![]() ![]() With history showing its temperament, such equivocation shouldn’t be surprising. The first time he took me to Geronimo’s grave in southern Oklahoma, he quoted Geronimo, “The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say,” and afterward I began to think about Geronimo’s life, about justice, good and evil, the dead and living. ![]() A man who believed strongly in talking to wolves and hawks and in the desultory joy of watching the trees. He was a man who told me stories my whole life while staring at birds outside our window. ![]() His name was Eli Wadie Chair, and he was a full-blooded Cherokee who believed in the spirit world of the ancient Cherokee teachings. Osiyo! Last year my grandfather passed away, quite suddenly, of a heart attack, and since that devastation I have begun to embark on a journey to live my life according to traditional Cherokee teachings. I had never followed these teachings before, despite my traditional Cherokee upbringing in Oklahoma, where my grandfather raised me from the time I was four until I left for college. The same encroaching spirit will lead them upon other land of the Tsalagi. ![]()
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