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'The United Keetoowah Band' of Cherokee Indians are a federally recognized Band of Indians headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The United Keetoowah are also referred to as the UKB.

Contents

Origins

History

UKB membership controversies

Legal

Lawsuits and litigation with the Cherokee Nation

Spiritual leadership

Trivia

See also

External links

References

Origins

The word Keetoowah is the name of an ancient Cherokee town in the (Eastern) Homeland of the Cherokee.
A group of Cherokee traditionalists calling themselves the Keetoowah Society (also called the Keetoowah Nighthawk Society) took advantage of the 1936 Oklahoma Indian General Welfare Act to organize a federally recognized Indian Band called the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. This, for the most part, is composed of "Old Settlers" -- descendants of people who went west a little before the absolute necessity of the Trail of Tears.
The Old Settlers wanted to find a place where they could hunt again. They were too full-blooded and too poor to hold slaves, and favored neutrality in the Civil War.

History

The Dawes commission was tasked to force assimilation and breakup of tribal governments within Oklahoma by instilling the concept of land ownership with individual members of the Five Civilized Tribes. The commission divided large sections of land into tribal allotments in an effort to eliminate the traditional governments of the Cherokee, which at that time were based on a socialist form of government with the lands being controlled by the tribal government. As a consequence of the Dawes Commission programs and policies, the Cherokee culture and society was destabilized and strictly controlled, with presidentially appointed "Chiefs" of the tribe, who were reduced to tribal administrators and who imposed the will of the United States on individual Cherokee citizens in support of the Federal Governments attempts to force assimilation of the Cherokee.
By the 1880s most of the ancient culture had been lost. Then, Cherokee children were prohibited from speaking their own language in communal schools set up by the Federal government during the late 1800s and early 1900s. This resulted in even more of the Cherokee culture becoming lost. The remaining Cherokee during this period in history continued to adopt and integrate cultural practices of other tribes who were being forcibly removed into Oklahoma Territory.
Later a few Cherokee traditional people, in response to the cultural erosion that was occurring, formed a secret society, the Keetoowah Nighthawk Society, and practiced ceremonies and gatherings of the people in secret, in order to avoid censure or reprisal by the United States. This group preserved, re-invented, or revived a bit of the pre-removal culture, ceremonies, and beliefs of the Cherokee. These people and movements later influenced the formation of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in 1946. In modern times, the society and the UKB are no longer a single organization, but have split, as over time many UKB members have joined the Cherokee Nation and the society has grown in modern times, with members who are affiliated with both the Cherokee Nation and the UKB.
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma was the now non-governmental remnant of the Cherokee Government that ended in 1906. There was still the substantial population base and various legal matters (financial and otherwise). The UKB only claimed a small percentage of the total Cherokee Society as members, since over time, the Cherokee intermarried with non-Indians in Oklahoma and were gradually assimilated.
During the formation of the Cherokee Nation, the Congress of the United States ceded all rights and title to the tribal lands, allotments, and right of succession to the Cherokee Nation. The UKB did not own any tribal lands, except for a limited number of original family held land allotments. This despite the fact that the Cherokee Nation, in its current incarnation, was only recognized as recently as 1977, and was recognized through administrative action on the part of the federal government, and the United Keetoowah Band, having organized under the OIWA, was recognized by an act of the US Congress in 1950. True cessation of rights and titles is still a matter of controversy despite the Cherokee Nation's claims of finallity on the matter.

UKB membership controversies

The United Keetoowah Band maintains a one quarter blood requirement. A large number of the UKB Tribal Members are fluent in the Cherokee Language. The United Keetoowah Band requires all members to have verifiable Cherokee blood from either the Dawes rolls or the UKB Base Roll of 1949. The Cherokee Nation, on the other hand, requires an individual have an Indian ancestor on the Dawes Commission Land Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes verifying Indian descent, regardless of how far removed from Indian ancestry they may be. Despite the UKB membership restrictions, the UKB has given out memberships to individuals with no identifiable Cherokee Ancestry. Some of these memberships created significant public controversy.
Some tribal memberships were given in honorary appreciation to several people, but were ended in 1994. While some such recipients were given an enrollment card with a number, Federal Law did not allow these recipients to receive tribal benefits, and they do not appear on official tribal rolls today.
Ward Churchill, a Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, was one grantee of honorary "associate" membership in the UKB; Churchill's public statements that he was a member of the UKB, created some controversy, in part because Churchill often failed to distinguish qualified enrollment from honorary membership. Ward Churchill did not possess an issued CDIB during his membership in the UKB, and hence was not eligible for any federal benefits reserved for Native Americans. The UKB issued a press release in 2005 clarifying the former honorary membership of Churchill, but indicating that those memberships are no longer in force.
Wes Studi, the Famous Cherokee Actor and a Cherokee Nation Citizen, was, allegedly, involuntarily placed on the UKB Tribal Rolls by the tribe without his consent in 2005. Wes Studi was quoted in the Cherokee Phoenix as stating he had never given the UKB permission to place him onto their rolls, and publicly demanded they remove him. The UKB has stated there are no council minutes admitting Wes Studi to the UKB, and deny these allegations as fabricated.

Legal

Recently, the UKB has come under scrutiny and been subjected to prosecution by the State of Oklahoma for allegedly operating illegal gaming facilities off tribal land. The UKB leaders have also been allegedly accused of diversion of funds by its own members. The State of Oklahoma sued the UKB in federal court for operating illegal gaming facilities off of BIA approved tribal lands, since they do not own tribal lands in accorance with briefs submitted to the court by the Cherokee Nation. The lawsuit and prosecution are currently pending in the federal courts in Oklahoma and have been recently remanded to the Indian Gaming Commission for review.[1]

Lawsuits and litigation with the Cherokee Nation

The UKB has sued the United States (but NOT the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma as the Cherokee Nation claims. The Cherokee Nation inserted itself in the lawsuit as an indispensible party) for a share of the proceeds under HR-3534, a bill that required the United States to compensate the Cherokee Nation and two other Oklahoma tribes with claims to the disclaimed drybed lands of the Arkansas River.The legislation set aside ten per cent of each tribes' share of their settlement for other claimant tribes and afforded other claimant tribes an opportunity to file claims within 180 days of the legislation. The UKB filed suit against the United States. The Cherokee moved to intervene and moved to dismiss on the grounds that the Cherokee Nation is an indispensable party that cannot be joined in the litigation due to its sovereign immunity. The Court of Claims granted both the Cherokee's motions. On April 14, 2006, on appeal, the United States sided with the UKB, against the Cherokee Nations of Oklahoma's request for dismissal. The Court of Federal Claims heard the appeal on November 8, 2006. [2] During the State of Oklahoma lawsuit pertaining to the UKB's alleged illegal casino operations, an Indian casino that has been in operation for approximately 19 years,[3] the UKB again was accused of attempting to sue the Cherokee Nation (although specific citation of the suit indicating that the UKB directly sued the Cherokee Nation under these circumstances does not exist) demanding cession of tribal land allotments to the UKB to build casinos. These lawsuits were also dismissed, and it was ruled the UKB is not the successor of right to the assets of the Cherokee People.

Spiritual leadership

The UKB administration is supportive of the tribal members, as many follow the traditional ways, many of the UKB members are spiritual leaders of the Cherokee People and are highly respected. Many highly respected and revered Cherokee traditionalists within Oklahoma are members of both the UKB and the Cherokee Nation ''(See Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni)''.

Trivia

Many Cherokee groups still refer to themselves as "Keetoowah ''(ki-tu'-wa)'' people." The main (now known) ancient name used to describe all of the Cherokee People was ah-ni-yv-wi-ya, which means ' ''the main or principal people'' '.
''"Ease of the Mississippi from whence the Cherokees originally were forced to the Indian Territory (culminating in 1838 and 1839), the town (near Qualla boundary, N. C.) of Kituwha was revered as an important Mother Town of the Cherokees, but its real history and importance was lost already by then. Possibly it was the first stop of the people after coming from what is now southern Canada, but this is unproved.
''At the end of the 1800s, anthropologists noted that on 'ceremonial occasions', Cherokees frequently speak of themselves as Ki-tu-wa-gi," (James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokees, 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington Government Printing Office, 1900, pg. 15) ''
Former Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Chief Dugan confirms this, "One name for the tribe is 'people of ''ki-tu'-wa'." ("Where Myth Meets Reality," Washington Post, Sept 13, 2004)

See also

★ Original Keetoowah Society

External links

★ United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians

References

★ Cherokee Nation Cultural Resource Center, Tahlequah, Okalhoma.

★ ''Cherokee'', ISBN 1-55868-603-7, Graphic Arts Center Publishing

★ ''13 Moons On the Turtles Back. A Native American Year of Moons'', ISBN 0-698-11584-8, Putnam and Grossnet Group, 1997