My grandmother, on my mom’s side, was full-blooded Cherokee Indian. My mom died with a full head of coal-black hair. I have Cherokee blood, and hence my children. My daughter-in-law, married to my oldest son, has Cherokee blood in her genes. Cherokee blood has been passed on to my grandsons and granddaughters. You can really see the facial features in my granddaughter. I am proud to have this heritage, and feel sad that the founding of our country had to be at the price of Native Americans being treated inhumanely and relegated to reservations.
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears.
I have read the ‘Trail of Tears’ telling about the forced removal of Indians through the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee were among these tribes. The Cherokee Indians have been called one of the ‘Civilized Tribes’ due to their assimilation of European ways. They were maybe the first non-European ethnic groups to become U.S. citizens. Their name means ‘Principal People’. On the ‘Trail of Tears’ some 4000 out of 15,000 Cherokees died from hunger, disease, and exhaustion from the harshness of their journey.
The following are some sayings and quotes from Cherokee and other Indian Tribes. Read, ruminate, and give thanks for your heritage and freedom.
Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit.
If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about
it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the Book?
~Sogoyewapha, “Red Jacket” – Senaca~
“There is no such thing as ‘part-Cherokee.’ Either you’re Cherokee or you’re not.
It isn’t the quantity of Cherokee blood in your veins that is important, but the quality of
it . . . your pride in it. I have seen full-bloods who have virtually no idea of the great
legacy entrusted to their care. Yet, I have seen people with as little as 1/500th blood
quantum who inspire the spirits of their ancestors because they make being Cherokee a
proud part of a their everyday life.”
~Jim Pell: Principal Chief of the North Alabama Cherokee Tribe ~
My Face
My face is a mask I order to say nothing
About the fragile feelings hiding in my soul.
-Glenn Lazore (Mohawk)
The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belongs just as the buffalo belonged….
Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round….. The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours….
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
-Black Elk (Oglala) 1863-1950
“The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call “assimilated,” bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way.
We want freedom from the white man rather than to be integrated. We don’t want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don’t want power, we don’t want to be congressmen, or bankers….we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.
The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had “freedom and justice,” and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this.”
-From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians
“When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. When we dig roots, we make little holes. When we build houses, we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don’t ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine nuts. We don’t chop down the trees. We only use dead wood. But the white people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. … the White people pay no attention. …How can the spirit of the earth like the White man? … everywhere the White man has touched it, it is sore.”
-Wintu Woman, 19th Century
“If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the… present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child’s feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!”
“We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.”
-Tom Brown, Jr., The Tracker
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting in your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit in pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tip of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(A Native American Elder)
