What Are We Doing
© TCNPress.Org
By Line – YO-WA-NE-GV - The White Place (Arkansas)
Sunday, July 5, 2026, 9:00 am
We are laying the foundation for the next generations of Chickamauga. Today, when most people look toward the future, many see it through the lens of Colonialism as takers. We see it through the lens of building something significant for the future generations of our people by giving. There is a difference between givers and takers; most Original Nations people like the Chickamauga were givers.
Historically, the Chickamauga were communal, multi-generational, and in close proximity to family. This remained true until the late 1700s; then, as colonialism pushed us away from our communal way of life, we began moving farther from those who shared the same ideas and beliefs. We existed both east and west of the Mississippi River in terrain that looked and felt the same. In the late 1800s, the look of communalism began to change, pushing us out of multi-generational homes into individual homes in close proximity. When the Great Depression came, it further pushed against multi-generational closeness, driving us to live in different places for work, with travel taking hours or days. Ultimately, the economy pushed us away from our agricultural roots and toward greater urbanization, which turned us away from our dependence on the earth to sustain our lives, traditions, faith, and religion.
What are we doing today to prepare the next generations to be Chickamauga? We are claiming our rights and privileges under Treaty. We are claiming the rights and privileges of those of us who are heirs and descendants of Treaties. Heirs and Descendants have special rights under inheritance laws and Treaty law that we must make known to those who have them for their future generations.
Our rights and privileges go back to our use of the original names in the original languages. What does that mean for us today? We need to find the original names of the people and places where we came from and use those, not the colonial names, but the original language names. Why? Because it ties us directly back into the Treaties and the original people and places from where we came. To that end, we are beginning to return to learning our old languages. Erate is the Lower Town, or Southern, dialect of Cherokee, and the Mobillian Trade Language (MTL), which predates Erate, is virtually 90%+ Choctaw.
We are seeking to purchase land in Fee Simple Title (Fee Simple Title means sole owner of the title) and have lands donated in Fee Simple Title within Treaty Boundaries, over which we retain jurisdiction. Our Governing Document states that all lands owned by the Tribe shall be placed in the Tribal Land Trust so we can begin building a place of return for our people, a place to belong, a place of community, multi-generations, and proximity.
Slowly but surely, we are laying a foundation where we kindle our fires from the tiny embers that remain of our traditional ways. While some of those ways are lost to history, we will reconstruct as much as possible based on our extensive research.
First, we must establish a loyalty to our Tribe over everything else. Second, we must honor our elders for they will teach us to kindle our fires. Third, we must create the bonds of family which are taught in our Clan System. Fourth, we must teach ourselves, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren what it means to be Chickamauga. Fifth, we must begin teaching and learning our old languages of Erate and MTL. Finally, we must tolerate and accept each and every Tribal member because we share the same blood and we need each and every Citizen to make us stronger.
What are we doing? We are laying the foundation so that future generations have what many of us did not have: a Traditional Chickamauga life where we were communal, multi-generational, and lived in close proximity.