>>Dr. Nelson: Osiyo, I'm Joshua Nelson. I'm
here on a beautiful and a little bit chilly
fall morning at the Echota stomp grounds in
northeastern Oklahoma around Park Hill just
outside of Tahlequah. And I'm lucky, exceptionally
lucky, this morning to get a chance to visit
with David Comingdeer. David is a member and
one of the leaders here at Echota Ground,
and he's going to tell us a little bit about
some of the traditions that are carried on
here, traditions the Cherokee people have
been holding for a very very long time. And
he's going to tell us a little bit about how
they do things, about some of the history,
and some of the contemporary conditions facing
traditional practitioners of stomp grounds
here in northeastern Oklahoma. David, morning.
>>Chief Comingdeer: Good morning.
>>Dr. Nelson: We hear a lot about traditions
that people are always-- it seems like people
are always talking about us clinging to traditions
and about all the challenges that face us.
And I know that there are a lot of challenges,
but at the same time these traditions have
been present and with us for a very long time.
And so I'm hopeful that you can tell us a
little bit about how it is that Cherokee folks
like yourself around here have managed to
keep things like the grounds going for so
long.
>>Chief Comingdeer: By knowing our history
and our family history and our cultural history
and being well acquainted with the conditions
in which our people were forced here and what
our ancestors did to save what they could
for us and protect what they could for us.
Having that knowledge and knowing what our
older ones have done, it gives us a sense
of duty to continue on. And that's primarily
the most important thing for us today is to
talk about and remember and pass on to our
children is our history, our heritage. Not
just history from that anyone could read,
pick up a manual at the book store or some
publication of Cherokee history, but the deep
history from our communities, our families,
and the individual stories of overcoming difficulties
and adversities. The great warrior society
that we're descended from and of course the
ceremonial system that we follow, what we
call ceremonial ground, stomp ground. It's
a remnant of the old tribal town. It gives
us a a strong drive as individual warriors
and fathers today to continue on and to pass
along everything to its fullest extent.
>>Dr. Nelson: I'm interested to hear you talk
about duty. I hadn't thought about it in that
kind of way, but the way that you're you're
describing it I think is really resonant:
that there is an obligation incumbent upon
us to to find out about things and to keep
them going. I I say that. I'm not a member
here of course, and and don't know all that
I would like to. But in talking about family
histories--we were talking about that before
we we started rolling--about different stories,
different histories, the deep history that
you're talking about that we haven't heard
before, histories of families and folks. Could
you tell us a little bit about you and what
it is that you do and and especially how it
is that you came to be involved in the grounds?
>>Chief Comingdeer: Well, I worked for the
Cherokee Nation I've, going on 23 years of
service to my tribe as a continuing service
there. I've been a federal wildland firefighter
and worked full time for the Cherokee Nation
as a wildland firefighter. I'm the only employee
of the tribe that that is a full-time firefighter,
wildland firefighter. And so that's that's
my profession is outside of the Echota Ground.
It's through my bloodline. We're descended
from the same people that took care of this
ground before Oklahoma, before we were here,
and most of your ceremonial ground people
are that way. It defines us as who we are,
not just through our language, and our medicine,
and our music, our songs, traditional music,
but it's our genetics. It's our blood. It's
in Cherokee we call it here, our ancestors,
we call them digegigayulige, and that literally
means our old blood. When we speak of our
people before us, that's how we term in our
language our old blood. The fire that we keep
here that we care for and protect here that
we hold our dances at and our meetings, our
blood line has kept that fire as far back
as we know. And so that's what I meant earlier
when I said earlier knowing our history, it's
what gives us that sense to continue on.
>>Dr. Nelson: That's interesting. We refer
to the grounds as the grounds, but when we
say that, we don't mean this one specific
place. You talked about these grounds as having
come from a long way back from back in in
the old country. It's it's my understanding
that there are some specific sorts of traditions
that allow that kind of thing to happen. So
the grounds that you're talking about, Echota
Grounds, had been a couple places. How does
that work?
>>Chief Comingdeer: Most of the grounds that
are still here today active, all of them have
been moved by the people that are from that
from that town, from that fire. First and
foremost they all had to move here to this
side of the Mississippi River--
>>Dr. Nelson: [chuckles] Yeah, right.
>>Chief Comingdeer: --because none of us came
from here. But once we reestablished our square
grounds here and reset our fires here in our
new home and started using those new sites
and congregating and assembling at those new
square grounds, that's been 170 years or so,
you know, around about number since those
fires have been reestablished here, the oldest
ones. Not all of them have made it up to today.
Maybe less than a fourth, probably much less
than that, have survived to to now. Some of
them joined others, and now they're one ground,
which was maybe two or three, maybe they now
have assembled into one or something or maybe
they've what we call the fire went out altogether.
Nevertheless, you know, we are what's left,
and we try to hang on to what we have. And
we protect it and defend it, and we take our
jobs very seriously, and we also try to support
the other communities, the other fires, the
other grounds. And some grounds are very close
with each other through their history, and
they may even be blood related to each other,
even though they belong to one fire or another
fire, depending upon their momma or their
daddy or their grandparents or something.
Many of our people have ties to other ceremonial
grounds, other tribal towns, other fires that
may or may not still be burning. The people
that I know, the the men and women, the families
that I know that keep their fire going are
some of the most fantastic people. It has
been such a good life for me to take care
of a ground of my own, and it comes through
my family and a great responsibility. And
it's not always easy. It's probably a double-edged
sword in a way. It's the most rewarding part
of my life, and yet it's also one of the most
challenging parts of my life. And I think
that most guys like me that have responsibilities,
they would probably say the same thing.
