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HOMEPAGE |
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DEAR GRANDCHILDREN.... |
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MY CHILD SHALL CROSS THIS BRIDGE |
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BEYOND THE CLOUDS |
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MR ANCIENT |
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A RANCH MANS WIFE |
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HANDS ACROSS THE BAR |
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COME AND DINE |
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STREAMS OF LIFE |
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NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBUTE |
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NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBUTE
The information which follows below is fictional in part but holds the truth in facts shown in their own section. (to the best of my knowledge) It is based on a wonderful story wirtten by Mr. Robert J. Conley called Mountain Windsong. It is a book report written when I was a returning college student and when I was almost 54 years old. I have contacted Mr. Robert Conley to buy the book for myself)
By the way, this report gained me an 'A' grade. I hope all my Native American friends, and friends of Native Americans, as well as other folks, will like what I have recorded from my old college days and now have placed here for your reading enjoyment. This will stay on the web site for at least one month (longer if enough request it.) It is not to be used as your own, or commercially otherwise without my permission (as my book report) and that of the author of the book Mr. R.J. Conley. Thanks.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS:
Saloli is squirrel
Dalala is woodpecker
GaGaKoga is crow
Dlayhga is blue Jay
Wadulisi is bee
Elaqui is snail
Waguuli is whippoorwill
Sughwili is hore or beast of burden
Udolanuhsdi is praying mantis
Galegi is black snake
Tseg'sqin is the devil
Jisduh is crowded
Yonegs is white men
Inega is 'let's go'
DaJi I Si is 'I will kill him'
Asgaya is a man
Gul Kala Ski is Something thats leaning over (and it keeps falling)
Chooj is boy
Junaluska is 'I tryed and I failed (white mans way of saying in Delsinu Lahungu
Old Hickory: Andrew Johnson (He was at battle of Horse Shoe Bend and the renamed indian JUNALUSKA saved him from being killed
Qidhla: scalp lock
Gago: the stranger
Edoda: 'Has he come yet?'
Wado: Thank you
Siyo: bull-thistle down
Darkening land: edge of the world
Sequoyah: a boat white man called the 'George Guess'. He was the man who gave the cerokees their 'writing' and the boat named after him ended up being one which helped take them away from their hmeland
Elohi Gaqhusduhdi: going to the water (or) (propping up the world)
Tsola Gayuhni: old or ancient tobacco (really considedered sacred tobacco)
Cherokee Friend Thunder: ceremony where smoke was blown North, East, South and West four times. Ceremony was repeated seven times
Ajela-Dehyeq: train (fire carrier)
Ayuh: I am
Goq'ski: smoker
Ujana: box car or house on wheels (house pulling monster)
Kawhi: coffee
(Please feel free to advise me if the letter 'g' should have been a 'q' instead. My copy of the report was underlined and I could not determine which it should be. If I am wrong, I apologise in advance. Here is the paraphrased story I wrote based on the wonderful book.)
My name is Oconeechee, daughter of Junaluska and Qualla. Such happiness my parents knew (or so I was told) before the great spirits took my mother Qualla to the Darkening Land. Although Junaluska wished to go with her, he stayed instead with me till I would find the great warrior of my dreams. This was the request of Qualla who came to my father in a vision or a dream.
Many moons have passed and I am a beautiiful young woman of sixteen years. Many considered me foolish for not having choosen a man and bore a child long before this. I could not give myself to any but the one I knew waited for me....waited in my future.
A warrior called Whippoorwill has come to my villege. He seeks advise. I have already fallen under his spell and he mine. I am Chief Junaluska's daughter.
Was bathing in a mountain stream
Where a warrior chanced to be.
She stepped out of the water
And it made his heart stand still
There had never been such beauty
In the life of Whippoorwill
(Mountain Windsong page 12)
My Whippoorwill has been sent by his people to ask my father what he knows about the threat that the white man President of the United States Andrew Jackson, and Governor Lumpkin of Georgia, is making to take the indians land. It was rumored they were all to go someplace far out in the West toward the Darkening Land. "A good friend of our people John Ross says we must not fight." says my father "but some of our own people, Major Ridge and his son and Elias Boudino, along with others, tell the people to sign a new treaty, accept Jackson's offer and move west. Are we to fight or accept this?"
Join her mother in the sky
Then she went to find her lover
Say 'I'm yours until I die'
She went up the Oconoluftee
Down the Little Tennessee
Up the Nantahala
Down the Hiwassee
(Mountain Windsong page 79)
The move to remove the Cherokees has begun. Before my Whippoorwill can get to his people to share the news, they are attacked. Some fight. Some are captured.
But Whippoorwill went out a hunting
And the soldiers captured him
They say he fought with honor
And he never did give in
Whippoorwill would not surrender
So they took away his pride
Marched him clear to Oklahoma
With his hands behind him tied
***************
FACTS OF INTEREST:
In 1825 Cherokees numbered 12,563 (this included 221 interracial marriages and 1,277 slaves)
Arkansas turned into Eastern Oklahoma
Following 1785, the Cherokees warred against the United States. There was no peace until 1791
Cherokees were still being urged in 1835 to leave Georgia's land and go west of the Mississippi
1836 (May the twenty-third) the Cherokees were given two years to move
February twenty-eighth of 1935, five million dollars is agreed to be paid to the entire Cherokee nation for all their lands and possessions.
I will have much trouble finding my warrior Whippoorwill. He and the people will walk many many miles. On the first trip along, seventy will die, two hundred and three will escape. Of the first amount of eight hundred seventy-five people, there will be six hundred and two left. Two hundred of them are sick. In their minds will remain the sight and sound of the Georgians as they burned and pillaged their homes. As a result of the movement of all the trapped people, at least four thousand will die.
My Whippoorwill has tuned to 'firewater' and nightly he loses his memory in drunken sleep. He does this for many moons. He does not know I follow. A white friend helps me in my search.
To the town of Tahlequah
Where he found the chieftain
Told him what he had come for
"The whites won't let me go" he answered
But he listened to the tale
Then he said, "I will go with you
If I have to crash the gates of hell."
(Mountain Windson page 175)
My white friend named 'Gunrod' has found my warrior. He sobers him up and gives him courage to return without shame to me.
Don't you know how she's searched all these hills?
She's searched every glen and glade
Not knowing why you went away
Can't you feel she loves you still, Whippoorwill?
And don't you know she always will! Whippoorwill?
(Mountain Windsong page 205)
The "TRAIL OF TEARS" traveled by the people has come to an end
Left alone, no one to guide him
Whippoorwill began to wail
For a mystic hand to guide him
Down that long forgotten trail
As he listened in the silence
He heard a voice so sweet and clear
That he ran to try and find it
Though his heart was full of fear
(Mountain Windson page 215)
Weep no more, my brave Cherokee warrior. I am here. We will be together again....and for always.
(Recorded on paper in the second person by V.J. Stamps for a Sociology five college class.) The book was published by: University of Oklahoma Press, Norman/London 1992)
I have tried hard to not make mistakes. I assume (since this was ten years ago) that the dates and facts all came from the book itself. I certainly could not do less then recommend its purchase. Contact Mr. Conley at this email address for book price on this or other books he and his spouse have had published.
He also has a web site which is very interesting. Please use your search tool to check the different areas Robert Conley is responsible for. Thank you~~readers and thank you from me, Mr. Conley! Vickey Stamps
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