Welcome to the Homepage for the Central Texas Cherokee Township (CTCT), a community of Cherokees dedicated to Cherokee history, language, culture, heritage, tradition and fellowship.

We endeavor to bring news from the nation to our members as well as meetings, fellowship and friendship. We offer occassional gatherings, information exchanges and a chance to meet fellow citizens of the nation. You are welcome to join if you are Cherokee, a family member of a Cherokee or interested in Native American culture and heritage.

Central Texas Cherokee Township is an at-large community that serves Cherokee citizens and their family members who live outside the nation's traditional service area in Oklahoma. We provide cultural presentations on Cheroke history, art, culture, and agriculture.

Announcements:

Pam Bakke demonstrates Cherokee Pottery

CTCT welcomes Pam Bakke from the Nation's Cultural Outreach Office to demonstrate the art of pinched-pot pottery. Rather than using a wheel or kiln, Cherokees pinched wet clay into the shape they desired and let them dry in the air until hard. They decorated their pots by pressing stones, wood, or tools into the wet clay to create designs. They often fired the pots with soft wood to darken the clay's color. Modern Cherokee pottery is more valued as art rather than objects for daily use.

According to legends the first pinch pot was made by a Cherokee woman who modeled the pots on clay nests built by wasps. The presentation will include air-dry clay for participants to make their own pots.

Upcoming Events

Date	Time	Event
April 13, 2024	1-4 pm	Pinch Pot demonstration
April 21, 2024	11am-7pm	NAIC Powwow at Deloris Duffie red center: Information table and cultural demonstrations.
April 21, 2024	2-5pm	Meeting at Puerto Rican Cultural Center

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News:

CTCT and NAIC UT Connect for Native American Games

Tribes often resolved disputes with a game of stickball.

Members of the Native American and Indigenous Collective (NAIC) at the University of Texas joined CTCT for exhausting and exhilerating native field games at Pease Park on Friday, March 29. There was some pushing, some shoving, but everyone was able to walk away happy.

The main events were stickball, which is a Cherokee version of La Crosse, in which players move a rawhide ball with net sticks toward a goal. In Chunkey two teams of players try to score by throwing their sticks to land as close to a rolling disc as possible. Games were important to the Cherokee ritual cycle, and stickball was commonly used as a replacement for warfare between tribes and communities.

Wado to NAIC for all your hard cultural work while balancing being full time students, and Wado to everyone who came out!!

Stickball players advanced the ball with netting sticks.

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