Christmas in Cherokee country
Cherokees have never needed much of an excuse to get together and share food and fellowship. Long before the arrival of the colonials there were several celebratory holidays on the Cherokee calendar. From the Planting Moon in the spring to the Festival of Forgiveness in the fall, Cherokee tradition provided ample opportunity for celebration and hospitality.
By the turn of the nineteenth century, a majority of Cherokees professed a belief in some form of Christianity, and the holidays and celebrations tended to follow accordingly. The cultural need for fellowship and sharing remained, but the names, and sometimes the seasons, of the holidays changed.
Come with us now down the Memory Road and see what a Christmas gathering might have been like at the Cherokee Nation’s grandest home.
Diamond Hill, James Vann’s grand brick mansion at Spring Place, is to this day the tallest and grandest home for miles around. One can see the place from some distance away. Mr. Vann spared no expense in building his dream home, bringing an architect from Paris to assist with the design. This is the sort of extravagance people came to expect from James Vann, a self-made man of outsized ambitions and appetites who rode the war path with Dragging Canoe before turning his considerable intellect to business.
As a successful Cherokee, James Vann would have expected to be a hospitable and gracious host, providing every comfort and generosity his guests could desire. But James Vann, being who he was, would have gone even further. There would have been few luxuries to which he would not have had access, considering his many and varied business interests. French wines, Swiss chocolates, whisky from his own stills, as well as a variety of meats and produce from his own fields and pastures, all of these would have graced his tables and sideboards.
In the mind’s eye, one can see the glow of lamps and torches illuminating both the impressive brick walls of the home as well as the impressive grounds and gardens. The guests arriving both by carriage and on horseback from every corner of the Cherokee Nation, and other places as well. It is likely there would have been a live band playing the popular music of the time, as well as gentlemen attempting to impress the young ladies with their knowledge of poetry and the Greek classics. Everyone who was anyone in Cherokee business or politics would have been found at James Vann’s house at some point, either by desire or by necessity.
The table would have been set with the finest china that Mr. Vann’s considerable wealth could acquire, and crystal as well. The value of the silver on the table would probably have considered extravagant even among the lesser nobility on the continent.
The fare on offer for dinner at one of these soirees would likely have been sufficient to inspire envy among the guests of any petty prince. Hams and roasts and cutlets prepared in as many different ways as the imagination of Vann’s several cooks could conjure. From soups to desserts, dinner at the Vann place would indeed have been an event to which a guest would have anticipated with desire.
After dinner, there would have been brandy and conversation of the issues of the day, perhaps some poetry reading and music as well. A few of the guests would have been staying for a few days to visit and relax. This is what it might have been like to attend a Christmas party at Diamond Hill, the holiday was brought by the missionaries, but the hospitality was all Cherokee.