Big Tiger was Principal Chief of the council of a dissident group of Cherokee (1824–1828) who followed the teachings of Whitepath (or Nunnahitsunega), a full-blood traditionalist leader and member of the Cherokee National Council who lived at Turnip Town (Ulunyi), on the Large Ellijay

Ellijay River

The Ellijay River is a river in Georgia. It ends in the town of Ellijay at its confluence with the Cartecay River, forming the Coosawattee River.- References :*USGS Hydrologic Unit Map - State of Georgia...

 (Elatseyi).

Background

Influenced by the teachings of the Seneca

Seneca nation

The Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...

 prophet Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was also half-brother to Cornplanter....

, Whitepath began a rebellion against the acculturation then taking place in the Cherokee Nation

Cherokee Nation (19th century)

The Cherokee Nation of the 19th century —an historic entity —was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America existing from 1794–1906. Often referred to simply as The Nation by its inhabitants, it should not be confused with what is known today as the "modern" Cherokee Nation...

, proposing the rejection of Christianity and the new Cherokee national constitution, and a return to the old tribal laws. The "rebellion" ended with the submission of Whitepath to the more progressive members of the Cherokee National Council.

Sources

• Brown, John P. Old Frontiers: The Story of the Cherokee Indians from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
• McLoughlin, William G.
  William G. McLoughlin
  William Gerald McLoughlin was an historian and prominent member of the history department at Brown University from 1954 to 1992. His subject areas were the history of religion in the United States, revivalism, the Cherokee, missionaries to Native Americans, abolitionism, and Rhode Island.Born in...
  
  Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic; (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
• Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee; (Nashville: Charles and Randy Elder-Booksellers, 1982).