Returning to the River

The Cherokee Diaspora's Hydrospheric Connections

Bibliographic Data

ID3891971
AuthorsGregory D Smithers (Virginia Commonwealth University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume25
Issue1
Pages37-63
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1044-2057 • E-ISSN: 1911-1568
PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/diaspora.25.1.2025.02.12
OpenAlexW4410582771
LanguageEN
References cited67

This article reveals how Cherokees are reconnecting with rivers. The following analysis draws from Cherokee cosmo-epistemologies, posthumanism, and the methodological agility of ethnohistory, to argue that members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are encouraging Cherokees at home in Southern Appalachia and in the diaspora to do as their ancestors did: be attentive to, and care for, a local uweyv (river), uweyvi (stream), immokalee (waterfall or tumbling water), or ama ganugogv (spring). By returning to the river -or "going to water" -Cherokees at home in the mountain South and those living in the diaspora can unite in recognizing that ama gvnida (water is life). Today, in an age of climate crisis, Cherokees are forming partnerships with non-Cherokee scientists to reclaim spiritual and scientific connections to the riverine ecosystems that their ancestors saw as central to cosmocentric understandings of the world. This reclamation is not without its cautionary tales, but in returning to the river Cherokees are working to help riparian spaces thrive so that Cherokees seven generations into the future will inherit healthy, life-giving waterways

Archaeology · Cherokee · Diaspora · Geography · Sociology · Anthropology · Archaeology and Natural History · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Latin American and Latino Studies

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