Where did the Cherokee live?
In the Great Smoky Mountains. Long ago, the Cherokee migrated to the Great Smoky Mountains from the Northeast, home of the Iroquois-speaking tribes: the Huron, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Mohawk Nations. Did you know the Cherokee call themselves Aniyunwiya, meaning “The Principal People?” They had a summer and a winter house. Their summer home was made of either logs or small trees and stalks of switch grass with a deerskin door. Their winter home, or asi, was round with a thatched roof made of reeds shaped like a cone and thick mud walls to keep it warm. There were sixty to eighty Cherokee villages along the rivers in Cherokee country. Each village had a dozen households and 200 to 400 or more people. The villages had a tall wall of pointed wooden posts surrounding them to keep out wild animals and enemies. Top of Page 2. What did the Cherokee wear? Deerskin shirts and skirts, breechclouts, leggings, moccasins, armbands, and jewelry. The Cherokee clothes were made from anima
