their land in Georgia. He took up their cause, and petitioned congress to prevent this from happening.
In 1836 AD, John Howard Payne went to live among the Cherokee as the guest of their chief, John Ross. While living there, he began recording everything that he could about the Cherokee, including the dishes that they served for dinner. He also interviewed the oldest members of the tribe to learn as much as he could about their traditions, history and religion. William Abraham Hicks proved to be a wealth of information, particularly about the religion of the Cherokee before European contact.
William Abraham Hicks had served as the interim chief until John Ross was elected, after his brother Charles Renatus ("Born Again") Hicks had died in office. Charles Renatus Hicks had been one of the most educated men in North America, and had one of the largest library of books, public or private, in North America.
Charles had educated his brother William about the Europeans and the European Americans through many discussions. He had also groomed John Ross to become the principle chief and lead the Cherokee in adapting to a world that was going to be dominated by European Americans.
So, William was delighted to have a famous ally, who would help show the European Americans just how well the Cherokee would be able to fit into American society - without being removed from their homes.
Concerning the religion of the Cherokee before European contact, John Howard Payne recorded that William had told him the following facts:
1 ) The Cherokee had not worship idols like some tribes, or rocks and trees, like their neighbors had, but had instead worshiped a god that they commonly referred to as the Great Spirit to outsiders, but referred to as "Yahaweah" in their religious ceremonies. (Israel was commanded this - Leviticus 26:1.)
2) Yahaweah was in three forms, but the three forms never thought or did anything contrary to each other. (Israel was told that their gods were joined together as one YHWH - Deuteronomy 6:4. (It is says this in plain Hebrew.))
3) One of the forms of Yahaweah had a form like a man, but no one could look upon His face. (The people of Israel knew this as well - Exodus 33:18-23).
4) One of the forms of Yahaweah would sometimes come down in the form of a man to interact with people face to face. (This occurred many times among the people of Israel - Genesis 18, Genesis 32:24-30, Exodus 24:9-11, Joshua 5:13-15, Daniel 3:24-26.)
5) One of the forms of Yahaweah was a spirit that was invisible to people, but made things happen. (The people of Israel were also told this - Genesis 1:1-3, Zechariah 4:6-10.)
6) The Cherokee rested on the seventh day of each week. On this day, they would kneel down with their palms raised up to sky and pray to Yahaweah. They would also listen to speeches by the priest, called a U-ku-wi-a-hi, a Uku for short, who admonished them to always obey Yahaweah, because Yahaweah saw everything they did. Lastly, they were not allowed to discuss anything, except things concerning Yahaweah, on the seventh day. (Israel was commanded this - Exodus 20:9-11, Isaiah 58:13-14.)
7) Yahaweah had given the songs that the Uku had first sang to him, but they had been in an ancient language that the Cherokee had lost over time. (Israel did the same thing - Psalm 137:1-4.)
8) The Cherokee had an Ark that they carried a sacred fire in, which was never allowed to go out, and fragments of other holy things, that were evidence of their special relationship with Yahaweah. (Israel was commanded to this - Leviticus 24:1-3, Hebrews 9:4.)
9) The Cherokee had a ritual cleaning that involved self-submergence in running water, whenever they became unclean from killing someone in battle. No warrior could enter the camp until they went through this ritual and were declared clean by a priest. (Israel was commanded this - Numbers 19:16-19.)
10) The Cherokee had originally had different religious festivals given to them by Yahaweah, where they were to learn His commandments, but they had abandoned these festivals to have festivals more similar to other tribes, by the time that the Europeans arrived. (Israel was given the same commandment and did the same thing - Deuteronomy 16:1-15, 2 Chronicles 30:5-8.)
11) The original priests, the Ani-Kutani, were priests by being born into the priestly family, until they became corrupt to the point of being destroyed by the Cherokee, and replaced with the Uku. The Uku had to uphold a higher moral standard than the rest of the Cherokee to maintain their office, and could be replaced if they did not do so. (Israel was commanded this, but the priests became corrupt and were replaced by faithful priests - Numbers 18:1-7, 1 Samuel 2:22-35.)
12) If a man died and his wife had no children, then his brother was to marry her. (Israel was commanded this - Deuteronomy 25:5.)
13) The Cherokee had three cities of refuge that a man, who killed someone by accident, could flee to escape the avenger of blood. (Israel was commanded this - Numbers 35:13-15.)
14) The Cherokee had strict rules about clean and unclean food. These laws kept them from eating pork, until they were forced to do so on the Trail of Tears to avoid starvation. (Israel was commanded this - Leviticus 11.)
15) The Cherokee buried anyone that was executed before nightfall. They also buried anyone who died for any other reason, before nightfall, when possible. (Israel was commanded this - Deuteronomy 21:22-23).
So based on this, John Howard Payne concluded that the Cherokee had to be part of the lost tribes of Israel. He published essays about this in various newspapers, warning people that they had better treat the Cherokee fairly, or disaster would come upon the United States. President Jackson was not persuaded, and began forcibly removing the Cherokee from their homes in 1838 AD.
John Howard Payne never did publish his findings in a book, and was sent as a Consul to Tunisia in 1842 AD. He perhaps intended to publish them upon his return to America, but he died in Tunisia in 1852 AD. Nonetheless, his unpublished papers are considered by historians to be one of the greatest sources of early Cherokee history.
Virtually all claims that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, have their roots in the writings of John Howard Payne. (Many of them use "Ye Ho Waah" instead of "Yahaweah".) This is does not make these claims true.
John Howard Payne, or William Abraham Hicks, could have blended in facts from the Book of Truth (The Bible) with traditional Cherokee religious beliefs, to create the perception that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel. After all, both were very well educated, and very familiar with the Book of Truth.
So, this testimony of John Howard Payne concerning the testimony of William Abraham Hicks is not sufficient evidence by itself to prove that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel. Even if John Howard Payne faithfully recorded what William Abraham Hicks told him, and William Abraham Hicks told him everything as truthfully as he knew, this is still only the testimony of one man. The testimony of one man is not to be taken as conclusive proof (2 Corinthians 13:1).
This testimony of William Abraham Hicks, recorded by John William Payne, needs at least one more witness. However, there are several other witnesses, whose testimony might apply to the Cherokee as well, which collaborate the witness of William Abraham Hicks that John William Payne recorded.
In 1650 AD, Thomas Thorowgood wrote a booklet about the possibility that Native Americans that he encountered in New England were part of the lost tribes of Israel. His reasons include many of the same reasons given by John William Payne, but not all of them. Still, it shows that this idea that at least some of the Native Americans were part of the lost tribes of Israel, started long before William Abraham Hicks gave his testimony.
Roger Williams, who worked to bring Native Americans into the House of Truth from 1631 AD until his death in 1683 AD, gave witness that he agreed with the conclusions of Thomas Thorowgood, based on his own observations of the Native Americans. The same was true about John Eliot, who was an apostle to the Native Americans from 1646 AD until his death in 1690 AD. Jonathan Edwards, who evangelized among Native Americans frequently from 1741 AD until his death in 1758 AD, also agreed with the conclusions of Thomas Thorowgood.
Then in 1735 AD, James Adair, a physician, trader, and historian, went to live among the Native Americans of the Carolinas. He continued to live among them, mostly the Chickasaw, cut off from European American society almost completely, until 1775 AD. Then he published his landmark history book on Native Americans of the Catawba, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muskogee (Creek), and Cherokee tribes. The first half of his book was devoted to evidence, that at least some of the Native Americans that he had encountered, especially the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel.
So there were multiple testimonies by different men, that at least some of the Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel. These observations were further reported by Elias Boudinot, who lead the Cherokee printer with the same name into the House of Truth, in a booklet called "The Star of the West" in 1816 AD.
The observations were also reported by Daniel Sabin Butrick in his book "Indian Antiquities", that contained the history of the Cherokee. He wrote this book from the notes that he taken during interviews with Cherokee elders. He had conducted these interviews from when he first went to live as a missionary among the Cherokee in 1817 AD, until he organized them into a written history in 1830 AD.
However, the very well read William Abraham Hicks, or John Howard Payne, could have read any, or all, of these reports, and then retold them with additional details in 1836 AD.
So, it could be argued that this was all some sort of urban legend. After all, from when Thomas Thorowgood proposed this idea in 1650 AD about Native Americans in general, until John Howard Payne expanded upon it concerning the Cherokee in 1836 AD, all of these advocates of this idea had campaigned for fair treatment of Native Americans. They might have hoped to obtain more fair treatment of Native Americans, by giving testimony that the Native Americans, especially the Cherokee, were part of the lost tribes of Israel.
These testimonies need another witness in the form of collaborating evidence, to ensure that the same story is not just being repeated over and over in varying forms. If these testimonies are really separate accounts of the same facts, then they should bear up under close scrutiny. Closer scrutiny is needed, starting with what the Cherokee say about themselves and their own oral history.
1. The name of the Cherokee tribe
The Cherokee do not call themselves "Cherokee". This appears to be an English mispronunciation of a Spanish mispronunciation of any of a variety of similar sounding names that other tribes called the Cherokee. (The Choctah called them "Cha-la-kee".) The meaning of the names that these other tribes called the Cherokee usually translate into either something like "people of the mountains" or "people of the cave country".
The Cherokee call themselves "Aniyvwiya". This name is usually translated as "principal people", but it would be just as accurate to translate it as "chosen people". A more literal translation would be "people of Yahaweah".
2. The migration story of the Cherokee
Many tribes of the northeastern United States have migration stories that tell of their ancestors crossing a great water into Alaska, and then migrating southeast from there, on a long journey that ended when they reached the coast of the northeastern United States. This story matches the evidence about the populating of the New World by the First Nations, long before the day when worlds collided in 1492 AD.
However, the migration story of the Cherokee is different in every way.
The Cherokee tell of how their ancestors fled from a land far to east to nine islands of refuge. They lived on these nine islands, until the tops of these nine islands caught on fire. They then fled to west across the great water in nine giant canoes, and watched the world behind them sink into the great water. Two of the canoes were lost in the great water. The other seven canoes landed on the coast of the northeast United States, and those in each canoe became a clan of the Cherokee. Then the clans of the Cherokee migrated west and south from there.
This story is quite possibly accurate oral history like the Viking sagas have proven to be.
The nine islands of the Azores are dead east of the coast of the United States. The southernmost island is almost exactly east of Virginia Beach, Virginia at a distance of about 2,300 miles. The northernmost island less than one half degree north of dead east of Atlantic City, New Jersey at a similar distance. That island about one degree south of dead east of Long Beach, New York, on the southern end of Long Island, at distance of about 2,200 miles. That island is only about four degrees south of dead east of Providence, Rhode Island, at a distance of about 2,100 miles. So the nearest land in the New World to the Azores would be in the Northeast United States, and anyone immigrating there from the Azores would come from the east.
There is evidence of human habitation of the Azores starting about 2000 years ago. The earliest known person in Europe to report their existence was a Jewish mapmaker in the Catalan Atlas in 1375 AD. (This shows that at least some Jews knew where the Azores were, before they were "discovered" by the Portuguese.) They were uninhabited, when the Portuguese first arrived in 1427 AD. Since that time, there have been 15 volcanic eruptions on the islands. There is evidence of a massive eruption on all nine islands that occurred long before the Portuguese arrived, which would have forced anyone who lived there to evacuate.
While the giant canoes could mean ships, it is also possible that they were literally giant canoes. On the fourth journey of Columbus, his brother Bartolomeo reported encountering Native American merchants off the coast of Honduras who had a canoe as large as a galley (at least 167 feet (50 m) long) on July 30, 1502 AD.
The journey from the Azores to the northeast coast of the United States would not be impossible in giant canoes. The Polynesians have regularly made voyages of that distance in much smaller canoes for centuries. The Azores would have appeared to sink into the Atlantic as these giant canoes got further away.
The oral history of other tribes and historical records of European settlers collaborate the migration path of the oral history of the Cherokee as well.
In 1142 AD, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes formed the Iroquois Confederacy under the leadership of Dekanawida (Great Peace Maker), his spokesman Hiawatha, and the mother of the Confederacy, Jigonhsasea. The Cherokee did not join, so they began being pushed out of the Great Lakes area by the Iroquois Confederacy.
In 1540 AD, the Spanish explorer De Soto might have encountered the Cherokee in southwest North Carolina in the town of Chalaque (pronounced "Cha-la-kee"). In 1567 AD, the Spanish explorer Jaun Pardo visited Cherokee towns including Nikwasi, Tocoa, and Kituwa (KeeTooWah) in South Carolina, and southwest North Carolina.
The Mohawks knew of the Cherokee, and called them by their Iroquois name, "Oyata’ge'ronoñ" when the Dutch opened their trading post in upstate New York in 1614 AD. They did not live near the Cherokee at that time, but knew of them from when the Cherokee had lived near them.
In 1654 AD, the settlers at James Town, Virginia, attacked a Cherokee town not far from the coast, who were called "Rechahecrian" by the Pamunkey tribe who assisted them in the attack.
In 1660 AD, the Cherokee took in a band of Shawnee who were fleeing from the Iroquois, because they considered the Shawnee allies from when they had lived among the Algonquin speaking tribes of the northeast United States.
In 1670 AD, German trader James Lederer encountered the Cherokee in western North Carolina, who the Catawba that he traded with called "Rickahockan". In 1690 AD, Cornelius Dority lived among the Cherokee in Virginia not far from James Town.
In 1708 AD, the Lenni Lanape (Delaware) destroyed the last known Cherokee town in the Great Lakes area in the upper Ohio River area in Pennsylvania. The survivors fled south into join the rest of the Cherokee.
3. The clan structure of the Cherokees
The Cherokee have seven clans that correspond to the seven canoes that arrived in the New World. However, several of those clans are contain two or three subdivisions. It is thought that some of these subdivisions were smaller clans joined together to form a clan, or some smaller clans were joined to a larger clan. The Cherokee took great care to keep the size of the seven clans about equal, even killing a member of a second clan to maintain balance, if one of their members accidentally killed a member of the first clan. One clan was separate and in charge of healing, as well as spiritual matters.
So, if the subdivisions were originally different clans, then the Cherokee originally had twelve regular clans and one special clan that dealt with spiritual matters on behalf of the whole tribe. (This would correspond with the people of Israel having twelve regular tribes (the tribe of Joseph was divided into the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim - Joshua 14:4) and one special tribe (the Levites) that dealt with spiritual matters on behalf of the whole nation - Ezekiel 48:2-27.)
4. The Cherokee Language
The Cherokee language is an Iroquois language, which is not surprising considering how long they lived among the Iroquois throughout the Iroquois territory as they migrated west. However, it became almost mutually unintelligible with the other Iroquois languages. It has sounds that do not exist in other Iroquois languages. Some of these sounds are also not found in the languages of the tribes, who they lived among after migrating south to escape the Iroquois Confederacy.
This is not because the Cherokee were isolated from the other Iroquois speaking tribes for a long time. In fact, the last Cherokee to be driven from the land of the Iroquois Confederacy did not leave until 1708 AD. Yet, the Tuscarora tribe was driven back into those same lands in 1715 AD, after being driven out of them hundreds of years earlier, and was able to speak to the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their dialect was mutually understood enough by those five tribes. So, the Tuscarora were allowed to join as the sixth tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1722 AD.
The best explanation by linguists for this much variation, is that the Cherokee originally spoke another language, before they began using the Iroquois language. This would make sense, if they migrated from the northeast United States into Iroquois territory as their oral history states. This would also explain some words and phrases that they appeared to have acquired from Algonquin speakers.
However, there is also evidence of another source language for Cherokee that does not fit the language patterns common to most Native American languages. The rare remnants of this original source language do correspond with their oral history of migrating from lands in the East to the northeast United States long ago.
This foreign language seems to be the least pervasive in the influence of Cherokee, by the time that Sequoia invented the Cherokee syllabary around 1820 AD. The rareness of the remnants of this source language speak of it being the original language of the Cherokees, which would have been the source language to have lost the most influence over time as the Cherokee language evolved.
(Similar to how English evolved from a North Germanic language through the infusion of various other languages. Very few words of the original language are still in use today.)
In fact, the original Cherokee syllabary had an eighty-sixth syllable, which was rarely spoken in 1820 AD, and has completely fallen out use today. That eighty-sixth syllable appears to be one of the last remnants of the original source language, which had remained in use until that time.
However, the rareness of the remnants of this original source language, also make it impossible to clearly identify this original source language from these remnants. It is impossible to determine what that original source language was, if it was not an unknown extinct language. It may or may not have been Hebrew.
6. The traditional clothing and decorations of the Cherokee
Everything about the clothing and customs of the Cherokee were different than all of the tribes around them, when they first made contact with Europeans. They were different in two notable ways.
They had many clothing and decorations that were common among Algonquin speaking people, but not were not worn by either the Iroquois, or the southern tribes like the Muskogee or Choctah. In 1761 AD, Henry Timberlake described some of these decorations that the Cherokee had learned to wear from Algonquin tribes of the northeast United States. Among these were wampum collars and slitting their ears, to stretch them using ornaments like rings and silver pendants. They also pluck out their hair except for a patch in the back, like many of the Algonquin tribes.
The Cherokee also traditionally wore clothing that was not found among other tribes at all, like turbans, broad decorative belts, and cloaks with decorative boarders, according to eye-witness accounts. For example, J. P. Evans gave eye-witness account of this in 1835 AD. Sequoia dressed in this manner, which he said had always been the custom of the Cherokee.
These clothing items were similar to those worn by the Umayyads from the Middle East, who invaded modern Spain and Portugal in 711 AD.
7. The physical appearance of the Cherokee
The physical appearance of the Cherokee were remarkably different than the tribes around them, and other Native Americans in general. These physical difference were noted from the earliest records and consistently recorded. They were noted for being noticeably different in facial features, hair texture, and general body build than other tribes.
Most notable of these differences was their skin color. Eye witness accounts say, that all other Native American tribes either had red skin, similar to that of sun burned white people, in the northern United States, or brown skin in the southern United States (possible darker due to exposure to more sunlight). However, the Cherokee were consistently reported as having olive skin color similar to people of the Mediterranean or Middle East. Every early source that records the appearance of the Cherokee, including that of Henry Timberlake in 1761 AD, states this.
Henry Timberlake also reported that the Cherokee took to rubbing gun powder over their face and arms, and then etching patterns in gunpowder on their skin for decoration. This gave them a black appearance when they did this, but their skin color was still olive.
8. Artifacts in Cherokee lands
A number of artifacts with Hebrew writing have been found in historic Cherokee lands. Five artifacts, called the Newark Holy Stones, were discovered in a cluster of Native American burial mounds near Newark, Ohio in 1860 AD. A sixth artifact, the Bat Creek Stone, was discovered in a Native American burial mound in 1889 AD. All of these artifacts were were found during supervised archeological digs, and all had Hebrew writing on them.
The Hebrew on the artifacts varied between Paleo-Hebrew, which used the Phoenician alphabet, and block Hebrew, which used the Aramaic alphabet. Both versions were possibly in use during the time frame of the migration to the New World by the Cherokee in their oral history. None of the artifacts contained diacritic marks (vowel points and cantillation marks) used by the Masoretic text after about 1000 AD.
Some experts have aged the stones to have been created about the time that the Cherokee arrived in each area, based on carbon dating of other artifacts made of wood found in the same locations. These experts generally regard these artifacts as genuine. However, other experts have concluded that these artifacts are hoaxes.
The truth is, that there is no way age a rock. It is not impossible, that someone manufactured these stone artifacts, and placed them in the dig site to be "discovered", or "discovered" the artifacts themselves. Even if these artifacts are genuine, there is no way to know for certain the identity of the creator of each artifact, although the person they were buried with seems likely. There is no way to identify the person they were buried with either. The person may or may not have been an ancient Cherokee.
So, these artifacts might have been made by ancient Cherokees and then buried with them, but they are at least as likely to have come from some other source. There is simply no way to know the truth about these artifacts at this time.
9. Cherokee DNA
Numerous studies have been done on Cherokee DNA. These studies were done primarily on members of the three federally recognized tribes: The Cherokee Nation and The United Keetoowah Band in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee at the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina.
The studies have produced a very wide genetic profile. In fact, the Cherokee Nation website warns people to not be taken in by people offering DNA testing to prove that they are Cherokee. The fact is, that no distinct Cherokee markers have ever been discovered.
Some Cherokee members, who have documentation showing their linage back to at least 1800 AD, do not have any of genetic markers common to Native Americans. In fact, the DNA of tested Cherokees has been found to be literally, all over the map.
While many showed the expected Native American markers, numerous Cherokee also had Northern European, Middle Eastern, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Mediterranean DNA markers as well. A few even had Oriental and Polynesian DNA markers.
In particular, the Eastern Band of Cherokee at the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina had a DNA profile that was much heavier in Middle Eastern, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Mediterranean DNA markers, than those in Oklahoma. However, there was even a distinguishable difference between the DNA profiles of the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band, even though both tribes are headquartered in the same town!
The reason for this is that the Cherokee have long been noted for their willingness to participate in inter-racial marriage. In fact, Chief John Ross, who lead the Cherokee Nation through the difficult years of the Trail of Tears, settlement in Oklahoma, the Civil War, and reconciliation with the Old Settler Cherokees, was only one eighth Cherokee. Like Wampanoags and Pilgrims, the Cherokee and the Scots particularly got along well, and married each other.
Part of the reason for their willingness to marry people, who are not Cherokees, is their clan system. Each Cherokee is considered a member of the clan of their mother. They may not marry anyone from either their own clan, or the clan of their father. In times and places where the Cherokee population available for marriage had already been low, this restriction reduced the marriage pool even further. This was especially a problem in towns, where most of the people were from only a couple of clans.
On top of that, the Cherokee often divided into groups like Lower Cherokee, Upper Cherokee, and Overhill Cherokee. The leaders of these groups would then forbid members of their group from marrying a Cherokee from any other group. This shrunk an already small marriage pool even more.
However, if someone that was not a Cherokee wanted to marry a Cherokee, they could be "adopted" into one of the eligible clans by a mother in that clan. This adoption model greatly increased the marriage pool. So by the time the Europeans made contact with the Cherokee, they had already been adopting members of various Native American tribes into their clans for the purpose of increasing the marriage pool for hundreds of years.
Separation from each other, and exposure to other ethnic groups, has caused the Cherokee to have a very wide collective DNA profile. The groups of Cherokee, who had the most exposure to other groups for the longest time, have had the greatest opportunity to widen the DNA profile of their group. In like manner, those who were the most isolated with the least exposure, have had the least opportunity.
The requirements of being counted as a member of the tribe, also affects the DNA profile of each federally recognized tribe. The Cherokee Nation requires an ancestor on the Dawes role, or proof of freeman status. The United Keetoowah Band requires a blood quantum of at least one quarter Cherokee ancestry. The Eastern Band simply counts anyone who was born among them since their founding. This has included many people with Portuguese, North African, Sub-Sahara African, and Middle Eastern ancestry, who immigrated into the area of the Qualla Boundary (often involuntarily) since they split off from the rest of the Cherokee in 1824 AD.
So, the Eastern Band at the Qualla Boundary has the greatest variation from the typical Native American profile, and the United Keetoowah Band has the least. The Cherokee Nation has the highest occurrence of Northern European DNA among their members.
However, among the Cherokee with DNA closest to a typical Native American profile, they were still found to be genetically different than the other four tribes that they lived among, who make up the Five Civilized Tribes. The DNA of Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole tribes show that their ancestors included Chibcha people, who migrated up from South America through the Caribbean Islands and into Florida, before migrating into Georgia. The DNA of the Chickasaw and Choctah tribes show that they are indistinguishable from most Native Americans in the United States.
So the DNA of the Cherokee does not prove, or disprove, that they are part of the lost tribes of Israel. The truth is, that no one can prove that they are part of the real Israelites with a DNA test. If there is a way to do so based on DNA, it has not been found yet. For this reason, the state of Israel also warns people, against being taken in by people offering DNA testing to prove that they are Jewish. There is no way of knowing, if Israelite ancestry accounts for the differences between Cherokee DNA and typical Native American DNA.
So, in conclusion, there is a lot of evidence that testifies that the Cherokee might be part of the lost tribes of Israel, beyond the assertions of white men, who advocated fair treatment of Native Americans.
In summary, if the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, then a timeline of events similar to this occurred:
Descendants of Israel began fleeing to the Azores to escape persecution, perhaps in waves, mostly likely from modern Portugal, between 100 AD and 750 AD. Volcanic eruptions on the Azores forced these Israelites to flee westward, until they reached the northeast United States around 800 AD. These Israelites began intermarrying with the Algonquin Tribes, and adopting many of their customs. Then they were forced to flee westward into the land of the Iroquois south of the Great Lakes around 1000 AD. They began adapting their language to speak to their Iroquois neighbors. Sometime after five of the Iroquois tribes created the Iroquois confederacy in 1142 AD, the Cherokee began to slowly migrate southward into the southeast United States. This migration continued until the last Cherokee town in the Great Lakes area was destroyed in 1708 AD. The Cherokee had been living among, and intermarrying with Native Americans for about a thousand years, by the time that they made contact with the Europeans. Yet, they still looked distinctly different from all of the Native American tribes around them.
This continual migration and intermarriage with other tribes, would also explain why other tribes throughout the eastern United States would have some traditions similar to those of ancient Israelites. The Cherokee would not have just been influenced in their customs by these tribes, but these tribes would have been influence by the Cherokee as well. This would be similar to how Americans adopted Spring Break from the practice of Jews in America removing the leaven from their homes for Pesach (Passover).
This has already been demonstrated to have possibly happened, but it is not certain. However, some thing are certain, and they are worth considering.
The descendants of Israel were scattered among all ethnic groups, including the Native Americans, where they were a minority in that host ethnic group (Deuteronomy 4:27). They were scattered from one end to the Earth to the other, which would include North America (Deuteronomy 28:64). While living among these host ethnic groups, including Native Americans, they had continual trouble with their neighbors, and be forced to frequently relocate to save their lives (Deuteronomy 28:65-66).
The descendants of Israel have frequently been given over to mingling Hebrew with the languages of these ethnic groups, including Native Americans, to form a new language that speakers of the original languages could not understand (Nehemiah 13:23-24). They have always been inclined to marry from the ethnic groups around them, including Native Americans (Nehemiah 13:25-27).
The descendants of Israel have always been distinctly different from the ethnic groups, including Native Americans, that they were scattered among (Isaiah 66:22). They would never be able to completely assimilate with these nations, including Native Americans, no matter how much they came to look like them through intermarriage (Jeremiah 31:35-37).
So it is certain, that there are descendants of Israel scattered among the Native Americans. It is certain, that there is no better candidate tribe for being these descendants of Israel among the Native Americans, than the Cherokee. It is also certain, that the state of Israel has allowed other people groups with far less evidence of being descendants of Israel, to return to the land of Israel under the Law of Return.
It is very certain, that the Cherokee in 1700 AD looked more like the ancient Israelites, than the white skinned Ashkenazi Jews, who were used to form the Impossible Country of Israel. Yet, it is certain that the Ashkenazi Jews are the real Jews, but they are not all of the descendants of Israel. It is certain that, it is not far fetch to say that the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel.
If the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, then the prophecy given by Sequoia, that they will have a final exodus in the future back to the land of their ancestors across the Great Waters, will certainly come to pass.
This is what the Father of Truth will do with all of the descendants of Israel in the future, including those scattered among the Native Americans in North America (Isaiah 11:11-13). If the Cherokee are part of the lost tribes of Israel, and the state of Israel does not let them return to the land of Israel, then they will return when the Man of Truth comes to rule this Earth, and has all of the descendants of Israel, including those scattered among the Native Americans in North America, finished being gathered to the land of Israel (Mark 13:24-27).
If the Cherokee are not part of the lost tribes of Israel, then they still have hope, for there is hope for the Almodadi. (The Native Americans are descendants of Almodad.)
The Man of Truth has been raised up to give light to all people, including Cherokee people (Isaiah 42:1-6). His suffering on the cross was too great to not include all people, including Cherokee people (Isaiah 49:1-6). He was born to save Cherokee people (Luke 2:27-32)!
The Man of Truth was not born to just save Cherokee people, but to save all the people of the world (John 3:16-17)! He came into the world to save Cherokee people and all other sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)! The Father of Truth sent him to be savior of the Cherokee and the entire world (1 John 4:14)!
Cherokee people, and all people, are saved when they come into the House of Truth (Acts 2:21-24). Cherokee people, and all people, come into the House of Truth when they make the Man of Truth their king, because they believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
Labels: Cherokee, Israel, Lost Tribes, Native Americans
posted by The House Of Truth @ November 11, 2017
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