[gentle music] [gentle music continues] [gentle music continues] [birds chirping] [wind chimes dinging] [Ella speaking in Cherokee] [Ella continues speaking in Cherokee] [Ella continues speaking in Cherokee] [wind chimes dinging] [Ella continues speaking in Cherokee] [gentle music continues] [gentle music continues] [branch cracks] - The place we're going to is where our family members were buried.

Forest Service won't like you, but put me in jail.

You stole the land.

Well, here's some.

It's my family, people who grew up speaking Cherokee's first language.

You can see there's still writing on it.

There's probably 50 graves up here.

There's so much history that's just getting run over.

The government came in and just condemned it, what they're calling eminent domain.

We've been colonized, assimilated, acculturated, name it, but we occupied this place way before colonization.

We're known as Anigiduwagi, Kituwah people, and we have a tendency to believe that God or the Creator or [indistinct], created us in this area and gave us a language.

Our language is intertwined with every part of us.

[dancers shout] It's in our dances.

It's in our songs.

It's in our spirituality.

[singer vocalizing] [drums beating] So what's at stake, what's gonna happen, I don't know, but I think at this point, when the last speaker dies, they're gonna be saying, "Man, I wish I'd learned the language."

Well, it's not too late.

[crickets chirping] [door clicks] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [gentle music] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] [hair brush rustling] [sink burbles] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] [door creaking] [solemn music] - I dropped out of college to learn the language.

School will always be there.

This opportunity to learn the language will not.

[car rumbling] - [Reporter 1] But, first, Cherokee leaders take action to prevent the extinction of their language.

- [Reporter 2] They say so few people are speaking their native tongue, the language is now endangered.

News 13's Rex Hodge is joining us now live in Cherokee, and Rex, leaders are really worried.

They're making a public statement about it.

- [Rex] Yeah, absolutely.

A state of emergency saying each tribe losing fluent speakers faster than those learning, and Chief Sneed says saving the Cherokee language requires deliberate choices by tribal members to speak it and making it the norm again.

From Cherokee, Rex Hodge, News 13.

[Cassidy and child speaking in Cherokee] [door slams] [traffic distantly rumbles] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [tool thumping] [tool continues thumping] [birds chirping] [knife rustling] - It's got life now.

Now I'm going to turn it over to you and let you do the language.

Whatever you want to, whatever it says or represents through you, just put it down there and I'll burn it back if you'll write it in pencil.

- Okay.

[BJ sighs] - This says "dadiwonisi."

"Dadiwonisi."

"We're all gonna speak."

It's actually not very often you'll get to see the original syllabary.

Nobody uses it anymore.

- [BJ] Yeah, that's what I like about it.

Get the old on it.

This wasn't art.

It's what we had to have to do a ceremony, using dance to scare off what scares you.

- [Cassidy] Kinda like facing your fears.

- [BJ] Yep.

Ease your mind about it.

- That's the reason I'm teaching so I can pass it on.

[Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy continues speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy singing along in Cherokee] [Cassidy continues singing along in Cherokee] The language was never spoken in my household.

Yeah, it pretty much died out with my grandfather, who passed when I was two, but growing up here, I was a part of the first kind of official language class here in Snowbird.

Looking back on it, it was probably my first step into kind of discovering what it means to be Cherokee.

[creek burbles] [group speaking in Cherokee] - Snowbird is almost like the true sense of where Cherokee people come from.

It hasn't had like a lot of tourist-type influence to get the kind of stereotype Indian that people want to see.

Snowbird, I guess, is kind of an untouched Cherokee, a closer representation of who we were in the past.

[gentle music] [birds chirping] [creek burbling] [creek continues burbling] When I first started learning, it just felt natural.

Pretty quickly, I started transitioning from learning to speak into teaching others to speak, even at 13, 14 years old.

The speakers themselves, they noticed that I was picking up the language slightly faster than others.

In Cherokee, they call me Rabbit, and I guess they'd seen something in me that I didn't see myself.

[Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] These connections to these people, it's very humbling.

I'm very grateful.

These speakers have the knowledge of the language that hasn't been broken for thousands of years.

So, and it feels like the language is a tool to kind of figure out who I am as a Cherokee person, and hopefully by connecting with some of the speakers who know more culture, connect back to the old ways, as a lot of people like to say.

[boiling water burbling] I'll be out in front.

I'll be there to protect what they are afraid would be lost if they pass.

Being a part of the first as a child, I'm still doing my part, helping teach the first language program here that is geared towards adults, the Dadiwonisi language program.

[gentle music] [scissors clicking] [machine whirring] [group speaking in Cherokee] [group continues speaking in Cherokee] [group continues speaking in Cherokee] [group continues speaking in Cherokee] - [Angelina] To be alive during this time of reclaiming, it's helped me channel my resilience.

- [BJ] Criss-cross, back and forth, light and dark.

- [Angelina] Okay.

- Push it all the way down as tight as you can get it.

- It's beautiful, you know, that we still have so much of who we are here after we were tried to be completely erased.

The public education system has completely failed America on who we were, on purpose.

We know that and the biggest question always I think from anybody is, "The Cherokee Nation got removed.

How are you guys still here?"

[gentle flute music] The Snowbird Cherokee are a community of Cherokees that were actually fugitives at one point in time.

During the removal in 1838, a band of about a hundred Cherokees remained in the area.

They said that they were never going to be removed and they would rather die here where their ancestors were buried than be removed west to a foreign land that they knew nothing about.

They had a plan.

Junaluska, Wachacha, and all of those leaders, they were trying to save our sacred places and our sacred towns, and were trying to make a formula to help us stay here.

Me sitting here in front of you today is what their plan was.

You know, we succeeded in resisting the removal, and that's who we are.

We're the resistors to the removal and the Trail of Tears and the Treaty of New Echota.

They tried to take us out of these mountains, but we weren't going anywhere.

It's our job to carry that on, maintaining our culture and our language, because if we don't have that, then what do we have?

- If you think about our history and where we are now, I mean, you talk about strength and resilience.

What group of people could have done what we have done?

Something's happened in the last 10, 15 years with the young people.

They're becoming more and more aware.

It's like an awakening now.

I'm Cherokee and I have this and we have this and I can help perpetuate it.

They're not going to fail.

They listen and they understand, but they need constant exposure to continue to build and strengthen and reinforce what they have learned.

[upbeat music] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] - [Cassidy] I want to laugh.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] Because we know this one, we know the pattern.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] [class speaking in Cherokee] That's "you and I laugh."

That one has the [indistinct].

It'll be... [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] There's your quick little cheat sheet.

- [Student] Oh, okay.

[class quietly chattering] - There are many people in our community who feel like the language has reached a point of no return.

There are many people who feel that way.

I refuse to believe that.

The language in Snowbird is alive.

Percentage wise, we have the highest percentage of first-language speakers, and the language has grown and evolved and built itself in this space.

Before there was English here, there was Cherokee.

Before there was Spanish in this space, there was Cherokee.

The efforts that we're putting in now, the second-language learners that we are producing now, will be key to help our community from losing something that's so important.

[group speaking in Cherokee] - As of right now, with what we're doing, if you teach an adult who's already wanting to be with the language, if they become fluent tomorrow, they can do something about it.

Even if you create a fluent speaker with a child, you can't even hire 'em until they're 16.

They can't even graduate high school until they're 18.

The language is in a state of emergency, but as of right now, we still have a chance to do something about it.

A new year has begun in the Dadiwonisi program, and we'll find out whether they're gonna do something about it or not.

[wind faintly howling] [wind continues howling] [birds chirping] [JC speaking in Cherokee] [gentle music] [JC continues speaking in Cherokee] [group speaks in Cherokee] [JC speaking in Cherokee] [group speaks in Cherokee] [JC speaking in Cherokee] [blade rustles] - To me, being in Buffalo and Snowbird is just to be home.

We've always been here.

We're Snowbirds.

We're the ones that you couldn't run off.

We stuck together and toughed it out, I guess.

[group speaking in Cherokee] - It's got teeth.

- Ah.

[JC speaks in Cherokee] - We stick to the old always most of the time.

Like, they're up there smiling because they see what's going on, that we're carrying on the tradition.

[flag rustling] We've had to make our own way.

[group speaking in Cherokee] [group continues speaking in Cherokee] - [JC] Tsisdu, they call him.

Tsisdu, "rabbit."

He's got the heart of learning.

[Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] - [Student] I'll make sure to, I'll make sure to- - [JC] I'm proud of him.

He knows what he needs to do and what it's going to take to carry on, keep on going.

[birds chirping] [gentle music] There's gotta be somebody left that takes up the plow after me.

[farmer speaks in Cherokee] - [Student] Hey, Ella.

[group speaks in Cherokee] - Pumpkin?

[group speaks in Cherokee] - Gardening is, uh, it's important.

Like, hands-on experience, it's the only way to learn, I think, instead of staring at walls, blackboards.

[tool whirring] [Mike speaks in Cherokee] The old ways, it's hard to explain.

It's help you with your life, how you go about it.

It's like what they're doing now.

They're planting a garden.

You know, speaking.

We're planting our language in them.

[farmer speaks in Cherokee] - And I hope we pick it up.

We're living in the English world, I guess you could say.

Don't know what kind of future we got right now, yeah.

They're still wiping out the language.

They just don't realize it.

You know, words we don't use too much, we tend to put 'em back in the back of our minds and eventually about forget 'em, but if you're out there doing something, you know, like hoeing or raking, it all comes back.

[group speaking in Cherokee] [film wheel whirs] - [Mike] Grandma was Maggie Axe Wachacha.

She was a healer, a medicine woman.

It's like you can hear her talking out there, telling me what to do.

Yeah, I miss that woman something terrible.

I should've listened to her more, picked up all of her knowledge.

There's Grandma.

Her husband.

[Mike speaking in Cherokee] It's just an endless project, trying to keep something alive.

[Mike speaks in Cherokee] [gentle music] [film wheel whirs] - That was her garden back there, and this is where she lived all her life.

I'm doing what she'd want me to do, I believe.

Just to carry on old traditions.

I think that's our purpose.

It's important for the young ones to know where they came from, where their roots are.

It's important that they learn who they are.

[film wheel continues whirring] They're Snowbird people.

[film wheel clicks] [birds chirping] - [Angeline] So we're at the Museum of Cherokee Indian today and we are going to digitize some of the Fading Voices collection.

It was done in the '70s by Gil Jackson and Lois Kalonahuskie, and these are the first times that they're kind of coming out of collections and being seen again by the Snowbird community after being locked away for a little while.

[gentle piano music] Both of my great-grandmothers were interviewed in there, so it's like the wildest thing to go through an archive and be able to read your grandmother's words in a way that no one else has.

What's this?

- [Curator] "Cherokee project puts oral history on tape.

Indian traditions being kept alive by tribal elders in Snowbird" by Ron Martz.

- Wow.

Okay.

[camera clicks] The language program, the Dadiwonisi program, they've really been helpful in a lot of it.

[curator speaking in Cherokee] - [Gina] But then there are also things in those interviews that are so rich and powerful for somebody who's wanting to learn more about us and kind of get that insight into who we were in a time where they didn't speak English.

- This is exciting to see that this is somewhere for us, especially as second-language learners, because I get nervous that there isn't enough things that are documented, and I'm very excited to get to be a part of this process, to sit and get to see and touch some of these things that were in here.

- We, now more than ever, need our own people doing our own research and telling our own stories and giving voice to a story that we know.

We're carrying forth the voices of our ancestors.

We want the language students to be able to read their words and there's other people's great-grandmas in there too that I know that they would love to hear about their family stories and stuff like that, and I think that's what a lot of people are craving, to really feel the intimate parts of Cherokee history and who we are.

The biased archives and understanding of Cherokee people has not been helpful in recreating an image of who we really are.

[film wheel whirs] I think about all the generations before me and what it took for them to survive, and survival meant not learning the language and it meant unlearning dances and traditional practices and ceremonies, 'cause they were outlawed, right?

Like, our dances were outlawed.

Our ceremonies were outlawed.

Our language, we couldn't speak it in school.

[children speaking in indigenous language] Children were being stripped away from their parents and sent to schools in order to teach them English in order to take them away from their ancestral homelands and their kinship groups.

[somber music] Indigenous erasure from the late 1890s was in full effect.

[birds chirping] They put us in a social construction that was not meant for us, and we fully adapted to this colonized way of life, and we're trying to roll the tape backwards to a time that we weren't and we're doing our best, and I mean, to think that my grandma used to have her mouth washed out with soap when she went to public school for speaking her language, right?

It is so painful to think about, but, you know, we defend what's ours now, and there are so many people out here that are moving themselves around because they see the importance in carrying on these traditions and who we are.

You know, how we were before those influences had come over.

[singers vocalizing] - [Reporter 1] The US Forest Service declined several requests for an interview.

- [Reporter 2] Sam Evans is an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the many groups who objected to a US Forest Service proposal to allow more logging in the old growth areas of the Nantahala Pisgah Forest.

- [Reporter 3] So this plan decides the next three decades of where the logging will occur, how much will occur, and what places will be protected.

- When your ancestors are in the ground here, you wanna make sure that it's taken care of and that our ancestors are protected.

I think that that is why everybody is really passionate about this in particular area.

[machinery whirring] These ancestors are still here with us.

They're, you know, in the earth beneath us, and their power still sits there.

Right now, we are walking along the bank of the creek that my great-grandparents used to live on, Kulik and Roxy Wachacha.

[creek burbling] [peaceful music] I was always drawn here when I was a kid and I never knew why.

Reading through my grandma's interviews, I was able to begin to understand the significance.

Rattler Ford, which is now a campsite, used to be Wachacha family land.

When the land was condemned, pretty much all of the Wachachas moved over the mountain where, you know, Mike's and JC's garden is.

So, here, I've got my fun map that I got out of the US Forest Service archive, and you'll see that this is all Wachacha heirs' track that were taken by the US Forest Service.

We would've still had all this, on top of having all this right back up in here, and, uh, that doesn't sit right with me.

[crickets chirping] As much as the US government wants to be able to skew the narrative, this should have been our place to bond with each other as people.

You know, this should be the place that I get to hang out with my grandma in the front yard and have family time.

They took that from us in a time where we didn't have a voice to say something about it.

As a descendant of people who used to break bread here and have dances here and pray here, I just wish that they would've had the respect for knowing what it meant to us and what these places still mean to us and me.

My grandma should not have to seek permission to go pick greens here where her family has lived for 10,000 years, you know?

I just feel like that's a little backwards.

It really is sad when you go through different historical documents and you read about how things were taken or how you were forced to lose your identity, but we are trying our hardest to reclaim.

The Cherokee worldview was different and it contributed to the way that we took care of the land.

We've lost a lot of culturally significant places within claimed lands from the Forest Service and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but we're still consulting with first-language speakers that knew what they were in Cherokee and knew the importance and significance of them so we can pass them down, right?

Or that was piece of their corner of their land over here that got pushed into the corner there.

We need our elders and we need our old ones to help guide us and help us understand in the best way that they know how, because if not us, then who?

And if not now, then when?

[creek burbling] [gentle music] [birds chirping] - [Cassidy] He says, we always call it Edutsi's garden or even Mike's garden as well, but they're always the ones that tell us, like, "Well, it's your garden as well."

It's like, "You've done a lot of the work."

You should come see it.

It's nice.

- Really?

- Mhm.

- [Relative] You'uns go up and work it all the time, periodically or pretty often?

- Right now, we're going about once a week.

The potatoes are starting to come up.

They're starting to come up pretty good.

- So, tell us the toppings.

What are they in Cherokee?

- Tomatoes are... [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] Onions are "svgi."

Almost like "it smells."

Like, it's just the smell.

I think that's where it comes from.

Which one's these?

Bell peppers?

- [Relative] Yeah.

- [Cassidy] Depends on what type of pepper it is.

They have different names.

I think the hot ones are just like "ajila," like fire, or what was it?

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] They're hot.

- Yeah, back in the old days, they used to wash your mouth out with soap or something if you spoke the native language.

They took it away from you.

Mom didn't want to speak.

They wanted to go to boarding school and do what they told them to do.

[gentle music] They all had to learn to speak English.

- When he started, when he was 12, Cassidy would come home and he would practice, try to practice, and he would say things to me in Cherokee and I'm like, "Okay."

- Huh?

- You know, because I don't speak.

I'm not a speaker, and I feel like if he had a parent to come home to it to speak in the evenings, then he would probably be fluent now.

[gentle music continues] - I think if I had grown up with the culture and language, I would've kind of taken it for granted.

The importance didn't really click until a while later that this current generation could possibly be the generation where the last speaker passes.

I want Walela to learn.

I teach her so she gets exposed to it and I want her to continue, but I'll let her learn in passing as she soaks it up and let her figure out how important it is later.

[vocalist singing in Cherokee] - Fading Voices is an annual event in Snowbird to kind of show the people how a Snowbird lived way back in the old days, I guess you'd call it.

Our culture, our way of life is kind of fading out slowly, sort like the Cherokee language, The main ones that know how to do this stuff, you know, are leaving quick.

[vocalist singing in Cherokee] Maybe we can show these younger ones what was done though.

Maybe they can pick it up, keep it going, bring it back.

[vocalist shouts in Cherokee] [audience cheers] [lively drum music] [vocalist singing in Cherokee] - [Cassidy] It really is amazing, giving all these learners the opportunity to still interact with these speakers and kind of the original ways that a lot of people don't get to.

It's no longer a maybe of these things being passed down or the younger folks, the younger generations learning.

I am here learning.

We are here learning.

I feel like we've given them kind of the hope that what they have, what they've given, the things that they've shared, that it will be passed on, that it will continue, that we can get there again.

- All right, in a few more minutes, we'll start the games up.

[crowd indistinctly chattering] [announcer indistinctly chattering] It's on!

And it's up!

Here we go!

[team members shouting in Cherokee] [audience applauding] [musicians chanting] [lively percussive music] [players distantly shouting] - [Player] Good game, man.

Everybody played good.

[group chattering] [player whoops] [players cheer] [player whoops] [players cheer] [player whoops] [players cheer] [player whoops] [players cheer] [player indistinctly shouts] [dramatic percussive music] [birds chirping] [traffic distantly rumbling] [peaceful music] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [student speaking in Cherokee] - Today, we done the assessments to determine where you are on the speaker scale.

The scale that they gave us was on a 1 to 10, 10 being like a fluent speaker or a first-language speaker where you're raised in the household, but you become acknowledged at a level eight.

I feel like I done okay, because the picture set I chose was one that dealt with gardening, but I'm not too worried about the assessment level.

For me, I'm worried more about getting the language and using it correctly.

As of right now, they have yet to produce a speaker, which is kind of like the hope and intentions of any Cherokee language program.

I think that's kind of the race for everybody in the language to get that first accredited speaker.

[birds chirping] [group speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy continue speaking in Cherokee] - Assessed me.

[relative speaks in Cherokee] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [relative speaks in Cherokee] [group speaking in Cherokee] [relative speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [relative speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy sighs] [Cassidy continues speaking in Cherokee] [fire crackling] - [JC] It's important that they learn all they can while we're able to teach 'em.

The Snowbirds slowly are dwindling away.

- [Farmer] The worms are in all of the corn.

- I asked the leader, chief, and all them others, where did they go from here?

Pretty soon, we gonna be no more.

[group speaks in Cherokee] Young one, it's your future now.

[grill sizzling] [group chattering] - To get to the next step, as right now, you can kind of see, the most immediate results you can get is actually with teaching, because if you teach the way you've learned, you can kind of guarantee that what you know and how you learned it and all that stuff will be passed on.

- [Mike] Let's go dig some sassafras.

[Mike speaks in Cherokee] Younger ones are the best ones.

[Mike speaks in Cherokee] It's good for blood, high blood pressure.

- [Cassidy] These things that we are learning, you won't be able to get from books.

You won't be able to get from documents.

[elder speaks in Cherokee] - All the language that they've learned would only be for nothing if nothing was done about it.

[birds chirping] [gentle music] - [Student] What is this place referred to in Cherokee, where we are today?

- [Elder] "Place of the mulberry."

[elder speaks in Cherokee] [volunteer speaks in Cherokee] - Yeah.

- Yeah, the mulberry place.

Has anyone actually seen a mulberry before?

No?

[volunteers chattering] - I think they're listening to the story over there.

Once they get here, I'll talk a little bit about the program, what we're doing and things like that, and then I'll let them choose an activity so they can kind of be a part of it and listen to y'all.

I'll send you guys that.

- [Volunteer] We got another spot right here.

Come on.

[crowd chattering] - [Nola] When we talk about reclaiming, it's not about taking away.

[volunteer speaks in Cherokee] - Something alive, like a bird.

- It's about what we can share.

You weren't allowed to be Cherokee for so long, and so now to be here and to be in this space and to be able to teach this stuff just out in the open and not be persecuted for it, it's welcome.

- We call an airplane "tsiyu."

- [Nola] It's mind blowing to think about.

- And a boat "tsiyu."

- [Nola] I know from personal experience that this will continue helping plant seeds and helping help grow these young Cherokee kids to be proud to be Cherokee again.

[vocalists singing in Cherokee] - I don't know what it is about this program, but it doesn't feel like work.

It doesn't feel like they're coworkers.

It does feel like they're a family because of the dynamic that they've created.

[crowd excitedly chattering] I'm proud of what they've done.

As a teacher, I feel like I'm just leading them to water and they're the ones that's soaking it all up.

[creek burbling] [birds chirping] [wind faintly howling] [insects chirping] [Mike speaking in Cherokee] [Mike continues speaking in Cherokee] [dog distantly barking] [group chattering in Cherokee] - It's been insane to see what could be learned and taken in in such a short amount of time, ultimately.

- [Relative] I'm gonna go grab Grandma here in a bit.

- It's like not normal, the bonds that you build inside of this, which I think is culture, [Mike speaks in Cherokee] - It's kind of like home, honestly.

I feel like we've created a home.

It's a place where we come and we all love each other and we all care for each other and we all do for each other, and our elders and our speakers, and it is just, you just build these memories that you'll probably have the rest of your life.

Like, I don't ever wanna stop coming up to the garden.

I love it up here.

- [Cassidy] In their assessments, the first-years is between like two and four, and then for the second-years, it was like five to six, I believe.

[speaks in Cherokee] - "He hugged me yesterday."

[group chuckles] [group faintly chattering] I heard "ki."

I heard "ki" that time.

- Me, I'm not sure where I'm at right now.

I'm using words he's not familiar with, so it's a little bit harder for him to actually assess mine, but hopefully it's good news.

Hopefully it means it's good.

- I tell people he's gonna be the first one put on the Speakers Book.

It's been going down.

We gotta build that number back up, and he's gonna be the number one in my book.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] - That's about done.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] Try it to see if it's tender enough.

Good?

- [Cassidy] Mhm.

[group chattering in Cherokee] - [JC] When they graduate, they gotta be able to keep on going, whatever comes, and never stop learning.

[peaceful classical music] - [Graduate] Today is the Dadiwonisi's first cohort graduation.

- Do you think one will be fine?

I think one will be good.

- Okay.

[group chuckles] - [Graduate] Oh no.

- [Cassidy] It's been a long journey.

I'm glad to be a part of it.

It's, I guess, a bittersweet moment type of thing as well, but it'll be hard for not only me, but the other learners who are still in the program because we've built such a close bond.

- First, I want to say to the graduates how proud I am of each one of you.

What you've accomplished is nothing short of remarkable.

The priceless, timeless gift of our unique language is now an ember burning in your heart, your soul, and your spirit.

I wanna thank all of our elders who have poured their lives into teaching you a language and a culture that was targeted for systematic annihilation.

Many of your teachers have passed on, but they will live on forever because of what they imparted to you, and you now have become the keepers of the flame.

Never stop learning, never stop speaking.

never stop teaching the gift that's been imparted to you.

[audience applauding] [gentle music] - [MC] Our next guest speaker, Tsisdu Chekelelee.

[audience applauds and cheers] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] - I don't want to say a lot.

[Cassidy speaking in Cherokee] [Cassidy continues speaking in Cherokee] I believe in you and I'll always be here.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] [audience applauding] [audience cheering] [crowd chattering] "Dadiwonisi."

It's a simple word.

[tender music] But at the same time, it's also a powerful statement.

Some may not realize the weight behind it or that they're carrying, but it's okay.

[Cassidy sniffles] [Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] "We spoke."

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] "We all are going to."

We will add numbers to that list.

[wind howling] [wind continues howling] [instruments rattling] [vocalists singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] - [Mourner] Love you, JC!

[vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continue singing in Cherokee] [fire crackling] [crowd murmuring] - On behalf of the Eastern Band of Cherokees and the many people that JC Wachacha taught, the flag of the Eastern Band of Cherokees has been folded seven times.

[Myrtle speaking in Cherokee] [Myrtle continues speaking in Cherokee] [wind howling] [bird caws] - You can feel it when a speaker passes.

You get a small sense of how much is lost, but people like Edutsi, it hits a lot harder.

[paper rustles] I just started this project not too long ago.

This is 125 verbs.

It has such a subtle difference, you about need a speaker to differentiate between them.

[Cassidy speaks in Cherokee] How much more did Edutsi know?

How many words?

How many stories?

How much culture?

I think that's why it hits so hard.

It's been 17 years.

I've assessed three different times.

The first was a five, the second was a seven, and this last time, I assessed at level eight.

I'm trying to speak, I'm trying to learn, but we've still got a long ways to go.

[Cassidy sobs] It's not heavy.

[Cassidy sniffles] It's an honor to carry this on.

[Cassidy sighs] I will proudly carry this.

[solemn music] - [Cailon] So today is our first day here since the services, so even though it's gonna lead to good things, I think it's just gonna be a hard day.

[Mike speaks in Cherokee] - In Edutsi's will, he said, "Keep the property as it was."

This place is for learning and we're just trying our best to keep it as it is.

- [Mike] So we're gonna plant it back the same way?

- [Cailon] Yeah, this year.

That's what we think.

The only thing we switched was the squash and zucchini.

Everything else should be the same.

- [Jeanie] Did y'all bring tobacco?

- [Cailon] I didn't.

Did you?

- Here, honey.

Just take a pinch and just go sprinkle it somewhere.

You know.

[Cailon speaks in Cherokee] - You know the drill.

[birds chirping] [gentle music] - [Cassidy] I never had a speaker in my family.

Not as long as I've been here.

Edutsi, to me, he probably was one of the elders in the highest sense of the words.

I truly am thankful to have gotten to know him, thankful I got to learn from him.

[JC chuckles] [Cassidy and JC speak in Cherokee] - [Cassidy] I'm thankful to be here in this time.

[JC speaking in Cherokee] - [Cassidy] It's an honor to learn from any of these speakers.

[JC speaking in Cherokee] - [Cassidy] Each one has something that only they knew, so I'm gonna try to learn as much as I can so I can share everything I've got.

We have 150 speakers left now and the fire is small compared to years prior, but you still got today.

[gentle music continues] [Cassidy sighs] [Cassidy softly singing in Cherokee] [birds chirping] [gentle music continues] - [Interviewer] Do you think your grandparents would be proud to see what's going on here today?

- I'm sure they would be.

I'm sure they are.

I think they can see sometimes here.

I think their spirits can come back and see.

Come on, Mike!

Your turn!

[gentle music continues] [birds chirping] [gentle music continues] [mellow country music] [vocalists singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continues singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continues singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continues singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continues singing in Cherokee] [vocalists continues singing in Cherokee]