Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
11.09.2009,12:45 PM
Riding Tails of Trails: Part Five. Trail of Tears
In town we learned that Labor Day weekend is also the Cherokee National Holiday. It was soon evident that thousands of people visit Tahlequah and the surrounding area to participate in festivities.
We left the town of Talaquah and headed a few miles south for Park Hill, home of the Cherokee Heritage Center and National Museum. The forty-four acres upon which the center sits was part of the former Female Seminary and bought from private holdings in the mid-1960's by the Cherokee National Historical Society. It is a place that exudes memories and voices.
Turning east off of Hwy 82, we followed a parade of vehicles turning left into a grove of gracefully twisted black trees. It was as if we were entering a strange land of shadows, disturbed and pinpricked by trucks and cars parked everywhere under sweeping branches. A woman at the entrance laughed as she told us to find any place, anywhere,and park; "Just watch out for the other drivers. They often don't see you on bikes." We smiled with an implied shared sense of riding motorcycles and slowly searched for narrow places to safely park the bikes.
I'll be eyes behind you!
Thanks, Wylie.
Coyote!!
We found two narrow spots next to an overgrown cruiser and gingerly parked out of each other's ways. Including the cars around us. Behind us was the outer line of venders' tents. We got a few looks as we shed gear, exchanged boots for sandals, hats for helmet, and generally blended in with the rest of the visitors.
I remained an unenthusiastic photographer on this adventure, but leaving the camera was not an option. Although it was slung around my neck the entire time this visit, buttons were rarely pushed and it seemed oddly obtrusive. But then, so did my entire presence. My visit there felt more uncomfortable with each step I took, as if parts of me awoke and claimed amnesia; I began to feel a loss of identity, a struggle for long-dead identities that I never met. A general state of internal and subconscious confusion.
Many times I felt as though I were a long-lost kin, not knowing those that came before me, those that existed and those that might be. Yet, a kin that was forgotten and forsaken hovered somewhere inside me, somewhere around me. It was not me; but it was one of my own. It was as though I were slipping between theater sets: one performance here, one there, one behind me, one in front. Stepping off solid ground into a rocking boat knowing my legs were no longer my own. Slipping through shadows and voices. seeing ghosts, hearing whispers and long-distance singing. I felt like I was never really seen; as if no one could see me, nor could I see them. I felt lost.
I wondered if this was a lost connection between my great-grandmother. I don't remember feeling this way in Tennessee where I felt more close to her than I did here. And when I stood on the banks of the Arkansas River in Arkansas. Here, it was entirely different.
Many people were strolling around the grounds, visiting vendors, buying food items, and wandering to various points of interest on the grounds. I wanted to remain a shadow. Asked what I wanted to do, I immediately found myself responding to Ed, "Visit the museum."
As we walked inside the low lumbering building, I passed several displays of material objects. Most were the winning participants of an art show sporting shiny red and blue ribbons. Except for two examples of extraordinary contemporary pottery, which captured my interest, I passed them by and found myself in the permanent exhibit of the Cherokee History and Trail of Tears.
A sign at the entry announced a ban on photography, which I respected. Besides, it seemed disrespectful to flash and grab portrayals of a family's historical plight to near extermination. I don't think I could have taken photographs even if they were permitted. Photographs are captured images, some are invented images; they are 'dead voices' of the past, of the vanished. They capture only a point in time and space, unrevealing of the surrounding connections. They can deceive one to a belief of an arrested past, or they can tickle the imagination to seek that which lays beyond the image. For me, this time I wanted to be surrounded by the living past; with living voices mingling with whispers of the past.
I was directed through a collage of history of the Cherokee people. Their voices and places were everywhere. As I strolled amongst exhibits depicting the Cherokee people, I longed to hear the real voices; the stories, the voices flowing from faces. Reading and viewing the exhibits I was a bystander, a disconnected 'Other'. I wanted to see lips move, see their eyes, hear the feelings in the voices.
I slid off the bike and sat on a ledge outcropping. The gravel trail snaked alongside the mountain and through the trees as though it were a still stream with no water. The trees and shrubs, lichen and granite ledge muffled any sounds, yet I could almost hear moccasins walking along the trail, buckskin clothes and black hair blending easily. I could feel their presence, even though they had been gone over 150 years ago. They knew these forests and mountains like the creases in their babies’ skin. Here they derived physical and spiritual sustenance, and near here they hid from the soldiers and encroaching settlers. Their ghosts faded in and out as I sat watching and listening. I, on the outside, yet partly on the inside. Perhaps I would see a ghost of my self walking softly in those moccasins. Maybe my great-grandmother.
As one moves along the exhibits and stories of the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, you round a corner and find yourself behind white life-sized 'people' in various poses on the floor in front of you. In the low-lit galley, they all face ahead, stumbling, kneeling, steadying the kin and stranger next to them, heads covered in shawls and blankets, bowed and forelorn. Silent. Yet the silence exudes feelings that draw you into them, into their plight, their aching souls.
I stood on a hill, on the outskirts of Jeruselum in Israel, rooted to the ground staring at tens of starved people –women, men, and children- most naked, torn cloth hanging on others, their skin conforming to the bones barred by wasted muscle. All memorialized in bronze patina. Faces revealed hopelessness, pain and fear. Silent screams forever escaping open mouths, eyes that can’t shed tears, fingers that will never clutch anything other than death and empty air. You can’t look away, your throat is tight and your heart is ripped open for thousands of needless deaths. I cannot speak; I have no voice. Yet I ask the eternal question as it resounds in the very air I breathe: Why?
Slowly I walked from the galley and into the entrance and light. People mingled by, but I could not feel them. I cannot swallow. Mouths spoke, but I could not hear them. I opened my mouth, but I could not speak. The question tumbled out unspoken and unheard: Why?
Ghosts are choking you. You ask too many questions.
We left the town of Talaquah and headed a few miles south for Park Hill, home of the Cherokee Heritage Center and National Museum. The forty-four acres upon which the center sits was part of the former Female Seminary and bought from private holdings in the mid-1960's by the Cherokee National Historical Society. It is a place that exudes memories and voices.
Turning east off of Hwy 82, we followed a parade of vehicles turning left into a grove of gracefully twisted black trees. It was as if we were entering a strange land of shadows, disturbed and pinpricked by trucks and cars parked everywhere under sweeping branches. A woman at the entrance laughed as she told us to find any place, anywhere,and park; "Just watch out for the other drivers. They often don't see you on bikes." We smiled with an implied shared sense of riding motorcycles and slowly searched for narrow places to safely park the bikes.
I'll be eyes behind you!
Thanks, Wylie.
Coyote!!
We found two narrow spots next to an overgrown cruiser and gingerly parked out of each other's ways. Including the cars around us. Behind us was the outer line of venders' tents. We got a few looks as we shed gear, exchanged boots for sandals, hats for helmet, and generally blended in with the rest of the visitors.
I remained an unenthusiastic photographer on this adventure, but leaving the camera was not an option. Although it was slung around my neck the entire time this visit, buttons were rarely pushed and it seemed oddly obtrusive. But then, so did my entire presence. My visit there felt more uncomfortable with each step I took, as if parts of me awoke and claimed amnesia; I began to feel a loss of identity, a struggle for long-dead identities that I never met. A general state of internal and subconscious confusion.
Many times I felt as though I were a long-lost kin, not knowing those that came before me, those that existed and those that might be. Yet, a kin that was forgotten and forsaken hovered somewhere inside me, somewhere around me. It was not me; but it was one of my own. It was as though I were slipping between theater sets: one performance here, one there, one behind me, one in front. Stepping off solid ground into a rocking boat knowing my legs were no longer my own. Slipping through shadows and voices. seeing ghosts, hearing whispers and long-distance singing. I felt like I was never really seen; as if no one could see me, nor could I see them. I felt lost.
I wondered if this was a lost connection between my great-grandmother. I don't remember feeling this way in Tennessee where I felt more close to her than I did here. And when I stood on the banks of the Arkansas River in Arkansas. Here, it was entirely different.
Many people were strolling around the grounds, visiting vendors, buying food items, and wandering to various points of interest on the grounds. I wanted to remain a shadow. Asked what I wanted to do, I immediately found myself responding to Ed, "Visit the museum."
As we walked inside the low lumbering building, I passed several displays of material objects. Most were the winning participants of an art show sporting shiny red and blue ribbons. Except for two examples of extraordinary contemporary pottery, which captured my interest, I passed them by and found myself in the permanent exhibit of the Cherokee History and Trail of Tears.
A sign at the entry announced a ban on photography, which I respected. Besides, it seemed disrespectful to flash and grab portrayals of a family's historical plight to near extermination. I don't think I could have taken photographs even if they were permitted. Photographs are captured images, some are invented images; they are 'dead voices' of the past, of the vanished. They capture only a point in time and space, unrevealing of the surrounding connections. They can deceive one to a belief of an arrested past, or they can tickle the imagination to seek that which lays beyond the image. For me, this time I wanted to be surrounded by the living past; with living voices mingling with whispers of the past.
I was directed through a collage of history of the Cherokee people. Their voices and places were everywhere. As I strolled amongst exhibits depicting the Cherokee people, I longed to hear the real voices; the stories, the voices flowing from faces. Reading and viewing the exhibits I was a bystander, a disconnected 'Other'. I wanted to see lips move, see their eyes, hear the feelings in the voices.
I slid off the bike and sat on a ledge outcropping. The gravel trail snaked alongside the mountain and through the trees as though it were a still stream with no water. The trees and shrubs, lichen and granite ledge muffled any sounds, yet I could almost hear moccasins walking along the trail, buckskin clothes and black hair blending easily. I could feel their presence, even though they had been gone over 150 years ago. They knew these forests and mountains like the creases in their babies’ skin. Here they derived physical and spiritual sustenance, and near here they hid from the soldiers and encroaching settlers. Their ghosts faded in and out as I sat watching and listening. I, on the outside, yet partly on the inside. Perhaps I would see a ghost of my self walking softly in those moccasins. Maybe my great-grandmother.
As one moves along the exhibits and stories of the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, you round a corner and find yourself behind white life-sized 'people' in various poses on the floor in front of you. In the low-lit galley, they all face ahead, stumbling, kneeling, steadying the kin and stranger next to them, heads covered in shawls and blankets, bowed and forelorn. Silent. Yet the silence exudes feelings that draw you into them, into their plight, their aching souls.
I stood on a hill, on the outskirts of Jeruselum in Israel, rooted to the ground staring at tens of starved people –women, men, and children- most naked, torn cloth hanging on others, their skin conforming to the bones barred by wasted muscle. All memorialized in bronze patina. Faces revealed hopelessness, pain and fear. Silent screams forever escaping open mouths, eyes that can’t shed tears, fingers that will never clutch anything other than death and empty air. You can’t look away, your throat is tight and your heart is ripped open for thousands of needless deaths. I cannot speak; I have no voice. Yet I ask the eternal question as it resounds in the very air I breathe: Why?
Slowly I walked from the galley and into the entrance and light. People mingled by, but I could not feel them. I cannot swallow. Mouths spoke, but I could not hear them. I opened my mouth, but I could not speak. The question tumbled out unspoken and unheard: Why?
Ghosts are choking you. You ask too many questions.
Labels: Oklahoma, Trails of Tears
,12:20 PM
Riding Tails of Trails: Part Four
Tahlequah, the Cherokee Nation Capital
Tahlequah has a complex history beginning in the southeastern states of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. In some ways its history still extends all the way from its present location in Oklahoma, east to those areas and in between; in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Mississippi. Here, the town was the site of a new beginning for an old nation: the Cherokee.
The four (or more) routes of the Trail of Tears culminated in Indian Territory, now known as Oklahoma. Those Cherokee that survived the forced displacement from their homes in GA, NC and TN ended their weary travels in this area along the Middle and Lower Illinois River, a tributary of the Arkansas River. In 1839, the Cherokees founded a new town and capital: Tahlequah.
Years before the great removal of the tribes in the southeastern colonies, small bands of Cherokee had left their ancestral lands and ventured west. They remembered traditional stories of lands in the west where all the game they wanted flourished and away from intrusion of white men. Some settled in Arkansas, some in Texas, and some on the rivers in modern Oklahoma. The latter band of Cherokee had established a settlement and capital named Tahlonteeskee around 1829.
When the rest of their people joined the existing band in Indian Territory, things weren't exactly a homecoming. The established band were steadfast traditionalists and opposed adoption of the 'white ways': the religions, clothing, education, commerce, private property, and owning slaves. It was not 'their way'.
Many of the refugees arriving on the Trail of Tears were progressives. They realized and believed that the only way to survive was to adapt, adopt and change. They tried, but their efforts didn't alter the encroaching settlers, colonists, and the burgeoning upper class. After years of political and philosophical clashes, all the tribes in the southeastern states were driven from their homelands. Upon arrival in Indian Territory, it was time for the Cherokee people to unify if they were to survive.
The new Cherokee nation's capital was established in the new town of Tahlequah, north of the former capital. The name is a derivation of one of the older great towns, also a former capital of the Overhill Cherokee, in Tennessee: Great Tellico, the site of modern Tellico Plains on the Tellico River. For me, this was an irony. Having ridden and slept on their former lands in Tellico Plains, hiked and ridden on their former war paths and hunting grounds. And now here I am, standing in front of the former courthouse and on their new townsite: Tahlequah.
When the Dawes Act divided their public lands into individually-owned parcels, the town changed. It was no longer a Cherokees' home site. It became more like many of the places in this country: multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural. The tribe and nation still exist as a solid community; they've adapted, adopted and changed. And they are the largest Native American nation in the country.
Walking around the courthouse is a walk through history, connections and many stories. On the lawn were stakes with photographs that told a story: a remembrance ride of the relocation on bicycles.
A group of Cherokee students and nation officials rode bicycles from Calhoun, GA, and retraced parts of one route of Trail of Tears. They arrived at the Courthouse in July of this year to a homecoming ceremony. The photographs shared some of their ride.
Walking around the perimeter of the building and square, one can learn quite a bit of history by reading the monuments and stones.
I was surprised, well, almost shocked, to see this. To embark on a long history of the Cherokee factions is beyond this travelogue. Suffice to say that Ross and Watie were polar opposites. Most of the Nation followed the leadership of Ross. Watie.... well, he paid a hefty price for a betrayal to the Cherokee people that cost them their homelands and ultimately thousands of lives*. On the other hand, it is a part of their history, no matter how painful it is. It is a part of their collective public memory. Better to acknowledge it, be reminded of it, than sweep it under the rug and ignore it.
Now, here was a surprise. Does 'Bell' ring a bell?
Anyone interested can read the long version of the story here.
Interestingly, interspersed in the brick and stone walkway around the perimeter of the courthouse are blocks commemorating all the principle chiefs of the Cherokee Nation since their arrival to Oklahoma. Including the present day chief, Wilma Mankiller (the first Cherokee woman chief).
The sky clouded and rain drizzled, which was refreshing, and stopped. The sun shone again and we were ready to move on.
* Synopsis: "A group of Cherokees known as the Treaty Party began negotiating a treaty with the federal government. The group led by Major Ridge and including his son John, Elias Boudinot, and his brother Stand Watie, signed a treaty at New Echota in 1835. Despite the majority opposition to this treaty - opposition led by Principal Chief John Ross - the eastern lands were sold for $5 million, and the [minority group of] Cherokees agreed to move beyond the Mississippi River to Indian Territory. The [U.S.] Senate ratified the treaty despite knowledge that only a minority of Cherokees had accepted it. Within two years the Principal People were to move from their ancestral homelands."
Labels: Adventures, history, Oklahoma, Trails of Tears