The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees - Traditional Prayers, Healing Rituals, Sacred Songs, and Ceremonial Knowledge of the Cherokee People

Mooney, Dr James

ISBN 10: 1934451967 / ISBN 13: 9781934451960

Published by A & D Publishing, 2007

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Seller Inventory # ria9781934451960_new

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees - Traditional Prayers, Healing Rituals, Sacred Songs, and Ceremonial Knowledge of the Cherokee People
• Publisher: A & D Publishing
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1934451967
• ISBN 13: 9781934451960
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Drawn from years of fieldwork among Cherokee communities, this landmark ethnographic study preserves a remarkable body of prayers, songs, healing rites, and ceremonial formulas rooted in Cherokee spiritual life. James Mooney recorded the texts primarily in western North Carolina during 1887 and 1888, selecting them from a collection of approximately six hundred formulas concerning medicine, love, hunting, fishing, warfare, agriculture, protection, divination, ball play, and relations with the spirit world.

Presented with Cherokee texts, English translations, explanations of ritual practice, and accounts of the medicine men who preserved them, the formulas reveal a worldview in which physical health, human conduct, nature, dreams, and spiritual power are inseparably connected. Mooney examines sacred plants, healing ceremonies, myths, taboos, charms, and the specialized knowledge transmitted by Cherokee priests and healers.

Originally published by the Bureau of American Ethnology, The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees remains an important historical record of Cherokee language, religion, medicine, and ceremonial tradition. Readers should approach the work within the context of nineteenth-century anthropology and recognize that its interpretations reflect both the valuable observations and the limitations of an outsider writing in that era.

About the Author

James Mooney was an American ethnographer whose extensive fieldwork made him one of the most influential early scholars of Indigenous cultures in North America. Born in Richmond, Indiana, in 1861, he joined the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology in 1885. He spent several seasons living and working among Eastern Cherokee communities in North Carolina, learning the Cherokee language and documenting oral traditions, religious practices, medicinal knowledge, myths, and ceremonial life.Mooney later conducted research among the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other Native nations and produced important studies of the Ghost Dance movement and Kiowa historical traditions. His best-known works include Myths of the Cherokee, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, and The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Although his writings reflect the assumptions and terminology of nineteenth-century anthropology, the linguistic, historical, and cultural materials he recorded remain significant resources for scholars and Indigenous communities.