>>Dr. Nelson: We've talked before, David,
about some of the the challenges that face
this kind of continuance that you're talking
about. I wonder if you could talk a little
bit about that where where you see some of
these challenges coming from, and what message
you might have to folks, especially the southeastern
Indian folks here in Oklahoma.
>>Chief Comingdeer: Probably the biggest challenge
that we have is people have in just a general
sense softened. Life's become fairly easy.
People don't live off the land like they used
to. Most people don't maybe even rely on their
own traditional medicine to keep themself
healthy or to heal themself. And so but it
at our ground, we use our medicine, and we
drink it, and we wash with it. And, you know,
it's prepared for us so that we heal and that
we stay well. But it's just a few people that
that that use it that way. You know, there's
different levels of of medicine that's still
carried on in Cherokee country. If you run
to the hospital every time get sick--
>>Dr. Nelson: You'd be waiting for a long
time for one thing.
>>Chief Comingdeer: You fill your body with
these pills. You don't even know where those
things come from or what's in them or what
it might do to your inside your body. It's
kind of it's kind of like some of them will
say, if you start taking that type of medicine
as a habit, that you'll start thinking the
way that those people think, and you'll get
further away from your own traditions, your
own medicine, and also language. Language
is a is a is a great challenge all in all
tribes. There are there are probably very
few tribes in the whole North America today
that have everybody speaking their language.
>>Dr. Nelson: And and Cherokee is the language
of the grounds. Is that right?
>>Chief Comingdeer: That's right, and our
inside, what we call inside the, you know,
the square grounds, it's Cherokee language.
And most of the grounds, all of the grounds
just about, you know, whatever their tribal
language is, that's what's used inside. It
may be interpreted for other people, but it's
always spoken in that Native language first,
and it may not be interpreted for anybody.
If you don't know the language, you better
learn.
>>Dr. Nelson: [Laughs] Gotcha, yeah. It may
not be your business yet, I guess. Well, I
know that's a that's a real challenge. You
know, my Cherokee is mighty poor. I I probably
know more Pig Latin than I do Cherokee, but
I I imagine that that is a challenge for people
who who might like to come around to the grounds
some. But it sounds to me like you're saying
that in doing some interpreting, there's also
maybe a little bit of language teaching that
goes on at the grounds too. Is it is it fair
to say that there's some instruction, some
education that happens around the grounds
in this sort of way as a as some cultural
education, some language education, and other
types?
>>Chief Comingdeer: I know several of the
ceremonial communities around the different
tribes in eastern Oklahoma. I know that some
of our Shawnee brothers to the north and some
of our Euchee brothers to the West and some
of the other Muscogee (Creek) communities
and the Cherokees too, other Cherokee communities
here, we all have meetings, even when just
very private meetings, where we we have instruction
on different songs, and the language, and
things like that. You have to. We don't live
together anymore. We live all over the place.
We're everywhere, and it's it's a great effort.
It takes effort from each individual person
to reassemble here and to congregate here
because nobody lives here any longer, like
maybe at one time this would've been your
home. Everything in your world was here, and
to leave here was a big deal.
>>Dr. Nelson: Right.
>>Chief Comingdeer: And when you left, you
all went together and would maybe visit another
another town, another ceremonial ground or
tribal town. Likewise, other communities would
come visit you, and you would take care of
each other.
>>Dr. Nelson: Yeah.
