Cherokee (pronounced Chair-uh-key). The name comes from the creek word chelokee, which means people of a different speech. The Ch-refer- to themselves as Ani-Yum wiya , meaning "the real people "or” the principal people or Tsalagi, which comes from a Choctaw word for people living in a land of many caves. The Cherokee originally lived in part of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. In the late 1990's most Cherokees lived in northeastern Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
