Native Seder

Nu na da ul tsun yi - the place where they cried.

So, why is this night different from any other?

Well, some of my tango friends had a milonga, a party, out in New Gloucester. It was a very nice time but I'm very tired and looking forward to a day off tomorrow where I can enjoy the day, go for a long walk and write some music.

So I came in, calling ahead to put a printer exchange into action with my friend Adira.

She had spent the evening at a friend's Seder and thus could not be at the milonga. We met for a cup of tea (her) and an Italian soda (me) at Boda, the local Thai place.

Since my life has always been a big intercultural festival I asked her to tell me about it and she kindly shared her evening - as I did with the milonga.

It was a little odd, she said, as she - a gentile - seemed to know more about the story of Passover than her hosts. Or, more precisely, had a better overview - the facts were gathered from everyone's experience, rather like the pot luck dinner at the milonga, and everyone feasted.

My observation was that we Cherokees had gone through an exodus ourselves - one where we could point to actual locations where people had suffered and died.

In the year 1838, for various reasons, mostly due to the greed of White people and a complete writing off of both our rights and our cultural integrity, my tribe was moved, in several waves, from their ancestral land in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to what is now Oklahoma.

15,000 people left on the march - 4,000 died.

Four. Thousand.

It was especially hard for the last wave, the holdouts. Rounded up by soldiers and local militia, most of whom just wanted to move them out to make way for white settlers, the last wave traveled a road already stripped of supplies by earlier travelers - and were charged gouging prices for food and ferry transport. Weakness led to disease and death.

Oddly, the term now used -"Trail of Tears" - seems to apply more to those who watched the march - my people walked stoically and showed no emotion.

I suppose there is a similarity between this and the Hebrew Exodus. Still, the Exodus started because the first born of the Egyptians died, allowing the Hebrews to go - in our case, we were the ones who both left and died.

The tribal flag of my nation, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (actually it's one tribe now, the Eastern holdouts have been re-integrated) has a lot of symbolism in it - but you'll notice a very obvious black star, seven pointed, in the corner.

This star was added in remembrance of those who died because of this removal - what today we'd call "ethnic cleansing". Inconvenient people removed.

Job done.

When my father presented his great-granddaughter - my grand-niece - to the elders of the Tulsa Indian Mission (Methodist), our old family church, he did so in a basket hand-woven by my mother. I wish I had a photo of it, it's a magnificent, perfect example of the basketer's art.

More importantly an elder told my father that he was the great-grandchild of those who had survived the removal - and now he was presenting his great-grandchild for honoring and naming.

The circle was closed. Our people have survived to become the largest tribe in the United States.

Perhaps we should celebrate a seder of our own, a remembrance that there is a place we came from, a place where we went and a place where we are.

Perhaps everyone has a similar set of circumstances, a leaving, forced or not, that ultimately ends and is recovered from. And you grow and create and come full circle, like my tribe has.

I like to think we can. The Cherokee removal can be physically traced today, we can see where swamps were frozen, look at Mantle Rock, where we huddled in the rain waiting for the ferry man to get all the white people out of the way and then charge five times the normal rate for us to pass.

And our survival can be seen too, as is that of everyone who has gone from a place to a place.

So this night is perhaps more wondrous than we first suspected. And tomorrow - today - is Easter.