trail_of_tears

O~Siyo! Come sit by the fire while I tell you the story of our people in a history called,

"The Trail of Tears"

In one of the saddest stories of our history, thousands of Cherokee men,women and children were forced off the land they loved and moved into crowded forts with very little food. They were then forced to walk over a thousand miles in an unusually cold winter . Many indians were barefoot with little clothing. They were forced to walk through snow and ice. They ate only what they could find along the way. Many Cherokee died along the way, especially the older indians and children. Their bloody footprints left trails of blood in the snow. They cried as they went because they were leaving the land that they loved, the land they had called home for so many,many years. This horrible, sad journey of the Cherokee has been known as "The Trail of Tears".

The Cherokee:

Male and female were hospitable, but uneffusive. The men appeared to be respectful but remained aloof,were secure within themselves. They would shake a strangers hand silently while looking off toward the horizon, securing their own independance. They never bowed to any other creature. they were not even willing to nod. They spoke one at a time, deliberately and with many motions, then fell silent,listened without looking at their companion. They were of a copper color and proud of it, referred to Europeans as "ugly whites" were lighter than their Indian neighbors, the Creeks, Choctaws and Iroquois. They were lithe, tall, erect and without normal deformities. Their spoken language was musical,punctuated by gutteral, breathy breaks. The men enjoyed ball games, hunting and warfare..Indeed warfare was their favorite activity and occupied much of each winter. They were a clean people, when compared to the white English,German,Scott-Irish settlers drifting in, infiltering their territory, most of whom were satisfied to bathe in the autumn and not again until Spring. The Cherokee "went to water" often considering water, the sun and fire to be 3 holy gifts of the "Great Spirit".

Taken from:

The trail of tears~ Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation~ John Ehle

Clothing:

The Cherokee women wore skirts woven from plants..the men wore breechclothe or leggings. The men painted their skin and decorated it with tatoo's. The women would sew feathers into light capes made of netting.

Food:

Some of the foods they ate were....berries,nuts and wild plants..game such as deer, rabbit and bear. They grew corn,beans and squash.

"The Legend of the Cherokee Rose"

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" Cherokee Rose -aka_ Rosa Laevigata"

When gold was discovered in Georgia, the government forgot its treaties and drove the Cherokee to Oklahoma , where one forth of them died on the journey west. when the "Trail Of Tears" started in 1838, the mothers of the cherokee were greiving and crying so much, because they were unable to help their children survive the journey. The elders prayed for a sign that would lift the mothers spirits to give them strength. The Great Spirit, looking down from the heavens, decided to commemorate the brave Cherokee and so as the blood of the braves and the tears of the maidens dropped to the gound He turned them into the shape of a Cherokee Rose. The next day a beautiful rose began to grow where each of the mothers tears fell. The rose is white for their tears; a gold center represents the gold taken from the Cherokee lands and seven leaves on each stem for the seven cherokee clans~ No better symbol exists of the pain and suffering of the "Trail where They Cried" than the Cherokee Rose~ The wild cherokee Rose grows along the route of the Trail Of Tears into eastern Oklahoma today.

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