A little about me may be in order. I am about one-quarter Una-Yuwiyu or what we call Tsalagi. I never heard the word "Cherokee" until I went to town to school. We do not refer to ourselves as such among ourselves unless the other person was not raised tribally and does not speak our language. Many who are entitled to call themselves Cherokee but whose families, for whatever reason, did not live among us are now attempting to regain their heritage and I personally applaud this. Many, probably out of fear, do not. (1) The federal "pie" stays the same size, regardless of how many are eating it.

I am a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. The others are the Eastern Band and the United Kituwah Band of Cherokee Indians, also of Oklahoma. Most of my immediate family are CNO but one brother renounced that citizenship to join the UKB. There is not much "brotherly love" between any of these three and absolutely none for the "state recognized" and other groups. (2) The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BIA, has done a lot to keep the old fires of distrust blazing.

My grandfather, a full-blood who could not read or write English, taught me very early how to read "skins". He moved with us to Texas during the "relocation times" of the early 1950s. We routinely went "home" for ceremonies, particularly in September, and also to relatives in East Texas. We had many relatives who "escaped" to Texas rather than subject themselves to being "enrolled" again under the Dawes Commission. (3) Every time we enrolled we lost more. These People are regarded by us, my family, as Tsalagi even though the official tribe and government do not regard then as such. Almost all Indians have such relatives. Many of them speak their language and still observe the old ceremonies.

It was my grandfather who taught me what we call "the way". I grew up hearing stories of the "old days". His mother was a "Truga" or medicine woman who could name our family back to when the ""men in steel" came. This is also written into the "skin records" in Tahlequah. He taught me that we came from the ground when the sun came up and we have been here ever since. We fought many of the red "others" for years then different types of white men, also black-whitemen. We call the white men "Yoneg."

I share a lot of this with my grandchildren. Our family was in northern Georgia at the time of the removal now called the "Trail of Tears". We were mainly in the 13th "migration" commanded by General Winfield Scott. This went north to Golcanda. We are direct descendants of "Nancy" Ward through Tsogi. Tsogi started with 2 children and had another on the way. Two of the kids died in the Arkansas Territory and she had to carry their bodies out of Arkansas as they wouldn't allow them to be buried there.

Descent, even today, is generally traced through the mother. In modern times we do admit persons who are descended through their fathers but this is not the preferred way.

Prior to starting the trail, all of the People who would walk were "trail branded" by the soldiers. This was done inside the left arm under the elbow. The reason for this was that some were so light that they might "pass" and escape in transit. Tsogi's daughter, Irma, my great-great-grandmother was so marked. My grandfather told me stories of her. Irma barely escaped the massacre at Yazoo Falls as a girl. She and some other girls she was traveling with had gone for wood and weren't there when the soldiers came. After that, Irma was being raised by her grandparents, as was often the case with first born girls, in the area of the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

All of my family are involved in Native American life in some way. Both my first wife, 30 years ago, and Sherry, my wife of 27 years are Kiowa. My eldest son regards himself as Kiowa and the younger 2 are Cherokee in almost all ways. All have been raised with both tribes. I was not around my father's people as much but have come to know some of them very well. They are basically good people even if their parents weren't thrilled about my dad marrying a "halfbreed". We do not respect names such as that or even "Indian". I have often found it strange that most of my People are minimally bilingual with many speaking 3 or more languages. We were raised with the prejudicial thought that "most" white people just weren't smart enough to talk "2 ways".

I'm over 50 years old and don't recall when I started "learning" about my People. Never actually studied "them" just am one. Many Native people feel that other folks who study us, for whatever reason, are really out to exploit us and are reluctant to talk. We also have cultural barriers such as a reverence for the dead which limits our discussion of them, particularly to outsiders. My People have had a long relationship with all of the Iroquois, but most particularly with the Tuscarora, with whom we share a language.

When I was growing up I felt 2 different kinds of racism. My father's family felt that we were beneath them as my Mom is half Indian. (4) Some of my Mom's People felt that we were too "faded". Within the native community as a whole there is long standing loathing between full-bloods and mixed or thin-bloods. Many of the first stay at home and many of the latter go out into the world. It is obviously easier for one such as myself in Dallas than it is in Oklahoma where the prejudices are stronger. As a child I can remember not even being seen at stores, when with Mom's people, and being shoved out of lines by full-bloods at Indian Health service, IHS, clinics while awaiting shots. Not white enough or Indian enough.

When I was about 10 years old I asked my grandpa what a "breed" was as a Choctaw friend had told me that we were "breeds". We were painting and he took a minute and put 2 paint cans side by side. One was brown and one white. He asked me to pour some of the white into the brown then stir it. He asked me what color the result was. Not really brown or white but somewhere in between. Then I had my answer and I had achieved the understanding myself.

As an adult I have always identified myself as Indian which I am. Among the Deer Clan of my People there are no "part" anythings. You either are or are not Cherokee. I have served on many Intertribal Center boards and I am an officer of both the Texas Indian Veterans and American Indian Veterans. All of this is a gift from Galun Lati, God.

I wish that there was a way to let you see the world through our eyes but the truth is that we all, Native and non-Native, see it differently. I suppose that my image may be "colored" some from my life experiences.

My daughter is a sophomore at the University of Texas, Austin. She is very active in Native American activities there and was raised around such, both inter-tribally down here and tribally back home. I asked her of her memories as a child.

Sherece said right off that "it's much easier being a Native student in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex than it was in Oklahoma, particularly the old tribal areas ". We lived in Dallas when she was born and she went to the Indian Health Service, IHS, clinic for shots and such. Apparently the kids were much more aware of tribal and appearance factors than I ever was. In the schools here, the kids were always taught to be "proud of your heritage" and there were a lot of "Indian wannabees". Sherece said that being called a "Unhola", part white, by other Indian children hurt her much more than anything said by anyone else.

There was a large Native population in the elementary school she and her brother attended and she said that they tended to sit by tribal groupings and that nobody said anything as the teachers "can't tell one Indian from another".

Due to family illness she lived with her grandparents from both tribes at times, Cherokee and Kiowa. Up there the fullbloods and thinbloods hang out together more as the discrimination is still handed out "equally". She learned to dislike people who "passed" as white or who had "faded to white". Many of these folks still hold title to tribal land and vote but act better than the rest of us. Some own stores and will not readily do business with us, not even today. The greatest insult to an Indian is to not be seen. (5) This used to be an effective manner of community punishment.

Two years ago Sherece accompanied my mother into a store owned by a man we all know has tribal blood. This was in Scraper, Oklahoma. The man totally ignored them and waited on them only after all of the other customers had left. Sherece said something a bit impolite in Cherokee and he replied in the same tongue. She really got "in his face" about who he thought he was until my Mom stopped her.

Now she knows firsthand that not everyone is proud of who they are.

I don't know if you catch much of the flack going around about Indian gaming. I can't speak for but a few tribes, but we are doing it to recapture funds lost in recent years for Indian Education and Indian Health programs. These funds are not gifts to us but are repayments for what we lost. Locally, I see the talk is mostly about the reduction of well baby and prenatal care. The amount for this has been held constant, as a budget item, for 4 years. This doesn't take into account increased costs and number of participants. This is just genocide under the name of cost reduction. If you were around in 50 years to ask the same questions you've put to me I wonder what the respondents answers would be.

Wado

Delada

1. Prejudice is stronger in Oklahoma because many folks up there put Native Americans in the category many Afro-Americans are in other areas. Also, so many try to "fade to white" as I said earlier. The "pie" or government programs do not necessarily increase due to enrolling more members. Fullbloods feel that their claim should be stronger than others. Many thinbloods only partake of the programs which benefit them the most. Many tribal executives are such.

2. There are 3 federally recognized tribes in Texas. These are the Alabama/Coushatta's in east Texas, the Texas Kickapoos and the Tiguas. On another level there are groups of Cherokees and Creeks and some Choctaw who still live communally in East Texas. In West Texas there are groups of Lipan Apaches and Comanches who still live separate from both their Oklahoma relatives and also from the population as a whole. Based upon the 1990 census the Dallas/Fort Worth Metropolitan area has one of the largest Native populations in the country. There are more enrolled Oklahoma Cherokee living in Texas than in Oklahoma.

3. By "lumping together" we mean that all Native students in some schools are put under the "Indian education" program. This does have some god points. Their teachers, many of whom are Native or part so, have a better understanding of the cultures they come from than some others. But not all do and few administrators do. Many of these kids, even the urban ones, don't think of themselves as "Indian" at all but as Cherokee, etc. They highly resent the all inclusive language. We have about as much in common with the Ponca as we do with Venutians.

4. The UKB is The United Keetoowah band of Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma. It is the most reclusive of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. Membership is restricted to one-quarter Cherokee blood.

5. Reading skins is the old signs we used before we got our alphabet. There are a number of basic signs but different users use them differently. When I was in North Carolina I stayed some with some Eastern Band. Their speech was, at first, hard to understand. It took a much longer time to read their skins than the ones I'm accustomed to.

6. The "Men in Steel" must have been the Spaniards. The skins show hats made of metal that look like Conquistador helmets I've seen. The skins I've seen were made about the end of the Civil war and refer to 7-8 generations back from the writer. At 20-25 years per generation I'd make it in the late 1600s. This is just a guess though. One line seems to run back 10 generations.

7. When I said that each time we enrolled we lost more I was referring to my family back to Jaluska. The first rolls, Henderson, were initiated to start removing our People from Georgia and other eastern lands. Major Henderson had been with Andrew Jackson at Horseshoe Bend and had worked with the scouts, mainly Cherokee. Knowing these men he contacted them to "come in" and sign up for some good things. Not reading English they were unaware that they were signing way their land. My grandfather's great grandfather fought with Jackson both at Horseshoe Bend and at New Orleans and was rewarded by being force marched to Indian territory. There have been a number of other enrollments since then the last being the Dawes Commission. My family had the use of about 1300 acres in the old Going Snake District of Indian Territory. After the dawes Rolls we had 160 acres. That's what I meant.

Geyi.