December 27, 2000

Tulagi ootlah neegeed indeed

While the worst thing Europeans ever did to the indigenous peoples of the Americas was simply to walk among them while infected with diseases which originated with Eurasian cattle, Smallpox especially, they also did a lot of deliberate damage that's hard to accept or forgive.

The hurt that comes to my mind fastest is the forced removal of the Cherokees from their ancestral homes in the Carolinas and Georgia to Oklahoma. President Andrew Jackson is considered a great president, but he was also deeply flawed. He was responsible for the "Trail of Tears", so hurtful to the Cherokees and others of the Five Civilized Tribes.

Until Bill Drake's informative obituary on long time Pacifica resident Henry Boudinot, I hadn't known of his Cherokee descent. If I'd ever had the occasion for a long personal conversation with him, I would undoubtedly have mentioned the name Elias Boudinot, one of the great leaders of the Cherokee nation in the early 19th Century, and a man I'd read about in the course of learning more about Sequoyah and his famous syllabary. European botanists were so impressed with Sequoyah's achievements they named the newly discovered Redwood trees after him. It came down to a choice between George Washington, Lord Wellington and Sequoyah. Sequoyah is credited with making it possible for his entire nation to read in its own language, and in a very short time.

A newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, was published for many years in his unique syllabary, which is a kind of alphabet. I once had a bumper strip on my car that read "Tulagi ootlah neegeed", or "Cherokee Power." Of course it used the syllabary, and thus was unreadable to the average person passing by, but I enjoyed the inside joke.

Many hundreds of Pacificans have Native American ancestry. Most are mixed blood. My children are proud of their tiny fraction of Cherokee, either a 32nd or a 64th, inherited through Lydia's father. How many hundreds of our neighbors are Choctaw, Ohlone, Eskimo or Navajo we'll never know. Unfortunately in the past there was so much discrimination silence was the wisest course of action.

Most persons with Indian ancestry don't live on reservations. Most don't live in tepees, rock shelters or bark shelters. But then I don't live in the 900 year old Italian adobe house my grandmother was born in, where the people lived on one side of the central wall and the cows lived on the other. The flies, of course, traveled back and forth.

I know at least two college professors whose expertese in American Anthropology was triggered by an interest in their own Indian ancestors. One, part Coast Miwok, is currently involved in the effort to restore his small tribelet to official status. The other has written a major book on California Indians.

Like those Indians plunked down on sterile, desolate portions of Oklahoma, only to discover oil, some California tribes are discovering gold in the pockets of gamblers. Generally I object to gambling, but I love the idea of underdogs winning, and I love the idea that Nevada's gamblers now compete with (and lose to) California's indigenous peoples, stereotyped for so long as victims and patsies.

Paul Azevedo's e mail address has recently changed. His new e mail location is thereactor@earthlink.net. His website is now http://home.earthlink.net/~thereactor/