[2465] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: A translation question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Jan 6 18:58:15 1994
Reply-To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
From: Will Martin <whm2m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu>
To: "Klingon Language List" <tlhIngan-Hol@klingon.East.Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 94 18:55:30 EST
> d'Armond (a real Cherokee)
Awwwwriiiiiight!
Me, too, but only in spirit and a little bit of blood. My mother's
father's grandmother was either Cherokee, or half Cherokee. That depends on
whether you choose to believe that she was the illegitimate child of a
Cherokee woman and one Dr. Wiggins, or that she was perhaps an infant slated
for "the Removal" who was given up by her parents for Dr. Wiggins to care
for, knowing that she would almost certainly not survive the Trail of Tears.
Either way, I do not know from which clan she came, and given that the
Cherokee trace their lines through the women, I lost that line with the birth
of my grandfather. My choice is to believe that at the Removal, I had
ancestors at both ends of the bayonette. I seek to take in any wisdom that
this perspective offers me. I don't even have confirmation that it even
happened, (except for a grandfather who had very dark skin and high
cheekbones and a beautiful deep voice that loved to tell stories). It is a
story passed down by my mother which my uncles and aunts would prefer to keep
quiet or disclaim.
I bought a pile of books and a set of tapes to learn the Cherokee
language just before I stumbled onto Klingon, but I didn't get the social
encouragement to learn the language that I've gotten with Klingon, so the
books sit waiting for my old age when I make the time to learn from them.
I feel so sad for my Cherokee spirit. These people have hurt so much for
so long and they did nothing to earn the hurt. They lived among the trees and
fields like the animals they considered their brothers and sisters. They
ruled by consensus at the township level. They were more democratic than this
nation will ever be. They didn't have a chief until the Brittish king
assigned one so he would have less hassle exploiting the Cherokee for
deerskins in exchange for metal tools (primarily suited to kill more deer). I
do not live where the Cherokee families lived, though I do live where the
Cherokee men hunted deer in winter. It feels like home. The land feels like
home, deep to the bone.
I do not speak with the voice of a guilt-ridden liberal white male. I am
both white and tsa-la-gi. I am sad that the life of that part of my people is
gone. I am sad that most American history books do not mention what are to me
the most significant events of 1838. I am sad that Andrew Jackson is on the
$20 bill, and my respect for Jefferson took a dramatic plunge when I
discovered that he was the architect of the policy of Removal. He purchased
the Louisiana Territory primarily to be a place to send the natives so that
all the East could belong to the whites. Never mind that the lands of the
West were already occupied...
My white ancestors were greedy and stupid. Maturity is coming to this
race, but it comes slowly. If only their hearts were as "advanced" as the
technology so much of this society makes their own... They are Borg. And they
are as much of me as the tsa-la-gi.
So tell me what it is like for YOU to be a real Cherokee. I am one only
in my dreams from reading books. "The Education of Little Tree" is NOT among
the authorities from which I have turned. I understand that it is a hoax.
But no. You. What is is like for you?
-- charghwI'
