Council of Elders and the Language Committee journeyed to the Homelands on March 24 -28. Here the group is at Buzzards’ Roost, the old homeplace of Levi Colbert, now on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Photo by Robert Perry.

At the December 2007 meeting, elders were told about the Oceti Wakan Lakota language program on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Given a small grant to define native speakers: only 2% of the young people spoke the Lakota language, yet 58% of people age 50 and over speak Lakota. Immediately, elders in every household were asked to start speaking only Lakota to the children. The average income at Pine Ridge is only $3,000 a year. To raise money for language preservation, Oceti Wakan entered a 38th generation Medicine Man’s drum into a raffle, to which the Council of Elders bought raffle tickets. Although none of us won the drum, Robert Perry won a set of woodcarving tools donated by an Alaskan native.

The raffle was run by the Indigenous & Irish Alliance of Spearfish, S.D. Besides helping Oceti Wakan raise money, the raffle helped the Tsimshian tribe of Alaska. Eli Milton is a Tsimshian carver who teaches classes to make woodcarving tools. The tools and the artists make wooden sea-going canoes. Fourteen were made last year. The canoes will be given to hereditary Tsimshian chiefs to make a long sea journey from (Tlingkit) Alaska to (Haida) Queen Charlotte Islands to (Coastal Salish) Oregon ending with in a giant potlatch on July 28, 2008. To the Tsimshian, this is a ceremony symbolic of ancient times when one nation would travel into the territory of another nation to make trades. The Council of Elders is pleased to have symbolically become a small part of their cultural ceremony by trying to help other Indian nations.

As reported in the Chickasaw Times, the Council of Elders made a trip to the Tuscumbia (AL) Festival in September of 2006. Members participated in a 2.2-mile Memorial Walk to Tuscumbia Landing on the Tennessee River. The walk remembered Creeks and Chickasaws who were loaded on a steamboat and shipped (1837) to Indian Territory as part of the migration. Last year (2007), the memorial walk was preceded with a dedication ceremony that made Tuscumbia Landing eligible for the National Trail of Tears network. An ancient site at Tuscumbia Landing will be worked by archeologists, then the park will be added to National Park Service. Chickasaw Nation and Council of Elders were represented at the Dedication Ceremony.

And for this year from April 4 to May 23, Tuscumbia Art Museum is sponsoring an Exhibit about Southeastern Clothing and Adornments from 15th to 19th Century. The Museum will display the George Colbert sash shown privately to Council of Elders in 2006, as well as a beaded cap that George Colbert gave away in 1803. The museum wanted to include Southeastern pucker-toed moccasins in the exhibit, but none could be found. In the past, Council of Elders members were taught how to make these moccasins by Kelley Lunsford. Council members Marie Beck, Carolyn Claxton and Pauline Brown loaned moccasins for the Exhibit. The Museum was especially glad because the Council had traveled to Tuscumbia and citizens know who we are.