Ancient Appalachian Wisdom

Who would ever guess that modern listeners would identify with the ancient, characters in a Cherokee story — Selu, who is murdered by her two sons, or the wild child, who emerges from the discarded blood of animals? Yet, in a weekend workshop with psychologist Keith Parker in Brevard, N.C., that is precisely what happens for the participants. 

There they saw Selu standing in the middle of the room with the basket in front of her on the floor. Leaning over the basket, she rubbed her stomach, and the basket was half full of corn. Then she rubbed under her armpits, and the basket was full of corn. The boys looked at each other and said, “This will never do.”

When the boys came back into the house, she knew their thoughts before they spoke. 

“So are you going to kill me?” said Selu. “Yes,” said the boys, “you are a witch.” “Well,” said their mother, “when you have killed me, clear a large piece of ground in front of the house and drag my body seven times around the circle. Then drag me seven times over the ground inside the circle, and stay up all night and watch, and in the morning you will have plenty of corn.”

In just a brief passage, “Kanati and Selu” evokes more familiar myths dealing with the desire for knowledge, loss of innocence, the need to work the earth for food, and sacrifice. We’re reminded of evil stepmothers, children tricking parents, and parents turning their children out into the world to grow up. As Parker reads the story aloud, we feel a deep resonance with our own primal fears, needs and desires. 

Time passes effortlessly, for early in the presentation, one gets the feeling that these stories have so shaped, reshaped and refined Parker himself that the pull to be transformed is hard to resist. Perhaps that is the secret of this 71-year-old psychologist with the winning smile and warm personality. He is so transparent that others can’t help but be drawn into the dramas that have enriched his life. Parker believes that despite their violence, these stories ultimately offer healing and wholeness to the Cherokee, as well as to non-native people.

Such mythic figures as the Corn Mother actually offer insight into modern situations and dilemmas. And as he demonstrates in a vigorous exchange with his audience, the connections are powerfully real. If Selu could feed her tribe with her life-giving sacrifice, producing corn, perhaps we, too, can nourish others in our own community. Even if it means sacrifice — a kind of death — so that younger ones can grow up to become full members of the tribe.

The Cherokee stories return us to elemental things — water, fire, blood, evil, death, rebirth, food for a family and for all families in the community. The ideas are fluid truths, so that if one looks closely at Selu the Corn Mother, though she is strange, we can see in her a strong mother figure and see, then, a familiar mother, and perhaps even ourselves. This is how myth works. Myths carry archetypal or universal truths that, according to the Jungian psychology Parker is trained in, everyone can relate to and gain insight from.

As Parker unfolds the story, he weaves in his own story, of growing up in the mountains with Cherokee relatives, revealing in subtle ways how native spirituality has shaped his life. It is wisdom derived from the world right around us, as Parker writes in the conclusion to his book Seven Cherokee Myths: “At the core of this wisdom from those ancient Appalachian ancestors one finds … a simple, basic connection to the Creator and Creation itself. In the past, they did not worship animals or trees, but they were deeply connected to all of creation. That connectedness is captured in the sense of thankfulness — for each day, for life, for each being whatever it might be.”

Looking back, Parker can see now that he was already on his journey, growing up in the Dunns Rock area of Transylvania County, N.C., worshipping with family and friends at Carrs Hill Baptist Church. 

“We were country people,” he says. 

He could literally look around the landscape and see his family’s presence. One of his great-grandmothers was named See Off Mountain. Two different great-grandparents started Methodist and Baptist churches in the area in the 1870s. His grandmother Hettie Powell ran a general store on the Greenville Highway that in the early 20th century was the popular gathering place for children after school and for grown-ups when they needed seeds, hoes or news of any kind. Today the building is Mud Dabbers Pottery in Brevard, N.C., where Keith’s wife, Jonlyn, is one of about 20 potters who carry on that same spirit of communal activity. 

When he left his family nest and went away to Berea College in 1954, Parker was drawn to the kinds of people and places that fostered the same kinship across ages, cultural experiences, and colors of skin.

But his first venture away from home was to travel down the highway to the big city of Brevard. Going to school with kids in town, he and his cousins showed up with tanned arms and in work clothes, all of the same clan of country kids who farmed the fields and gathered at big family reunions, where everyone’s skin blended. But going into “the city” began to forge his awareness of how different his family was from others in town.

In the early 1950s, as talk began to grow of integration and desegregation of the schools, one of his teachers proudly proclaimed that she’d never allow children of another race into her classroom. Parker recalls the incident with both sorrow and a kind of humorous irony. He looked around the room to see a cousin and two neighbors who were Cherokee, their blood identity hidden by the fact that all the country boys, himself included, had dark tans from outdoor work. The races had been mixing his whole life, and his teacher didn’t even know it.

In the 1940s, the Parker family — children and grandchildren of John Grant Parker — had reunions every year in Jackson County and upper Transylvania County. 

“We had traditional singing and preaching,” Parker said. “Sometimes special guests included the Hornbuckle family from Cherokee.” 

They sang and told stories in the traditional Cherokee language. For Keith, it meant that he grew up hearing their songs and stories. He explained that it was an opportunity most Cherokees on the reservation did not have since use of the language had long been repressed. 

On a deeper level, Parker was shaped by a family that allowed the Cherokee songs and stories to flourish and survive. 

“My grandfather did this, I felt, to honor them and their language,” Parker said.    

In the 1870s, the Cherokee had been forbidden, by law, to speak or write in the Cherokee language, in an effort by the federal government to assimilate the tribe. For an entire century, out of fear— for survival — the Cherokee abandoned their language at home and in public, striving to “wash up and be white,” in order to succeed in the American society. Even after the laws were repealed in the early 20th century, the intimidation has remained. 

More instances awakened his consciousness of somehow being different in the way he saw and experienced life. When he graduated from high school, Parker and his friend Walter Cantrell were asked by their minister to offer a special Sunday night service for the congregation. The boys invited the choir of Bethel A Baptist Church, a predominately black congregation from downtown Brevard, to sing. The choir was welcomed openly by his church, Parker recalls, but there were unfriendly rumblings from people in the downtown white churches. Although some folks were unsettled by such connections being made outside of town, Parker was excited by the natural blending of faith, family and friends. It was only the beginning of his journey, but it laid a groundwork that would take him around the globe, through many years of soul-searching, and finally back home, geographically and spiritually.

After college, he had planned to enter medical school, then the mission field as a medical missionary. Midway through medical school, Parker was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy and trained as a diver (one of a group called “frogmen” at the time, soon to be designated Navy Seals). During the underwater rescue of a downed pilot, he became entangled in the parachute ropes and nearly died. It was one of several life-threatening experiences made him sharply focus his goals and re-examine his spiritual life. 

He entered seminary to prepare for overseas missions work, studying psychology and religion, and upon graduation was assigned a position as professor of history at the Baptist Missionary Board in Zurich, Switzerland, teaching psychology, religion, and history, and doing pastoral counseling. 

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, many closet pastors from Eastern Bloc countries needed psychological help confronting a different world. Parker soon realized he needed support and supervision, and he sought more training at the Jung Institute across the river Limmat in Zurich.

At the Jung Institute, Parker eventually earned his diploma in analytical, or Jungian, psychology. At the same time, he practiced as a clinical psychologist at the Institute, he and his wife becoming close friends with the late Dr. Jung’s personal secretary, Aniela Jaffe, who was a learned scholar and psychologist herself.

In his studies, Parker worked with Greek myths and other European myths to understand human behavior and psychology. He discovered that the major world myths share themes with the Biblical stories, and he eventually reflected on the Cherokee stories, which he’d grown up hearing firsthand. They also contained the powerful universal themes of creation, first fire, life and death, community suffering, and healing. Parker found, ironically, that European students were just as fascinated with Cherokee myths as he was with the more familiar European, African and Asian ones. They carried the same universal meanings and psychological power, though with different place names, story lines and characters. 

Parker’s expanding interest in Jung’s groundbreaking work in religion and psychology led him to have different goals from those of the Baptist Missionary Board, and he left his position in Zurich in 1993. He was ready to return home and bring about a synthesis in his own myths, placing the Cherokee stories alongside the Christian and European ones.

Today, Parker is a member of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, which includes Christian, Catholic and Jewish practitioners. As a trained theologian and one who is avidly interested in cross-cultural expressions of faith, he seeks to counsel each person by understanding and appreciating that individual’s own spiritual tradition.

From his extensive cross-cultural experience, Parker has come to value spirituality in a variety of traditions. Returning home, it was as if he’d come back to the Garden of Eden. After all, the Cherokee’s Origin of Corn story is a “paradise story,” where everything began. Researching the myths and talking to many elders who still knew the stories, he found stories of creation, the beginning of evil, personal responsibility, and communal obligation. Visiting many of the land formations, such as Pilot Knob, Devil’s Courthouse, Judaculla Rock, and Looking Glass Rock, he realized these were the sites where the myths were conceived. This was, and still is, holy land for the Cherokee, whose identity is closely tied to the Appalachian Mountains.

At the same time he had a deep heart for the Cherokee people themselves. He began a study of their history, practices, and stories, working with many Cherokee friends and elders on the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee. In 2006 Parker published Seven Cherokee Myths, a book that presents seven key myths with interpretation on many levels, chiefly showing how the stories, though ancient and in many ways bizarre to our ears, offer healing to us all.

Seeing that evil is real in the Cherokee psyche, for example, Parker could draw connections between the ogre/cannibal stories that seem grotesque to modern ears. 

“There are some Spearfingers among us,” he says in workshops, drawing nods of understanding by describing that person in your family who sucks the energy out of you in holiday get-togethers. “And you thought it was just Great Aunt Sally.” 

Such family dynamics are all told in the stories of Spearfinger and Stone Man, Parker explains.

When Parker returned home in the mid-1990s, he discovered that the modern Cherokee did not know the stories as well as he did. Through their “500 years of pain” — a phrase used to describe the continual threat of extermination American Indians have felt since the beginning of European infiltration — they have been separated from their stories. It happened literally in the Removal to Oklahoma in the 1840s on the Trail of Tears and the “removal” of their native language through laws. It is still happening, Parker explains, as Cherokees adopt modern lifestyles and cannot easily integrate their ancestors’ spirituality. But there are some Cherokee who believe, like Parker, that in order to heal, the people must discover their identity in their ancient mythology.

Stone Man is a story that Ben Bushyhead sees at work among the Cherokee people today. Bushyhead grew up in Cherokee, became a Methodist minister like his father, and returned in 2000 to carry on work with the tribe in various social services roles. According to Bushyhead, the Cherokee are currently struggling with a tremendous drug problem on the reservation. Moreover, he said, they are in the sway of fundamentalist Christians who are telling the young ones, outright, “Do not listen to your elders” and follow the old, “pagan” Cherokee practices. Many still do and have a fascination with the pipe, the dances, and the sweat lodge. 

For years Cherokee have tried to live in both worlds, which has produced a kind of schizophrenia, Bushyhead explained. But others, such as himself, believe that the only way they will heal from their sense of victimization and self-destructive habits is to hear the old stories and let their power work among the people, as it did long ago. Then the worlds of their Christian faith and their native heritage can be integrated, rather than remain in deep tension with each other.

Bushyhead said Parker is, in a real sense, bringing the stories back to the people. As a Christian pastoral counselor, a Jungian analyst, and one who values Cherokee spirituality, Parker offers a rare synthesis of the myths that can help recover the essence of the stories for the Cherokee. 

In Bushyhead’s ears, Parker has opened a path for the Cherokee to become reacquainted with stories of their sacred lands and mythic characters. 

“We need to give them their stories,” Bushyhead said. “Parents need to hear about Stone Man and Spearfinger. They are like the drugs [of our day]. Spearfinger lies in wait and seduces kids. Stone Man is exactly the same. Arrows glance off him. Keith’s book gives us a strong-pointed arrow in our quiver to heal 500 years of pain. The tip of his arrow penetrates things that other arrows don’t penetrate.”

Bushyhead spoke of various drug treatment programs and warnings not to abuse alcohol. He drew on a story from the Crow tribe’s history to explain how powerful Parker’s book is for the Cherokee people: 

I had a friend in Montana many years ago who grew up next to the Crow reservation. He came to know the people and their practices. Twenty years later, the Crow tribe recognized that they had lost the art of their beadwork … the stories, prayers, and choice of bead colors for the proper shading. No one knew how to work with beads anymore, the way the old ones used to. Then, after discussions between the Senior Citizen’s Council and the Tribal Council, they sought out this gentleman, my friend, and he taught the women how to do their beadwork. Keith has given us back our beadwork.

Modern listeners can experience the power of Parker’s storytelling in workshops and presentations he gives in Brevard and elsewhere in the Southern Appalachian region. But beware:  stories will fly like the wind from your own heart, and he will listen quietly to your stories for as long as they come. And this is how you’ll know the stories, like the Cherokee myths, carry truth.

“It’s all stories,” Parker says.