Lindsey Bark
Cherokee Phoenix
TAHLEQUAH – The willingness to learn the Cherokee language is prevalent as seen in different immersion programs where most are becoming second-language learners. However, the newly formed Little Cherokee Seeds Program is attempting to create first language Cherokee speakers in infants.
The program was founded in 2018 when Cherokee Nation citizen Melissa Lewis was unable to find resources to help her newborn child learn Cherokee. She reached out to fluent speakers and teachers Cora Flute, Kathy Sierra, Phyllis Sixkiller and Carolyn Swepston to create a reading hour to teach infants the Cherokee language.
In 2019 and 2020 they offered 24 free language classes at three different sites in the Cherokee Nation. When the pandemic happened, they moved their classes to an online platform and the group reflected on the impact of losing fluent speakers during that time.
The women changed their focus from teaching one hour per week to five days per week and two more language advocates – Rebecca Nagle and Alissa Baker – joined the team and they began writing grants to make it happen.
The program’s focus is to meet with mothers and their pre-verbal children and immerse them culturally and linguistically, based on how fluent speakers grew up.
Lewis said the program follows the direction and experiences of fluent Cherokee speakers.
“Our focus is thinking about how speakers learned the language themselves. So we’re trying to create the home environment (of fluent speakers,)” Lewis said.
During a community meeting on Oct. 27, the Little Seeds coordinators met with fluent speakers to get their input. The entire meeting was conducted in the Cherokee language.
Teacher Phyllis Sixkiller said one speaker suggested that if the program starts, its needs to continue without stopping.
“He said if we start and we don’t follow through, the children will see it and they will doubt us and they will doubt the Cherokee language,” Sixkiller said. “They just all kind of agreed that they didn’t learn, it was just a part of them growing up.”
On Nov. 10, five families – a mother and their infant who has yet to start talking – started classes that consist of six-hour days Monday through Friday for the next two and a half years, taking part in day-to-day activities such as cooking, foraging, learning crafts, playing games and doing other seasonal activities entirely in the Cherokee language.
Classes take place at Camp Sevenstar and will mostly be outdoors for activities.
“We’re trying to be, instead of curriculum focused, activity focused,” Lewis said. “During the day we want to do traditional Cherokee seasonal activities. There’s a depth of knowledge from speakers from beading to weaving to making pottery to gigging. We wanted to use this time to try and find some folks that could come to our program and could teach those skills and those activities during that season, all in the Cherokee language.”
Cherokee Nation citizen Merinda Adair is one of the mothers who was accepted into the program with her daughter.
“We’re very excited to see this program go through,” Adair said. “To be able to watch my daughter be a part of a dream to create fluent speakers seems a little unreal. It means a lot they considered us to be a part of this. I feel like it’ll be a good thing for the younger generation and our community to bring these things back that the Little Cherokee Seeds program is offering.”
The program is grant-funded through the American Indian Resource Center.
“The American Indian Resource Center is delighted to sponsor this program,” said AIRC Executive Director Pam Iron. “It is such a joy to be around these women, and young man, because they are the future, large part, of the future of our language. It’s just my humble pleasure to be supportive of this program and to provide the underpinnings. They are doing all of the leadership, and I’m just making sure they have the tools and everything they need to perform this program.”
For more information visit the Little Cherokee Seeds Facebook page.
This article was first published in the Cherokee Phoenix.