Oconaluftee Indian Village: The Eastern Band on Their Own Ground

The Oconaluftee Indian Village, founded in nineteen fifty-two and operated by the Cherokee Historical Association, is a living history museum on the Qualla Boundary, the sovereign territory of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. All guides and demonstrators here are members of the Eastern Band, the descendants of those Cherokee who evaded the eighteen thirty-eight forced removal and maintained their presence in these mountains. The village recreates an eighteenth-century Cherokee community, with demonstrations of arrowhead-making, basket-weaving, blowgun use, and pottery. The Eastern Band today numbers well over ten thousand enrolled members and operates this museum as part of a broader assertion of their ongoing cultural presence in the mountains their ancestors refused to leave.