This is Side Door, a podcast from a Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Tony Cohn.

A.

Aseel is my Cherokee name.

Give it to me a muck with my grandmother. We don't know what it means. is my

my grandmother. We don't know what it means.

My grandma passed away before you, they could tell me what it means.

It's sort of along the long lines of, you don't give too much information to a child,

says, where do you live? I live at such and such a child.

I talk to a stranger. This is so- and nobody's home today and then they come and take

stuff Robert Lewis or E. C. L. is a master storyteller for the Cherokee

Nation and back in 2015 he was named a Cherokee national treasure, which

celebrates people who revive and preserve Cherokee culture. Only 94 people

have received that honor. For me it's been a wonderful opportunity. I did not know of any that

I've been a wonderful opportunity. I did not know eventually talking about rabbits, birds,

and squirrels, and get you on a plane to LA and all these

out of different places, but it did happen.

Robert spends his days telling stories to audiences across the country.

But when he was younger, Robert's classmates might have voted him the

unlikliest person to be a professional public speaker.

Then I was the shyest person in my class from the time I was in kindergarten until a senior in high school.

I ended up breaking out of it when I went to college to go get an art degree.

And I realized nothing was going to change unless I decided to change it.

...