>>Chief Comingdeer: I know who I am, and my
son, he's confident that he's been brought
up to follow his tradition and that it's it's
good for him. And hopefully he'll pass along
to my grandchildren. The subject of ceremonial
life versus Christian life is always a subject
of debate even in within a tribe. You know,
the same people with the same history--
>>Dr. Nelson: Right.
>>Chief Comingdeer: --they will debate one
versus the other. And myself I I don't I don't
like that. That all all I would ask is for
my own ceremonial people to follow their laws
and to follow their rules. To me, I've thought
about it in my heart so long, and I see our
our people. We all have been made. We all
come from the great power of the creation,
the Creator, the Almighty, and all of us in
some way acknowledge that. Well, our people
we have our own too, Cherokees. We have our
own beliefs that weren't forced on us by anybody.
They're ours. We can adapt and we can accept
other things. We're free to do that. But it's
all part of the Almighty's religious body
worldwide, and so we should respect each other,
that each of us is upholding our part of that
body. God's the head.
>>Dr. Nelson: I I I follow you. Yeah.
>>Chief Comingdeer: He's the head, but his
body is comprised of all different parts,
all around the four corners of the earth.
We have our part, and I would encourage people
of my tribe. I would ask that they at least
respect us and be willing to protect us. See,
we meet criteria to be federally recognized,
and it's these ceremonial grounds that our
language, and our dances, and our ballgame,
and our medicine, and our beliefs, our actual
Cherokee beliefs and our values come from
these fires. And so it's by these fires that
our tribe, all 300,000 of us, are one Cherokee
nation. Because it's these little ceremonial
grounds that allow all those other people
to to maintain that citizenship as a federally
recognized tribe. And if we lose our language
and if we lose our ceremonial ways, that may
be an excuse to break a treaty with our tribe.
>>Dr. Nelson: I think that it maybe has been
in the past. So it sounds like you're doing
pretty important work here, and as much as
I'd like to have us hang around, I think it's
probably about time that we go buy you lunch.
So David, Wado.
>>Chief Comingdeer: Wado galeli iga.
