The Qualla Boundary reservation is located on the Oconaluftee River in North Carolina. This home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the town of Cherokee grew through tourism after the park opened in the 1930s. More recently Harrah’s Cherokee Casino has brought in the visitors, around three and a half million annually. Now there is a concerted effort to promote the tribe’s culture rather than an all-inclusive American Indian stereotype.

Each year an outdoor production ‘Unto These Hills’ is presented in peak tourist season, and has just undergone a US$1 million upgrade. Cherokee storefronts have been redesigned in a plan thought out by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, local businesses and cultural organizations to improve cultural tourism. The aim is to become the cultural centre for Native Americans in the Southeast, and the production of local home crafts is being encouraged. Traditional crafts of the Cherokee are pottery, basket weaving and tool-making, celebrating 11,000 years of history, culture and art.

The ideas for maintaining an ancient culture may be neither earth-shattering nor an overnight success but in the long term the people of Cherokee and Qualla intend to recover their place in the world, reclaiming a heritage that includes a writing system developed by the Sequoyah and now visible on street and store signs. Harrah’s Cherokee Casino with its 40 gaming tables and 3,356 slot machines has helped with this revival, just as tribal gaming throughout much of the US has financed the re-emergence of the customs, values and self-supporting economies of many Native American nations. (E-04.21.06)

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