Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter)

Attakullakulla - aka Little Carpenter

First Beloved Man of the Cherokee Tribe (1757-74)

Born 1708 - born to a tribe of the Nipissing to the north near Lake Superior. He was captured as an infant during a raid in which his parents were killed, and brought back to Tennessee to be adopted by a Cherokee family, where he was raised as Cherokee.

Resided in Chota (Overhill town in Monroe, Tenn.)

Described: Naturalist William Bartram described him as "a man of remarkable small stature, slender, and delicate frame. His ears were cut and banded with silver, hanging nearly down to his shoulders. He was mild-mannered, brilliant, and witty”

No known paintings of Attakullakulla. This painting is of a contemporary, Ocononostota, in 1730 UK.  The drawing at the bottom of the page, circa 1730, may have been of Attakullakulla

Note:  The Cherokee adopted the practice of their headman wearing the gorget.  This from the British practice of military officers and middle and upper royal officials wearing a gorget to signify their authority.  A gorget was the neckpiece of a suit of full armor worn by a knight.  The gorget as a symbol of the knightly class was kept after full armor fell into disuse.       

Description of Cherokee from The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake (1764)

The Cherokee are olive skinned and of middle stature, though often painted and their skins tatooed with gunpowder in pretty figures. They are thin and small of hand and feet.

The men shave their head or pluck the hair out by the root, leaving only a patch of hair on the crown which they ornament with beads, feathers and other baubles. They wear a collar of wampum (beads cut from clam shells), a silver gorget, and silver bands on their wrists and bicep. They also wore a shirt of english make, a loin cloth front and back, chaps (in the winter) and cloth boot / moccasins. Over top of it all, they wear a large mantle or match coat.

The women have extremely long hair reaching to middle of the thigh or even the ground. They tie up their hair with ribbons and braid it. While they also have eyebrows, they remove all other hair from their bodies. They dress much like European women.

Wiki

The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake