As far as I’ve ever known I was just your average Cali girl that grew up in Sunny California and had an average sort of upbringing. You know the ones where family didn’t talk about much that happened either inside the home or out. It was just how it was back in those days. Flash forward more than a few years and I find myself knee deep in research for a book I’d been wanting to write for a long time. The book is the one I’m currently working on “Messages from the Huntress,” which revolves around a Cherokee woman who discovers that that she is about inherit the spiritual gifts and responsibilities of her ancestors. She of course, would rather not!
About a year and a half ago, I began doing some work on our very vast, expansive and shall we say “colorful” family tree. Our people hail from the panhandle of Oklahoma. My Great Grandparents acquired their parcel of land sometime after the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1899 or in the early 1900’s. I was told that they did get their parcel during the Land Rush but as of yet haven’t been able to prove it.
I’m on Ancestry.com and I find some old census papers from my Great Grandparents days on the farm in Oklahoma. I see a name listed in their household I’d never seen before. It puzzled me and I sent emails to everyone trying to figure out who this person was. After getting many more questions and no answers I continued with my research only to discover that the person listed would have been my paternal Great, Great Grandmother. Even more interesting was that I found the family name on the Dawes Rolls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Rolls. I was truly excited to find that somewhere down the genealogy chart is Cherokee blood.
Wow, I would have loved to hear those stories. It’s only inspired me more as I discover more about the old ways of the Cherokee and the amazing women in our own history. The source of the inspiration was very simply a genuine interest in Native American Spirituality. It’s beauty and balance I find comforting with a “rightness” that speaks to me. What really surprises me is how little of this history was spoken about in our family. None of my generation knew any of this and there’s no one left to ask. Don’t you think it’s kind of weird, in a wonderful sort of way that I would be guided in this direction?
