Kristy Maney Herron, Little Sisters of Resolution, 2017

Steven Scissortail Morales, Southeastern Wayz (Necklace and earrings; earrings not pictured), 2020

From L to R: Little Sisters of Resolution, Kristy Maney Herron; Know Your Enemy, Jeff Edwards; Southeastern Wayz, Steven Scissortail Morales

Community & Autonomy

The works in “Community & Autonomy” reflect the ongoing tensions and conflicts between the internal integrity of Southeastern Native societies and external nonNative jurisdictions that disregard their right of self-determination. Some of the artists represented here reflect the influence of nonNative social institutions that were assimilated into Southeastern tribal societies, often resisted by Indigenous advocates of traditional cultural integrity.

All of the featured artists are descended from Southeast Woodland and Mississippian Mound Builder civilizations. Many works in this theme group reflect how, at the time of European contact they had evolved into tribes, each with familial clans led by clan mothers. Towns of the Southeast had civic features such as council houses and game fields. Yet, due to their adoption of Euro-American ways, Southeastern tribes were called “civilized.”

Some of the pieces reflect how intercultural integration was often a culprit behind illegal treaties made between mixed-blood tribal authorities and the U.S. government to relocate and remove their people from Southeastern homelands to territories in the West. Many of the same part-European tribal leaders also enslaved Africans and favored male dominated tribal leadership in matriarchal societies.

These works suggest that while Southeastern nations are still dealing with internal issues including honoring the rights of women and granting tribal citizenship to Black Native Americans, they still struggle to gain respect, recognition and representation from nonNative governments and mainstream society. Yet, the artists’ references to their heritage in the South in their subject matter represents a current trend for Southeastern Native people to become involved in civic issues that relate to their homelands from afar. Such Native/nonNative interface reflects the Southeastern Native legacy of favoring diplomacy over conflict.

Highlights

Little Sisters of ResolutionKristy Maney Herron

Highlights

Kristy Maney Herron

Cherokee, Eastern Band / Dine’

Little Sisters of Resolution, 2017

In this photograph Kristy Maney Herron documents the teamwork and resolve of two young girls at a lacrosse camp in Cherokee, North Carolina. The camp is led by Native American players of the Georgia Swarm (an Atlanta-based professional lacrosse team). Lacrosse is a little “sister” of the older game of stickball, traditionally played by men with no padding. It was popular in the Southeast long before football and playing fields became an integral feature of towns and villages. Long ago, stickball was part of warrior training and became known as “the little brother of war.” More than a game, the contest was used by Native peoples in the Southeast as a way to resolve tribal conflicts, also called “stickball diplomacy.” Historical accounts indicate that Cherokees won a territorial war with Muscogee Creek in the 1700s by defeating them in a stickball contest, which took place at present-day Ball Ground, Georgia, just north of Atlanta.

Jeff Edwards

Cherokee Nation

Know Your Enemy, 2022

Jeff Edward’s piece features a figure of a “falcon dancer,” inspired by a centuries-old copper plate found at Etowah Mounds (Italwa), northwest of Atlanta, Georgia. The warrior dancer is believed to have represented new ceremonial leaders who empowered their citizen subjects at Italwa. Edwards chose this ancestral image to express the recent outrage of Native Americans that an Oklahoma government official, also a Cherokee Nation citizen, was undermining their authority in the state. This recent issue has reminded Cherokee citizens of the dark days of the 1830s, when Georgia’s antebellum government restricted Cherokee autonomy and their homelands were sold by tribal members. With civic advocacy in mind, Edwards added a shield-like motif with a grandmother spider, a symbol of origins. It reinforces the theme of staying true to one’s community while knowing not all in our “tribe” will be allies.

Know Your EnemyJeff Edwards

Southeastern Wayz (Necklace and earrings; earrings not pictured)Steven Scissortail Morales

Steven Scissortail Morales

Cherokee Nation

Southeastern Wayz, 2020

Steven Morales’s necklace and earring group shows how the “wayz” (rez slang for ways) of Southeastern Indigenous people do not reflect nomadic cultures, but instead, civilizations deeply rooted in their homelands. On the breastplate, silver signifies the time of trade with settlers and copper, the pre-contact era. It illustrates the impression of a typical tribal town with log houses and a cone roof council house. Similarly, two copper roundels depict indelible cultural hallmarks. The one on the left depicts Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah, a metalsmith, while a Southeastern stomp dance is pictured at right. Red clay beads signify homeland ties in the South, corn symbolizes sustenance and renewal, oyster shells represent ancient art forms as silver arrowheads and turquoise reflect modern links with the West.

Exhibition Themes

UpliftedMadison Hye Long