Miss Lenora Adkins
Chickahominy Tribe

Good evening everyone. What I am going to start off with is, I'm going to give everyone five minutes. I want you to now take these five minutes to introduce yourself to someone around you that you don't know or across the room and learn one thing about that person. A hobby, an interest, maybe a position they may hold in their church or at work on something of that nature. I am giving everyone five minutes. You are all grown adults. There is no reason you should be afraid of each other. Children do such a good job of this. I don't know why adults have such a hard time. So we have five minutes now to do that and you can make noise it's OK.

OK, our five minutes are up so everyone can come back to their seats and at the end I'll tell you why we did this. One great thing that I learned is Rev. Torian loves to play golf, so I told him that Troy likes to play golf and the next time our tribe has a golf tournament we will be sure to let him know so he can be involved in the golf tournament. So if we have all the golfers out there please let us know. We'll let Troy be our golf person. He'll be our golf pro.

Well this evening it's a great opportunity to come out and share some information with you, or exchange of information that's the way I like to look at it. So often people use the term and I think they use it lightly, the "authorities" and things such as that. I think that's a misnomer. I don't think there's an expert on anything and I don't think there's an authority on anything because if you are an authority or expert that means you've learned all there is possible to learn and that's not true. Unless you are ready to die. Because the day we stop learning something is the day we die and I don't think any of us are ready for that, at least at this point and time. I know I learn something new every day. My goal is to learn as much as I possibly can in the amount of time that God sees fit for me to be here.

One of the things that I am going to discuss tonight is myths. Now there are two definitions courtesy of Webster's dictionary. One of those is a traditional story of events of a people and with that I will read to you a myth. It's by the Cherokee people. How the world was made.

The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault which is a solid rock. When the world grows old and worn our people will die. The cords will break and let the earth sink down to the ocean and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this.

When all was water, the animals were above and It was very much crowded and
they wanted more room. They wondered what was below the water and at last De Ancay, Beaver's grandchild, the little water beetle, offered to go to see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface, over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterwards fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did this. At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and came back again to Gar a Lantay.

At last it seemed to be time. They sent out the buzzard and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the great buzzard. The father of all the buzzards. We see now he flew all over the earth. Low down near the ground and it was still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired and his wings began to flop and strike the ground. Wherever they struck the earth there is a valley. Where they turned up again there is a mountain. When the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would be mountains so they called him back. The Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day. When the earth was dry and the animals came down it was still dark, so they got the sun and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west just overhead. It was too hot this way and Cas Kalelay the red crawfish had his shell scorched a bright red so that his meat was spoiled and the Cherokee do not eat it.

The Condras put the sun another handbreadth high in the air, but it was still too
hot. They raised it another time and another until it was seven handbreadths high and just under the sky arch. Then it was right and they left it so. This is why the Condras call the highest place the seventh height, because it is seven handbreadths above the earth. Everyday the sun goes along under this arch and returns at night on the upper side of the starting place.

There is another world under this and it is like ours and everything, animals,
plants and people, except that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the mountain are the trails by which we reach this underworld and the springs at their heads are the means by which we enter it. To do this one must fast and go to water and have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underworld are different from ours because the water in the spring is always warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the outer air.

When the animals and plants were first made we do not know by who. They were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights just as young men now fast to keep away when they pray for their medicine. They try to do this and nearly all were awake through the first night. But the next night, several drop off to sleep. The third night others were asleep and then others until on the seventh night of all the animals only the owl, the panther and one or two more were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about in the dark and to make prey other birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly and the laurel were awake to the end. To them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for medicine. But to the others it was said, "Because you have not endured unto the end , you shall lose your hair every winter."

Men came after the animals and plants. At first there was only a brother and a sister, until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply. So it was in seven days the child was born to her. There after every seven days the child was born to her. There after every seven days another and then they increased very fast until there was danger that the world would not keep them. Then it was made that a women should have only one child in a year and it has been so ever since.

This is a myth of how the world was made. As I said a myth is a traditional story of events of a people. The Cherokee people teach this myth or tell the story to their children. Whether it is so or not, it is their myth, their story and that's good because it gives some perspective for the children as well as adults on how the world was made. You wonder how much of the myth has an influence from the faith and belief at that time not called God, but called Grandfather or the Great Spirit that today we call God. It in my opinion has a lot of influence on that.

There is a second definition of myth. A myth is an unfounded or false notion. Those are the myths that hurt people and can cause people to not grow and cause people to not move forward. That is the type of myth I think we deal with as residents probably of Charles City County and specifically about the two cultures , the two very rich cultures that exist in this county. I know some of the myths that I heard recently and try to dispel those myths. One of those was that we terminate tribal citizenship for those people who marry outside of the tribe. Specifically a Black person and that is not true.We do not terminate anyone's tribal membership. That is a myth that exists among some of the members of the community and I am glad we have this opportunity to dispel that myth.

Another myth is that our tribe was just organized at the turn of the century. Again that is a myth. There was a formal reorganization that took place at the beginning of the century. Based on the guidelines from the of Bureau of and this reorganization is the people that you know today. The formal reorganization required is the incorporation because we are a distinct nation. To understand Indian tribes is to understand each tribe is a distinct nation. Each tribe has their own government. The government of the Cherokee people is not the government of the Chickahominy people. Nor is the government of the Seminole people. It's a hard concept to understand until you start to break it down and look at the whole picture. To understand sovereignty and sovereignty means that you have a nation to nation relationship if you will. A government to government relationship. As a sovereign nation the president of the United states is found to look at the leader of that distinct tribe. Their leader is the same of the distinct tribe. They are on the same level. Because they are distinct governments they are distinct nations. So that's why I am trying to get you to understand the citizenship and terminating citizenship. There are citizenship requirements appear in the United States as you very well know. You are not born on U.S. soil, not born in these United States or U.S. soil for government bases and things such as that. People have to request citizenship from the United States.

Then yet another myth, an unfounded or false notion with the desire for the Chickahominy people to have something that was part of their lives if you will. The people made sacrifices or they gave of their last dime, they gave of their last pennies and that was the property that houses some area schools. There is a myth that said that the only reason the Chickahominy people wanted that school is to open it up again so that the Indian children would not have to go to the public schools in Charles City County. That again is a myth. That is not the desire to have that piece of property when you have your grandmother's house. Lets use that as an example. When you go to your grandmother's house, you go there and you get really warm feeling. You have great memories of the things that happened to you when you were a child. No matter when you walk into grandma's house, you always smell something cooking. Whether it is cooking or not, you smell it. There is something, the psychological part of being at grandma's house makes you so secure and so warm and as a result you want to have that as a part of you. That is the notion with the Chickahominy people. Having the desire to have that property that was a part of them. Knowing that my grandfather gave all of his dimes and pennies toward the purchase of that property and knowing that others did the same. They made sacrifices and in making those sacrifices they were doing that to make a better way of life for the children to come after them.

If you remember at a previous symposium I mentioned the seven generations. I will remind you again. Seven generations said that the decision that you make today is going to affect someone seven generations from now. Seven generations and if everyone lives to be seventy-seven generations times seventy years is four hundred ninety years from now. So when we are cutting those trees down who is going to come back and plant all those trees when they are all gone. It is our responsibility to take care of those who are here so that there will be some for our ancestors of for those who have come after us, four hundred ninety years from now. It's a conscious effort to stop and think, "Am I doing the right thing? What price or what pain will someone have to suffer?"

Mr. Harrell had mentioned about the relationships in the county. There's so much hurt and so much pain and before anything positive can happen we have to deal with the hurt. We have to deal with the pain and when you are dealing with the pain you cause yourself to be vulnerable. The intention be to attack anyone nor should it be to criticize anyone, but, rather take the time to learn and to know and to understand.

At the beginning I had you to take five minutes to introduce yourself to someone you did not already know and find out one thing about them. If you had not done that you may have had a myth or a misconception about an individual who is near you or here in the audience that you did not know and the point being if there is a myth that does surface as with rumors. Rumors are horrible, horrible things. The responsibility belongs within ourselves to try to get clarification on that. Just like tonight we took the responsibility to introduce ourselves to one person we did not know or two people. Some people are fast. They probably met five people before the five minutes were up. You took the responsibility to go forward in a positive way to try to learn something about other people and that's what we as citizens not only of this county, not only of the commonwealth, but, of these United States have a responsibility to learn about others' cultures and to be open and accepting of those. That is one thing that I want people to do. To be open and accepting of my culture which I am very proud of. But at the same time I make that responsibility to learn about other's cultures. Because others cultures are just as rich. Equally as rich and it's not a one-up situation if you will to use that terminology, but one of which we can have greater appreciation and respect for one another. With the respect it comes some of our values, some of the native values.

We have, I have in front of me, thank goodness someone was willing to do the homework to condense for me a code of ethics. This was presented in the Inter-Tribal Times in October of '94. It sums up very well our goal as native people we try to teach our children. We as native people try to show respect to our native elders. Some of those things include:

	Each morning upon rising and each evening before sleeping, give thanks for the life within you and for all life, for the good things the Creator has given to you and others, and for the opportunity to grow a little more each day.
	Consider your thoughts and actions of the past day, and seek for the courage and strength to be a better person.
	Seek for the things that will benefit others everyone.
	And respect: To feel and show honor or esteem for someone or something, to consider the well being of or to treat someone or something with deference or courtesy and respect goes along a wide border. That's treating each other with respect, giving special respect to the elders, parents, teachers. I know there are some teachers here or former teachers at least or community leaders.
	No person should be made to feel put down by you.
	Avoid hurting other's feelings as you would avoid a deadly poison.
	Touch nothing that belongs to someone else, especially sacred objects, without permission or an understanding between you.
	Respect the privacy of everyone.
	Never walk between people when they are conversing.
	Never interrupt people who are conversing.
	Speak in a soft voice especially when you are in the presence of elders, strangers or to who others respect is due.
	Do not speak unless invited to do so at gatherings where elders are present. I think the notion children should be seen and not heard probably comes from that.
	Never speak about others in a negative way, whether they are present or not.

[From an incomplete transcript]