Ex-Porn Star Says Space Aliens Gave the Cherokee Marijuana - JASON COLAVITO

Ex-Porn Star Says Space Aliens Gave the Cherokee Marijuana

6/8/2017

Sometimes there are claims that startle even me. My Google News Alert for “Ancient Aliens” directed me to Dope magazine, a publication for marijuana enthusiasts, in which author Katie Conley wrote about claims that space aliens brought the “gift” of cannabis to Earth in the distant past. Given the article’s semi-sarcastic tone, I thought that it must be a joke. However, upon checking the sources referred to in the article, it turns out that there actually is a New Age one-quarter Cherokee ex-porn star who made exactly that claim earlier this year in High Times magazine.

Hyapatia Lee was a pornographic actress and stripper in the 1980s, and according to her Wikipedia page, one of the most famous of the time, in large measure because she was the only Native American working in porn in those years. Last year, she remade herself as a Native American spiritual healer, authoring a self-help book called Native Strength. In promoting that book, Lee made the following claim in High Times magazine:

Many tribes across the Americas have legends of aliens, or Star People, bringing cannabis to this planet. The Cherokee say that the Star People came from a planet with the same name as the Cherokee word for pot, gatunlati. There are also thousands of stories of Natives being visited by Star People, not only in the past but on a continual basis.

I was taught that the Star People also gave us an expansive system for emotional development thousands of years ago to help people on Earth find happiness and emotional maturity. I began learning this thorough and complete system in 1986 from medicine men and women in the United States, Canada, Australia and Hawaii. I have called this system Native Strength, and it offers medicine wheels for managing bullies, motivation, success, empowerment, breaking bad habits, making your dreams come true, predicting where anyone’s focus will be at any given time in their life and much more. Medicine wheels are used to share knowledge, similar to the way the aliens in the movie Arrival communicated.

As I am sure you can tell, Lee has fallen into the trap of believing the fringe interpretation of Native American lore that imposes an ancient astronaut reading on it. The Star People are familiar enough—gods and demigods reinterpreted as space aliens.

The question of gatunlati is a more complicated one. The word is indeed Cherokee and it refers to a type of wild hemp. It was also used as a proper name, a variant (Cuhtahlatah) being the name of a famous Cherokee woman who avenged the death of her husband in the 1800s. I am not fluent in Cherokee, so I can’t speak to the difference, but the word for wild hemp is spelled differently from the one that Lee ascribes to another planet. That word is galunlati, and it is not traditionally another planet but a realm directly above the Earth from which animals descended to the Earth. It sits atop the vault of the sky.

So far as I have been able to find, the two words are not interchangeable, though we would need an expert on the Cherokee language to know for sure.

Bob Jase

6/8/2017 11:46:32 am

There is nothing too whacked to be incorporated into faux native-American folklore.

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David Hollombe

6/8/2017 01:09:27 pm

Wild hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) is unrelated to Cannabis and its effects are similar to Digitalis.

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TONY S.

6/8/2017 01:17:40 pm

Ancient astronauts even brought us weed! Is there anything they didn't think of? No wonder those old clueless primitives thought they were gods. Good times.

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Jim

6/8/2017 05:37:13 pm

Yup, they pretty much thought of everything. After giving them pot, they introduced popcorn, to cure the munchies.

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MartyR

6/11/2017 01:30:47 pm

I thought it was the Europeans who brought weed to the American shores. They were stoned and spaced out, which is why the mounds were built.

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Shane Sullivan

6/8/2017 01:44:27 pm

Hyapatia Lee, you silly goose. Pot grows *up* from the *ground*, not down from the sky.

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Titus pullo

6/8/2017 02:01:21 pm

There might be something about aa beliefs and ancient advanced cilivizations and pot! My personal experience with stoners is they are more into consparicies and fringe ideas! Hey in a free country i dont care if ur stoned, your business

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Americanegro

6/8/2017 02:34:41 pm

Based on the large number of people claiming to be part Cherokee, Cherokees must really like to impregnate.

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David Bradbury

6/8/2017 03:12:59 pm

- or maybe a large number of Cherokee recognised that they were being subjected to genocide, and decided that their best hope of a future was to go and live in white communities, taking whatever work they could find.

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Americanegro

6/8/2017 05:26:40 pm

So you're saying it's unusual for Indians to work for a living?

David Bradbury

6/8/2017 06:31:45 pm

No I'm not, and I think you knew it.

Weatherwax

6/8/2017 07:47:06 pm

Or it suddenly became fashionable to be descended from Native Americans, so great grand parent princesses were created.

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BigNick

6/8/2017 08:16:48 pm

True story:
My mother in law is a proud "part cherokee."
She is also a racist, and she doesn't like the fact her daughter married a half Mexican. Most Mexicans, including my family, are mestizos. So she hates me for being what she claims to be.

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Shane Sullivan

6/8/2017 09:34:41 pm

No, my great aunt and her son are Cherokee, and neither of them has ever offered to have sex with me, so I'm forced to conclude that the Cherokee are the only ethnic group in the history of the world who just don't like sex.

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BigNick

6/8/2017 11:04:18 pm

Well, to be fair, you aren't a sex ape.

An Over-Educated Grunt

6/9/2017 03:30:31 pm

To be fair, two people is too small a sample. You need to proposition at least thirty Cherokee for it to be statistically meaningful.

For science.

Riley V

6/9/2017 12:49:59 am

Cherokees, along with the other 4 "Civilized Tribes" (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek) were living as stable subsistence farmers in log cabins at time of contact. They quickly assimilated, intermarried, built schools, and began owning African slaves.
It is hip, slick, and cool to declare yourself part Native, yet if your family is from the Old South prior to 1860 there is about a 60% probability of a Native ancestor, no matter what Racial Identity your family now declares.
There is an old joke at Pow Wows. What do you call someone with blue eyes and blond hair? A Cherokee.

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yakko

6/10/2017 09:49:44 pm

@Riley V: Sorry, I stole your pow wow joke in my comment below. I've heard that one myself a few times, and didn't realize it had already been used here.

V

6/10/2017 07:14:08 pm

....look, buddy, the vast majority of the human species, as well as any other species that uses sexual reproduction, LOVES to impregnate. If it's taken you this long to figure that out, perhaps you should seek medical help.

And yes, by the way, there are about 300,000+ Cherokee tribal members, and many more who haven't claimed membership, which are LEGIT given that the Cherokee lived in and among and with white settlers for more than 200 years before their lands were stolen for gold--and they didn't precisely die out at the time. This is one of the stupidest comments you've EVER made, and that's really saying something. Seriously, this is right up there in the stupid with the SUBJECT OF TODAY'S BLOG POST.

Are you sick, or what? You're usually better than THIS, at least.

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Americanegro

6/11/2017 11:51:44 am

I'm surprised that I would take myself to task in such a harsh fashion. That's another puzzle for God's codebreaker At Risk, to solve I suppose.

In the name of Satan I welcome and bathe in your (my?) opprobrium.

yakko

6/10/2017 08:17:10 pm

There has been quite a lot of intermarriage among the Cherokee, such that most of the Western Cherokee tribe has a blood quantum of one-eighth or less. (What do you call a person at an Indian pow wow who has brown hair and blue eyes? A Cherokee!) A lot of people in the South and lower Midwest really do have a "Cherokee grandmother" (although by that they more often mean a more distant relative such as a great- or great-great grandmother). It's not a person's claim to have an Indian grandparent that matters, but what they say after that, or what they try to prove by it.

The real tribes take a dim view of people trying to make money off their undocumented ancestry (or worse, band such people together in a "tribe" and then want to build a casino or get Federal benefits), but they have no problem with white people of Cherokee descent forming historical or cultural groups, such as how Irish-Americans do, without claiming to be "real" Irish who are entitled to benefits from the Irish government.

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E.P. Grondine

6/11/2017 09:44:43 pm

Hi Yakko -

Yes, but....

There are people of Native Descent and very high BQ in Mississippi ands Louisanna who simply don't give aa shit about casino Inidian's views on state recognition processes.

I'm glad to hear of this Cherokee activity. Aside from that, the only thing I've hard of concerning the CNO is that people can show up with Dawe's role records straight descent, DNA, and still be turned down.

About the only things I got from my native ancestry was a sense of insecurity, along with diabetes and a stroke.

I deal with very confused nu agers all of the time, as well as with outright con men.

Thanks for sharing Cherokee astronomical terms in your post below.

Americanegro

6/11/2017 10:08:40 pm

@Yakko: Actually a lot of Irish Americans are entitled to Irish passports under Irish law. Keep pickin' those examples!

Americanegro

6/11/2017 10:17:15 pm

@E.P. Grondine: Wow, you are quite the scientist! So the Cherokee like to impregnate and the Shawnee like to pass on the beedees, unless you got the beedees from your 7/8 douche side. Let's run the probabilities on that shall we? Take all the time you want, go carve an excuse out of a buffalo horn or whatever it is "your people" :) do.

Ever think you mighta gotten the beedees from one of your black ancestors? Denying your black ancestors... not cool.

yakko

6/11/2017 11:50:35 pm

@E.P. Grondine - Thanks for the correction. We have several tribes here in New England that have had state recognition for several years; some have gotten Federal recognition and some haven't. Their motives vary for why they want such recognition, but I tend to be cynical. :) The CNO is in a controversy now regarding disenrollment, and this is a huge issue in tribes all across the nation. I don't keep up with it well enough to understand the whole thing, though. As far as the BIA is concerned, each tribe makes its own rules about membership, and if they say you're out, or that you don't qualify today like you might have yesterday, then you're out.

@AmericanNegro - You missed my point completely. I pulled "Irish" out of a hat because there are so many people I know who belong to Irish-American clubs. I could have said Italian, French, Portuguese, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, or any other Hyphenated-American group that gathers in "tribes" these days. Besides, being entitled to a foreign passport is hardly in the same category as being entitled to the Federal benefits that recognized Indian tribes get.

E.P. Grondine

6/12/2017 09:55:58 am

Thank you Yakko

If you know a good telling of the tale of the Man who married the two daughters of the King of the Stars. sharing it loudly and publicly would sure help end a lot of the confusion and cons that I meet up with here in Ohio.

The same goes for the Cherokee constellations. And the Cherokee memories of the T'sughul and T'sunigsal. and their t'sat.

Americanegro

6/12/2017 12:47:38 pm

"Besides, being entitled to a foreign passport is hardly in the same category as being entitled to the Federal benefits that recognized Indian tribes get."

Tell that to Jonathan Pollard and Samuel Sheinbein.

Federal benefits like forced relocation and being beaten for speaking your native language? Not cool.

Clint Knapp

6/8/2017 04:18:51 pm

That was rather anticlimactic. I was hoping for at least a good story about the star people and space weed. Nope. Just a declaration that it happened and a healthy dose of "trust me, I'm a native healer".

So, in Lee's stead, I will share just one such story that happens to be my personal favorite from the 1833 autobiography of Sauk war leader (often erroneously referred to as Chief) Black Hawk. I think I've shared it here before, but it's been a while:

"I will relate the manner in which corn first came. According to tradition handed down to our people, a beautiful woman was seen to descend from the clouds, and alight upon the earth, by two of our ancestors who had killed a deer, and were sitting by a fire roasting a part of it to eat. They were astonished at seeing her, and concluded that she was hungry and had smelt the meat. They immediately went to her, taking with them a piece of the roasted venison. They presented it to her, she ate it, telling them to return to the spot where she was sitting at the end of one year, and they would find a reward for their kindness and generosity. She then ascended to the clouds and disappeared. The men returned to their village, and explained to the tribe what they had seen, done ad heard, but were laughed at by their people. When the period had arrived for them to visit this consecrated ground, where they were to find a reward for their attention to the beautiful woman of the clouds, they went with a large party, and found where her right hand had rested on the ground corn growing, where the left hand had rested beans, and immediately where she had been seated, tobacco."

It's such a nice little story, and easily twisted to all measure of ancient astronaut shenanigans if one really wishes to go there, but I prefer the simpler explanation: "This is why tobacco tastes like ass."

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E.P. Grondine

6/9/2017 10:33:53 am

The spread of the three sisters via the intestines of migrating deer is an interesting observation. Thanks for sharing.

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Only Me

6/8/2017 05:06:05 pm

Man, is Graham Hancock gonna be pissed! He's been telling everyone who will listen he's been in contact with goddesses, spirits and demons via hallucinogens and even got a psychic ass whoopin' by a nasty old entity.

It was aliens all along. I guess we should be thankful the cannabis aliens weren't like the one in I Come in Peace.

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Jim

6/8/2017 05:21:18 pm

Um,,, is marijuana even native to North America ?

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/how-marijuana-came-the-united-states-456

I think Mexican aliens brought it to the Cherokee.

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BigNick

6/8/2017 07:41:26 pm

I think the important question is this- did she ever do a girl girl scene with a sex ape?

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Ken

6/8/2017 07:41:34 pm

I'm pretty sure alien technology is responsible for Hyapatia Lee's fake boobs. You notice how the Hindu and Babylonian goddesses were all extremely well endowed compared to ordinary women of the time - thanks to ancient aliens.

During one of the UFO flaps of the 1950's, the aliens passed the technology on to US doctors - thus Ms. Lee's success.

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Erickson

6/8/2017 10:48:05 pm

From Quodoushka to claims of being a spiritual healer?

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=575.msg2764#msg2764

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E.P. Grondine

6/9/2017 10:40:29 am

"The Star People are familiar enough—gods and demigods reinterpreted as space aliens."

add constellations, etc to that list, Jason.

I've only seen native aermican marijuana referred to as "Old Man's Tabacco", in translation and can definitely not provide you with any help with the Cherokee term.

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Americanegro

6/9/2017 11:31:55 am

Stop.The.Presses. What an incredible surprise.

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Catspaw Assassin

6/10/2017 11:42:02 am

I'm flabbergasted, and not by Hyapatia Lee silly claims but at learning that magazines still exist.

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yakko

6/10/2017 02:34:04 pm

Your version of the difference between the word for the world beyond the sky (Galvladi, as I learned to spell it) and word for hemp (gatvlati) is correct. They are no more similar to each other in Cherokee than are the words "banana" and "bonobo" in English. :) The Cherokee did have hemp, which they put to various uses, but not marijuana as we understand it today. To put it plainly, Ms. Lee does not know what she is talking about, but why am I surprised? :/

New Agers have reinterpreted Galvladi as another planet, and the Creator and the Above-Beings as ETs, but this is totally a false, modern ancient-alien idea. (Why do they never mention all the "prototypes" of earthy animals that also lived there?) Galvladi was simply the land that exists beyond the sky-dome. (There is also an underworld with its own set of inhabitants, but New Agers never mention that one either.) Stars and planets had stories attached to them, but nobody thought of them as inhabited worlds.

This is not the first time the traditional stories have been reinterpreted, by the way: in modern Cherokee, Galvladi is the Christian Heaven, and Unehlanvhi (the Creator) is the Christian God.)

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Luke

6/10/2017 06:53:32 pm

I think the Spanish brought marijuana to the new world. I'm not positive though.

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James Covalito

6/11/2017 08:08:33 pm

Aliens also gave them the Clap.

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