Living Language

Cherokee was Kathy Sierra’s first language.

It was spoken in her home in eastern Oklahoma. But it doesn’t come as easily now that she’s an adult, working in “an English world.” It’s something she has to fight to hold on to.

Mary Kay Henderson never learned Cherokee. Although she was raised in Muskogee, Okla., just 30 miles from the capital of the Cherokee Nation, her mother was forbidden to speak Cherokee. “She was part of that stereotypical story you hear,” she says.

Now both women work to pass on the language of their people to the next generation through the Cherokee National Youth Choir, which will perform Saturday at a commemoration of the Trail of Tears at Pea Ridge National Military Park near Garfield.

“I stay about five steps in front of the choir,” says Henderson, its director, with a chuckle. “But being a secondlanguage learner, if I can pass on the passion of wanting to know more about our culture, I’ve done my job.

“Every year, we probably have one student who really gets it, really understands it’s not about what they look like or if they can speak Cherokee,” she adds. “But are you willing to learn more about your culture and pass that on?”

Among the outreach efforts of the choir are events like Saturday’s commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Trail of Tears passing through Pea Ridge, a performance in the Macy’s Parade this Thanksgiving and visits to churches in the region that still present worship services in Cherokee.

“These churches are dying,”Henderson says. “We want to reinforce what the young people are learning but also encourage the elders, who are so sad to see their language dying. It’s such a blessing for me to see their faces light up when they realize these young people are interested and want to carry that culture into the next generation.”

As far as Saturday’s performance, Henderson says, “you can look at a crowd and think, ‘These are all white people,’ but in reality, probably half of those people - especially in northwestern Arkansas or northeastern Oklahoma - have a connection with the Cherokee, because this is where the Trail of Tears ended.

“One of the things that happens when the audience sees the students is they see all different color faces and hair, and yet the common bond is blood. They all have Cherokee blood.

“If you’re 1/136th, it stillgives you something to be proud of.”

John Scott, superintendent of Pea Ridge National Military Park, hopes the commemoration - which will take place at Elkhorn Tavern, near a section of the original military/telegraphroad traveled by the Cherokee in 1838 and 1839 - helps bring that rush of reality to everyone who attends.

“It’s all centered around a road, which was used as part of the route for the forced removal of the Cherokee but was also the route of theButterfield stage and a great number of Civil War activities in this part of the country,” he says. “I suspect young men marched off to sign up for World War I on it.

“There are not many places where someone can actually go and walk in the footsteps of all that history. You can pick up a rock, and chances are some member of the Cherokee tripped over that rock on the Trail of Tears or some Civil War soldier kicked it out of the way. It’s a tangible thing where you can just connect all kinds of intangible periods of our history.

“To me, that’s what people can gain from coming and standing here.”