Written by Olivia Smith
As the moon covers the sun and the world goes dark and quiet for a few minutes, most people stand in awe. Silence overwhelmed the world as a partial solar eclipse on April, 8th 2024 lasted two hours in Chattanooga, TN.
All around the world cultures tell folklore stories from the beginning of times, before written words surround everyday life, storytellers were the way of knowing history.
“Nvdo walosi ugi” which translates to “the frog eats the sun” is a folk tale told throughout the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee people can be heard pounding drums, yelling, and even shooting guns into the sky to scare the mythical gigantic frog from eating the sun during the eclipse.
In James Mooney’s “Myths of the Cherokee” he stated, “When the sun or moon is eclipsed it is because a great frog up in the sky is trying to swallow it. Everybody knows this, even the Creeks and the other tribes, and in the olden times, eighty or a hundred years ago, before the great medicine men were all dead, whenever they saw the sun grow dark the people would come together and fire guns and beat the drum, this would frighten off the great frog and the sun would be all right again.”
Tonya Dockery, an Appalachian storyteller located in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, has been traveling and telling stories for over 30 years. She learned from many people throughout her life; her grandfather passed many stories to her, as well as the Cherokee and Eastern Band members have given Dockery many stories to share.
“I’ve been going around storytelling for about 30 years, and along the way, I’ve been given stories from so many different tribes and members [of the Cherokee Nation and Eastern Band],” Dockery said. “The main thing to me about being a storyteller is to bring you into the story with me.”
Dockery shared how important these tribal stories and folklore are to the traditions and younger generations of the tribes. As these tribes grow smaller as time goes on, their stories and language begin to die with them.
“Stories played an important role in folk cultures,” Dockery said, “simply because they were a huge form of entertainment when there wasn’t television but they also explained why things happened; why the bear has a short tail, why the tip of the blue jays tail is white, and the explanation of the eclipse.”
While many stories and folklore can’t be dated because of their long presence in the culture, The Cherokee Nation believes that this story came about in the 1800s because of the mention of firearms and pots and pans.
Kathi Little John is a retired program manager for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who started telling Cherokee stories over 42 years ago.
“Many people have taught me by telling me stories, I gained experience when I was 14 by working as a guide at the Oconaluftee Indian Village in Cherokee.” Little John said. “ When it was a slow time, the older Cherokee people would tell stories.”
Little John mentioned that while the eclipse was happening in 2017, many people from the Cherokee Nation met at the fairgrounds to “scare the frog away”. While no guns were present the sounds of the Cherokee tradition reigned on.
“Yesterday [April 8, 2024] I don’t know of any big gathering,” Little John said, “but we made noise and scared it away again and the sun is safe.”
Both Dockery and Little John appreciate and love to share stories from their ancestors, while they are both from different backgrounds they see the beauty of the stories and the importance of keeping them alive.
It’s important that the stories and language keep getting handed down and shared, if they are not shared they will die,” Dockery said. “If you speak one Cherokee word a day, it lived that day. As long as I keep telling stories of Appalachia, Appalachia still lives on.”
Native Melodies
Written by Noah Camacho
Starting a professional music career at the age of 12, Cherokee native Kyle Coatney—a Native American flute player from Knoxville, Tennessee—has been playing for about 14 years.
He continues to do this as not only a profession but also as a form of prayer and a means of relieving stress.
His native name, Brother Wind, was also the name of his debut album, which came out around 2019.
“The flute is a part of me… it’s not just an instrument. It’s a part of my soul it helps the way I look at life,” Coatney said.
Traditional Native American flute songs have little to no chords. It is all from the heart and led by emotions the musician is feeling. Coatney performs his original songs, and he mentions although they are his music, it is never played the exact way twice.
His music career started at a young age, and this has led him to be able to travel to many different states in the southeast like Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Alabama. He has also traveled to a couple of places up north like New York and Long Island. He has aspirations to continue doing professional music and hopes to go to the West Coast soon.
“That’s really what it comes down to, my music’s very important to me, especially because it’s connected to my culture,” Coatney said.
Culture to Coatney is extremely important to him as he lives the traditional Cherokee way, a tradition based on close-knit relations with family and friends and also a tradition where respecting your elders is crucial.
“I was raised in the Cherokee traditional sense, on a farm, in the East Tennessee mountains so for me technology is a very hard thing to learn… making university very challenging as everything is technology based.”
With these challenges of technology and the modern world, the action of making and playing music helps him navigate through times of stress and sadness.
He plays his music based on his emotions and having this as an outlet allows him to perfect his craft and also let out some bottled-up emotions.
“Our [Native Americans] reason for doing music is for prayer, for medicine, and it holds people together.”
For Coatney, music is not only a form of expression but it is a stress reliever, a prayer, and a sign of respect to his culture.
Tennessee to discuss the importance of remembering and educating people about Native
American Culture.
Meet the Storytellers
David Harman is a Senior at UTC studying communication with a minor in professional writing. Harman has written for the UTC Echo and runs an automotive blog, Student Driven, highlighting his writing and photography skills. Harman enjoys telling stories and capturing moments. To get in contact with Harman, email him at kxp957@mocs.utc.edu.
Noah Camacho, a Junior communication major with a minor in marketing studying at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Serves as a staff photographer at the University Echo and is also a member of UTC’s Rising Rock program. He is passionate about capturing moments throughout the Chattanooga community and campus life through photojournalism. He aspires to one day pursue a career in journalism with hopes to travel to different countries and document people and their cultures. You can reach Noah by email at dkl677@mocs.utc.edu.
Ethan Johnson is a senior pursuing a degree in communications with a minor in art history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Johnson works as a staff photographer with the UTC Echo, specifically at UTC football games. He is also doing work for Rising Rock. He has a
passion for life and capturing its ordinary and non ordinary moments. After college, Ethan’s goal is to work in Chattanooga. To contact Ethan, email him at vsn613@mocs.utc.edu.
Alex Newton is a junior at UTC majoring in communication and minoring in psychology. He is currently a staff photographer for the University Echo. Newton utilizes his passion for photojournalism to tell stories that impact people across the community in a way that gives the viewer a unique perspective. Newton is a freelance concert photographer on the side and he hopes to share his passion in the professional world through multimedia storytelling. For questions and inquiries, reach out to alex@newtonius.com.
Olivia Smith is a senior communication major currently working as a staff feature writer and photographer for the University Echo. Smith is passionate about feature writing and excels in finding extraordinary stories within ordinary people’s lives. Smith is driven, hard-working, and energetic. She hopes to continue sharing amazing stories through journalism after graduation. To contact her, please reach out to qpq455@mocs.utc.edu