Indian Country Diaries; Spiral of Fire

or a hanging i know he's right i've come to a cherokee north carolina from my home in oklahoma but i'm not prepared for the terse spectacle i find from the visual paradise of the great smoky mountain national park to bestow it wouldn't

indians cheesy dream catchers on sale in every store pocahontas dolls the worst hollywood stereotypes are marketed by the cherokees themselves and the chief complaint head makes you wonder what are you doing here i like to imagine that my parents made me in the backseat of a nineteen fifty pontiac chieftain of course mother never said it was in the back seat of a car but i do know was after they'd seen a movie or a western my father abandoned my mother and i never knew him shortly before was for the family of cherokee women put out the word that they wanted to adopt an indian baby the choctaw uncle arranged for my adoption and that's how i came to have a chalk a mother who carried me in her belly and a cherokee mom who carried me home like a

prize but adopted children want to know we're we come from what's our history throughout my life i thought it was chalked up and i even studied chapter history in college that's when my mother told me that my father was cherokee so i've come here to learn about my father's people oh my god i never expected they'd look like this half back at mary's center it calls them out here they shoot to do is delay its turn its remaining tell for sure you know a person that came in tandem along the top tier fact i think it is that one of the first people i i saw him when i drove into charity the sea witch yet on here get them are concerned that a mark of the rig go and then let's see the back

no this is a sly feathers you know what i dress up like a charity movies not leave at the report lay out and that's what the movie played an end in with a clique of everything going on by a part of the dna and invited by the party and ended dress the way that people wanted me to drip or you can live on what they were for an american people move well you know we protesting and asking all the mascots to stop wearing those costumes cause we don't look like that went out like that and now that was a hollywood in the ancient and they've stereotyped as to the point that you know we all are paying more to create a certain way i've wanted to make

it as a way of supporting the families and it's not a baguette meet the mark twain quote no one of that started us parent to cantonese with us our point is infinity and the blue ridge parkway they get a geisha them pennies wealthy world the form foreign firm for saturday sunday the third front of the first day and fourteen dollars on sunday that may take it reached carrie nation feel actually it's very clear and the name of a cheap the name of the first day of the animals will be made you they were at the motel intricate how many

people a day on a busy day at you do you take pictures for a lot of never counted in effect decided they keep track of it for about three days to give up so even vets get bubbly hot topic that's a lot of the things we don't pay taxes they think we live off the government one else's they are scared that we always think that a cricket team would run toward you and the setup of montreux to know what people not have the question that every day and i get the rest of it was the end of that we've been here where nothing and then you know ending the thing at worst a year more than they did i think you're here i

know you write about that that we're invisible chief henry and all the others who dress up for the camera know who they are and he's demanded cherokee chief of the fourteen in the mounds an ancient thirty after andrew jackson cherokee nation to indian territory now oklahoma these are the people who say today most of the thirteen thousand members of the federally recognized tribe on the quality mountain in western north carolina when i was in the third grade <unk> greeks tell the class that i was a cherokee indian princess she knew my momma thought i was cherokee to i remember telling her that i was in cherokee and that i'd never met an indian princess even in the third grade it was

important to me that i was from a different tribe because mom and granny told me that again and again and i used the world and bring them on really on your toughest goal is a game that's been played for centuries old time why would call each other out and played today officials still being played by dr the southeast along with another all americans gave to charity heifetz

playing there archrivals wayne county this week the cherokees haven't even explained for over twenty years and they're hoping this will be the year that the rivalry is more complicated than just a game his charities claiming the word community goes beyond that well and football players were more moments that will its way to prove that we're still tough we can only compete against other non cherokee communities with discs so will have in the month

one of the first women i meet evelyn taylor mother of number one starting quarterback derek taylor menial crank that from their own slang in this weekend and that system for why he said yesterday or the day before you know how to make it but i'm good and i was for the whole thing and help the tv it's a big deal and we were away and i won in twenty years but you know i think its time dilemma has our past well i think the whole team has a dedicated themselves to this that i think was there somebody you had to keep teenager's be doing that too

because there's so much activity to get into the office i think they're going to like it get along with others compete with others on your learning from each other this community of concrete deck of a flying again it's just always been the biggest problem as it gets because if i guess the towns are so close and we indians here feel that they don't eat as you know equal you know what seems to me you're talking about self esteem and sort of all of this kind of view that part of teaching ourselves self esteem and self assurance yetta gets to the things that we need to teach your kids and i think that we do but indians do you think that now become two things not his self esteem for herself but as far as being an indian and you know it

he's eighteen mama's going to summer school between the sixth and seventh grade i was supposed to write home with the other neighborhood girls but for some reason they wouldn't let me in the car their mom drove off and i started crying and i walked home when mom found out what happened she kept asking why when they let you in the car i don't know oh we both knew and we both cried i understand why winning this game is such a big deal to the cherokees and why their young men carry the pride of the community on their backs it comes from a sense that many of us have that were different from white people

in three years again show

chose the team and the school have spent the day getting ramped up for the big game break insulin director of the charity boys' club meets the pre game devotional and everybody in new orleans remains one hundred increasing intensity and to do with the writer and human names to work in the old testament to let men in slavery for four hundred years indeed and fallen muslim land use a nice element to be written about but parlor in silkwood and ram into it here but that in the process the promised land and they live and join in and some of them were for a cool

thing that happened you're welcome those who have heard not only in climate in common can you do it daisy and for israel's baines battista has been voiced be comfortable is responsible for a community tried the traditional role of women is to change the culture in the juniors cherokee patent

girls must be able to show that they can guarantee to have to learn traditional cherokee song they dance and they must wear traditional to a close in this is the women here in cherokee cultures in their path with at the beauty of it and it's been so

tell me are you a hand

in in the end constantine recently visited the elizabeth johnson ceo this thing that ain't been the same time at this same tim lang and nine at the nineteen eighty eight season at mtv u eian says he is the dvd decline the history

of the potion

made me cry things jesus says it's made them there was an attempt to

seize the saints at vogue anna at our team and our hearts oh ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

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you know we live in a period of charity team were carried the day for the two years and these are the kinds of experiences they need to do and business leaders teachers and good periods in syracuse in the twenty five years into it in the world one

line that read fire rings you know that the animals wanted to go on the land but they were afraid of was to sell and so they asked the great desert to make it ready for then he flew all over the land grabbing his wings to make it try but when he reads cherry tree country he was very tired and his wings begin to strike the earth and creating a valley and when it turned up again there was the mountains and to this day the cherokee homeland peaceful and now in a way it was created and a wop ratio between the animals and the birds in a way only the key will be the people

who was on the scene this defines who we are and if we ever lose our language or not the cherokee because the line which encompasses everything i'm intelligent identity it tells your relation with other people with the world the language encompasses a person's colby got to play you know the biggest challenge is really not a preservation is the actual application of the cherokee language because david day basis of music as patsy in your life at a hundred percent of the time

until we do not what we want to preserve only a small fraction of the thousands of languages spoken in north america approximately two hasn't still survive by the year twenty twenty all the people whose first language is the native language will be damned to learn language that is and it's going to become a living breathing thing and you know the way that i ever see the language because artists or a martian north for oh i wish to thrive it needs to be reinforced you can go and learn it in ten minutes it as quote a moment just like a mama mama doesn't out so today those economies be a family thing and innovative acts and the museum oregon now says dr angelo program trident and of state of state state in michigan almost a motion

all of state oh no you know there is a lot of sense to me and that's what that's what comes with the language and it's converse in buffalo valley a women i speak underpinning it's got that this is amazing and charities i can remember watching great grandma hand while her long hair into a spiral on the back of her head as she could in the last pan says she and grainy would talk indian

i couldn't understand a word they were saying but i wanted to join and so i'd mangle a word or two in cherokee grandma hatton would pinch me and laugh like right many years later i began to learn chapter for my biological mother her first language was dropped out and on my good days i can say a few words see now i pity me how's your fat and i'm far from fluent i miss that from both sides that may be one of the reasons i teach in an american indian studies program an advocate for native language so students will have opportunities that i missed if it for our fiscal you know why i'm here so that they learn the language and they learn the culture

right here in charity if you lose the language if you lose the culture then the kids quit learning the native american children quit learning and our raising a lot of heart kids right after six gray oh no special the boys this tissue showed the high dropout rate on studies said it's just like a self esteem that another called chicano last two and nine why am i always marriage and family that they'd drop that because they haven't been taught to have been immersed in their culture mine which the way we should be doing anymore so they're just really started to leave we really need a new facilities on because we need to expand this unity crime can set and to be able to sue to have the high school kids come down to the elementary and help out the kids because that's all a way worse going to survive nowadays

the cherokees have a very innovative approaches they want to locate all three campuses and one place to create a cultural an academic village where the oldest can help the youngest they have a problem or eighty percent of the land on the cloth down he goes straight out you knew for quite some time that we needed with the elementary level because almost every single room had been divided and to make room for more of the question though drivers in the city one day it was

very open so that was really exciting and life and there was part plan that i saw in my ear i was pretty naive bad thing because a i thought well we'll just approaching park and this is not part of the park that anyone could visser say and maybe they'll just a turned over to us and maybe a hundred year lease i've heard of some of those kinds of things being done the tribe wants to trade water brought in on two hundred and eighteen acres of pristine property that overlooks the blue ridge parkway the track includes endangered species and the headwaters of salmon trout streams in exchange they want a hundred and forty four acres of national park land the proposal is approved the tribe will build a new school complex where they can educate

their future leaders one of the key spokesman for this proposal is an eighteen year old senior korea blankenship the eastern band chose quarry to speak to the us congress just like the power teams chosen young pocahontas to represent and before the english crown the strong tradition jersey high school has similar problems the schools currently at capacity parts of the building have been acquired and unfit for education purposes and part of the structure have been condemned the school facilities are simply inadequate for the education of their children but we have the resources and congress has the power to solve this problem with congress' approval of this exchange these two men will have a suitable location in which to build three new schools all part of one more pie generational educational village we envision a cultural village where children can get an understanding of our culture heritage language in our history there one traditional way is custom language and natural history alongside the modern curriculum at schools throughout the nation

we ask everyone here at bases to support the cherokee people up as protect our unique identity up as to insure the future of our children our nation as a whole they support remains from one exchange and do not allow are tricky children to be left behind think you can prolong and honored to appear before you mr blankenship i don't know if you're familiar with it there's a group called the sierra club that has come out and an opposition to this day they sent out the letter does your tribe have a a history of environmental degradation do you have a long history of destroying the environment around you people been there for thousands of years and because of our commitment to unite states we were willing to give up that land for that matter for they live with foreign way to come through unkind to say that we would go and destroy something that is sacred to is something that we've

lived all over thousands of years those against everything that men of american indians and chevy people stand for bankia and now like to welcome mr michael olsson counselor to the assistant secretary for indian affairs at the department of interior as the pilot plant the federal government has long ignored my a union brothers and sisters and i think it's time we had owned up to some of the responsibilities that that i have and no ignored for many many many generations and i look at some of the information about how they're using a condemned building that sends shivers up my spine as a grandmother i would not tolerate it and i don't see why we should allow federal government not to take action to our remedy those conditions this has not happened yesterday why has action not been taken to remedy the conditions under which these children go to school it i do i i don't know i don't think there's any

possible way that meant mr olson can explain the why in the last couple months that he's been on the job that over forty years this school was mismanaged in and things happen the idea that if you want to get serious about big are these problems we've got a seriously look at the entire issue of how we have to get dealt with the fbi over the last hundred years and that's where the real problem is there's just a star although the site is never used by park visitors environmentalists oppose the exchange because they don't want the land developed a group of cherokee high school students take me out to the proposed site for the new school i thought i'll go back more about the history of this famous ford wears a logging town that's a nice to meet you have homes and stores in general stores and businesses and buildings over this very hard job welding parts that have to

go right through this track we say to the environmentalists who say you know just trash out this land in houston that protect the environment we send him i think that americans have lived off the land and they know this land and we can just take care of it that's what we were taught the mets to erase to do since we're a long time ago from our grandparents or great grandparents great great grandparents that have been taught us was to take care law in the land is the most precious won the pages things here in vain we've only got our reservation and so you have this large reservation of the government vehemently we wanted this land that we live on this farm where he was taken away from us we had about week that he was taken away from us and we have to buy that back there we had a winner we are a lift off i think it's mostly what is that things are changing for years now they've been a little you

know we've had at that the tourism tourism industry and how they've been able to say well at least our town isn't this guy's taking similar they had the tourist and they've got out and cheap and i think they've always been able to stay you know will we least we're not that bad but now that we're starting to help ourselves and help each other out or start to build make a name for the charity i think it's starting to scare a lot of people we're not coming to that this is it is interesting that

i think congress has to loudly is i really think that they just never been there were strains invasion has happened to a new game nice job many people still have a hard time today understand sovereignty what is this summer games chip of indian nations mean i have a hard time with it too because i'd were not sovereign in this nation if we were sovereign in this nation we would not have to pee and on federal dollars would not have to

go to state for gaming money per game and approvals rubio to live independently in our own nation which is what we're doing and eighteen thirty eight at the time of removal whether human lifespan than where they despise it was a grave it or not because of that we're finally see in a sense of independence that we have not saying that over two hundred years currently there are twenty six baptist churches on the quality boundary many are against gambling in fact one preacher tells his cherokee congregation to return their annual six thousand dollar protect if czechs pastors like mary young

gear see the paradox of indian gaming firsthand people say will surely the violence is usually do or the roman soldiers noon at the food across family reunion leave her crush folk and so we want to get something that last summer fighting go into a trance with the single market and poor little in his eyes glaze over and stay in a trustee anne koller was telling this was a few days ago there the people who really were not allowed to really vote as that the casino end it this silver said that they were really opposed to the casino and afraid it would bring a lot of changes until it happened and then he mentioned that he really thought it'd been a help how do you feel about that you know you we can

say the facilities we can say that we are things that we didn't have the thing we don't say in the thing that's not everyday you know advertised and alter the services is the size anywhere in virginia victims alleges fraud and alcohol and roads and all the other kinds of things you should have it and norm ornstein to avoid beautifully we're in america distraught because i lost everything casino process have swelled the travel budget two hundred and fifty million dollars and made the community more self sustaining but it's also raised some very contentious issues who is controlling this new well

political man yes this to make changes that will take months people are furious about an anonymous letter sent absentee voters that influence travel eggshells and shifted the balance of power between those that live on that while about dreams versus those who live elsewhere by the way by protesting he voting with restrictions on it because this time it was your tribal leaders that were affected by the absentee vote next month on the alcohol and scary islam is an eyedropper would agree they're concerned about who can influence travel politics has raised questions about who is a legitimate charities and who hasn't the tribe recently passed a referendum on the trial of

the intent of the people polled in albany this to this and no people to that process but those of payola that would challenge when they don't people in off the street and find additional without due process our tribe has criteria for enrollment you must have an ancestor on the nineteen twenty four freight bank roll investors this one sixteenth of eastern cherokee indian blood to be a member of the time i can say without a doubt there are people on the rolls of the eastern cherokee who were not legitimately cherokee indian and therefore i feel that they should be stricken one thing i will make sure over is that equivalent of ramadan and that is done fairly across the board and we're not picking and choosing who on on edges because of their families last night i know a lot of people want to assume that the reason the audit came out at this particular time was because we have a casino in every member of

this child receives a distribution that's not true i believe what the audit actually boils down to is a matter of money it boils down to a matter of blood wine are on it our roles to make our blood is the most sacred thing we have of dad's as long we're at an uber other federal reagan ostrow that asian man cherokee indians i didn't come to charity to climb my grandma was a cherokee indian princess there too many wannabe says that is his wine making a charity don't want to share a cherokee church organ is johnny depp the charity is elvis presley a cherry barrels a mile charity or in television why

do you say that and one expects that on one expected you know so what makes me mad as a charity's own people waltzing is enormously in oman no put me over all summer months been checking about that danger is the fact that we had to hire me that we started this and even hourly pollution if taiwan these days if you know my great great great great grandkids and one when harlow was hollow well yeah that's what

will make it easy to see whether charities have a strong identity with this land for charities as well as all other indians the question of identity is tied to the land as perfume is to the rose nearly two thousand years and this place become a part of us can i claim my charity identity and leave it with my own top top i did it i don't know that i can but i do know this is who i am who i've ruined because of where i was raised as well as the cherokee women who raised me i can only imagine how my grandmother spelled sense in their hearts they've lived here all their lives charity called her nurses identity that eating it's one we really have to get everyone at the cherokee indian fare says the place to be

in the least miss to do where she serves cherokee being fried chicken greens and fried potatoes he's been so jack along with their friend lynn harlem shake off from work to have fun and charities loved it i think things are still the main reason that we get together and celebrate is that we'd always do the landfill every everything we have a lot

to fear everyone wants traditional hug and start with cornmeal into cover do you agree there is also a benefactor of the tribe's diabetes programs charity choices tries to raise awareness about the country's number one killer set their words often fallen fifty years in a way the

medical profession and the armenians were killed their diabetes is still on the rise and there's big they are baffled as well what is it that makes us not want to do what we need to do for our own health the number one thing that people have expressed to me about when you talk about diabetes and having babies is the failings of having a lot of shame that surrounds surrounding the fact that they have diabetes this kind of reminds me of what happened to us in the seventies as indeed people we start talking about our problems and we we had to bring that out of that and i mean i remember that real vividly when nobody thought he came back at about something even people are beginning to recognize there's got to be a way that we can begin to change our thinking especially mentally emotionally and physically so that we can begin to make those life is to make

you have to heal the party for the healing process to take place it's got to happen and it's the same way as with alcoholism but it's a sideways and it's the same way as with domestic violence started from within our own communities and i really believe that yes we have the solutions to our problems but we have to begin as a community to began to talk about it openly and it's got to be laid out on the table and it's got to be addressed and doesn't make it bad it doesn't make it wrong but it does but it does make it to the place where we have to acknowledge it and that it's that we can't we can't ignore it anymore my brother and i were talking recently our charity mom told her she had diabetes ten years before we realized hey this is a disease mom said all i have to do is take some pills and watch my sweet canaan she tell us it was serious

when we realized that why were we in the nile near the end of her life when she was getting injections three times a day she would just shrug and thin and it anyway i might as well let me have a piece of chocolate thank you at a charity choices died the support group one of the women learned she must start chemo dialysis ms brown thank you and did you feel like that your life is that you're

ok as you know it today and so one so that already fears that you won't be able to do those things that you are capable of doing now when you started on dialysis did you have that same fear not been able to do the things that you do this week has been similar analysis raul says it doesn't save someone's life house is not anything the fight your mortality rate even how he and in five years people will grant houses fifty percent of the material it has thousands of diseases so far along by just

the one traditional view in the medical community is a diabetes type two diabetes caused through genetics and lifestyle issues the interaction between those two and there's no doubt that those two things do play a role wiser some studies in indian country wiser some studies minority populations in general answer is that there's a lot of trauma that has happened to indian people and that very clear physiologic as well as behavioral responses to trump and that's what we need to understand because we try to unravel this is we try to figure out what's going on with diabetes domestic violence and all that it has common roots and those rates are what traumatized people do how that affects them personally and on a community wide level historical traumas in perspective understanding that the drama of racism and poverty is not happening now trump does affect obesity in several ways to fix

it changing behavior people who are traumatized will often have been coping strategies to deal with you know when the drama comes up for them again and for many people that is to be going to need to fill that empty call if you will so since we have that model of how trauma affects diabetes it's very important that we reach out a way to help heal that for all those reasons why the church was interventions work and mentoring intervention can go and what its conflict for some of the trial has said in to the bleep and he tries to be there for them emotionally to listen to was going on their lives offers of your way to mirror back to these children how critically important their lives are how beautiful they are which is not a message that traumatized people can always get to their children but they usually can't mirror back with him or back to a child we don't have in ourselves and so when people been traumatized

they pass it on the vector of disease transmission if you will is parenting it's not because parents wanted to try to they're not trying to say don't care it's because they can't our mentors i'm going to schools that they also eat lunch with the kids they go to recess what the kids are with them whatever it is to give him every opportunity to show adults who care about them and we're back to them their own they're worth their own importance and that their issues do matter if we do not find a way to change this epidemic will have done what the bow let's trace the boarding schools did not to your succeeding in probably eliminating indian culture named ernest left were healthy enough to pass a quality teaching is the home and the closest the cherokees came to being eliminated was an eighteen thirty eight under orders from president jackson

the cherokees a while to soldiers beating down their doors herding them into stargazers for the next year over seventeen thousand charities were forced to walk us they were given fifty three dollars to cover the journey but only if they survived many thousands died from hunger exposure and disease the eternal memory was seared into our bodies says do next you know the last time that our trail when they cry and he'd all were happy when i was six great grandma happened showed me how to pee standing up hike up your dress she said spread your feet wide so you don't get any on your shoes that's how we had to go on the trail and i didn't know until i was almost grown she was talking about her great

grandmother and the other charities who walked on the trail of tears that's kind of how our stories go they happened to us all and to this day i still pee standing up and i've taught it to my own granddaughters until now i never realized i was passing on our historic grief i know along this is the conversation like a six year old charity mother and i had many times before she died what she really wanted to know is where is my family i drag out all the

pictures of her ancestors back at me at night i told her dog died but she would quickly forget diabetes is the disease that steals your body blind been takes what's left in your memory she was an artist with a single trial looking back at the mountains she was leaving she said the little girl was supposed to be me i don't know why so many indians have died he says could it be as simple as the grief of five hundred years of colonizing our bodies into toxic waste dump like disgusted to arrest our own kidneys demanded be put out midway through their journey my hands and both my mother's had died the they're all dead now lately i wake up in the middle of the night disoriented my face with tears

a look around the room and finally fall back asleep hopefully into someone else's dreams i want to forget that we were amputated from our homelands and i was cut off from my father mostly i want to know how we are going to heal ourselves the pope today cherokees when christians and yet the people that remove them we're also christians we're not at least i profess to be christ the answer's yes traditional a supreme court decision

president jackson the one where one pitcher can help defend an abortion they haven't saved his life the room on diesel and that's a picture he wears three and four it's balm he says these folks just really or upset as to what happened in june people in just perched on the killer loose of that so much of the time people are told and being brainwashed that we're not going to be any more you lose your identity white male by accepting jesus saw still are young people who have a

whole lot of anything you have to talk to young people in the end people my own age and going back to the old ways these things are that's not the answer is jesus who sees ethnic identity your tribe first opening for the lord has given warm then richard dupee whatever a truck for so many generations we were told your savages and hear full of pagan ways and all of that stuff has piled up

on stage where we're just shantytown so many ways i think that's what that's what happened to us over the past see trees don't you were doing it and to realize the pain that that we need people's hand cams so churches were getting ready to acknowledge that was at the church of the christian churches have now done over the years is to recognize the spirituality and trying to force us to be all corporations and and to allow us to continue our traditional ceremonies just a few of the holocaust have

passed so is that people come september eleven this is here and now thank you it's big

my mother walked her shoes off on the air force of any of this a home for unwed mothers were i was poorly ladies from a nearby church would come and talk to the pregnant girls about their since me fall silent whenever she told me this story that i hurt her feelings to the silences many in the fifties the world had a label for babies like me on bass gerrit on my mother tried to repent he'd never felt forgiven am i now carrying to shame for her me and my father thank you i just remember michael charity families are dealing with questions like these by bringing them out in the open and talking about them reconciliation is about acknowledging the shame and finding ways to steal my

friends amy and paddy grant are beginning this process with their family where my mother lived during the west that followed it on monday los angeles and i was all alone pretty much when the stepfather content of the villainous doomed the plane him a mohawk keep him from the mass of women relied on sports and doing those things and they were done anything like that for myself i was doing that for approval or the last embed to stand up inside a small boy am proud of him but in every bit of decided that that change that that cycle starts here but whenever i have to have a day and went to school in racism and then

turned on monday and a lot of white people you're in close to eighty to get my family doing it is in school athletes are a lot of people feel that way but ours like that that that's just going to the un or on human maze and we should all try to get along and there's example i tell my children to this is you can separate yourself from a people no matter what you have to forgive me have to try to get along you know we start talking about different things that if it wasn't for the white people we wouldn't be in this condition or it was the white people that brought this to the indians and then it almost takes on the connotation that ok if i can blame someone else for my condition and i don't have to do anything about it you know and once his healing and

reconciliation part of what virginia was talking about is is that we have to begin forgiving we have to begin accepting people for who they are because they're human beings and although sometimes some of our local people are not willing to admit that that presence that attitude is still really strong here among our people aren't it's really difficult to convince them that this is an aspect that even this attitude that we have towards non indians own bad it affects our health charities are trying to find innovative ways to heal their community that they do a spirit is strong women like amy and paddy grant enjoys duty and make me realize the cherokee women have strong power as they have had for generations they remind me of my adoptive family of strong cherokee women have some maturity

linda good job site is very important in cherokee because it represents an ancient mckeon that have been lost over the years and was not accessible for people several years ago the tribe was able to purchase could do it from private owners did do it is the oldest cherokee county is the sacred ceremonial ground of the irony that a widely and dwelling place of the sacred fire of the cherokee people the old one say that the fire still burns here deep in the earth to the sun

or three hundred year old thousands of years i think it's a confirmation that we were here for thousands of years we didn't just come here travel here that we've been here years before america is beholden that is that when we found a place where there are many americans who didn't even sex there's a new theory being that explored now that our emotional and spiritual health and the law sadly leads to those are the fiscal problems that it and diabetes heart disease and uncertain and many other diseases what clothes the loss of the spiritual motion were the very very things that we've been talking about its losses are laying the loss of the

pride now we can use to do that we have to have it back this brings back a sense of pride a spring bad place for people to gain some spirituality a motion will be in physical wellbeing to do to him during that for him why the only life in the war da were there will be there will just amazing person a's have been backing a lot of dance video in the group to watch out as a song around his polo a song it was you know back in the nineteen eighties tj walker calhoun is the spiritual leader of the traditional starter grant in cherokee he revived the stark and fair after was almost forgotten and oklahoma

tricky to take me to rent at work on far to bring into farmland to achieve a color it's one that when miller of what coleman who thought they went that way runaround they get in that worst from the devil plan is not that you know i'm saying in advance and we were just so the phrase in his adventures sign the creative craze in a very magical very good every summer for the christian is just across the latter rounds in the same for a lot of selfies across the centers and now we sit and stand and dance around the flying we're

much a visit them talk of a fine that is now of crossing a flame to dubai united methodist churches across in the fine and our separate churches are raptors before there were baptist and i were using the water for four plains indians for spiritual cleansing now we were in touch the charges were untouched notes so christian a camera there was some different for us i've been invited to go to the dance this weekend and shaped shells with the other women several of my charity camps where shell shakers and i feel right at home here sales figures joining with the mint call and response the wonder of lee walker's daughter brittany and they're shaped shells of the ground five most important

to know who you're warren where you came from and why you're here today and if you don't you're losing something that's vital to you or your life mr malo lot of us not just a champion that on indian fans have had that anger and we have to find some way to get rid of them in this story it is alien and sometimes you have conflict in your life and you go there and you leave your problems and in some ways i've been you know time terre work through so while things you know in just being an ear has helped and there's probably a connection that you probably feel to this land and to the people and that's probably where mixed

feel special but there's something special about this place of athens says coming to the spirit so and i have to say about what the girl and now i'm playing other women than men and that's another talent maybe to get an anvil on the fire no more than two of the women and that that i know that it's probably my life where no one there on their tails when in maryland and he began to go around the fire and then we're calling on earth is actually over there the power of an hour and in math that's why hundreds

of foreign and you it's a fine balance of an almost an outsider when we used to greet the sun in the morning the sun rises as part of flying it if the world is like makes things grow when there's a fire that we dance around and sing around and plays in the nineties the fire now that far and wants accepted ms symes as violet barnes unless the eternal for the far enough kids is borrowed money for six to bring your bag they love is as as what they told all these you know people have said as long as you believe in the allies as long as you go under the dances as a writer i've always tried to find an

image then believe its memory trace the pattern for me to decipher the meaning a i imagine the cherokee double weave baskets one story woven within that this jewelry inside another and another i came here just something deep inside the certainty of my journey i had kept secret have hidden even for myself but the stories i've been gathering and weaving together are also partly lines some things will not be abandoned when the double wee basket emerges we carried into the future here we are together at last daughter mother

grandmother and great grandmother and we stand together to do as a mother counts called by my i call her disappearance the island last week at the things i have learned on this journey pfeffer healing we must forgive together we can reconcile our past the party for the future i see learn

more about contemporary american indians and their history at pbs dot org do you remember writing to be addressed that is big this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and the john d and catherine t macarthur foundation and the ford foundation and by contributions to public

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