Cherokees oppose Duke Energy work near sacred site

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is protesting Duke Energy's
construction of an electrical station near the site the tribe considers its
birthplace.

Duke Energy is clearing a site overlooking the ancestral home the Cherokee
call Kituwah (KEE-to-wa), which archaeologists say was occupied at least
9,000 years ago, The Charlotte Observer reported Thursday.

The Swain County site includes a mound 170 feet wide and 5 feet high in a
field along the Tuckasegee River and surrounded by mountains. Cherokee
tradition says the mound once was the foundation of buildings that held the
sacred flame the tribe tended year-round.

"Everything that we know to be Cherokee, our laws, religion, clan system,
originated on that spot," said Tom Belt, coordinator of the Cherokee
language program at Western Carolina University. "There are very few people
on Earth who can point to where they began, to the inch, to point to the
center of that mound and say, 'This is where our first fire was put down.'"

Tests of the mound found successive layers of council houses built within
it, said Brett Riggs, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
archaeologist who has researched the site.

Kituwah was "the very touchstone of Cherokee life," Riggs said.

But a half-mile away and across the river, Duke Energy in December started
clearing a site for a station which can raise or lower voltage in
transmission lines. The station will rise 40 feet at its tallest point, and
the Charlotte-based utility said it is needed to meet the area's growing
power needs.

Tribal leaders say they weren't consulted and asked Duke Energy to
temporarily stop work. Tribe members worry the station could ruin views from
the mound, Eastern Band principal chief Michell Hicks said.

"While I am displeased that we were not consulted at the outset I am
confident that we will resolve this issue in the near future," Hicks said.

Duke Energy said it didn't need approval from state regulators or to consult
with the Cherokees because the project upgrades existing power lines. But
the company "took the cultural resources into account when we evaluated the
site," spokesman Jason Walls said.

The company's property was already being developed for housing, he said.
Duke considered several sites but bought the one with a willing seller.

While grading continues, no construction will take place until the president
of Duke Energy's Carolinas operating unit meets with tribal officials next
week, Walls said.

The case is an example of the frequent conflicts between preservation and
modernization, Riggs said.

"We run into this same issue with Walmarts on Civil War battlegrounds, where
development encroaches on sacred ground," he said.

In Virginia, preservationists have filed suit over a proposed Walmart that
would be built within a mile of the Wilderness Civil War battlefield.