The Fire Altar
At the beginning of the first new moon when
corn plants form the showing of being full-eared, the Cherokee have their first
annual ritual called the Green Corn Festival. Its occurrence is closely in-line
with Easter and James Adair mentions this as an important key to the Cherokees
origin as stemming from the original Hebrews. The Cherokee called this ritual
Neetak Hoollo.
During the Green Corn Festival, a New Year
begins and along with it, a new fire must be made. All the old ashes must be
completely removed from the area in which the fire was kept. After removing the
top layer of soil, they placed some button snakeroot and tobacco into the
layer, prayed to the area for purity and good will and then recovered it with
fresh soil and white clay.
The divine fire co-operated with the Cherokee
by helping to bring on seasonable rains. The ascension of the smoke carried
their prayers to Creator for they realized he dwelled above the clouds, and his
essence was contained within the fire as well. Though they knew he was
omnipotent, having no one fixed place in which to reside, they felt he was in
every good system of things, drawn to what pleased him most and what was pure
and positive.
In the early Cherokee language, Loak signified
fire, and Loak Ishtohoollo, "the holy or divine fire," or the anger
of Ishtohoollo, "the great, holy One" which nearly agrees with
Hebrew, that which flames, or scorches with vehement heat.
Ishtohoollo is another name for God.
Ishtohoollo points at the greatness, purity, and goodness, of the Creator. It
is derived from Ishto, meaning GREAT, which was the usual name of God through
all the prophetic writings. Likewise, from the present tense of the infinitive
mood of the active verb, Ahoollo, "I love," and from the tense of the
passive verb, Hoollo, which signifies "sanctifying, sanctified, divine, or
holy."
The belief of the higher regions are being
inhabited by good spirits are called Hottuk
Ishtohoollo, and Nana Ishtohoollo, which means "holy
people," and "relations to the great, holy One." The Hottuk
ookproose, or Nana ookproose, "accursed people," or
"accursed beings," they say, possess the dark regions of the west.
The Nana
Ishtohoollo, "concomitant holy spirits," or angels, use to
forewarn the Cherokee of impeding dangers, as by intuition. Similar to this,
was the opinion of many of the Hebrews.