Returning to the River: The Cherokee Diaspora's Hydrospheric Connections

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.