The Trail of Tears - Nu na da ul tsun yi
Nu na da ul tsun yi
The noise from the horses galloping spread across the land. We were hunting. We were a-ni-yv-wi-ya. We looked up. The sun was flying calmly across the blue and beautiful sky, diving towards the land’s end in the west. As the winds flew and conquered the flat land, we could hear the wolves’ howls fill the landscape. Music and dance shook the ground when our men came back with their hands filled with beautiful, golden stones that shone when approaching the bonfire. The sun had descended now. It was dark, and the cold crept upon us like snakes. We sat down around the bonfire to keep our warmth.
At the very same time, over the horizon, the streets were full of strong and gruff men. The mud from their dirty boots coloured the land on which they walked. Their faces and their curly beards covered in dirt, and their eyes filled with desire and lust. Despite their looks, they were successful men. Men enjoying the wealth in their new land. They were men carrying bags of gold. One of them was Martin Van Buren. He wanted to allow the settlers in the new colonies to gather up, and remove us by force. To remove us from our homes. The year was 1838, the year when everything changed, the year when they elected Martin Van Buren as the new president.
Indians were sitting around their campfires. Smoking, singing songs, and telling stories. We were a-ni-yv-wi-ya, the Cherokees. A distant sound became louder and louder. Our screams were loud, but the world could not hear us. Thirteen thousand, we were, gathered. Every single one of us, captured, helpless, and vulnerable. Our wives screamed, and our children cried. Our farms were no longer our farms, and the land we had shared with the gods, was no longer ours to live on. Families, old and young was slain and knocked to the very ground where they had lived their entire lives. We were no longer a-ni-yv-wi-ya. We were the white men’s “redskins”.
The water was red. The clouds floated towards us from the east like ships traveling a pale blue sea. The clouds hung down over us from the wet and blue sky, and was coloured red by the sun. The water we walked above shone of red as it poured beneath our feet. We were leaving our people at the other side. The other side of the Mississippi river. The eyes of our men, women and children were like the sky at night, but without the stars, without the small dots of light. Tears trickled down their chins as they walked across the river. We were heading west. We still heard the screams of the 4000 a-ni-yv-wi-ya, the Cherokees, the real men. The noise of dreadful coughs was inescapable. The year was 1838, and everything had changed. Behind us, we could hear them talking the common tongue, the new language. A sore and painful silence filled the rows of Indians. Although, the silence was sometimes interrupted by heart breaking cries. Some had lost their loved ones, and others got raped. We tried to leave it behind, but it was still haunting us. It would always haunt us. Nu na da ul tsun yi, the place where they cried.
Source list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee
