March 7, 2002

You know it will be almost 200 years since the removal and the "trail of crying" took place. The Tribe was a very tired and neglected group of natives of this country when the removal was beginning to start. Starvation and disease was existing in every family that was on the move.

And if it wasn’t bad enough for them to face the removal, they faced it again after they had been in Texas for a while. Native brother Sam Houston, President of Texas, had began to issue land grants on land that the native Americans had established and occupied by cultivating the soil and clearing of trees and growing farm produce along with different fruit trees. The Cherokees were not ready to hear that their dwellings were once again up for liquidation, and their homes and dwellings were in jeopardy to the newly arriving people from the east that were calling themselves Texans even before they got here.

After all the Mexican government was working with the Native Americans trying to provide them a place to settle and begin anew. And with the Mexican government’s permission and cooperation it was beginning to seem like they had at last found their land of security and rest.

The Mexican Cherokees are a friendly and welcoming group of people and after five generations, they still adhere to the customs that their parents taught them back when they had too lived in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina.

While we were observing the people in Mexico during the last trip and after the parade when we had time to stand around and talk, we found that many would walk up and speak in English and express to us that they just wanted to visit and speak in English to some one. They shared past experiences with us, and as we talked a little bit in Spanish and a few words in the Cherokee language, we discovered that they were truly an affectionate people with kind hearts.

I talked with one family which consisted of a man his wife and two boys. He told me that he was a stained glass repairman and that he had a lot of business in Texas. He and his wife were descended from the Cherokees of many years ago and were part of the Cherokees that found safety in Mexico some one-hundred-fifty years ago.

I think that I mentioned that the fiesta was celebrating its one-hundred-fifty-second year of activities every February 1^st and 2^nd. The celebration in the past consisted only of many cowboys and covered wagons. The theme this year was "Cowboys and Indians."

Just before all of us Cherokees were beginning to make our way into the arena and grand stand area, I just had a few minutes to talk with another young Mexican Cherokee Cowboy that looked to be about twenty-five years of age. He told me that he lived in a neighboring town some thirty miles away.

He was telling me where he lived in Mexico, after I told him that I lived in Aubrey and that our town was named Onega (pronounced uu-nega) and that it meant white in the Cherokee language, and that many Cherokees lived in our town some one-hundred-fifty years ago.

The young man replied back that he understood that the name of our town in Texas was white in the Cherokee language, and that he had learned English as well as the Cherokee language from his mother who was a school teacher in a nearby community.

Our schedule on this trip was timed very close, and I wished for more time to just mingle around and meet the people, especially the lost Cherokees that have not had a contact with their ancestors since the forced separation that was created by the so called transplanted Texans back during the 1830's and 1840's.

One of the more obvious features of the Texas and Mexican Cherokees is that a very high priority is placed upon family values, which I have taken for granted for about sixty or seventy years of my life. But it will come back to you if the time is allowed for such important activities in daily living.

Another one of the outstanding events that took place on this trip was our being able to sit around the camp fire with the many different families and young people as we listened to Greg Howard. He is a Cherokee and is fluent in the Cherokee language, and is an excellent interpreter.

Our trip had gone into the last few hours before I got around to talking to Greg. He is most certainly one of the most talented Cherokee history story tellers. He has an ability to reveal to young people the message of different animals as they are told in stories that keep you mesmerized until he finishes telling his story.

My first impression of Greg was that he is a very intelligent and talented young man. His stories are fascinating and real attention getters. Greg promised me that he was going to come see me some time, and I will share with you about our visit.

The photo for this week is loaned to me by one of the Cherokee ladies from Gainesville. It shows Greg Howard in the middle of the group standing as we were sitting around the campfire at Epi Rodriquez’s large ranch.

Greg had many stories to tell and were very worthwhile to listen to. The buffalo hides are not obvious in the picture as they were making ready for the Indian dance. And we were having to get ready to head back to Aubrey as our help was not arranged in the store and was not available to work.

My story goes back to Onega during the 1850's for next week, and the experiences of some of the businesses and their comments as printed in an old Cherokee press that burned to the ground after a mysterious fire that occurred back during that period of time that caused many hardships for Aubrey.

See you next week for: WE ARE HERE, FOR WE NEVER LEFT.

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