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Ever since I was a young girl
growing up in Bartlesville, OK, I dreamed that one day I could
pay tribute to my 5th-great grandmother, Nancy Ward, Beloved
Woman of the Cherokee. After many years of writing songs,
recording albums, and performing all over the world, that day
has come! I have written 16 songs and have co-written the
script (with Nick Sweet), for a musical, based on her life.
NANYEHI
Beloved Woman of the Cherokee
Her birth name was Nanyehi,
which means, "she who walks among the spirit people." On
the day she was born, a white wolf appeared on the horizon.
This was very significant to the Cherokee people, since "white"
was the color that symbolized “peace," and Nanyehi was born into
the Wolf Clan, one of the most prominent of the seven Cherokee
clans. She was born in approximately 1738, in Chota,
the capital of the Cherokee Nation, in an area that is now
eastern Tennessee. She accompanied her husband,
Kingfisher, to war against the Creek Indians in the 1755 Battle
of Taliwa. As she knelt by his side, chewing the bullets
to make them more deadly, Kingfisher was killed. Nanyehi
took his rifle and led the Cherokee to victory. She was
honored as a "war woman" and was given the right to sit in the
Grand Council and speak on behalf of the Cherokee. She was
given a shawl of white swan feathers and granted a power not
even given to the Chiefs. She could determine the fate of
captives, and could save a life, by raising one white swan
feather. Her second husband was Bryant Ward, a trader in
Cherokee country, of Irish descent. She became known as
“Nancy Ward” to the American settlers, She risked her own life,
and used her esteemed position to promote peace between the
Cherokee and the encroaching American settlers, as well as
between the Cherokee, the British, and other Native American
tribes. She worked tirelessly to secure a future for
Cherokee children and generations to come.
Nanyehi entered the spirit world in 1822. Witnesses say
that a white light rose from her chest, swirled around the room,
took the form of a swan, and flew out the window toward her
beloved Chota.
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