#muscogee

[tvstvnvkke]

Tribal Names

I don’t think many people, even some native people, are aware that the legal names of many tribes are actually not from the tribe.

Often the names came about because colonizers would ask one tribe "hey, what do you call those people over there?". then they would assign the name given to that tribe. so often the names were descriptions from unrelated tribes, or in more extreme cases, insults.

The Muscogee tribe got pretty lucky since the legal name was "creek" and it came from a different tribe going "oh, those are the people near the creek". which, is accurate enough, most creek settlements were placed along creeks. a famous one that is related to the Muscogee is the name "Cherokee". "Cherokee" is a Muscogee word meaning something along the lines of "people who don’t speak our language". Even this is pretty light compared to some names. some official tribal names translate to phrases like "dog eaters" or "lazy people".

This is why it’s not uncommon for tribes to start using older names. Muscogee comes from the term for our people "Mvskoke", and the tribe has made efforts to distance itself from the name "Creek". Although it is likely still the name you’ll hear most often.

[forever70s]

Joy Harjo (1975)

[legend-collection]

Deer Woman

Deer Woman, sometimes known as the Deer Lady, is a spirit in Native American mythology whose associations and qualities vary, depending on situation and relationships. Generally, however, to men who have harmed women and children, she is vengeful and murderous and known to lure these men to their deaths. She appears as either a beautiful young woman with deer feet or as a deer.

Deer Woman stories are found in multiple Indigenous American cultures, often told to young children or by young adults and preteens in the communities of the Lakota people (Oceti Sakowin), Ojibwe, Ponca, Omaha, Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Choctaw, Otoe, Osage, Pawnee, and the Haudenosaunee, and those are only the ones that have documented Deer Woman sightings.

Deer Woman is one of the Little People. Though they can be malevolent towards humans, their role in Indigenous culture is to uphold traditional society by keeping humans in line by discouraging harmful actions that have the potential to destroy the community. The legend of Deer Woman in particular pushes them away from actions like promiscuity and infidelity. The Little People also hold otherworldly knowledge that they can pass onto humans which is then transmitted through the generations; however, this power must be obtained, respected, and maintained in traditional, healthy ways. As an example of what happens when these spiritual rules are broken, the people who incur the wrath of Deer Woman and her uncle, Thunder, soon die.

Some stories describe the sighting of Deer Woman as a sign of personal transformation or as a warning. Deer Woman is said to be fond of dancing and will sometimes join a communal dance unnoticed, leaving only when the drum beating ceases.

Among Lakota people, Deer Woman is called Anukite. The daughter of the first man and first woman was a beautiful young woman named Ite (Face). Tate (Wind) fell in love with her. They married and had quadruplets, who were the Four Winds. Tate wished to become a god and enlisted the aid of Inktomi, the trickster spider, who caused the Sun to fall in love with Ite. At a celebration, Ite sat in the place of the Moon, the Sun's wife. To punish her disrespect, the Sky cast Ite down from heaven to the earth. Half of her face became ugly and her name became Anukite (Double Face Woman) or Winyan Numpa (Double Woman).

Anukite appears to men in dreams or visions, either as a single deer or two deer women: a white-tailed deer and a black-tailed deer. Her two different sides symbolize appropriate and inappropriate sexual relations. Men that have sex with her are believed to go insane while women that dream of her will have strong powers or sexual attraction or can gain artistic powers if they make a wise choice in the near future.

Deer Woman and the other Little People share similarities with some European supernatural beings such as the Gaelic Aos Sí and Tuatha Dé Danann, the Germanic elves, and the Slavic víle and rusalki in that they hold otherworldly knowledge that they can pass onto humans if they are treated with respect and said human(s) deemed worthy. Special care is also taken not to anger them and avoid breaking their rules as their vengeance is unpleasant and often deadly.

La Patasola, literally "single footed", is a somewhat similar figure from the Antioquia region of Colombia in that she brings harm to men who harm what she cares about, in this case the forest. She is a shapeshifter who takes the form of a beautiful woman to lure men with her cries of fear. When the men, who are often causing harm in one way or another to the rain forest, come to her, she drops her beautiful mask and slaughters them in an effort to protect the forest.

[todaysdocument]

Staff Sergeant Murphy McIntosh (Muscogee) about to embark for overseas service, on June 4, 1943. 

Record Group 336: Records of the Office of the Chief of Transportation

Series: Photographic Albums of Prints of Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation

Image description: Staff Sergeant McIntosh, in Army uniform and helmet, carrying various pieces of gear. Behind him are other soldiers with their own gear; they all stand on a wooden pier with a ship in the background.

Image description: Same photo, but zoomed in so we can see SSgt McIntosh’s face more clearly. 

[hoyvinmayvin]

Me thinking about my retirement.

[tredawakandan]

Grand Salute to Chief Sekhu💪🏿🏹. Another Individual who has been showing us that it's more than ok to honor our Heritage in the Americas. Be sure to check him out

[thefirsthogokage]

Oh hey, I just mentioned this yesterday with the Choctaw tribe:

[whitepassingpocs]

hi I recently found your blog and I just wanted to thank you. I've always felt a very strong connection to my native ancestry but I was raised white and my family members (thanks to racism) see our non-white history as a point of shame.

despite this, I was raised knowing of our ancestry. as a child I was under the impression I wasn't white because I experienced racialized discrimination from family members. (my hair and eyes are darker than theirs. my skin has a more warm/olive undertone). as I got older, my family shamed me more for wanting to reconnect and I also became more white passing as my skin got lighter.

I know for a fact that my ancestors were Creek/Muscogee, Scottish, and Irish. I feel so weird trying to reconnect because I can't really ask family and I feel so separated from my native culture, it feels invasive and wrong to ask as an outsider.

I'm always so afraid of coming off as "that white person" that's trying to claim ancestry that isn't theirs. but I feel such an ache when I think of everything that's been lost.

I'm not really sure where to end this, but thank you again. it's reassuring to hear other's stories and experiences that I can relate to.

It can be hard reconnecting later in life and feeling like so much has been lost and I'm sorry you feel that pain. I don't wish it on anyone. As someone also reconnecting to my Indigenous culture later in life and dealing with same grief, I find courage in the knowledge that I'm carrying this grief so my descendants don't have to. I'm putting in the effort to relearn and reconnect so my children and grandchildren never feel like a stranger to their communities. I promise you that you'll feel less like a stranger as you keep learning. It gets easier 🙏🏼

[tanksarefluffy]

I know I already made a post about the blood quantum being wild but it really is cuz like I say I’m part welsh and no one questions me even tho the last welsh person in my family was in the 1800s , but I say I’m muscogee and suddenly I have to know my exact pedigree and l go well um i’m 3/64 muscogee and people have an argument over whether I’m actually muscogee despite currently going through the process to enroll.

[tvstvnvkke]

Another cool family piece. I don't have a date or name for this one, but they're related to me somehow. Aren't they just beautiful women. My hair is as long as their's.

[auntphibian]

I saw someone talk about Native American character design and it made me think of Watkulgee. She was a racoon shifter warlock/barbarian. Her warlock patron was a water serpent of the river her village was next to. She was a chef and the running joke was that she washed absolutely everything because racoon. She had racoon hands and used the ball club from her late husband. Her dress was inspired by Muscogee ribbon dresses although really they should go up to the neck, I just think off the shoulder is pretty. The name comes from the Mvskoke work "Wotkvlke" which means "people of racoon".

The all black get up was a joke about yee oldy cat suits since they needed to rob a museum.

[mumblelard]

i live on muscogee land

[sam-is-here96]

Joy Harjo, Weaving Sundown.

[muslcub]

Hauling hay

[depressed-obsessedstardust3]

Hi! My entire family is from Alabama and we have Mvskoke/Poarch ancestry on my mother’s side, my grandmother is older and doesn’t know/remember much. Because we’re also black I feel like the records are messy because of enslavement. I want to figure out my clan information, are there any resources I can turn to? Are there any recommendations of how to reconnect to the culture? I’m in Georgia now so I don’t have reservations or enclaves near me.