Zeitgeist/Way Dramaturgy Blog for the Oct/Nov 2007 Boston Premiere of The Kentucky Cycle: Cherokee Women and the Matrilineal Kinship System

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Cherokee Women and the Matrilineal Kinship System

Cherokee Women
--by Theda Perdue

Long before the arrival of the white man, women enjoyed a major role in the family life, economy, and government of the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees originally lived in villages built along the rivers of western North Carolina, northwestern South Carolina, northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee. When white men visited these villages in the early 1700s, they were surprised by the rights and privileges of Indian women.

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Glossary (in progress)

BCOA: Bituminous Coal Operators Association, no website for this lobbying and negotiating association. A 1978 Time article said "The B.C.O.A.'s 130 members include large firms" so we know that it represented the bigger mine companies. But its membership in not necessarily a large-company front. "The association is dominated by its biggest members, and many of the small owners complain that the B.C.O.A.'s initial hard-line approach to the bargaining was set by large operators who wanted to break the union."
bituminous coal (click here)
circuit court (click here)
explosion season: dramatic changes in atmospheric pressure during the winter alert period have been linked to the increased release of methane by coal seams in underground mines; cold, dry fall and winter weather also causes the mines to dry out, making the control of coal dust an even greater challenge than during other times of the year.
haint (click here)
Kentucky (click here)
par conditio creditorum: Latin term for the legal principle [in a bankruptcy proceeding] of all common creditors receiving equal treatment (i.e. receiving the same priority in debt-settling)
pemmican: a high energy food developed by the Indians that can be transported easily and lasts for many months (most made from buffalo but occasionally moose and caribou were used) ... meat was dried, pounded into fine texture, then mixed with animal fat and at times berries to create a high calorie, high nutrition food for travelers
poteen (click here)
replevy law: allowed debtors amnesty from creditors for one year if they offered bond and security (enacted by Charles Scott, governor of Kentucky 1808-1812)
roan: a type of coat color found most often in horses, but also other animals, including dogs and cattle. Is is a mixture of white hairs together with a base coat of any darker color. Roan, caused by the roan gene, (R), consists of single white hairs intermingled with the base color of a horse. Roaning gives the horse a lightened appearance, while the mane, tail, head and legs tend to remain darker, close to the original base color. It is a dominant gene, meaning that any individual with at least one copy of the R gene trait will be roan. An implication of the gene's dominance is that at least one parent must be a roan in order to pass the gene on — it cannot appear in offspring of two non-roan parents, even if they have roan ancestors. View roan horses at Google Images.
TVA (click here)
typhoid (click here)