Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1906-01-03
the PEOPLE OF rAHlEouAH, /. I.
Judge J. n. Pitohiord Prominent City Attor.
,ney Of Capital Of Cherokee Nation. @

Tahlequah is "mixed blood" and
"white mans" town; but the coun.
Try is largely and genuinely Indian,
of the well marked pure bred type.
The merchants and business men are,
for the most part, white men who
came here from the States many
years ago and married into the tribe
and are known as "squaw men,"
Many of these are of advanced years,
prosperous, having raised families,
.-fve in fine homes, their children hav-
ing had the benefit of college eduoa-
ton. Then there are the ssnew
oomers," younger men who have
come here from the Far East, South,
North and West in recent years.
These comprise in the main, men of
the professional and educated class,
men of learning, energy and ambi-
tion. Socially, there is no distino-
tion between the "white man" and
the white Indian--but the line is
closely drawn in the case Of the
tsfull-blood."
The full-blood lives in the country,
in the deep, silent woods, in the very
bosom of nature, away from the
highways, the approach to whose
cabin is by dim wagon road or a
bride path.
He is the s'silent man." the inno-
cent, dreamy, emotionless, careless,
burdenless, easy-going man, the
source of whose stream of life rises
in the hazy mist of traditional time
and whose lethargic course has for
ages silently wound through the for
ests, prairies and mountains of North
America, and whose lost momentum
and length of life are rapidly ending
in the deltas of extinction, in this
gloriously beautiful land of this ra6e.
Civilization has not changed the
nature OF the true Indian; the re-
straintAof government have sub
dued, but no power tAder the sun
can change or conquer the course of
his inborn self. Here, on the streets
of Tahlequah and in the country suA
rounding may be witnessed the genu-
inc Indian, shorn of his savage pow
ers and practices, quiet, unostenta-
tious, peaceable, law-abiding man of
the forests, who lives to bimself, cul-
tivates small farms, and roams
through the woods in search of game
and beats paths along the streams,
where he spends much time in fish
ing.
His home life is removed only a
few degrees from that of the wig
wan age; his surroundings are
without ornamentation he loves
NATURES works, but scorns the estheti-
cal touches of advanced civilization
flowers and paint have no charms
for his domestic tastes; he lives lin
log huts with outside chimneys and
rude doors and few windows.
In every neighborhood there are
brush arbors where religious and
bther meetings are held. There are
white settlements in many parts of
the Cherokee nation, especially is
this true of the prarie section in the
north portion, but in timbered and
semi-mountainous country around
Tahlequah the full. blood is the lord
of the land. The great wild, un-
fenced forests bank the town, main
roads are few and the fields and
clearings small.
The full-blood makes good and
Dpeaoeable neighbor for the reason he
, Battends to his own business and is
generous and good natured. Soon
all these fine lands with their wealth
of unculled forests will come in pos
session of the white man and the
two races will, like the forest
flowers, grow up from the same soil,
but maint ain their natural and dis
tinctive individualities. There is no
such thing apparent here as the
blending of the races, there never