To the new group of occupants of this country this
posting might seem a little on the distasteful side? Please remember while
reading that our people lived on this land for a very long time before first
contact and that soon after first contact many of the people no longer existed
and if we do our numbers are small and most are now mixed blood. Nothing wrong
with mixed blood, I am one. If you ask a true Spiritual leader when he/she
feels the most satisfaction after a ceremony? Most if not all will say at a
burial grounds of the ancestors after a crossing ceremony. Many people gather
at a birth, naming, wedding, funeral and so on however, when finding a sacred
grounds and find that those ancestors may have been resting until you show, it
is a must do, to get a gathering and help them home!
While on my trip up north (Jacksonville) and finding
little information about a very large tribe of Native Americans that lived on
the island (the Timucuan and Yulee Indians) for many thousands of years and
finding no burial grounds? I started thinking back to my younger days. Starting
each April at our monthly meetings we made plans to visit a native cemetery at least
once a week until it got too cold for the very young and very old to make the
trip, I started at age 6. This was a teaching trip about our culture and
ceremonies. The leaders would walk the burial grounds after permission and with
any elders of the area and pray for the departed, teaching about our belief and
if necessary, repeat our crossing prayer at needed sites. Once I became that
elder I would go to a burial grounds, with permission, while traveling to
gatherings, powwows or visits. On one of my many visits to Pennsylvania, I
would end up at the Carlisle Indian School cemetery? http://www.sachem-uncas.com/travels.html
I am trying to tell a story while being respectful to
the families of those poor children at that school. In 1999 I found a historian
from the area that helped explain to me why I could find no comfort while
trying to pray at each stone. Unless push comes to shove it is suffice to say
that I was able to have a ceremony with each child and no it was not at those
stones!
This posting is something that I feel the need to
write about because many days have gone by and no native has come forward with
any interest in two past postings about a possible burial grounds in Texas,
with the exception of the two young ladies that found the site and one of our
Editors? Is there anyone out in Indian country willing to stop for a few
minutes thinking about something other than themselves and at least agree to
pray together? AHO
This is one of the few
times that I hate being too old and too sick to drive!
No comments:
Post a Comment