Cherokee Country

Rather large Cherokee Indian.

I just love the American water tower, ought to write a book on their shape and design, this one is ready for blue touch paper to be lit

... and is this a wedding cake?

Visited Galena and Short creek

Kansas the sunshine state, road sign in Galena

Cherokee Heritage Centre at Tahlequah

Photo's of inside the mock up Cherokee settlement of around the mid 1700's with local guide, pretty but not very informed

Example of Cherokee basket weaving

Supposed to be a bow but not complete - would have expected demonstration of archery etc

Having to ask the men as to use of a throwing stick etc

Outside of meeting house, 8 sided structure - one side for each of the sects and one for the door

Second compound was of a village showing more traditional American dwellings, with names on like Smith!!

On the Tuesday of my second week we set off to visit the Cherokee Heritage Centre in Oklahoma. This was going to be a two day excursion and we planned to take in a very small part of Kansas on the way as Gary and I had never been to Kansas before.

So we dropped into Kansas and visited the township of Galena, guess what they used to mine there? Town founded 1877 and was originally called Short Creek, then Bonanza (not after the TV series though) and the Galena (how original our American cousins are). The original Route 66 went through the town so signs everywhere. Normally the general route signs are a map of the State but Kansas has to be different. As they are known as the sunshine state then they use the sun on their route signs.

Next stop would be Tahlequah, knew we were getting close when we saw our larger than life indian at the roadside. Tahlequah was founded immediately following the arrival of the Cherokee people following the infamous Trail of Tears saga. This is the capital of both the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah band of Cherokee Indians. It is also the county seat of Cherokee County and the main site for the Northeastern State University.

Our visit was the Heritage Centre just located outside town. Reading the script the building was designed by a Cherokee architect to reflect a typical dwelling - low and naturally lit from both ends. The museum is simply furnished and as it's main theme are the events leading up to the Cherokee Indians being forcibly removed from their lands, their journey to what is now Tahlequah know as the Trail of Tears and their successful settlement thereafter. Several things struck me and that was firstly the sheer ignorance, greed and in humaneness shown to a culture who were living in a settled environment with schools and farms and who had started to adapt and accept the European way of life. The second thing was that despite all their trials and tribulations the people settled down in their new land and started again building homes, farms and schools. The heritage centre is close to the site where in the mid 1800's they built an Institution for the higher learning for women. It appears that the Cherokee people had a better and were better educated at the time than many an american child. Inside the museum was a small printing press, the first newspaper published in Oklahoma was the Cherokee Advocate - September 26th 1844.

In the photo above of the outside of the Centre one can see three pillars of brick. These are all that is left of the Cherokee Female Seminary and from photos of the time this looked to be an important and beautiful building.

Outside the Centre was two mock up villages. the first being around the mid 1700's when the first Europeans would have found the Indians living in what is now North Carolina and the second based on the mid 1800's in Oklahoma following their resettlement. Both were okay, for the first we had a costumed guide (shame about the shorts under the indian skirt - ruined the idea of being in costume) who had remembered the script reasonably well but when asked questions was pretty clueless, the second was self guided.

In the guided tour one is meant to experience life pre European and we were shown examples of flint knapping (Phil Harding of Time Team you need to visit to show them how we used to do it), basket weaving, stick throwing, pottery and a game of stick ball. It appears that this game would only be played by two opposing tribes bent on war. No rules just mayhem and potential death; all would participate and the aim was to lob a "ball" by a stick to hit a fish shaped object stuck in the air on a pole. The idea being to avert a war!!

The self guided tour was around the Adams Corner township, authentic buildings of the period, dismantled and moved to this site. The best was the general store with all sorts of trade goods inside including biscuits from Scotland!! They also had a small school, church, blacksmiths forge and a couple of homes.

Looking at the Trail of Tears map on the Internet I note that the northern route actually went through Springfield, Missouri. There are a number of routes that the Trail of Tears encompasses, all start in either North Carolina or Georgia and traverse across Missouri, southern Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas before reaching Oklahoma.

I thoroughly enjoyed the museum and what it had to offer and cannot wait to go further north to see other Indian reservations and museums. Time to move on and find a camp site for the night and for my next blog. Bye for now or ---do-'da-ga-g'hv-i (until we see each other (meet) again)