Cherokee National Holiday

Arts and crafts booths on the Cherokee Heritage Center grounds, Cherokee National Holiday, 2007

The Cherokee National Holiday is an annual event held each Labor Day weekend in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The event celebrates the September 6, 1839 signing of the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma after the Trail of Tears Indian removal ended.

Origins and activities

Originally began in 1953, the event has grown into one of the largest festivals in Oklahoma, attracting in excess of 70,000 attendees coming from all over the United States. Many attendees are also tribal members of the "Five Civilized Tribes" (the Cherokee, and also the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles). Others who routinely attend the event are the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians located in western North Carolina and also the United Keetowah Band which, like the Cherokee Nation, are headquartered in Tahlequah.

The holiday hosts many different cultural and artistic events such as a two night intertribal pow wow, stickball, Cherokee marbles, horseshoes and cornstalk shoot tournaments, softball tournaments, rodeos, car and art shows, gospel singings, the annual Miss Cherokee pageant, the Cherokee National Holiday parade, and the annual "State of the Nation" address by the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Cherokee National Holiday stickball match on the grounds of Sequoyah High School, Tahlequah, Oklahoma

Each year a committee chooses a new theme for the annual celebration. Some recent themes have included:

Cherokee

Tribes	Cherokee Nation Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians

Culture	Society Cherokee National Holiday Clans Gadugi Green Corn Ceremony Language Marbles Mythology Stomp dance Booger dance Syllabary

History	Cherokee history Cherokee military history Treaties Kituwah Mound Ani-kutani Anglo-Cherokee War Cherokee–American wars Transylvania Purchase Sycamore Shoals Chickamauga Cherokee Cherokee Phoenix Treaty of New Echota Original Cherokee Nation Trail of Tears Timeline of Cherokee removal Civil War Keetoowah Nighthawk Society Cherokee Female Seminary Cherokee Male Seminary Cherokee Commission

Organizations	Cherokee Heritage Center Cherokee Nation Warriors Society Cherokee National Youth Choir Heritage groups Cherokee Preservation Foundation Original Keetoowah Society Oconaluftee Indian Village

Politics and law	Principal Chiefs Blood law Flag Freedman controversy Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

See also: Indigenous peoples of North America portal and Cherokee-language Wikipedia

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