my camera crapped out and I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. The other camera also crapped out, so I just missed out. But Pat and Rose took a lot of pics they will share with me.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
our vacation at Santa Rosa Beach
my camera crapped out and I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. The other camera also crapped out, so I just missed out. But Pat and Rose took a lot of pics they will share with me.
Santa Rosa Beach
Pat and Rose chilling on the beach. We had a wonderful vacation. Relaxing and restful. It was Pat's first time to see the ocean, actually it was the Gulf, and also Rose had never been to the Gulf before either.
The RV did well, we enjoyed 'camping' our, especially with hot showers and soft beds.
I do hop we can go back again, this time with a car so we can explore the area instead of spending all the time on the beach or resting in the evening shade.
On the last day there we did see a shark; up close and personal. It came right up to the shore to feed and even though we didn't get a good picture of it, we saw it. It was about 8 feet, and I don't remember what kind it was...I wasn't looking at the nose. I was in the water with it, about 8 feet away. It was so cool to see a shark so close, I mean one that was not in a tank.
It was a good time.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
wildflower
Thursday, October 18, 2007
MAY THE Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
MAY THE Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high [and defend you]; (2) Send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh, and strengthen you from Zion;
(Ps. 20:1-2 AMP)
The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the [whole] person; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
(8) The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure and bright, enlightening the eyes.
(9) The [reverent] fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
(10) More to be desired are they than gold, even than much fine gold; they are sweeter also than honey and drippings from the honeycomb.
(11) Moreover, by them is Your servant warned (reminded, illuminated, and instructed); and in keeping them there is great reward.
(12) Who can discern his lapses and errors? Clear me from hidden [and unconscious] faults.
(13) Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then shall I be blameless, and I shall be innocent and clear of great transgression.
(14) Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my [firm, impenetrable] Rock and my Redeemer.
(Ps. 19:7-14 AMP)
Shared…
Many times when answers are needed if we would yield and get into His presence, therein the answers lie. It will be easy to trust and rely because He is good and His mercy endures forever. In You and in Your presence there are answers.
The Lord is (their) chosen and assigned portion, (their) cup; you hold and maintain (their) lot.
(6) The lines have fallen for (them) in pleasant places; yes, (they) have a good heritage.
(7) (They) will bless the Lord, Who has given (them) counsel; yes, (their) heart instructs (them) in the night seasons.
(8) (They) have set the Lord continually before (them); because He is at (their) right hand, (they) shall not be moved.
(9) Therefore (their) heart is glad and (their) glory [(their) inner self] rejoices; (their) body too shall rest and confidently dwell in safety,
Monday, October 15, 2007
Cherokee
Monday, October 15, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The Battle for Nickajack Town '98
The Battle for Nickajack Town '98
The struggle began when the monolithic TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) decided to sell off lands containing all that remains above water of old Nickajack Town. A little background here might be helpful especially for those who believe the stereo type of the "peaceful Cherokee". Dragging Canoe (173? - 1792) removed from the more peaceful elements of the Cherokee Tribe hoping to prevent innocent bloodshed, yet knowing the encroachment on Cherokee hunting grounds needed to be stopped. For awhile, he and the warriors that followed him with their families moved to the area of Chickamauga Creek in Chattanooga Tennessee. From current day 'Hooters' to Lovell Field Airport. From this location the warriors staged lightning swift raids on the illegal settlements that were springing up on Cherokee land. Soon the location of Chickamauga Town was found out and the village was burned in an act of revenge for punishing the white squatters on our lands. This sequence of events was repeated several times, & every time, the villages on the Chickamauga were rebuilt. Finally more secure habitations were secured from an alliance with the Redstick Creek. One of these habitations is called in our tongue "Anicoosawetiyi" or Old Place of the Creeks, which is known to whites as Nickajack Town.
It is now the Twentieth Century seven generations since our forefathers the People of the Lightning fought to save the sovereignty that the Cherokee Chiefs were so quick to abdicate. The TVA in the sixth generation, built dams that flooded most of those habitations that were obtained from the Creek.
It is now the '90s and TVA, having used the law of Eminent Domain to acquire the land of the People of the Lightning, is in a financial bind because of mismanagement. They wanted to sell Nickajack Town and its associated burials. But they did not count on the Children of the Lightning confronting them. And confront them we did. On July 5, 1997, The Tennessee River Band of Chickamaugan Cherokees staged a march in downtown Chattanooga, TN in front of the TVA complex. This was followed by other demonstrations, organized by the Chattanooga Inter Tribal Association, in which Children of the Lightning also participated. Finally, in the Spring of '98, the TRBCC hosted a powwow to save Little Cedar Mt. at nearby Marion County Park. It was well attended by Native people but there were not many 'tourists' and I fear many vendors went away unhappy. At the same time, E. Raymond Evans informed us, AIM was staging a protest in front of Hines Ltd., Little Cedar Mt. project office in Atlanta, GA. Soon intelligence reports from Mr. Evans confirmed that Hines LTD had closed their Atlanta "project" and moved it to Chicago IL.
We also had reports that the Eastern Band of Cherokees chief Dugan was going soft on us. Secretly agreeing with TVA to remain silent on LCM in exchange for a small piece of shell midden downstream from Nickajack Dam. Mr. Evans and Mr. James Bumpas discovered this in a fund-seeking trip to the N. C. reservation. It must be said here that the Council EBCI knew nothing of the soft position and in Mr. Evans words were "willing to cut a check right then." But the "director of Cultural Resources" cleared her throat and said "the Chief has a plan."
And now, months after TVA's formal abdication announcement, on March 15,1999, we are still celebrating our well-deserved victory over the TVA. Chalk March 15 on your calendars, Children of the Lightning, as the day of a major political coup for the TRBCC and Native America as a whole.
1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee
1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee
The events at Wounded Knee (South Dakota) on December 29, 1890 cannot be understood unless the previous 400 years of European occupation of the New World are taken into consideration. As Dee Brown has pointed out in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (pp. 1-2):
"‘So tractable, so peaceable, are these people,’ Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain [referring to the Tainos on the island of San Salvador, so was named by Columbus], ‘that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.’"All this, of course, was taken as a sign of weakness, if not heathenism, and Columbus being a righteous European was convinced the people should be ‘made to work, sow and do all that is necessary and to adopt our ways.’ Over the next four centuries (1492-1890) several million Europeans and their descendants undertook to enforce their ways upon the people of the New World."
Many accounts (from both sides: US Army and Lakota) of this shameful episode exist, and many of those can be found on the Internet. The following is a brief, edited description (from The Great Chiefs volume of Time-Life’s The Old West series) of events. Links to further resources and descriptions follow.
In 1889, rumors of a miraculous Indian redemption began to emerge. In Nevada, during a solar eclipse, a young Paiute mystic byc the name of Wovoca had fallen into trance. When he awoke, he told others that he had been taken into the Spirit World and had received revelations of great future events. The dead would rise. The buffalo would return in the millions. The whites would disappear.
The precepts of this new faith called for no fighting, no war, nothing that resembled war, no stealing, no lying, no cruelty. Followers of this faith were expected to perform a dance, one that Wovoka had learned while in the Spirit World. The ritual dance was the essence of simplicity. Each of the worshippers, painted with sacred red pigment, shuffled counterclockwise in a circle, moving slowly at first but picking up tempo while singing songs of resurrection. Many of the participants fell into trance and awoke to tell tales of meeting with dead relatives and seeing hosts of buffalo roaming the Plains.
This faith came to be called the Ghost Dance Religion by curious whites because of the emphasis on resurrection and reunion with the dead. Like other peoples who had picked up a new religion, the Sioux added a unique touch of their own -- a small alteration, but one that appeared to taint the basic innocence of the rite. They began dancing in loose shirts, adorned with feathers or other trimmings and decorated with [what the whites saw as] curious cabalistic designs. White men inquired after the meaning and function of these garments, which they called ghost shirts. They were advised that the shirts were sacred and impervious armor against an attacker’s bullets.
The reply stirred unease in whites, then outright alarm. What need for armor, unless a mass uprising was being plotted. Agent James McLaughlin reported, "It would seem impossible that any person, no matter how ignorant, could be brought to believe such absurd nonsense, but the infection has been so pernicious that many of our very best Indians appear dazed and undecided when talking of it."
McLaughlin also [mistakenly] reported that "the new religion was managed from the beginning, as far as the Standing Rock Sioux were concerned, by Sitting Bull, [Tatanka-Iyotanka (1831-1890)] who... having lost his former influence over the Sioux, planned to import and use it to reestablish himself in the leadership of the people, whom he might then lead in safety in any desperate enterprise which he might direct."
From Washington came orders alerting the Army to take up positions to contain and put down any outbreak. The sudden and highly visible presence of troops in turn alarmed the Indians. Distrustful bands, fearing massacre by the whites, left the vicinity of their agencies and headed for the Badlands. The Army, as apprehensive in its way as the Sioux were in theirs, mobilized to round them up.
On December 14, 1890, having received word that Sitting Bull was determined to visit the Pine Ridge Agency south of Standing Rock, McLaughlin had him immediately arrested. During the arrest, Sitting Bull protested. His followers, having heard his shout, acted. One of them fired a rifle at one of the arresting officers (a fellow Sioux) named Lt. Bull Head. As the police chief fell, he managed to put a bullet into Sitting Bull. General gunfire erupted, taking the lives of Sitting Bull, six policemen and eight of Sitting Bull’s followers. (Click here for James McLaughlin's account of the arrest.)
The killing of the chief exacerbated the turmoil that was already sweeping the reservation lands. Bands of Sioux fled, all frightened, many of them still holding onto the hope of deliverance through the Ghost Dance miracle. Some of Sitting Bull’s followers hurried toward the camp of Big Foot, a Miniconjou Sioux chief. They met up with Big Foot while he and his people were on their way to agency headquarters near Fort Bennett to procure rations.
Meanwhile, authorities had decided that Chief Big Foot was a troublemaker who should be taken into custody. When Col. E.V. Sumner intercepted the band, Big Foot gave assurances that their intentions were peaceful and lawful. Sumner questioned his motives for sheltering "hostiles" from Sitting Bull’s camp. Big Foot replied that he had found 38 men and women who were hungry, footsore and nearly naked in midwinter. Anybody with a heart would have done the same thing, he told the colonel.
Sumner nevertheless ordered Big Foot’s followers, numbering more than 300, to accompany him to Camp Cheyenne, where they would be kept under watchful eye. They obeyed the orders without protest until they had traveled back to the vicinity of their own village. The Indians then announced that they would not go any farther. Big Foot advised the colonel that they intended to return home and that they had done nothing to justify their removal. But during the night, alarmed by some reports of additional troops that were coming from the east, Big Foot’s people fled toward refuge in the Badlands.
Orders came from General Miles to pursue and apprehend the fugitives. Another cavalry unit caught up with them on December 28. Carrying a white flag, Big Foot approached Major Whitside to parley. Whitside demanded surrender, and Big Foot, whose band was in no condition to fight, gave in. The troops hurried the band southwest to Wounded Knee Creek and took up surrounding positions as the Indians set up camp. Four more cavalry troops arrived under the command of Col. James Forsyth, bringing the escort to 470. Big Foot was now ailing with pneumonia, and Col. Forsyth provided him with a camp stove.
In the morning, Forsyth prepared to disarm his captives. To secure the field, his troops were disposed on all four sides of the Indian camp, and four rapid-fire Hotchkiss guns were set into place on a low hill overlooking the camp from the north. At about 8 o’clock, the Indian men came out of their tipis and sat in a semicircle in front of the troops. Forsyth issued orders that they should return to the lodges, 20 at a time, and bring out their guns. The first contingent obediently entered the tipis but, after some time, reappeared with only two weapons.
Troops around the warriors were moved up within 10 yards; others were detailed to go into the tipis and make a search. The soldiers went at their work with hard-handed zeal, scattering bedclothing, pawing through other property. Women inside the lodges protested loudly.
Outside, resentful uneasiness edged into hair-trigger tension. Then a medicine man called Yellow Bird began blowing on an eagle-bone whistle, exhorting them to resist. When the soldiers began to search the warriors themselves, the situation exploded. A young Indian pulled a gun out from under his robe and fired wildly. Instantly, the soldiers retaliated with a point-blank volley which cut down nearly half of the warriors. The rest of them drew concealed weapons and charged the soldiers.
Then the Hotchkiss guns on the hill opened up -- on the women and children who had come pouring out of the tipis. Soon many of the tipis were burning, ripped by the explosive shells. A stumbling mass of women and children and a few men bolted into a ravine that led away from the encampment. The soldiers followed them, firing as they went. The Hotchkiss guns were then re-emplaced to sweep the ravine and cut down anything that moved.
Big Foot died as he tried to rise from his sickbed. Others managed to run as far as two miles from the camp before dying of their wounds. Twenty-five white men were killed and 39 wounded. Since the besieged Indians had few guns and since the troops were firing from four sides at once, it seemed likely that the soldiers had caused many of their own casualties. The Indian dead numbered about 180. [Note: other reports place this number much higher.] For three days, they were left to lie where they had fallen while a winter blizzard swept over them.
A burial party was sent to the scene on New Year’s Day, 1891. One by one the bodies, frozen in the grotesque agonies of death, were dragged from under the snow and heaved into a single pit. Four babies were discovered still alive, wrapped in their dead mothers’ shawls. Most of the other children were dead. "It was a thing to melt the heart of a man if it was of stone," said a member of the burial party, "to see those little children, with their bodies shot to pieces, thrown naked into the pit."
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About Me
- Tsila
- I was told I have fibromyalgia, I am in constant pain, with stiffness, and sleep disorder. I also have PTSD. I have been married to a wonderful man for 3 years now. We are best friends, our marriage is heaven on earth. He loves me unconditionally. I love him with all my heart.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
sign in to Blogger is a pain in my a**
What IS their problem?????????? I KNOW what my password is, they won't let me use it. They say my email address does not exist, but they send me mail to that address to change my password, but then they won't let me change it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It did not use to be so complicated.
It did not use to be so complicated.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Cherokee Tear
This is Dillion Asher's log cabin
it still stands in Redbird, Ky.
Aaron Brock, (Chief Red Bird)-1720-1811, Jesse Brock, 1749-1843 Suzanne (Brock) Blanton, 1786-1870 Sarah (Blanton) Fee 1825-1905, Lavinia (Fee) Brice 1850-1930, Delia (Brice) Asher 1873-1964, Velva (Asher) Johnson 1910-1981, Shaylah Johnson. 1955-Dillon Asher, 1777-1844 Richard Wilkerson Asher Sr., 1810-1840 Richard Wilkerson Asher Jr., 1846-1923 William Matt Asher, 1873-1948 Velva (Asher) Johnson, 1910-1981 Shaylah Johnson 1955-Sequoyah’s syllabary:Brock is spelled Quagi, qua pronounce Kwa means birdGi pronounce G is the color redQuagi is bird red, or as the English version, which is reversed, red bird.DNA has proven that our Aaron Brock is not the one descended from Rueben Brock of England, but was Red Bird a Chickamaugan, a Chief. He married Susan Carolina a full blood Cherokee from the Carolinas.Dillon Asher became friends with Chief Red Bird along the Holston River when his father William Asher, who was an American soldier, was serving there. Dillon was about 14 at the time. In 1799, he built his home along the Red Bird River, in the middle of Chickamauga hunting grounds. Dillon and Red Bird had a personal treaty of peace because of their friendship and Red Bird’s people honored it. Dillon maintained the first tollgate in Pineville, Kentucky. Beside my great +3-grandmother, he also married Henrietta Bolling, a Powhatan descendant of Pocahontas. I am sure their families have merged over the years, but in my case, it was my grandparents Delia Brice and William Matt Asher. My mother, Velva Asher was born at Redbird, in Bell County, Kentucky and moved to Knox County at age 10. I remember visiting Uncle Clinton Brice in Redbird as a child, and walking across a creek on a swinging bridge, perhaps it was the same creek my great (+4) grandfather Red Bird was…well, I will wait to explain that later.Red Bird’s village was Taluegue (a version of Telliqua in the east and Tahlequah in the west). The village, which ran along the Warrior’s Path up Goose Creek to Otter Creek and down Stinking Creek, was located near Fogertown in Clay County, Kentucky. The county lines of Clay, Bell, and Knox have changed since that time.During hunting season, Red Bird’s people would travel to the banks of Red Bird River, named for him, to hunt game, fish and gather plants for medicine and for eating.On May 23, 1791 a petition by the white people lead to a Board of War that allowed the destruction of Chickamauga villages by burning their homes and destroying their food supply, stealing their horses and burning their crops.The War Chiefs Bloody Fellow and Chuquilatague “Doublehead,” which was Red Bird’s uncle, signed the Treaty of Holston, which was a treaty of peace and friendship between the President and citizens of the U.S. and the Cherokee Nation, on July 2, 1791. However, most Cherokee did not like the Treaty and continued to fight for their homes as the white settlers continued to crossed the Cumberland Gap in droves. The Chickamauga who wanted peace and to stay in their homes adopted the white culture trying to survive. Others moved north to join the Shawnee or beyond the Mississippi and westward.Between 1803 and 1805 the Treaties of Tellico were signed, each relinquished more and more of the Chickamauga’s land because of the demand for salt, which was abundant in these lands. In January of 1806, Red Bird and Doublehead relinquishing all of the salt rich land north of the Tennessee River by signing yet another treaty. His own people feeling he had betrayed them killed Doublehead. The ridge of his murder still bears his name Doublehead Gap in Wayne County, KY. There are other version of his death and the reasons for it, but I prefer this one.In 1810 when the ‘War Hawks’ were elected to Congress, they canceled out all Chickamauga land claims in southern Kentucky, leaving the people orphans. Red Bird tried every possible way to keep the peace between his people and the U.S., but to no avail. Reverend Gideon Blackburn a Presbyterian pastor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opened a school on Cherokee land near Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the late summer of 1810, Blackburn agreed to offer protection and a "white man's" education to all Cherokee women and children from the Cumberland River valley. Doublehead's daughter, Beloved Woman/War Woman "Cornblossom," sent her son Little Jake on horseback to spread the word that anyone seeking protection at the Blackburn school should meet in the great rock house behind Yahoo Falls when the moon was full and round. Once all the children were gathered, they were to wait for Cornblossom and travel to Rev. Blackburn’s Indian School at Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee.Over 100 women and children were under the Falls when the white men, Hiram Big Tooth Gregory and his Indian fighters came. War Woman Standing Fern, who was married to Cornblossom’s oldest son War Chief Peter Troxell, and others were standing guard outside the cave. They fought to save the children, fearing not their own death, but were outnumbered and killed. The rest of the children, pregnant women, and old men that were in the cave suffered unspeakable acts and brutally murdered. Only a few children escaped alive.When Cornblossom, the Beloved Woman, with her younger children, her son, War Chief Peter Troxell, Red Bird and their warriors arrived at Yahoo Falls, the massacre was almost over. Some of the Indian Fighters remained to make sure all were dead, “nits make lice,” they said, and that included unborn babies. Beloved Woman and the warriors charged on the murderers that remained and killed them. War Chief Peter Troxell died in battle. Beloved woman, Red Bird’s cousin, died a few days later from her wounds. In the fall of 1810 more than one hundred innocent Chickamauga men, women, and children were massacred at Yahoo Falls in Big South Fork in McCreary County, Kentucky, and were buried in a mass grave in the rock shelter behind the falls. Red Bird’s friend Jack wounded in the battle, and crippled for the remainder of his life.Ywahoo, or Ya-hu-la, was a trader who lived in a stone house behind the Falls. The spirit people took him away. His ponies wore bells around their necks, which tinkled as he rode and echoed through the mountains along the Great Tellico Trail. Today that trail is US 27. A marker is placed there that reads;Yahoo Falls, McCreary County, KentuckyA Sacred PlaceMany Innocent Indian Womenand Children who Knew No WrongWere Massacred by Indian FightersOn August 10, 1810Let us Remember themWith a Cherokee TearIn Loving Memory of Red Bird do-tsu-waDedicated 12 Aug 2006 with an Inter-tribal CeremonyAfter the massacre, the Chickamauga lands were sold for 10 cents an acre and were purchased by the white settlers who masterminded the Yahoo Falls massacre. With salt at $25.00 a barrel, they soon became rich.Red Bird and his friend Jack settled on the west side of Red Bird River across from Jack’s Creek. They built a cabin there and lived in peace, hunting and fishing, selling their furs.There are many version of this next part of the story, some say that cowardly white men attacked them in their sleep, but the one I remember from childhood is this. While Red Bird was out hunting or trapping for furs, and Jack was fishing alone, two white men attacked and brutally murdered him. They threw his body into the creek, at a place known as Willie’s Hole. The white men, (history records the names as John Livingston and Edward Miller) then lay in wait for Red Bird to return. Upon his return, they killed him, and cut off his head and threw him into the creek. John Gilbert, who discovered the bodies, retrieved them and buried them in a nearby rockshelter.I am not sure if the creek I crossed on the swinging bridge as a child was the same creek my great (+4) grandfather Red Bird was thrown into with his friend or not, but I wish I had asked more questions as a child, and paid more attention.I was nine years old when my grandmother Delia Brice Asher, descendant of both Red Bird and Dillon Asher, passed away. I remember her well. She was 5 foot, 95 lbs of feisty. Her hair, when I knew her, was the color of snow in moonlight, and hung passed her waist. She would sit on the side of her bed in the mornings and comb it, then skillfully braid it and twist it into a bun on the back of her head. She would secure it with a few hairpins that would not dare move until she was ready to remove them. Her black eyes were still sharp, and so was her tongue. When I go to Pow Wow now at McIntosh Reserve, I enjoy mingling with the people, watching the dancers and hearing the singers and the drums. But I often get away by myself; walk the trail back into the woods and with no other human in sight I drift away on the scent of hard wood smoke.I can still hear the singers and the drums. I hear the tinkling bells, like the ones around the necks of Ywahoo’s ponies, and in my mind, I am transported to a gentler time. I see an Indian village, perhaps Taluegue, enveloped in the slow rising mist of fog and smoke. I see children playing without fear or dread. The great Thunderbolt War Chiefs like Red Bird and Doublehead and War Women, like Cornblossom and Standing Fern, the young hunters as they celebrate at the feast of the Hunter’s Moon. A familiar, yet indescribable feeling comes over me, energy surges through me. My throat aches to release a sound, but I refrain. Instead I whisper:Cornblossom, your children remain. We have survived! That is all we ever wanted, to protect the children. Conforming to the white man’s ways were not enough, we had to mingle and change our look. But we survived. Your children are here, and they remember…the blood remembers when
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