Contents - Editorial articles from our Elders commenting on conditions in the "greater" Cherokee Nation

"The Keetoowah in Oklahoma are not enemies of the mixed bloods who after statehood, "followed the white man's road," nor are they enemies of full bloods who are not Keetoowah" Grace Steele Woodward, THE CHEROKEES, 1963

BACKGROUND

The "Kituwah Spirit" was an ideal of a free and independent Cherokee Nation founded upon the "old way" of liberty, equality, and community... from http://users.rcn.com/wovoka/Pmchap3-07.htm

The Keetoowah Society was possessed of a different vision of what it meant to be a "Cherokee"-- one that stressed the importance of the "old way" in the preservation of the integrity of the individual Cherokee as well as the unity and sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. National unity depended upon the definition of a true "Cherokee" as one bound to a traditional culture and tied to the community by the power of the "Kituwah spirit." The "Kituwah spirit" was a way to transcend the differences between political parties, religious beliefs, skin color, and even clan affiliations; it allowed for the synthesis of the Cherokee people into a total community who though different, lived as one. from http://users.rcn.com/wovoka/Conclsn4.htm

Keetoowah (Nighthawk) Society members with the historic wampum of the Cherokees near Gore, Oklahoma, in 1916.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society