Showing results by author "Donald N. Yates" in All Categories

As the 20th century was ending and the millennium approached, a new ethnic category was invented in the South. The Melungeons were born thrashing and squawling into the American consciousness. They were a tri-racial clan hidden away in the hills and hollers of Lower Appalachia with a genetic predisposition to six fingers and Mediterranean diseases and an unsavory reputation for moonshining, counterfeiting and secret cults.

What if the history of America's largest Indian nation is actually a polite modern fiction, one invented by "anthropologists and other friends"? In this sweeping revisionist study of the Cherokee Indians, a scholar trained in classical philology and the new science of genetics discloses the inside story of his tribe. The narrative starts in the third century BCE and concludes with the Cherokees' removal to Indian Territory in the 19th century, when all standard histories just begin.

This genealogy classic, written in the bad old days of shoe leather and courthouse basements before the Internet, tells of a Southern man's discovery of his Native American ancestry in the 1990s. Among fascinating regional and local stories, you'll discover how the Yateses of Virginia coped on the frontier…how some Cherokees escaped the Trail of Tears…what the Southern drawl really means…where The Tree That Owns Itself is…how Elisabeth Yates stole her cattle back from Gen. Sherman.

Most histories of the Cherokee nation focus on its encounters with Europeans, its conflicts with the U.S. government, and its expulsion from its lands during the Trail of Tears. This work, however, traces the origins of the Cherokee people to the third century B.C.E. and follows their migrations through the Americas to their homeland in the lower Appalachian Mountains.

Most claims of Native American ancestry rest on the mother's ethnicity. This can be verified by a DNA test determining what type of mitochondrial DNA she passed to you. A hundred participants in DNA Consultants multi-phase Cherokee DNA Study did just that. What they had in common is they were previously rejected - by commercial firms, genealogy groups, government agencies and tribes. Their mitochondrial DNA was not classified as Native American. These are the "anomalous" Cherokee.

What is truth in the eyes of Native Americans? What does it mean to be Indian? Do American Indians have a sense of humor? How does their religion differ from other spiritualities? Listen to what Tecumseh, Red Jacket and other chiefs have to say, as well as contemporary elders like Two White Feathers and Donald Panther-Yates. Enjoy the humor of American Indian Movement leaders like Russell Means and Dennis Banks in this miscellany published on the anniversary of a groundbreaking website from the 90s. You will never think of American Indian writers and activists the same way.

One of the last migratory American Indian tribes, the Tihanama people of Tennessee ranged from the Great Lakes to the Florida Panhandle. Other Southeastern peoples called them the Big Medicine tribe. They were known for their legends, antiquity, trail markings, knowledge of herbs, funeral ceremonies, songs, paints, and dyes. This collection by Donald Panther-Yates is as unique as its subject - there is no other like it. The Eighth Arrow story will completely alter your understanding of Native American spirituality. It may change your life.

The Tucson Artifacts document the annals of a forgotten Roman-styled military governorship in Chichimec Toltec Northwest Mexico. Perfectly preserved, complete and unaltered, they are straightforwardly composed in Latin. They do not have to be reconstructed, pieced together, deciphered, or dated. This illuminating collection of readings translated from Latin, Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Nahuatl, Hebrew, and other languages by medievalist Donald N. Yates provides the cultural contexts for understanding these unique witnesses to world history.

Donald and Teresa Yates spent a month in Yucatan in 2007. This day-by-day account of their travels there is the result. From Ek Balam, the country's "newest ruin", where their guide is the grandson of one of the "knowledge people" who once ruled it, to Mayapan, the last Mayan city to be abandoned, inhabited now only by the howler monkeys that were the patron gods of its poet kings, they give us their impressions and present their favorite images of a culture that is very much alive if you know where to look and the right questions to ask.

“Als wir noch jenseits des Großen Wassers wohnten, gab es zwölf Stämme, die zu den Cherokee-Indianern gehörten ...“ So beginnt die traditionelle Geschichte des Stammes, die zum Fest des Großen Mondes, dem Neujahrsfest, rezitiert und den jungen Cherokee bei Zusammenkünften gelehrt wurde. Sie wurde von Cornsilk alias William Eubanks, einem Zeitungsschreiber im Indian Territory, 1896 aufgezeichnet, basierend auf der ursprünglichen Erzählung in der Sprache der Cherokee, wie sie George Sahkiyah „Soggy“ Sanders, ebenfalls Mitglied in der Keetoowah Society.

Where must I locate thee now, O my homeland, or in what places? So wrote a Roman poet 2,000 years ago, and so feel Donald Yates and his wife, Teresa, after an eye-opening visit to Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey.

In the world of Native Americans, oral communication takes the place of the written word in preserving their most valued “texts”. By a miracle of transmission, here is the earliest and most authenticated version of the story of the Cherokee people, from their origins in a land across the great waters to the coming of the white man.

Son pocos los momentos de nuestras vidas en los que nos encontramos con un texto electrizante. Nos da esa sensación de que "¡esto era lo que me estaba perdiendo!". En el mundo de los nativos norteamericanos, donde la comunicación oral ocupa el lugar de la palabra escrita, esa revelación suele ocurrir cuando escuchamos por primera vez - o comprendemos por primera vez– la historia del origen, la naturaleza y el carácter de nuestra gente.

Non possediamo nulla di 'più autentico' di "Red Man's Origin". "Red Man's Origin" è semplicemente un articolo in lingua inglese dal anno 1896, tradotto ora per la prima volta in Italiano dalla artista veronese Francesca Bortolaso. E' un miracolo che sopravviva. Riproduce le parole Cherokee di George Sahkiyah (Soggy) Sanders così tradotte in lingua inglese da William Eubanks.

This unique audiobook introduces the listeners to the seven Cherokee clans, found in no other American Indian tribe. They are Wolf (Ani-Wahiya), Bird (Ani-Tsiskwa), Deer (Ani-Kawi), Twister (Ani-Gilohi), Wild Potato (Ani-Gotegewi), Panther (Ani-Sahoni) and Paint (Ani-Wodi). In each section of notes appear the etymology of the Cherokee name, synonyms and related clans, the clan's in-born strengths and character, mitochondrial DNA types, symbols and iconography, famous people, ceremonies, art and monuments.

On the edge of the Isleta Indian Reservation in the foothills of New Mexico lies the Decalogue Stone, a giant boulder inscribed with the Ten Commandments in Phoenician Hebrew characters. The Indians, Spanish and Americans knew of its existence, and the nearby Crypto-Jewish community of Los Quelites venerated it, building a secret altar that the Spanish Inquisition smashed and destroyed.

This portrait of Paul Russell, a Tihanama spiritual practitioner also known as Chief Two White Feathers, is based on interviews by the author in Tennessee in 1996. It covers a wide range of topics, including seer tradition, herbal medicine and the ways of Tihanama spirituality. Some of the lessons imparted are the three mountains, honoring, how to approach a medicine person, Indian sign talk and color symbolism. It's a one-on-one session with a personable teacher whose simple words you will never forget.

In the world of Native Americans, oral communication takes the place of the written word in preserving their most valued texts. By a miracle of transmission, here is the earliest and most complete version of the story of the Cherokee people, from their origins in a land across the great waters to the coming of the white man. In olden times, it was recited at every Great Moon or Cherokee New Year festival so it could be learned by young people.

Phase III of DNA Consultants' Cherokee DNA Studies adds more than 50 new participants to what has become a classic project. They'd all been told there was no way they could be Indian given their DNA haplotype or mother's direct line.