Since I have written that I am Southern Iroquois (Ani Tsalagi, "Cherokee") and since I live in the north on historic, traditional Northern Iroquois (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations Confederacy) territory I would like to make it clear that Deer is my Clan, it is not a patronym, as it does appear to be a fairly common patronym in the north, I don't want there to be any confusion about it.

Among the "Cherokee" people, some of the Clan names were anglicised for use as patronyms, in the case of the Deer Clan this was as the family names Adair and Howe (for Awi, "deer" in "Cherokee"). Clans are inherited matrilineally, patronyms patrilineally. I decided to use Deer rather than Adair (which is a patronym in my matrilineal family) so it wouldn't be confused with the Adair patronym which is still in use in the South of course. Of course this means that it might be confused with people in the North who use Deer as a patronym, hence this lengthy explanation.

Please note that I do not claim to be of the "Cherokee Nation". This is because I am not. My ancestors were (matrilineal and some patrilineal as well); my patronym is a name known to be "Cherokee" and some of my patrilineal ancestors lived in Indian Territory when it included what is now known as Middle Tennessee, and some collateral ancestors went on the Trail of Tears to the Saline District before Mr. Dawes made up his list of "Cherokee" that could be enrolled.

What most people think of today as the "Cherokee Nation" is the tribe with the largest number of members, the "Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma" which is a reconstructed group of people of some "Cherokee" ancestry, that is they can trace at least one ancestor back to the Dawes Roll of "Cherokee" living in Indian Territory 1898-1914. But there are other people who are "Cherokee" as well; most of this doesn't matter one bit to me. Besides which no "Cherokee" would have status to the north of the invisible line known as the 49th parallel.

Knowing one's Clan is of importance only to traditionalist people by the way; with matrilineal people it is of great importance since all the people of one's Clan are considered to be brothers and sisters, this is information one needs to know when choosing a marriage partner, since one cannot marry a person of one's Clan. To people who aren't Indigenous or traditional it probably means nothing at all, and my main reason for writing this was to explain with a whole lot of probably unnecessary words that I'm a "Southern Iroquois" Deer, not a "Northern Iroquois" Deer.

Annie Deer
Tiotiake, 14 June, 2008

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