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The Cherokee people, known to themselves as the Aniyunwiya or Principal People, are an Iroquoian indigenous nation with historical territories in the southeastern United States, particularly the Appalachian highlands and Great Smoky Mountains.
Their oral traditions include a migration account in which ancestral groups lived on an island south of the present United States.
That island suffered earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. Multiple canoe parties set out across a vast body of water. Only seven groups completed the journey and reached a new shore.
These survivors established the seven Cherokee clans. Separate records collected by ethnographer James Mooney state that Cherokee ancestors originated in a land toward the rising sun near the seacoast. These elements of a distant origin involving water, cataclysm, and movement from the east provide context for examining connections proposed in other sources.
Atlantean Refugees in South America
Edgar Cayce’s psychic readings contain statements that describe movements of people from Atlantis to the Americas. The readings document that a group left Atlantis and traveled to South America as Atlantean refugees who relocated to Peruvian land.
In the Inca or Peruvian or Ecuador land when the people from On and Og were making for so many changes by the disturbing forces which arose from individuals who came into the land from the Atlantean land. (1895-1)
In that land now known as the Peruvian when the Ohums were being besieged by the people from the Poseidian land. (1909-1)
Edgar Cayce
Divisions and Conflicts in Atlantis
Several readings describe dissensions, rebellions, disturbances, turmoils, and destruction in Atlantis between two spiritual groups, the sons of the Law of One and the sons of Belial.
In the Atlantean land when there were the rebellions by the children of Belial. (2283-1)
In the Atlantean land when there were turmoils between the sons of Belial and children of the Law of One. (3102-2)
Edgar Cayce
Some priests in Atlantis focused on material pursuits rather than spiritual development. They practiced black arts, misused spiritual laws, and sought to dominate others. The readings document ongoing conflicts between these factions.
The entity then took the part of those who later became the heads of those that warred against those of the Law of One. (1208-1)
In that land now known as the Atlantean when there were the turmoils. The entity was among the people that were with the sons of Belial, that warred with the sons of the One influence among those bringing those activities in the Central America land in the Incal land becoming the priest. (670-1)
Edgar Cayce
Actions Against the Sons of Belial
The readings also state that members of the Law of One group took action against the sons of Belial.
Ax-El-Tan made those attempts to curb the activities of the sons of Belial and Beelzebub who rose to those positions as the warrior among the Atlanteans and turned to the use of destructive forces. (1066-1)
The entity made wars upon the children of Belial. (1610-2)
Edgar Cayce
Sojourn in Yucatan and Migration Northward
The readings further document a period in the Yucatan followed by northward migration into North America by Atlantean descendants.
The entity was among those of the second generation of Atlanteans who struggled northward from Yucatan, settling in what is now a portion of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio being among those of the earlier period known as Mound Builders. (3528-1)
Edgar Cayce
Mound Builders and Cherokee Settlement
The Walam Olum records Cherokee construction of mounds in the Ohio Hopewell Culture Area. At least ten readings specify areas Cayce meant by Mound Builders or Mound Dwellers. Eight of these identify the Ohio Hopewell Culture Area. More than a century ago James Mooney recorded that Cherokees built mounds near Moundsville on the Ohio and claimed the Upper Ohio mounds. Cherokees eventually settled in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Connection to the Iroquois
From their emigration out of Atlantis approximately 12,000 years ago until European contact in 1540 CE, Cherokee ancestors traveled thousands of miles. The Cherokee share kinship with the Iroquois, also called Haudenosaunee, whom the readings identify as pure Atlantean descendants (1219-1). Proto-Iroquoians and Proto-Cherokees disagreed, leading the tribes to separate. The Iroquois moved north while the Cherokees went south. The readings trace this migration history. The Cherokee hold equal status with the Iroquois as descendants of the Atlanteans.
One of the twelve Tribes
The mighty High Priest Imhotep of Atlantis was ruler of the tribe that took its wisdom to the west to form the Native American culture. The Cherokees were Wise Ones who carried the secrets of Atlantis. They brought their knowledge of shamanism and soul retrieval to the peoples, as well as their special abilities to work with dreams using dream catchers.
One of the gifts that was entrusted to them at the end of Atlantis was that of honouring the land including all things living in it and on it. The Native Americans have been keepers of the ancient wisdom of the Earth ever since. The Wise Ones of the tribes are now reminding humanity that it is important to tread lightly on the ground, for Earth does not belong to us.
According to ancient Cherokee tradition, their ancestors came from the Pleiades to the five islands of Atlantis, where they settled. Then, at the fall of Atlantis, the tribe sailed to the Americas taking their wisdom with them.
Discover Atlantis
Flood story of the Cherokee
Day after day, a dog stood at the river bank and howled piteously. Rebuked by his master, the dog said a flood was coming, and he must build and provision a boat. Furthermore, the dog said, he must throw him, the dog, into the water. For a sign that he spoke the truth, the dog showed the back of his neck, which was raw and bare with flesh and bone showing. The man followed directions, and he and his family survived; from them, the present population is descended. [Gaster, pp. 116-117]
Cherokee (Great Lakes area; eastern Tennessee):
Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine
Cherokee tradition includes the story “Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine,” in which seven boys rise into the sky and become the star cluster (called Ani’tsutsä). A separate modern telling claims Cherokee origins in the Pleiades through a figure named Star Woman, but this version does not appear in classical ethnographic sources and reflects later reinterpretation. Lakota tradition links the Pleiades to the formation of Devils Tower through the story of seven sisters pursued by a bear; the sisters become stars after the rock rises to protect them.
See Also: Did the Cherokee migrate from Atlantis
Ywahoo, a twenty-seventh-generation Cherokee who shares the ancestral wisdom she received from her grandparents and great-grandparents, we learn that long ago people from the stars known as the seven dancers, or the Pleiades, reached the five islands of Atlantis and happily settled there.
Atlantis: Insights from a lost civilization
