Iroquoia

Reconstruction of an ancient Iroquois longhouse

What is Iroquoia? Sounds like a name of a country, but does such a country exist? If so, where?

Well, here and there. The biggest chunk on the shores of the Grand River in Ontario, close to the city of Brantford. Officially it is called Six Nations Territory. Six Nations of Iroquois Confederacy, that is. On a map it doesn't look very different from the rest of Ontario. It is covered in the same network of parallel roads with square angle intersections. Only on a topographical map one can see more woodland between the roads on the territory. In the middle of the territory lies Ohsweken, a village in theory, but there is so much greenery, houses so far from the road that the village looks much like surrounding countryside.

The white people call it an Indian reservation (or a "reserve", according to Canadian terminology). They say that the Iroquois received it from the British Crown because they helped the Crown during the war of U.S. independence. The Iroquois say something different.

I came to Ohsweken to hear what the Iroquois say. At first I didn't know whom to talk to but asking persistently I found the right doors to knock to. From the conversations I had I gather that Iroquoia is a very interesting country.

* * *

Tom Hill is a director of the Museum of Woodland Culture in Brantford. He lives in Ohsweken in one of those houses far from the road. I found him there one Sunday evening, he had no time for me then but told me to see him the next morning in his museum. He received me in his office full of books.

"What do you want to know?"

"I am interested in two things. One is: what is the political situation of the Gran River territory. The other is the Longhouse religion - is it still alive?"

I actually don't have ready questions. I would rather hear what my interlocutors themselves consider important. Tom tells me about the year 1924 when chief Deskaheh Levi General travelled to Geneva. Levi General was a royaneh, which title is usually translated as "chief". That year the chiefs decided that the government in Ottawa interferes too much with internal affairs of the territory which they, the royaneh of the Six Nations Confederacy, did not consider part of Canada. They decided to make it absolutely clear and sent royaneh Deskaheh Levi General to Geneva to get Iroquoia into the League of Nations. He travelled with a passport of the Six Nations and Switzerland considered this passport valid. The League discussed a matter and was quite close to recognising Iroquoia as a member, but in the end pressure of colonial powers (especially Britain) was too strong. While this was happening in Geneva the government in Ottawa decided to solve the problem on the ground by sending the Mounties and declaring the council of chiefs illegal. It was decided (in Ottawa) that democracy would be introduced, a council would be elected and this council would be recognised by the government.

For the Iroquois this was barbarity. Not just the way the so called "democracy" was introduced. In the Iroquois society the chiefs were always selected by women, especially Lakoyaneh, or clan mothers. There were supposed to be fifty royaneh, who formed a kind of parliament. The chiefs, who were men, took the important decisions, but all of them were selected by clan mothers and the clan mothers had the power to revoke them. In Canada in 1924 women had no voting rights. Anyway the elections to the new council were boycotted, about 50 people (men only, of course) took part and elected 12 members of the council from among themselves. The Canadian authorities recognised this council as legal.

"From that time", says Tom, "there weren't any attempts to enter the League of Nations or the U.N. But you can learn more about it if you talk to a royaneh, for example Arnie General. He will also tell you more about our native religion as he usually officiates during ceremonies in the Sour Springs Longhouse. You can talk also to Amos Keye, a faith keeper. He works here, in another building, I'll phone him..."

* * *

Stele for Deskaheh Levi General in front of Sour Springs Longhouse

The other building houses a language college of which Amos is a manager. Smartly dressed as a manager should, he has a long black pony tail flowing to his back. Tom told him about me so he has a prepared answer about ceremonies in a longhouse. But one thing is to hear about something, another is to be present. Could I visit a longhouse during a ceremony?

"Normally people from the outside cannot be present.," says Amos. "In the Onondaga Longhouse in Ohsweken it is strictly observed. In the Kayuga Longhouse in Sour Springs the atmosphere is a little more liberal. Perhaps you could talk to chief Arnie General who leads ceremonies there. But a ceremony of ripe strawberries was there yesterday and we don't know yet when the next ceremony would take place."

Amos is a faith keeper so I ask him about the Iroquois religion preceptes. He says that according to what the prophet Handsome Lake said one has to avoid four great sins: drinking alcohol, abortion, black magic and killing. Most of all one has to remember that everything that people use here on earth is a gift from the Creator. The ceremonies are basically thanksgiving for the gifts, for the fact that maple syrup can be gathered, that strawberries ripen, that corn can be harvested. One has to remember that death is not something to be afraid of. Death is passing into Strowberry Fields. This is what old prophecies say: when man dies, he is surrounded by aroma of strawberries. This is why during ceremonies everybody gets strawberry juice to drink. During this life one has to work. However, chasing money or any other obsession is a sin.

I ask about the language. Amos is a manager of a school where the Iroquois learn their own languages. Does this mean that there are some Iroquois who can't speak their own language? The answer takes me by surprise:

"In the whole reserve, where around 2000 people live, you may fing perhaps 200 for whom an Iroquois language is native. Not long ago Canada had an official policy of eliminating Indian languages. Indian children were forcibly taken to boarding schools where away from their parents they forgot their language. This policy had its effect. Today this is our biggest problem. All our traditions are transmitted orally in native languages. The purpose of this school is to bring back the native languages to the Iroquois."

* * *

Chief Arnie General with the author

Chief Arnie General and his friend Mary wait for me at Brantford railway station. Arnie is not employed by a government agency and so he doesn't need to dress smartly. He wears old jeans, a T-shirt from the Grand Canyon and a baseball cap. He is known for his sense of humour which he demonstrates straight away. Showing me his old banger with smashed lights and several indents, he says:

"Look what white people did to me."

Arnie knows from earlier phone calls that I am interested in longhouses so he takes me to the Museum of Woodland Culture. There is a reconstruction of an ancient Iroquois village there, with a longhouse as it looked three centuries ago. It is a structure covered in bark shingle from top to bottom. In houses like this several families lived. I have to explain to Arnie that I am not interested in tourist attractions but in a longhouse in a religious sense. I want to know what does a longhouse mean to modern Iroquois. In the end Arnie takes me to Sour Springs where there is a "modern" (only a couple of centuries old) longhouse, where the ceremonies are held. It is a house made of huge logs. It is locked, opened only for ceremonies. A sacred place, in fact the weather-worn logs make an impression of being really ancient, even though the Iroquois haven't been building log houses in the old days. This was something they learned from the white people. But still, the atmosphere is there...

I look inside through the windows. There are wooden benches around the walls and two cast iron stoves in the middle. I ask Arnie where is the eternal flame of which I read in books.

"The flame is symbolic. Wampum is the flame."

In front of the longhouse stands a granite epitaph of Deskaheh Levi General who travelled to Geneva. He died in the States but he was from here. A Kayuga chief, at one time he must have officiated in this very longhouse.

We are also going to see the Seneca longhouse and a third one, Onondaga. The Onondaga longhouse is new but built like the Sour Springs one, with huge wooden logs. It is much bigger than the Sour Springs one. Here the Confederacy Council meets since they were driven from the Council House in Ohsweken. I ask whether there is a Mohawk one. Arnie says that once there was one but it was burned by Christians because among the Mohawks Christians are the majority.

The Longhouse religion has no sacred scriptures, the whole tradition is oral. Once a year the Great Law and the prophecy of Handsome Lake is recited in its entirety in one of the longhouses on the Grand River Reservation. This recitatin lasts four days. It is a duty of faith keepers to remember the Grat Law and explain the holy wampums. I ask if there is something about it in English. Mary advises me to seek a book by Jake Thomas who wrote in beatiful English the prophecy of Handsome Lake. Jake Thomas was first a faith keeper and later a royaneh of the Kayugas. He was also a professor of the University of Trent in Ontario. Unfortunately he died a year ago. His death was a great loss, he was a veritable mine of knowledge about tradition. They say he was the last of faith keepers who could recite the whole Great Law in an Iroquois language.

I ask Arnie what he thinks about the elected reservation council. He says that it may be good for administration, for maintaining roads and schools, but the sovereign power on the Grand River Reservation rests with the council of the royaneh.

"The Canadian government thinks they can tell us what to do because once the British Crown gave us the land by the Grand River. They say they gave it to us because we helped them in their war against the U.S. In fact this was the other way around: the whole southern Ontario belonged to the Iroquois who after that war ceded most of it to the Crown and only kept the Grand River for themselves. In return Canada agreed to finance things like roads and schools. This is not too big a price. This was an international agreement. The Iroquois weren't subjects of the Crown but its allies."

Mary is Arnie's friend, not his wife. She doesn't live on the reservation but in a distant town where she is a teacher. She invites us to a restaurant in Ohsweken for a traditional Iroquois dish: venison and corn soup. After that we go Arnie's house where Mary takes a nap while Arnie looks into the engine of his Cadillac, the old banger maltreated by white people.

"That one", he says showing me another Cadillac standing in the yard, "is the same but now it is just for parts. I always had a car but I think this one will be the last. It has to serve me till death which I think is not far away..."

Arnie is 66 and his health is failing but he is still full of good humour. When he was young he earned money with his father trapping pelt animals. He says this still could be done as the woods by the Grand River are still full of game. However, the highrise construction work, where the fearless Iroquois are often employed, pays better. He himself earned money there, but the money disappeared quickly as long as he was drinking. At one point he quit drinking and as it turned out he saved a few bucks. Later he led a folk dance group that performed Iroquois dances. Today his son Brian leads a similar group. This younger group travels around the world although sometimes they have problems entering a country. Some members refuse a Canadian passport and travel with a passport of the Iroquois Confederacy, but not all countries accept this passport.

After some time Mary comes out of the house, rubbing her eyes. I glance at my watch. My last bus to Toronto leaves in half an hour.

"Time flies", I say.

"Doesn't it?" says Mary. "Here on the rez time flies differently. Each time I come here I am enchanted..."

* * *

Yvonne Thomas with an Iroquois flag

Somebody told me that there was a longhouse in Toronto and even gave me its phone number. I decided to phone. The voice in the phone says that it is indeed a longhouse and that in an hour's time they will have a meeting with Iroquois elders.

I go there immediately. "The longhouse" turns out to be a room on the 6th floor of the Indian Affairs Bureau, "the elders" were two middle-aged ladies. One introduced herself as Kontonhonkwas, she was the one who had a lecture. The other one didn't introduce herself, just sat there filming the whole event.

Kontonhonkwas is an Indian name, every day she is known as Yvonne Thomas. During the lecture she mentions every so often her late husband and I have an impression that she was invited in his place. She talks about the Iroquois prophets, the Peacemaker and Handsome Lake. The Peacemaker lived before the white men came. His mother was a Huron woman but his father was the Creator himself. He managed to persuade the constantly fighting tribes of Seneca, Kayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk to make peace and form the Iroquois Confedracy. In the village of Onondaga near modern Syracuse the Ever Growing Tree of Peace has been planted and ever since the rohaneh of the five tribes meet in the longhouse there to solve any problems peacefully. Later another tribe, called Tuscarora, was co-opted and since then it is the Confederacy of Six Nations.

Handsome Lake lived at the time when the power of the Confederacy was broken by the newly created United States. He preached the good news to a broken people. He said that they should turn away from four grave sins: drinking alcohol, which makes men stupid; abortion using herbs, which weakens the nation; black magic and murder. He also preached that the old ceremonies should be kept but otherwise there was nothing wrong in accepting the white man's ways of building houses or ploughing fields. His teaching was incorporated in the longhouse religion and is now recited together with the teaching of the Peacemaker.

People who listen to Yvonne are young Indians, students in Toronto. They are mostly Ojibway and Cree, but there are also some Iroquois. After the lecture I talk to Yvonne. I have so many questions to ask, not about the Peacemaker of Handsome Lake, but about the life of present-day Iroquois. Hearing some of those questions she says that I should live for a few days on the rez, meet the right people and ask them directly.

A few days later I am a guest in a little house on a verge of a virgin forest. It is the place where Yvonne lives with her 30 years old son. Yvonne is a widow, her husband died a year ago, but she seems to be one of those who cannot forget very easily. I have an impression that her husband is somehow present all the time. One day I even hear him talk. Unfortunately this is only a video. Yvonne's husband was Jake Thomas who could recite from memory the whole Iroquois tradition and once this recitation was recorded, but not in his native Kayuga tongue but in English. It is several hours of video. I only decided to watch a short sample, just a few hours.

The Iroquois were famous for their oratory talents, they were even called "the Romans of America". Listening to Jake I understood what it meant: he is telling old tales but can keep the listener tense. This is not really a recitation, each time it is said again in different words. Jake was telling how the Peacemaker brought peace. He didn't pontificate about eternal damnation for sinners. He waited for a "good thought" to be awakened in a sinner, so he can understand what evil is and turn away from it. "Be of good thought, said the Peacemaker, and the world will smell of strawberries."

* * *

Kontonhonkwas, the Indian name of Yvonne, means "Opening the door". Indeed, with her help doors I didn't even know existed - open for me. She knows who to talk to and with a few phone calls organises meetings. The first person we are going to meet is royaneh Harvey Longboat. Harvey has a table and three chairs in a shade of a tree ready for us when we arrive. A thermos with iced tea and three glasses stand on the table. He wears a cap with a design of the ever growing tree of peace and words "Hodenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy" written on it. "Honedosaunee" is the name of the Iroquois in their own language. It means "builders of a longhouse". Yvonne warned me that her presence may influence what Harvey has to say. There is a potential conflict there: Yvone’s husband was known for his disregards of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whereas Harvey, although himself a royaneh, is employed by this very Bureau. He works in administration of education. Among the Iroquois any conflicts are supposed to be solved without violence, but that does not mean that there are no conflicts.

Chief Harvey Longboat

Harvey doesn’t say anything that could sound controversial. He describes how the Confederacy Council functions. There are several royaneh of each of the founding tribes of the Confederacy, whereas the Tuscaroras, who were co-opted later, are represented by Oneidas. Altogether there should be fifty royaneh. All chiefs are equal, all decisions have to be unanimous. Royaneh od each tribe have their places: Seneca and Mohawk sit on one side, Kayuga and Oneida on the other, Onondaga in the middle. The highest in rank (but not in power) is the Onondaga chief Tadodaho. He acts as the speaker of the house. Each problem is first discussed by one side, then by the other, in the end by the Onondagas. However, at the Grand River Reservation the Confederacy Council does not have any political role, only a religious one. Among the Mohawk Christians are a majority, but Christians should not be royaneh, as the royaneh should also lead the longhouse ceremonies. Each ceremony is led by two royaneh and each royaneh has as his helpers two faith keepers, one male and one female. The political role at the Grand River Reservation is played by the elected Reservation Council.

"In New York State it is different. There, in Onondaga Reservation near Syracuse, the fifty chiefs have real power recognised by the U.S. authorities. They have a council that is like a mirror image of our council. This is a situation since the war of U.S. independence, when the Confederacy was nearly destroyed, but was recreated here in Ohsweken and at the same time there in Onondaga.

"Since the famous journey of chief Levi General to Geneva in 1924 there were no attempts to have our independence recognised. Certainly not in Ohsweken. Perhaps you should travel to Syracuse, the chiefs there might have more to say on the subject. The main person to talk to is Oren Lyons. Maybe you don’t have to travel that far: Oren Lyons is a lecturer at the University of Buffalo, from here it is closer than to Toronto."

* * *

Ken Maracle is a faith keeper. We are going to his place without a prior phone call. Yvonne is not sure whether we’ll find him at home. We are in luck, he is there in his shed busy doing something. He has threads stretched there on something like a loom and works weaving warp around them, putting tiny white and purple beads on the warp. This is how wampum belt is made, a belt of beads forming a pattern. Each pattern is a remainder of a historical event, like welcoming the Peacemaker, creation of th Confederacy, treaties with white men. Wampum is a sacred thing. For the Iroquois it is the wampum that makes the treaty binding, not a piece of paper. Ken is making a copy of a wampum memorizing a treaty between the Iroquois and the U.S.

Children run around the yard, some of them with flowing golden hair. I had noticed earlier that the Indians here don’t differ that much from their “white” neighbours. In this case the reason is obvious: Ken’s wife is not an Indian, she comes from the American Mid-West. Ken tells us how they met: he hitch-hiked to San Francisco, where at the time Indians Indians occupied Alcatraz island, on the way he met another hitch-hiker, a girl with whom he travelled all the way there, all the way back, and after they got back they got married. He didn’t emigrate from the reserve, it was her who moved here to live among Indians.

He tells us about the great powwow that will take place here next week. Powwow is a great gathering of Indians, dances in feather outfits to the rhythm of drums. But for the Iroquois all those dances are utterly exotic, it is a culture of western Indians, not from here. Powwow has no connection with what happens in the longhouse. A powwow organised on the Iroquois reserve is a bit for show, for tourists. Ceremonies in the longhouse are for participants only, tourists are not invited.

* * *

Isabel Maracle with Yvonne

Isabel Maracle is advanced in years. Ken Maracle is her son and the golden haired children running around Ken's house are her grandchildren. Isabel does not live with her son, she has a little house with the air-con, which has a positive influence on the climate of our conversation (temperatures this summer reach 40ºC). Isabel is lakoyaneh, a clan mother. The lakoyaneh play an important role in the life of the Confederacy. The royaneh (male chiefs) take the decisions about the community but it is lakohaneh who chose chiefs and have power to recall them. Isabel is a bit deaf and has problems with her eyes but has a sharp mind and clear views about politics.

"We are weak nowadays," she tells me. "We are weak but not only because of the pressure of the Canadian government. We ourselves cannot solve our problems. We have the Confederacy council, there should be 50 chiefs there but actually only about 20 sit. Many seats are vacant and some chiefs never come to the council. Now and again they take a decision about something but it is not binding anyway because the Mohawk bench is empty. Mohawks are actually the majority of the population on the rez! I keep telling them they should accept Christian chiefs. Before 1924 there were Christian chiefs and there was no problem! I don't understand all those disagreements. Teaching of Christianity and of the Longhouse are actually very similar. They talk about the same values, they just use different language. You can find some honest people among Christians as well. I don't understand this. They seem to me like little boys who get a lollipop and run with it without looking where.

Isabel nowadays mostly looks after her vegetable garden. We go there to see how plants grow. There are neat rows of maize, beans and squash, the "three sisters" that the Creator gave to women to look after. There is a separate plot of tobacco, the holy herb that the Creator gave to his people so their prayers can raise to heaven with its smoke.

"I often come to my garden and talk to plants'" says Isabel. "You have to talk to plans so they know they are needed."

* * *

Barb Garlow, who was with Yvonne in Toronto, is a faith keeper. She comes one afternoon with video cassettes recorded during the lecture. Yvonne wants to learn from her mistakes and attentively watches herself on the screen while I talk to Barb. She tells me how she rediscovered the longhouse for herself.

Jake Thomas, Yvonne's husband, for many years ran a school of native languages for those who forgot them. Yvonne, who herself was native Mohawk speaker, taught in this school, while Jake was one of the last fluent Kayuga speakers. Barb saw an advert a few years ago and went to see what it was. She herself talked Kayuga to her parents when she was a child but stopped when she went to school. At school teachers told her that the Kayuga language is inferior and she should not use it. Only when she was thirtysomething she went to the course and the language very quickly came back. At that time she also started being interested in the traditional religion. She started taking part in ceremonies and a year and a half later she was chosen to be a faith keeper. She doesn't know why, in her opinion other people would be better, but she accepted.

It is interesting how Barb sees Christianity. She says that Christianity is not a blessing for Indians, on the contrary. As she sees it - Christianity only brings disagreements and quarrels. The Iroquois tradition stressed tolerance whereas for Barb Christianity, on the contrary, preaches intolerance. For her Christians are ready to burn a temple of another religion as thay have burned a Mohawk Longhouse at the Grand River Reserve.

Interestingly, Barb never heard that Jesus himself said that he was sent to the sinners, to thieves and prostitutes and that conversion meant turning away from sin.

* * *

Wellington Staats

In the centre of Ohsweken there is a new building of the Reservation Council. I ask a receptionist if I could meet Wellington Staats. The receptionist tells me that she has to phone his secretary first. The secretary answers that now he is busy and tomorrow he departs to Vancouver for an important meeting, so only when he comes back it will be possible to know if it is possible to meet Wellington Staats.

Yvonne can't believe it when I tell her this a minute later. Wellington Staats is the chairman of the Reserve Council and she thought that it would be better if I met him independently of her. However, because of this incredible bureaucracy her help will be necessary. Later that day we drive to his place and agree to meet the next day

The next day Wellington drops in for an hour and I talk to him while Yvonne works in the garden. She doesn't want to be present because Wellington knows that her views are very different and perhaps he would feel less free to speak if she was there. Wellington has a different view than the Confederacy chiefs, although for me - an observer from overseas - not that much different. Wellington comes from a chiefly family, his uncle was a royaneh and his sister is a lakoyaneh. When he was young he frequented ceremonies in the Sour Springs Longhouse but at one point he decided it doesn't lead anywhere. Nominal sovereignty, of which the chiefs talk, is a beautiful idea but more important is real independence, for example financial. This is why in recent years the Council tries to build industrial infrastructure, so it could be independent from the Canadian Government financial support. On land bought by the Council just next to the reservation a modern textile factory will be created in cooperation with a company from India. The reason is not to release the Canadian Government from its obligations based on treaties but to create a situation when the government money is not the only source of income.

More interesting is alaw suit that the Reserve Council brought against the Canadian Government. The problem is - why did the reserve shrink so much? According to the original treaty the Iroquois received 6 miles of land on each side of the Grand River (which is 170 miles long) from its source to its mouth. Later parts of this land were either sold off or rented. In 1865 the Canadian Government decided that all this is too chaotic and took the remaining land in trust. Today the reserve territory is only a fraction of what it was originally and nobody really knows why. Considering that a basic duty of a trustee is to provide reports from his activity, the Grand River Reserve Council sued the Canadian Government asking this question: where are the reports?

"The Government tries to defend itself in various ways," says Wellington,"but we of course are not waiting idly for the reports. We are doing our own research, checking archives. We started a computer program which keeps our information in order and allows to check the history of every piece of land. Therefore if the Government actually does give us reports, we can check their veracity. However, I am not sure if we can expect any reports. This is not a question of a piece of paper but of big money. There were illegal squatters who never paid anything. There are places where land was rented to white farmers but nobody knows what happened with the rent. Two cities, Kitchener and Brantford, have been built on Iroquois land, their inhabitants pay tax to the government, but what about the original owners of the land?There are motorways and canals crossing the land as well..."

Wellington leaves exactly one hour later. When I tell Yvonne what I heard, she winks with disbelief.

* * *

Irvin Powless

Syracuse is a city famous for the Greek thinker Archimedes, but not the one in upstate New York, which is only its namesake. I came to Syracuse, N.Y., to meet the royaneh of Onondaga Reservation. I came on the advice of Yvonne and other interlocutors, but they stayed in Canada and I have in a sense to start everything from the beginning. However, I have at least telephone contacts to start with and manage to persuade some people to meet me.

Irvin Powless has only a couple of hours for me. We meet for a lunch in a little restaurant on the outskirts of Syracuse. Irvin is a royaneh in the Confederacy Council here. The council in Onondaga was never de-legalised by anybody and has the real power recognised by the U.S. authorities. The sovereignty question is not so clear, however. The U.S. consider relations with Indian tribes as part internal policy. The Iroquois claim that they ceded most of their lands to the New York state but they never gave up sovereignty over the little pieces of land they kept. Irvin says:

"In the early seventies there was a gathering of American Indian nations and there we were encouraged to renew our international diplomacy. We were encouraged because other tribes have only treaties with the U.S., so the U.S. can treat them as an internal problem, but we have earlier treaties with Holland, France and the British Crown. Our delegated came back to Onondaga and presented this view in the Longhouse. The chiefs agreed that the international diplomacy should be renewed.

"Then the problem of passports appeared. After all you cannot travel with an American passport to international conferences and claim that you are not a representative of the U.S. but another country. We then started issuing our own passports written in Onondaga language. There even is an issue of National Geographic with an article on the subject and a photo of Oren holding his new Iroquois passport. There are sometimes problems with them on some borders but there are countries that recognise them.

"The international conferences are not just wishful thinking. For a few years already Oren Lyons has been a leader of our delegation to the U.N. Conference of non-governmental organisations. We don't have our representation in the General Assembly but according to the U.N. Charter we qualify to be members. We have our own territory, our own law, sovereign authorities and treaties with other countries. In 1924 our attempt to get into the League of Nations failed. We did not try again with the U.N. But our Confederacy is older. This is the world's oldest organisation of independent political units who creating it decided to reject war and solve all disagreements by negotiations. The ever growing tree of peace has been first planted here. Its roots spread everywhere...

* * *

Oren Lyons

Oren Lyons, standing by a pitch where some young people train lacrosse, talks to one of the players. He handles a racket in a gesture showing that at one time he played it himself. To the coach standing nearby he says:

"That guy has to be included in the team."

Oren also has only half an evening for me but he took me to the reservation so I can have a look at least. Oren does not have too much free time because apart from lectures at the university of Buffalo he is active in politics. He is one of the Confederacy chiefs and its representative at international conferences. In rare free moments he is interested in local sport. Lacrosse is a national passion here, for the Iroquois it means as much as football for the British.

"We have our own representation in international tournaments," says Oren, "and it is doing very well. Recently it had the third place in the world cup in Adelaide in Australia. In situations like this one has to have external signs, like a flag. This is why we designed our own flag. You must have seen it in many places. It is designed like a wampum that memorises the creation of our Confederacy. In the middle of it there is a symbol of the tree of peace that has been planted here in Onondaga, and on the sides are four squares representing nations of Kayuga, Seneca, Oneida and Mohawk. It is all in white lines on purple background. Such symbols are important for people who are not interested in politics.

I ask about casinos which are built on other reservations but are absent here.

"We don't want casinos here. You have to pay too much for things like this. We would have to consult authorities on New Your state and that would mean admitting that New York state has jurisdiction over us. This is too high a price. But there is also another problem. There is a casino on Mohawk territory of Akwesasne on the border with Canada. It is run by an organisation called "Mohawk warriors". They are greedy for money and this leads to quarrels. There even proper shoot-outs there. We don't want this here.

"We had a similar problem with tobacco shops. According to treaties Indian territories are excluded from the U.S. taxation therefore cigarettes sold here are much cheaper. The "Warriors" of Akwesasne made big money smuggling tobacco. Some of their stuff was sold here. One family opened a few shops and made big money. But the Council of chiefs agreed that tobacco shops here need a licence. This family didn't have a licence. They made money without giving a penny to the community here. They wanted to benefit from local privileges without respecting the local law. They have been warned many times, the chiefs and clan mothers came to them even in the last moment, but they stubbornly refused to close the shops. In the end one day people came in the crowd, dismantled the house log by log, made a heap and burned it. Tons of the smuggled stuff were also put on that heap and burned, and any money that was found there was burned as well. This was a difficult moment but our community is stronger now."

"Some people accuse us of greed but I don't know why. Nobody takes a penny for his duty as a royaneh. Everything is done in the time free from work."

Oren leads me to the local longhouse. The rules here are different than in the Grand River, no guests are ever invited to ceremonies but one can enter otherwise. It is a low log house, long indeed, everything in wood. Hardly any furniture inside, just benches around the walls and two iron stoves in the middle.

"Here everything started," says Oren. "Here the Peacemaker came to the Hodenausaunee and planted the ever growing tree of peace. From here its roots grow all over the world."

"Where is the tree?" I ask. "Is there any real tree?"

"There is not. It is in human minds."

Oren says that he will take me back to Syracuse soon but he wants to show me one more thing: the bisons. It is getting dark. We drive through woods until we come to an open space, a hill covered in grass. We get out of the car to see a herd of bisons which soon walks away.

"They smelled us," says Oren. "We brought them here a few years ago but we didn't want to tame them. They are completely wild."

There is total silence, one cannot hear any distant murmur of a motorway of of a town.

"What was the reason of bringing them here?"

Oren is silent for a long while, then he answers:

"Spiritual."

Interior of a longhouse

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":

Silent heart of the Cherokee country

Chief Barker on his mustang

The chiefs present themselves magnificently on their mustangs. The first mustang blue, riding it is the principal chief of the Cherokees Bill Barker with his wife. They sit in the back quite high, waving to the crowds that gathered on both sides of the road. The second mustang grey, the deputy chief John Critteden with his wife on it. The third mustang is ridden by a visitor from the neighbouring tribe, James Floyd, chief of the Muscogee. Following them on floats are the Cherokee Council and representatives of various Cherokee organisations: Cherokee police, Cherokee judges, youngsters from Cherokee schools, descendants of Cherokee freedmen. There even are Cherokee brass bands. All are parts of the great parade along the main street of Tahlequah, right in front of the old Cherokee Capitol.

Later chief Baker gives the "State of the Nation" speech on a square in front of the Capitol. The ceremony is opened by rising colours of both the U.S. and Cherokee Nation. Immediately after that a choir of girls in flowery dresses sing the U.S. anthem in the Cherokee language. Their flowery attire looks a bit like that of a 19th century housewifes but clearly the Cherokees consider it their national dress. After the anthem the Cherokee spiritual leader speaks:

"You see that bird printed on the leaflets? This is a crane, the symbol of our celebration today. The crane was worshipped by the Cherokees. Great warriors wore its feathers when they went to meditate. The crane feathers were used only for meditation, never for decoration. They were obtained from live birds that were caught and later released. Cranes live near water and this is the connection with today's ceremony: WATER IS SACRED. And now the blessing: in the name of God the Father, Goddess the Mother, God the child and the Holy Spirit..."

Official part of the Cherokee feast 

Chief Baker also speaks about the sacredness of water. "Water is sacred", he says, "and we are here to make sure that our descendants in the 7th generation drink the same good water we drink here today. This is why some Cherokees went to support the water guardians at the Standing Rock reservation in the north." But most of his speech is about the tribe's budget and how well it is managed. The group of youngsters who retraced the Trail of Tears on bicycled had some financial support. The cabin of Sequoia, which is now a museum, has been bought out from a private owner, who wanted to close the place because of the insufficient number of visitors. Descendants of black freedmen, whom the Cherokees had to free after the ivil War, were accepted to the tribe. The black descendants did not have the tribal citizenship but recently the U.S. Supreme Court decided that they are entitled to it and the Cherokee Supreme Court admitted they can be citizens.

Wait a minute. Some Black Americans demand that they be accepted as members of an Indian tribe? That would suggest that the budget is well managed indeed! Apparently being an Indian brings some advantages. But what are they?

* * *

In the historical centre of Tahlequah stands the capitol building. It is an impressive edifice of red brick, built on a square plan, with huge windows. In the years 1869-1907 it housed the government of the Cherokee Republic.

Here I have to insert this irritating interlude because most of my readers would expect chiefs of an Indian tribe in the 19th century to meet in a tipi made of bison hides, not in a capitol built of red brick. After all this is Oklahoma, the Indian Territory. Indians in the 19th century were supposed to chase bison in the prairies and wear feather bonnets. I have to insert this interlude to disperse the myth created by Buffalo Bill and his circus and kept alive by books like "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". This book pretends to be sympathetic to Indians but in fact perpetuates the mythical image of a primitive man of the prairies. It is an image based on very selective information and therefore false.

The Capitol building at Tahlequah

The Cherokees are the biggest tribe in the U.S. but its history does not fit at all the "Bury My Heart..." stereotype. It was one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" named so because its members accepted the white man's ways of agriculture. They weren't stupid and quickly noticed that a field ploughed with oxen and manured with what oxen produce after eating grass gives a better yield than a field on freshly cleared forest with soil moved only with a deer antler. They also noticed that it is much easier to obtain beef from a herd of cattle grazing on a meadow behind the village than venison which has to be chased in the forest. Moreover, they noticed that their white neighbours send black slaves to till the land and that the slaves could be purchased with money earned selling deer hides. What's more, in the beginning of 19th century the Cherokees formed a republic with a written constitution, a parliament ("a tribal council" only in name) and a president ("a chief" only in name). The constitution, accepted in 1827, states clearly that selling land to anybody outside the tribe is a capital offence. This was because in the 18th century the whites bought land from village chiefs and the tribal territory shrank dangerously. This was at the time when the Cherokees lived in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. The Capital of the Cherokee country was a town called New Echota in what today is north-western Georgia. The president of the Cherokee Republic at the time was John Ross. Chief John Ross does not fit the stereotype of an Indian chief any more than a capitol built of red brick fits a stereotype of a place where Indian tribal elders meet. Instead of a feathered bonnet and fringed leggings he wore a suit and a top hat and instead of fighting the U.S. cavalry with bows and arrows he sued the state of Georgia in court. Incredibly - he won! Chief Justice Marshall ruled that an Indian tribe is a separate political entity from which the U.S. government can buy land but it cannot force the tribe to sell it. He ruled also that a tribe is a separate political entity, therefore tribal law applies on its territory and not state law. However, president Andrew Jackson, whose policy was to resettle all Indians beyond Mississippi, ignored this ruling. Chief John Ross, who at the time was the president of the Cherokee Republic, did not want to sell him land, but is this a problem? President Jackson found someone who was willing to sign a document which exchanged the Cherokee lands in Georgia for some lands in Oklahoma (which the U.S. government bought from Napoleon just a few years earlier). The document was signed by Major Ridge, who was very influential among the Cherokees but had no authority to sign any such thing. Another signatory was Elias Boudinot, the chief editor of a Cherokee newspaper, who as such was also very influential but had no authority to sign a document of this kind either.

Yes, the Cherokees had their own newspaper then. I know, it doesn't fit the stereotype of an Indian tribe, but what can I do? It had the title "Cherokee Phoenix" and was published in two languages. The English half was addressed to a friendly reader in American cities. The Cherokee half was for those Cherokees who did not know English but could read in their own language. The Cherokees in the 19th century had their own script, not invented by a missionary but by an Indian named Sequoia.

Major Ridge and other signatories packed their things and moved to Oklahoma on their own volition. John Ross and the majority of the tribe decided on passive resistance. Possibly this was the first, albeit not successful, such protest in history of America. The U.S. army sent for the purpose had to literally carry Indians out of their houses. The operation was supposedly logistically planned but either it was not very well planned or some of the supplies were stolen, either way many people died of malnutrition. This was the famous Cherokee "Trail of Tears".

In theory - a defeat. However, it is the ruling of chief justice Marshall that is the basis of the law that Indian reservations are exterritorial, state law does not apply there and for example casinos can be built on their territories. And the Cherokee Republic did not cease to exist! It was rebuilt in the new place, newly established town of Tahlequah became its capital and the capitol of red brick was erected. The tribal council decided (against the advice of chief John Ross) that those who sold the whole country to Americans deserve to die. They all were killed on the night of 22 June 1839. Only Stand Watie, Major Ridge's son, has been warned and managed to escape.

The Cherokees came to Oklahoma together with their slaves. It is possible that the slaves of the Cherokees had a better life than the slaves of white people. Sometimes it even happened that the black runaways joined the "Trail of Tears" and reached Oklahoma. Nevertheless the Cherokees had slaves and wanted to keep them. When the Civil War broke out chief John Ross tried to stay neutral but many Cherokees sided with the South and joined their army. Stand Watie even became a general. However, it turned out that the Cherokees sided with the losers and after the lost war had to free their slaves.

The Cherokees had their republic, built a capitol and kept black slaves but in one respect they were very different from their white neighbours: in their republic there was no private ownership of land. Every citizen could cultivate any available plot of land but when he ceased to cultivate it, he had no rights to it. This state of affairs was incomprehensible to the white neighbours who thought that there was too much unused land in the Cherokee Republic. It was suggested that the land that Indians actually cultivated would be given to individuals as private property and the "surplus" distributed to white farmers. The Cherokees would become citizens of the state of Oklahoma and the separate republic would be discontinued. The suggestion became reality in 1907. One can say that this was the end of Cherokees as a separate nation.

This at least was what I knew (having read about it in books) when I came to Tahlequah to see the capitol building. The capitol that definitely does not look like a tipi where elders of the tribe meet.

I came to see the building and I saw things that I didn't really expect. What is this parade about? If the history of the tribe has finished, then who are those chiefs on their colourful mustangs? Who are all those tribal judges, tribal police? What is that principal chief talking about giving his state-of-the-nation speech?

* * *

Cherokee girl choir

"Traditional women dance, dancers please come to the circle," the master of ceremonies announces through all the speakers. "Southern Thunder, take it off."

Boys with microphones on long poles run to the group of drummers thus named. A group of men sitting around a big drum start drumming. At first gently, then more and more loud, in the end they start singing. They don't sing with high falsettos as the Sioux in the north do but the melodic line seems to be quite similar. Women in the circle dance with grace. They move in small steps and bend their knees with each step so a shawl hanging from a forearm swings like a pendulum. Most women have dresses similar to the ones of the Sioux but there is a group of women in flowery dresses, the national Cherokee outfit. The pow wow here is quite similar to the ones I have seen in the north, on reservations of the Sioux and Ojibway, although there are some differences. In the north the Grand Entry is always at noon whereas here it is at six in the afternoon, when the sun is setting. Most of the dances are in the artificial, football-pitch style light. Among the Sioux the women dance in the direction opposite to that of men whereas here all the dancers move clockwise (as the Ojibway do). On the other hand among the Ojibway drum groups are always in the middle whereas here the drums are around the circle of the dancers (as among the Sioux). In the north the men drummers sing in high falsettos and the accompanying women even an octave higher, whereas here the singers sing in their normal, much lower voices. The melody line seems to be quite similar, though, sometimes sung without any meaningful words, just meaningless syllables. It is unmistakeably pow wow music, very different from anything a white man's ear is used to.

At a nearby football pitch there is something I have never seen in the north: a stickball match. It is a sport called so because the ball can only be touched by a racket on a long stick. Each player has two rackets, one in each hand. A goal is just a single pole. There are many players, maybe a hundred, a crowd moves quickly following the little ball. The players can tackle each other like in rugby, only the ball can be touched only with a racket.

Watching the match I sit on a bench next to a black man who is quite talkative and speaks with a Mississippian accent, similar to that of Muddy Waters. He says that he is not a descendant of a Cherokee freedman but came from Mississippi with his Choctaw wife. There is a Choctaw reservation near the place where he lives and there he found his wife. The Choctaws had their own trail of tears and the majority moved to Oklahoma, but clearly some stayed behind and today they have a reservation there. Clearly also they play stickball and it is so popular among them that a non-Indian husband comes all the way to Tahlequah to watch a match.

* * *

The "Heritage Centre" is an open air museum, a reconstruction of a Cherokee village of the 18th century. During the Cherokee national holiday there is a fair in front of it, crowds of people, some of whom come to see the village. One cannot walk around alone, only with a group and a guide. Normally I don't like the guide prattle but this time I am in luck: my guide is a born storyteller. He wears a n18th century Cherokee attire including a "Mohican", which was a hairstyle then in fashion among Indians, not only Mohicans.

Stickball

He says quite interesting things. For example explains the rules of stickball. There are two versions of this game, one when only boys play it, the other one when boys play against girls. If only boys play, they can touch the ball only with a racket but they can push and trip each other as they like. There is no set number of players, there could be a hundred or more, the only rule is that there has to be an equal number in each team. If only the boys play the goals are just single posts at each ent of the pitch. However, if boys play against girls, then the goal is only one: a wooden fish atop a tall post. Boys can touch the ball only with rackets but girls can grab it with their hands. Girls can push and trip boys but boys cannot do the same to girls. The guide demonstrates how to use the rackets. The are similar to lacrosse rackets but smaller and one player holds one in each hand.

The guide demonstrates also the use of reed blowguns that boys used to use to shoot small birds. It was the task of small boys to watch the fields so birds wouldn't eat the planted corn. The darts weren't poisoned but for small birds they were lethal anyway. These birds were then brought and left at the entrance to the council house and if anyone in the village wanted to cook them they were free to take. Travellers who visited the Cherokees in those days mention that all those birds were shot through the eye, which would suggest that the boys were quite skilful.

I wrote "council house" because the Cherokees never lived in tipis or wigwams. In the 18th century they lived in villages consisting of solid houses. Each family had two houses, one used in summer, the other in winter. The summer house had a roof but no walls whereas the winter house had walls and a fireplace. Normal houses were rectangular but the council house, which stood in a village centre, had seven walls and a conical roof. The Cherokees had seven clans and members of each clan had a place under one of these walls. Each Cherokee was a member of a clan and the membership was matrilinear. Whoever had a Cherokee mother belonged to a clan and thus was a Cherokee, it didn't matter who the father was. In the 18th century whites sometimes settled in the Cherokee country and married Indian girls, their children were considered Cherokees by the Indians. If a daughter of a white man and a Cherokee mother married a white man again, the children were fully Cherokees anyway. They say that the great chief John Ross was only 1/8 Indian but no Cherokees ever questioned the fact that he was a Cherokee.

* * *

Facing the Capitol stands the Arsenal - a building of nicely dressed stones. There is an art exhibition there during the national holiday, Cherokee artists of course but nothing specifically Cherokee there, just modern art as everywhere else. Not my cup of tea. There is also a lady selling CD's with music, choirs of girls wearing flowery frocks. Could I listen to the music before I buy? The lady has no equipement to listen to CD's but finds the choirs on youtube and shows me on the phone. They sound a bit like the choir that sang the U.S. anthem in Cherokee. Not my cup of tea either. But at least a conversation gets started.

A very interesting conversation. I've found at last somebody who can tell how it is that there is no reservation but there are the police, judges and a chief. Where do they have their jurisdiction?

"The plots of land that the Indians received in 1907 are treated as Indian land", said my interlocutor. "There we can run a business and not pay taxes on it. The casino at the entry to town and the tax-free tobacco shops are on this land. This is so called 'restricted land'. It cannot be sold to just anybody, it could only be sold to another tribe member. You cannot take a mortgage to buy this land because the bank could not repossess it in case on non-payment. If you want to take a mortgage, you have to apply to the tribe to take off the restriction.

The restricted land has its advantages as well. For example the tribe provides running water supply. Just recently my house had the running water installed. Before we had an electric pump from a well but it had problems, for example you couldn't take a shower and use a washing machine at the same time because when the well was emptied we had to wait another hour or two before it filled again. Now we have water from the pipe and there are no problems.

Cherokee freedmen

The tribe has also its own health care. It is not on the same level as in private hospitals but a Cherokee hospital can sent a patient to another hospital for a particular operation. Most Cherokees have a private insurance anyway. On the other hand we don't have to pay for Obama-care. We have to prove that we are members of the tribe, though. This is why we have the tribal ID-cards.

The descendants of freedmen would like to have all these amenities but I don't think they should be admitted to the tribe. They are not Indians. They don't know our traditions. I have seen them on a telly, they pretend to be Indians, they put some feathers on, but this is not our tradition. They are not Cherokees. The whole problem came up because the U.S. government wants to punish us for taking the wrong side in the Civil War.

A powwow is not our tradition either. We organise just one powwow in a year, it is an inter-tribal event, representatives of other tribes of Oklahoma come here as well. This is not our tradition, though. Our tradition is stomp dance. During that dance women have rattles made of turtle shells tied to their thighs so we have to dance with our legs far apart. Men dance with rattles in their hands. Yesterday there was a stomp dance in a special place next to the Heritage Centre. I don't know if they dance today as well.

If you are interested in all this you should go to John Ross Museum. My son works there, he will tell you more. Of course you should also go to Sequoia's Cabin.

* * *

Sequoia's Cabin is quite far beyond the town. Of course there is no public transport there, one has to drive to get to it. It is not so much a tourist attraction as a national treasure recently purchased from private hands, as chief Baker mentioned in his speech. Sequoia was an incredible genius, an illiterate Indian who decided to create a writing system for his people and succeeded. He lived in a simple log cabin which still exist, now a museum and a national treasure of the Cherokees.

A genius who created a script for his language. In his time the Cherokee elite sent their children to English schools but Sequoia was not part of this elite. He couldn't speak English. The story goes that he was once chatting to a group of other Cherokees, who said that the Creator gave a script to the white people and didn't give it to Indians. Sequoia hearing this shouted: "What do you mean - the Creator didn't give? I will invent a script for Indians. He worked on it for years, people thought he was kind of strange, writing strange signs on leather. He had a daughter who played with him often and learned those signs. One day somebody accused Sequoia of black magic and he decided to prove that this was no magic but a logical system that even a child can learn. He told a group of men to say a word each, wrote those words down and asked to show what he wrote to his daughter, who was not present. She read the words correctly, upon which somebody decided that not only this is not magic, but the invention can actually be useful.

Sequoia belonged to a group of Cherokees who early on were persuaded to leave their homes in Georgia and move to Oklahoma. These two places are half the continent apart and it is difficult to just drop in to visit a relative. However, with such a fantastic invention one can write letters! If a child can learn to read, surely an adult can, too! Suddenly it became fashionable among the Cherokees to write letters. White traders with astonishment noticed demand for ink and paper among the Indians.

Inside Sequoia's cabin

When Sequoia worked on his alphabet, some Cherokees decided to go for a shortcut and sent their children to English schools. So did chief Mountain Ridge (also known as Major Ridge) who sent his son John Ridge and a nephew Elias Boudinot to a school in Conneticut. When in 1828 the tribal council decided to publish their own periodical, Elias Boudinot became its chief editor. The periodical had a title "Cherokee Phoenix" and was published in two languages, the Cherokee part printed in Sequoia's alphabet. A year earlier the Cherokee Constitution was written using the same alphabet. One of the laws of this constitution read: "Selling tribal land to anybody outside the tribe is punishable by death."

1836 was for the Cherokees a year of national tragedy. Chief Major Ridge as well as his son and nephew, thinking there was no other way, signed the treaty of New Echota which stated that the Cherokees give up all their lands in Georgia and in exchange will receive new land in Oklahoma. They had no authority to sign such document. According to the Cherokee Constitution the only person authorised to sign a document of this kind was chief John Ross, the president of the Cherokee Republic, who categorically refused to give up any Cherokee land. This was the year of the Trail of Tears, when the majority of the tribe had to leave their own cuntry against their own will. Their arrival in Oklahoma caused new problems as those Cherokees who settled there earlier considered it their own land and didn't see any reason why the new arrivals (a huge majority) should now decide about their affairs. They say that Sequoia, who by now was considered a great sage, was doing all he could to reconcile the parties. In the end in 1839 a new constitution was written, which was accepted by both sides.

Later in life Sequoia travelled to Texas to find a group of Cherokees who originally settled there. Eventually they were driven away to Mexico. Sequoia travelled to Mexico to find them, never to return.

All that is left now is his cabin, a national treasure. It stands far from cities, between fields and forests of east Oklahoma, in a park. At the entry to the park there is a mosaic with a word "welcome" written in the Cherokee script. Apparently it has been decided that the cabin itself is too precious to stand exposed to elements, it is now housed in a bigger building that covers it entirely. Inside there are boards with information who Sequoia was. I guess they are for an overage American who might visit but who has his stereotype of an Indian chasing bison on the prairies. Sequoia? Who is that? An Indian who invented a script for his Indian language? No, it doesn't fit the stereotype. Neither do other things exhibited there: a few iron object forged by Sequoia, who was a blacksmith by trade.

What? An Indian blacksmith? Almost as hard to believe as an Indian inventor of a script.

One can enter the cabin and see a table, a quill, an ink pot and a buckskin with a few letters of the Cherokee alphabet written on it. It is a treasure but kind of sad. These days hardly anybody uses this alphabet. The youngsters nowadays go to English schools and speak English. Nobody needs this alphabet today. The Cherokee language as well as its script are slowly being forgotten.

* * *

In the outskirts of Tahlequah there is a cemetery with a tomb of John Ross, the great chief. He died in Washington D.C. but the tribe decided to bring his remains and bury him in Tahlequah. Next to the cemetery stands the John Ross Museum. It doesn't show him as a person but rather his political achievements. There are documents written in his hand and comments about history of the tribe. There is also information about tribal history after his death. Generally hardly a tourist attraction, probably aimed more at the Cherokee youth, so they know who they are.

Bruce Ross

At the entry to the museum I meet a man with a white beard who happily initiates a conversation. He introduces himself as Bruce Ross, a descendant of the great chief. He is a gifted storyteller and in fact this is exactly why he is here. I ask him whether one can see a stomp dance in Tahlequah.

"Stomp dance in Tahlequah is just entertainment. The only true stomp dance is at the Redbird Smith Stomp Grounds. You need a sacred flame for this ceremony and it is kept only there. The Sacred Fire was brought here during the Trail of Tears in seven parts, each clan carried one part, and after the arrival the parts were reunited. Redbird Smith Stomp Grounds are on the ground that was allotted to Redbird Smith when the Cherokee reservation was carved up in 1906. Redbird refused to accept an allotment and only signed the document when he was brought in handcuffs to court. Today the Keetowah Society has its ceremonies there. The Keetowah Society is a kind of a church of the Cherokee tradition. There is no contradiction between our religion and Christianity. I myself have been in a seminary and was on the way to become a Catholic priest, although I never became one. Redbird Smith was very friendly with Christians. His son was not, he was against Christianity, wanted to establish his own stomp ground and stole some sacred fire. Or so he thought but you cannot steal sacred fire. I have been to his place once. My spiritual guide Hickory Starr went there once and took me with him. I didn't feel well there and after I came back I had to take a bath. Others had the same reaction.

Once I had a brush with the law and was arrested but in the morning the sheriff released me without charge. I went home and wanted to take a bath to wash off the smell of prison but my wife told me to phone Hickory immediately. I phoned him and Hickory asked where I was. I said at home and he told me to go to the verandah. I did and he asked what I see. I told him that I see an owl on a tree. He asked if there was only one. I looked more closely and I saw another one. He said he was just checking whether they arrived. Ever since if I plan something and want to be sure if it is a right thing, I look for an owl outside my window.

One day at the stomp ground I met an old man whom I didn't remember having ever met but he told me that he did meet me before. When I looked surprised he told me that he saw me when my father brought me when I was a baby.

You can go to Redbird Smith stomp ground. It is not far from Tenkiller State Park. Maybe there you will meet somebody who will tell you more.

* * *

Redbird Smith Stomp Ground is not a tourist attraction. There are no road signs showing the way. The last bit one has to drive on a dirt road.

I went there as Bruce Ross told me. The grounds consist of a big well kept lawn surrounded by trees. In the middle there is a place for a bonfire with four big log ends resting as if the fire was just extinguished. Around the fireplace there are seven enches with roofs above. Nearby there is a tall post with a wooden fish on the top. There was nobody when I arrived. Motorways and cities are far, there was complete silence.

Here was the silent heart of the Cherokee country.

Redbird Smith ceremonial grounds

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":