- Details
- By Jenna Kunze
On the phone from Kansas, Oklahoma, Cherokee Nation citizen Lawrence Panther speaks in his second language, English, explaining how he began teaching his first: Cherokee
“I about lost it, my speaking ability,” Panther told Native News Online. Up until third grade, Panther said he spoke Cherokee fluently with friends and family, and didn’t know English at all. But from the third grade through high school, he was immersed in English through the public school system and boarding school, and Cherokee was spoken less and less.
It wasn’t until he came back home at age 25 that he realized he wasn’t able to roll his tongue when he tried to speak Cherokee. “I had to relearn my language,” he said.
Want more Native News? Get the free daily newsletter today.
Now, he’s one of only 3,000 fluent Cherokee speakers left after the language was nearly eradicated by Indian boarding schools and forced assimilation. A self-taught reader and writer, he’s sharing the language with as many people as he can.
Panther led a free Cherokee language class at the Museum of Native American History (MONAH) in Bentonville, Arkansas on Saturday. It was the second in the museum’s quarterly “Art of the Cherokee Language” series. In the first session remotely streamed while the museum was closed for the pandemic last year, Panther went over Cherokee beginners grammar and vocabulary. His lesson over the weekend focused on conjugations, according to the museum’s director Charlotte Buchanan-Gale.
“It was a lovely mix of people,” Buchanan-Gale, who attended the event Saturday, told Native News Online. “There were some people that had Indigeous heritage, some did not. Some were Cherokee. It wasn’t just elders, there were young people, too,” she said.
Panther is encouraging anyone and everyone interested to join in. The date for the next event hasn’t been set yet, but will likely be early 2022.
“I think it’s very important that we still carry on our language and inform the younger ones who they are, who we are,” Panther said. “The language is very time consuming and a lot of people get discouraged trying to learn it. I encourage anybody, everybody to learn.”
In addition to language courses, MONAH is also hosting a storytelling event from Amy Bluem, member of the Chickasaw Nation, later this month, and a beginner flute workshop with Cherokee Nation flutist Gabby Nagel.
Learn more about MONAH’s events.
More Stories Like This
Native News Weekly (March 26, 2023): D.C. BriefsState-Funded Charter School Says Native 1st-Grader's Traditional Hair Violates Dress Code
Rep. Peltola, Sen. Mullin Introduce Legislation to Protect 2nd Amendment Rights of Native Americans
Navajo Nation Mourns Loss of Former President Ben Shelly
Native American Church Chapter Sues Bank for Racial and Religious Discrimination
12 years of Native News
This month, we celebrate our 12th year of delivering Native News to readers throughout Indian Country and beyond. For the past dozen years, we’ve covered the most important news stories that are usually overlooked by other media. From the protests at Standing Rock and the rise of the American Indian Movement (AIM), to the ongoing epidemic of Murdered and Missing Indigenous People (MMIP) and the past-due reckoning related to assimilation, cultural genocide and Indian Boarding Schools.
Our news is free for everyone to read, but it is not free to produce. That’s why we’re asking you to make a donation this month to help support our efforts. Any contribution — big or small — helps. If you’re in a position to do so, we ask you to consider making a recurring donation of $12 per month to help us remain a force for change in Indian Country and to tell the stories that are so often ignored, erased or overlooked.
Donate to Native News Online today and support independent Indigenous journalism. Thank you.
