Excerpt from the end of act one
AND SO WE WALKED: An artist's journey
along the trail of tears
Created and Performed by DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation)
DELANNA
My dad, Emily and I head out just after dusk for another of my father’s social engagements. Attending the local Stomp Dance. True, I had been hoping my father’s Cherokee-ness would lend me credibility, but I had no idea his popularity would crowd my production calendar. Still, tonight, I am trying to be receptive. As we drive deep into the woods and up a mountain, my dad tells Emily:
DAD
The Ga-ti-yo, Stomp Dance, is a sacred event. Up until 1979, it was illegal for us to practice our religion, our songs, our dances, but we did anyway. We hid out in the hills and we kept the old ways. During the Trail of Tears, the Cherokees who were removed carried the embers of the First Fire to Oklahoma. A very important task because when I say the First Fire, I mean the very First Fire in all of mankind. One hundred and fifty years after the Trail, my Cousin John and some others brought that fire back here from Oklahoma.Tonight, we are going to the late Walker Calhoun’s stomp grounds, one of the Ga-ti-yo where the fire was returned.
EMILY
Wow. He walked all the way back with the fire?
DAD
Walked? He drove it back in his pickup.
DELANNA
And then my father’s laughter rocks our SUV. I see that mischievous glimmer and I know he’s excited.
The directions lead us to a small house, perched on the side of a mountain. We have never formally met any of the dozen or so people gathered, but they are family of the late Walker Calhoun, one of the greatest culture bearers of the Cherokee.
I won’t lie. I’m ready for another Cherokee Inquisition like my meeting with the Cherokee Official; but instead, an elderly woman named Ida says, “Miss Studi! Welcome. We were hoping you would make it.”
We are whisked inside like long-lost family. Dinner is waiting on the table prepared by the women in traditional pot-luck style. The women are seated at one table, the men at another. My father takes his place among the silent men, assuming the stance that I identify only belonging to a Cherokee man: arms folded across the chest, relaxed mouth. Not a frown, but not exactly a smile either. Emily and I are invited to sit with the women who are in the midst of a hushed conversation.
IDA
Annette’s girl? Well… they released her from the hospital and into our rehab facility, but if she doesn’t want to stay there, we can’t make her.
DELANNA
A woman named Twila shakes her head and says...
TWILA
That’s a shame. She’s so young. 17.
IDA
(nodding )
We need another facility to help them all…better programming in schools.
TWILA
Maybe if we had more cultural classes?
IDA
Well, I’ve planted a bug in many a councilman’s ear. Hopefully one will listen.
TWILA
We’ll see. If not, another election is coming up.
DELANNA
I chirp up. Have either of you thought about running for council?
IDA
Run for council? I don’t want to participate in the political mud-slinging. Besides I have more power right here. Planting my bugs. That’s how things get done.
TWILA
The men may be the representatives, but we know who’s really in charge.
DELANNA
We finish our meals and clean the kitchen. “You ladies need help?” a round-bellied man named Bob asks.
IDA
Get out of our kitchen. We’re bonding in here.
DELANNA
I want to bond, to join in with all the women’s laughter, but my mind is elsewhere. Could I ever become a real leader? Do I have that in me? Right now I feel like I am failing to live up to those qualities that make Ida a quiet force to be reckoned with.
TWILA
It’s time. Let’s go to water.
DELANNA
(aside)
I didn’t grow up going to water. In fact, I wasn’t sure what it was until a few years ago. I was visiting John, one of my Cherokee friends in Wisconsin, and we had walked down to the Green Bay
JOHN
Let’s go to water.
DELANNA
Ummm. I don’t think we should get into the water.
JOHN
We won’t be getting in the water. Just kneel down beside it and do this. *
DELANNA
(narrating)
He scoops up a handful of water over his face. Four times.
(to John)
That’s going to water? That’s how we wash our face. Every morning. Ice cold water. Four times.
JOHN
Well, that’s going to water.
DELANNA
My Dad never told me that.
JOHN
He was forced to go to a BIA boarding school, right? He probably had to hide that he was keeping tradition. You can’t get in trouble for washing your face.
DELANNA
Twila’s voice brings me back.
TWILA
You and Emily aren’t on your moons, are you? Your cycle?
EMILY
No, why? Does that make us unclean?
TWILA
(gently laughs)
It makes you more powerful than any medicine. Going to water is like smudging yourself with sage or cedar but with water. Some people do hands, feet, heart, head. Four or seven times. Your choice. But four OR seven. Those are sacred. We cleanse ourselves before we step on the grounds. If you want to say a prayer, well, that’s between you and the Creator.
DELANNA
We crouch next to a mountain stream- water cascades down. The water’s ice cold and as blue as blue could be!
TWILA
This stream comes down from Medicine Lake.
DELANNA
Medicine Lake? I thought that was just a story.
TWILA
There’s no such thing as ‘just a story’ especially in Cherokee. When Yona (Bear) was wounded he made his way to Medicine Lake. He jumped in and swam across. When he crawled out on the other side, his wounds were healed.
DELANNA
(DeLanna washes her face in the water.)
Yona was healed by Medicine Lake? I shudder remembering my dream. Here we are, three women, going to water in one of the most sacred and powerful places in all of Cherokee. Is there healing for me here? Then Twila pulls out two broom-skirts from her bag.
TWILA
Put these on. It’s our version of going to church, Emily.
DELANNA
Night has fallen as Twila leads us silently down a trail towards the stomp grounds. We women walk single file in the shadow of tall trees with only the sound of the stream following us. Though I can’t see the grounds yet, I smell the smoke. Here I am. At the foot of the mountain that is home to Medicine Lake with the smell of the First Fire greeting me! We reach a grassy clearing and I can see foothills and the valley where the town of Cherokee is below, lit by the full moon. I turn and look towards the stomp grounds and see lightening bugs dancing in the trees. I feel all my ancestors beside me and I wonder how I could ever feel lonely again. And I know without looking that my father is right there beside me.
DAD
It’s beautiful. I wish I could bring our whole family here. C’mon. Let’s see if this stomp is different from back home.
DELANNA
We follow the inviting aroma of burning oak. We enter the circular arbor, which sits in a grassy field. Out of the seven clans of the Cherokee, we sit with the clan of our host, the Deer Clan. We are their guests after all. If I were home, I would sit with my father’s clan. Since we’re matrilineal, clans are passed through our mothers and since my mother is white, I am a woman without clan. I don’t belong. I will always be a guest. It’s an intimate gathering of 20 to 30 people. As we sit down on a wooden bench, our neighbor is a handsome young man in a traditional ribbon shirt. He approaches my father.
SAM
I’m Sam. Is this your first time to the stomp grounds?
DAD
(Dad, arms folded, looking just past Sam)
Yes.
SAM
I came for the first time two weeks ago. Have you stomped before?
DAD
Yes.
DELANNA
My dad. What a charmer.
SAM
Do you guys live here in Qualla Boundary?
DAD
No.
DELANNA
Seriously, how does my dad ever make friends?
(to Sam)
We’re from Oklahoma.
SAM
Oh, Oklahoma Cherokee?
DELANNA
My dad grunts this time. Yes.
(to Sam)
We’re Cherokee Nation.
SAM
(focused on Dad)
I’m part Cherokee… not enrolled, but I’m trying to find out my ancestry. I’m doing some research work for school … at Red Clay over in Tennessee… you know the Blue Hole? I’ll gladly give you a private tour, sir. Just let me know.
DAD
Thanks.
(to DeLanna)
Lanna, give him my number.
DELANNA
You probably thought my dad didn’t like Sam. Of course, my dad likes Sam. Sam is just like his children, like me. A young person of Cherokee descent trying to find his place in the world. Trying to walk that thin line between the traditional and the modern. Trying to prove something to ourselves that can’t really be proven. Something that lies in our very bones, our blood memory.
We sit side-by-side listening as the ceremony begins: the fire crackling, the men singing, the women’s turtle shells rattling, the laughter. Fireflies, our own private sentinels, skirt around the sacred circle, never entering. The beat of the water drum guides us and I dance as if I instinctually know all the steps, as if they are etched on my soul. Long forgotten now reawakened.
Even Sam joins in, but my father does not. He says his knee is hurting, but I know he is content taking in the sights and smells. And I realize standing here tonight, with my dad at a stomp grounds that had ties to my family, we both know. We belong.
We are a thousand miles away from Oklahoma, but we are home.
