Red Man's Origin

The Legendary Story of His Rise and Fall, His Victories and Defeats and the Prophecy of His Future.
In the world of Native Americans, oral communication takes the place of the written word in preserving their most valued “texts.” By a miracle of transmission, here is the earliest and most complete version of the story of the Cherokee people, from their origins in a land across the great waters to the coming of the white man. In olden times, it was recited at every Great Moon or Cherokee New Year festival so it could be learned by young people and the tribal lore perpetuated. It was set down in English in an Indian Territory newspaper by Cornsilk (the pen-name of William Eubanks) from the Cherokee language recitation of George Sahkiyah (Soggy) Sanders, a fellow Keetoowah Society priest, in 1892. We do not have anything anterior or more authentic than Eubanks and Sanders’ “Red Man’s Origin. Back in print after more than a century, this indispensable reference work is introduced and annotated by Cherokee historian Donald Panther-Yates.