Hawk Littlejohn, 1941–2000
I had the privilege of working with Hawk Littlejohn, a traditional medicine man, in 1979 at the Boston (Massachusetts) Indian Council. Thomas Crowe wrote in his obituary that Hawk Littlejohn “embraced tradition in the modern world. He was a native of Western North Carolina and a member of the Eastern Band of the Cher- okee nation. He was unique both in his skills in the traditional methods of natural and psychological healing and in his sensitivity and concern for his fellow man.” I interviewed him in June 1979. Here are several of his thoughts in his own words:
• A medicine man sees himself in my tribe as a person who is many, many things. Not just as a HEALER or not just as a priest. We like to see ourselves like the fingers on a hand. They are separated and work independently of the hand if requested to, but they’re still part of the whole. And each one of these fingers can do different things. It’s like when I go to visit a home and there is a child there who is suffering from malnutrition but in our medicine we’re more interested in the cause not the symptom. So, I’ve left my role as a HEALER and a priest to a role that might turn out to be social or political to find out why the child is hungry, why this child is feeling this way. And that might be dealing with the tribal government or some kind of social situation. We elect to see ourselves as representatives of our people’s needs.
• The medicine man or HEALER in my tribe is considered to be chosen by the Great Spirit. For a couple of years the medicine men check all children for unusual marks, it is not any particular mark on the body but some- thing they consider very unusual as a sign. The unusual marks that were on me were Simian Creases, the line that goes across my hand. I’m told it is unusual to have one of these but to have two, one on each hand, is very unusual. I was perhaps two or three years old when I was chosen.
• As a child I was taught that there are three parts of us and the most obvi- ous part is the physical aspect, then the second part is the intellectual part,