Pine Knot’s Last Prayer

Pine Knot cursed and popped the back of the lead mules again with his whip. “Damnation, what is wrong with you mules today?  You poke along like I’m taking you to a funeral.  I got to get these pumpkins up to Jacksoboro and I don’t have time to fool with you.  Ought to sell every durn one of you and buy some oxen.  What do you think, Hank?”

            “Uh huh,” Hank said.  He lifted the water jug to his lips and drank deeply.

            “Go slow on the water, Hank.  I’d like to have some. Hank, you should spit out your tobacco before you take a drink. Swallowing that tobacco juice will make you sick.”

“Uh huh.” Hank set the empty jug down.

“Never you mind, Hank. At Howard Creek Road we’ll refill it at the spring. That is, if these durn mules will cooperate.  Go on, mules!”

At the spring, Pine Knot stopped the wagon and studied a line of Indians in the distance.  “Ah, hell, Hank. We best get out of here.”  The road was too narrow and the terrain too rock covered to turn the team around where he sat, but he saw a wider area ahead where he ought to have enough room to circle back the other direction, so he eased the team on, hoping that if he didn’t pay them no mind, the raiders wouldn’t be interested in their scalps or the mules.

Hank stood, leaned forward slightly and peered at the Indians.  He drew his imaginary pistol, pointed it at the Indians, and started firing.

“You sit yourself down, you idgit, afore you get them riled up.  Put up your pistol, Hank.  They might not can tell you don’t have a real one.”

Hank sat down, but the Indians started slowly moving their way, and Pine Knot guessed that since their hair was cut short on the right side of their shoulders they were Kiowa.  He muttered, “God in heaven, I wish I was Elijah and could call fire down from heaven on these heathen.”   The wagon had nearly turned completely around.

Hank stood up and turned to face the Kiowa.  One hand held the reigns of a horse long ago shot out from under him and in the other, his imaginary pistol blazed away like he remembered it doing at Chickamauga.

Pine Knot cursed his luck.  His shotgun lay right next to him, but he knew that its two shots would be all he could fire if they attacked.  He wouldn’t have time to reload the muzzleloader and the Indians would cut them to pieces.  “Durn it to hell,” he said.  “How’d I get stuck here with one shotgun and an idiot with an imaginary pistol?  God, don’t let us die! Make them go away.  I want to keep my hair!”

War whoops and the pounding hooves of horses revealed the answer to his prayer.

A boy and a man both climb Mount Baldy

“The Child is father of the Man”—Wordsworth

My favorite day in nature happened twice on the same mountain.  As a Boy Scout, I was the only boy in our troop in Dallas to be sent to Philmont Scout Ranch.  My early years of reading had fueled my passion for history and the wilderness, and though I had gained some camping experience in scouts already, this was the camping trip that would give me my finest and favorite day in nature.

            The Philmont experience took our Dallas busload of young campers on a two-week trek through the Philmont Scout Ranch. We hiked a total seventy-two miles through various terrains.  Passing other hiking groups struggling with their uncooperative burros, we were glad we chose to carry our gear in. I tried to observe everything I could—tracks of animals, trail signs, the types of trees and while many boys kept their tired eyes on their tired feet, I kept looking ahead for the various birds and wildlife I knew lived on the Philmont Ranch.

The high point of our trip (pardon the pun) was climbing Mount Baldy, the third highest mountain in New Mexico.  It was not an easy climb, even for athletically inclined teenage boys. We followed the switchbacks, stopping every so often to catch our breath. We finally snaked our way to the rocky bald top.

            At the top, the misty, cold, and stiff wind greeted us. The panoramic view was amazing. Our guide pointed out the five states we were looking down on. Bighorn sheep approached us and ate trail mix from our hand. On the summit, I picked a few small delicate flowers, intending to dry them and keep all my life as a reminder of this mountain experience.

            Laurel Bleadon-Maffei said, “I found my heart upon a mountain I did not know I could climb, and I wonder how many other pieces of myself are secreted away in places I judge I cannot go.” I think I found and touched, or the mountain I climbed found and touched, secret places in me that I didn’t know were there.

            I said in my introduction that my favorite day happened twice on the same mountain. When I was forty, I climbed Mount Baldy again. In 1990, I decided it was time to reinvent myself. I floundered with selling jobs for a while, but I got a real break when I was offered a scholarship at Abilene Christian University. I knew it was time to reinvent myself. One of the classes I elected to take was backpacking. The final part of this course was a week’s camping trip in the mountains of New Mexico, close to, but not on the Philmont Scout Ranch.  We walked fifty-two miles in our trek.

One day of that trip was devoted to climbing Mount Baldy. Once again, I followed the switchbacks up that mountain, stopping every so often to catch my breath in the thinning mountain air. The stiff, misty cold wind increased as we climbed. At the summit, our class shared a canned Dr. Pepper and took our group photos. Once again, I looked at the five states about me. Once again, I fed gorp (trail mix) to the Bighorn sheep that greeted us near the summit. I don’t know the life expectancy of such sheep, but perhaps they were the same herd, or perhaps descendants of the ones I had seen as a teen. Once again, I picked the same type of small delicate mountain flower. The one I had picked as a teen had vanished somehow somewhere in my wild teenage years, and I vowed that I would not lose this one.

Now, many years after that last climb of Mount Baldy, in the window of my mind I can still see that mountain, the teenage boy who struggled to its summit and the forty-year-old man on a search to reinvent himself yet once again.  Both the first and second flowers I picked on that mountain are lost to me, but that day, that day in two parts, will never be lost.

THE MAD MOUNTIE OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN

Beth’s two children were laughing as they tried to catch the red leaves raining down upon them. A cold wind brought the promise of frost by morning and she shivered as she herded the children to stay on the narrow path. A fall in the river would be dangerous this time of year. She cursed herself for taking this assignment from her publisher. Some vacation. Her assignment? She was to write a story about the legendary Mad Mountie of Mystery Mountain. Preferably, he wanted her to find and photograph the man as well as collect anecdotes. So far, she had found a few who had seen him, or whose parents had seen him, but few details. The legend claimed that he had been sent years ago to Mystery Mountain to find an escaped criminal who now lived wild in the woods of British Columbia with the Spirit Bears, rare white-coated black bears. The Mountie, who had twenty years of experience with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, had not found the criminal and in fact, had never returned to duty, though he had been seen many times. It was thought that the assignment and the vast solitude of the Canadian forests had made him crazy.
The woods can do that sometimes.
As Beth walked on, she glanced up, and she instinctively reached for the children’s hands. A man in a faded Red Serge, the dress tunic of the Mounties that had once dripped with its scarlet red color, was approaching. As he drew near, he showed a toothless grin, tipped his worn, felt campaign hat politely, and said, “I haven’t met anyone on this path in several years. I am Owen McKenzie, with the Royal Canadian Police, at your service.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Owen.” Beth contemplated the faded blue breeches and could just barely see the yellow stripe indicating the cavalry history of the Mounties. Physically, she could tell that the years had not been good to him. She wondered if serendipity had worked its magic and she had been led by fate to find the legendary, Mad Mountie. “I am Beth Cameron, and these are my children. I’m a reporter and I’m on a working vacation. I would love to talk to you about your work with the RCP. I would so appreciate this favor.”
Owen said, “It’s been such a long time since I’ve talked to anyone. The day is getting late. I assume you walked up from the cabins at the Mystery Mountain Park and we should return there now while there is light. I’ll be happy to answer any questions, though I may have a favor of my own to ask of you.”
“I will be glad to honor any favor you may ask,” Beth said. As they returned on the path they had started on, Beth decided to start gathering information. “You know people say you are mad.”
He nodded. “Yes, sometimes I think the same thing.”
“Where do you live?” Beth asked.
“In a tent in the woods. For many years I’ve traveled throughout British Columbia searching for the escaped brother of Gilbert Paul Jordan. But he has proved to be elusive. Have you heard of him?”
Beth replied, “I’ve heard of Jordan, but not his brother. Didn’t they call him the Boozing Barber? He liked to prey on Native American women in Vancouver’s skid row.”
Owen said, “His brother had the same evil in him. I was sent to find him and bring him in, and I vowed to never return to duty until I do. You know what they say about us Mounties?”
“You always get your man?”
“Yes, we always get our man, though as it’s been said, not always quietly. And I’ve got him cornered this time. He will certainly be going back to prison very soon.”
At the cabin, Owen helped her start a roaring fire. Beth made a pot of tea and warmed up a soup she had made the day before. After they had eaten, she put the kids to bed on their cots. They begged Owen to tell them a story of his adventures.  He told them of his first sighting of the Spirit Bear and how the Native Americans had deliberately not shared with the white settlers the knowledge of these creatures who lived deep in the dark and quiet recesses of the Canadian forest. Jordan’s brother had found them too and become attached to them. Owen said he could count on Jordan to always return to the parts of the forest where they lived. When the kids had drifted to sleep, Owen said he must excuse himself and return to his tent.
“Will we talk again?” Beth asked.
“No, but I will still count on you to grant me the favor I’m going to ask of you.”
“Anything. What is it?
“You will know in the morning. Goodnight, Beth.”
The cabin’s fire had died to ashes, and when Beth woke in the morning, she revived it. She opened the cabin door and gasped at what she saw. Lying on the porch, bound hand and foot was a bearded man with a note pinned to his jacket. The note read:
Beth: Here is Jordan’s brother. Call the Royal Canadian Police at 911.They will assist you. Tell them that Owen McKenzie always gets his man.

Beau and the Storm . . .

Marie checked the barometer on her porch wall and saw the air pressure had dropped suddenly, dropped so low that she heard the next-door neighbor’s car windows pop.  The wind began to wail. Yawning to pop her ears, she glanced out the cabin window, and saw dark purple storm clouds racing over the hill. It looked like a bad one.  The news casts warning Louisiana residents of the storm caused her to remember Hurricane Rita. That hurricane created a tidal wave from the Gulf that had reached Lake Charles ten miles north of her, and along with the high winds, the 400 recorded tornados, these storm factors demolished every building and house in Rita’s path and spawned 400 recorded tornadoes.  The authorities did find one Brahma bull that had managed to find a cheniere to survive in. Marie hoped she wouldn’t have to experience that with this storm as she was pessimistic that she could be as lucky as that one bull.

            Remembering her Catahoula Cur puppy was still outside, she ran to the door, opened it and called him, “Beau! Come here.”  When he didn’t appear, she dashed outside and found him frantically digging at the dirt near the rickety fence. “Beau, what on earth are you doing? You get yourself up here right now.”  Beau looked back at her, whined, and after he continued digging for a moment, ran to her and stood before her in a defensive position as if he wanted to protect her from the dark clouds moving their way. A blast of warm gulf air slapped her in the face and that was when she knew she and Beau had little time before the storm.

            After she filled two gallon-jugs with drinking water from the tap and made what she knew might be her last cup of Community coffee, her houselights flickered a few times, and then she and Beau were plunged into darkness. Her cell phone and landline phone were dead.

            “At least I have you with me, Beau. We’ll be alright.” She glanced up at the Heart of Jesus painting, and kissed the rosary hanging from her neck.  “I’ll fix us some supper and then we’ll hunker down for Hurricane Diane coming our way.” Beau was her best friend these days. She was so happy she had bought him from Mr. Johnson her neighbor.

            She poured Beau a bowl of Blue Buffalo Chicken and Brown Rice food and opened a can of tuna for herself that she ate with crackers. She taped the windows with giant X’s to help minimize the danger of flying, shattered glass.  The temperature had dropped, so she and Beau cuddled together in the Lazy Boy chair in her living room. She listened to the whoosh and whistling of the wind, then that same wind pounded her house like her home was a drum and made a roaring sound like an angry beast.  She heard strange thunderclaps and crackling lightning above them.  Her house seemed to be holding up well under the strain, so after nearly two days without sleep, she drifted off.

            She woke when the tin roof was ripped off and the house was torn apart wall by wall. She woke briefly but passed out again when a cypress board slammed against her head.

            Marie woke many hours later, covered by boards and wallpaper covered sheetrock. The storm sounds were gone, and she was enveloped in a strange silence. She called out for Beau. “Beau, where are you?  I hope you weren’t hurt.”  As she pushed off some of the boards and detritus, she saw her whole house was gone, and it seemed Beau was too. She tried to stand, but couldn’t, noticing her legs were bloodied and one leg was twisted in a strange shape. She managed to crawl toward where the door used to be, and she cried as she looked out at her yard. The picket fence Beau had dug at had mostly been taken away somewhere, and her fruit trees were twisted as badly as her leg. “What am I going to do?” she said to herself.

            It was then she heard Beau’s familiar bark. She managed to rise up enough to see Beau running to the house, followed by her nearest neighbor, Howard Broussard. Broussard reached her, raised her slightly and said, “Don’t worry, cher. We will help you. I’ll get my truck and we’ll get you to the doctor. ”

            “How did you know I needed help?” she asked.

            “Why that Beau of yours, he come to my house and he bark and bark and grabs my pant legs and pulls on me till I follow him. I see now why he wanted me to follow him. I think you have a smart dog there.”

            Marie hugged Beau. “He is a good, smart dog, a good friend.”

            Beau wiggled out of Marie’s arms and went out to what remained of the picket fence and started digging again.

            “Why does Beau like to dig around that fence, Mr. Johnson?”

            “I don’t know for sure, cher. Dogs, especially the smarter ones I’ve owned, all seem to have little quirks. His mama used to dig like that too. I never did figure out what she was looking for.  Don’t let Beau’s digging  bother you much.”

            “Beau saved me, Mr. Johnson. I bet if I could read his mind, he’d see some things about me he doesn’t understand.”

When the Seminole Met Shakespeare

                        Death . . . The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.—from Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman once described Fort Picolata as a beautiful place. Shaded by giant live oaks, with a calming vista of the St. Johns River, the calm and peaceful setting was a contrast to much of war-torn Florida. The fort had a single sentry house surrounded by a palisade of split pine logs. Picolata rested on the site of a now-vanished twice-built Spanish fort that had also been garrisoned by the British.  Inside the fort now were a few civilians who had fled for safety from nearby plantations, the fort’s soldiers and the beginnings of a wooden hospital. Outside the palisade were friendly Seminoles camping and an area with rows of crude crosses marking many graves of soldiers who had fallen to diseases or who had died at the hands of the Seminole last summer.

When  Williams C. Forbes and his theatre troupe disembarked on May 22, 1840, he must also have thought about the beauty about him. After two years managing his theatres in Savannah and Augusta, he was ready for his two-week tour to St. Augustine to increase his earnings. St. Augustine was only 18 miles away following a fairly decent road. Though he had toured extensively in America, Florida was undiscovered country for him, but he had heard how St. Augustine had swelled with soldiers and citizens recently in population due to the Seminole War. He was counting on the citizens to be hungry for entertainment, which was exceedingly rare in the frontier in the best of circumstances.

His troupe were experienced and hardened travelers, familiar with the repertoire which included Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Richard III, and the always good for a laugh,  Honeymooners. Tonight at Fort Picolata, he intended to perform Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. After introductions to the fort’s officers and a fine supper of venison and vegetables, he directed his stagehands to set up their simple set and prepare the props as the actors donned their costumes. The fort’s commander agreed to allowed Forbes to use a drummer and fifer in the play.

Scattered nearby the staging area were a bonfire, several beacon-lights and candle lanterns for illumination. As night spread its dark veil, Forbes looked up at the stars blanketing the sky, at the thin sliver of a waxing moon, and the ghostly white shroud of moon flowers in the distance covering the tops of many trees. Soldiers, civilians, and Indians sat on the ground or stood to see the play.  For many in the audience, this was their first play and certainly their first experience to Shakespeare performed by professional actors.

They began with a veil dance by Miss Rosalee, accompanied by Mr. Wegher on his violin. As she whirled and pranced about, she would fix her eyes on a soldier in a flirtatious manner and then glide over to another.

With himself as Hamlet, Rosalee as Ophelia, Fanny Isherwood as the Queen, and Thomas Lyne as Horatio, and using the secondary actors for other parts, they plunged into the dark tragic world of Hamlet’s Denmark.  With the dead were scattered on the ground around him, Horatio (Mr. Lyne) closed out the play saying, “Take up the bodies: such a sight as this shows much amiss . . . .

The drummer began a death march. At first there was a soft silence, enhanced only by the night sounds of crickets, tree frogs and loud hoots of an owl. Then there was applause and cheers. The dead Danes arose and lined up around Forbes and they bowed.

“Goodnight to all,” Forbes said with a flourish.

*           *           *

The next morning, after a breakfast of coffee, hardtack, and cornmeal mush, the troupe packed for their short journey on the straight and relatively smooth road to St. Augustine. Forbes, the Isherwoods and two actresses boarded a borrowed stagecoach.

“Isn’t Florida beautiful! And what a wonderful morning,” Fanny said. “Absolutely inspiring!”

The other actors loaded a wagon loaded with the costumes, props and set materials followed behind, with a FORBES ACTING COMPANY sign mounted on the wagon’s side. About seven miles outside St. Augustine, with the stagecoach long out of sight, the slower moving wagon was ambushed by Seminole warriors led by Wild Cat and John Horse.  As was their custom, the Seminole loosed  deadly rifle fire when the travelers came into range.

In the first volley, Mr. Miller, who had hitched a ride on the wagon to St. Augustine, the secondary actor Vose, were killed immediately. The German musician Wegher attempted to flee but was shot as he stopped and begged in vain for his life in German. The black driver and G.C. Germon were able to hide in the palmetto scrub. Thomas Lyne hid in a hammock and spent a miserable night in a tree, and that morning set out on the road and caught up with Germon and they walked until they found soldiers at Fort Searle.  Mr. Hagan, one of the drivers, hid until dark and somehow made his way to a nearby plantation owned by an Army Colonel.

The Seminole lost interest in the ones who had escaped the sudden and savage attack and set to plundering the wagon for the spoils of war. They broke open the luggage and with whoops and laughter began trying on the troupe’s colorful costumes, medallions, and bling jewelry and applying the troupe’s makeup to their faces. One retrieved a huge sword and chased another around the wagon, poking him playfully in the arse. Another, donning a beaver-skin top hat, found a jug of whiskey which was passed freely around the war party. The warriors were silent for a moment, then nodded and grunted in approval when Wildcat, wearing a Viking helmet, held up Yorick’s skull and whispered words of death to it.

While the Seminole in their new tunics, bloomers, sashes, various women’s clothes, and buckled shoes were enjoying their parody of Shakespeare, another wagon with a driver and three passengers from St. Augustine approached the macabre scene. These travelers too were quickly attacked by the crazed players cast to play parts directed by the demon-fueled Florida war. Francis Medicis, the mail carrier, was killed along with A. Ball, a carpenter from Massachusetts.  The third passenger and the black driver escaped on foot to Fort Searle.  As soon as the news reached St. Augustine, a militia was sent out to hunt the raiding Seminole and to retrieve the bodies of the slain. As usual, no Seminole were found. They had simply vanished again into the trackless Florida wilderness.

The Seminole thespians were seen in their Shakespearean costumes on several occasions many months later: Wildcat in the turban and robes of Othello, another in the royal purple and ermine robe of Richard III, and others decked out in the crimson vests, tunics, and plumes of Forbes’ troupe.

Forbes and his troupe who made the trip safely, the residents of Saint Augustine, and the soldiers who saw Wildcat and others in their wild Shakespearean garb, never forgot the images planted in their minds when the Seminole, in the wild and savage Florida war, transformed themselves into characters from Shakespeare’s tragedies. And each time one would read a selection from Hamlet out loud, they would remember, and he or she would retell the story of the Massacre of the Theatre Troupe in an undiscovered country.

As the flier below shows, I’ll be at the Basin Book Fair in Midland, Texas on April 9, 2022. I scanned some websites about the value of book fairs in general and here’s what I discovered:

1. Book fairs in our nation  put millions of books into the hands of children and also helps schools obtain resources needed to promote reading and literacy.
2. Book fairs are happy events for educators, parents, and children. Memories are stimulated and new reading and technological discoveries are made.
3.  Book fairs provide an opportunity to meet authors.
4. We are sick of virtual events, and this event is a chance to have a bookish experience in real life.

I hope you will consider visiting this event! It looks like it will be great fun!

GREENLIGHTS by Matthew McConaughey

I’ve long respected and admired the acting talent of Matthew McConaughey, especially in his performances in Dallas Buyers Club and True Detectives Season One. After listening to his reading of Greenlights in audio form and obtaining the printed book (Crown Pub.), I feel I better understand the man himself and am even more impressed with his talents, as I’m sure you will be too if you read (or listen) to it. As McConaughey says in his opening, this is not a traditional memoir, but rather an approach to life, a playback based on adventures in his life that he considers significant, enlightening, or humorous, and he encourages the reader to subjectively adopt his experiences and advice to shape or change his or her view of reality or to change.

I am sure your encounter with Greenlights will increase your awareness of life, begin or continue your own journal, resurrect your own family memories, cause you to notice bumperstickers, (his unique spelling), plan your own wild adventures, increase your determination to reach goals, and inspire you to create and express yourself in poetry, song, or art. This book is a reminder that there can be as we say in Cajun Louisiana: Joie de vivre. 

Tales on Tuesdays by the Bard of the South: March 8, 2022

                        You, who are on the road / Must have a code that you can live by—Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

Every Tuesday, in my blog and on my Facebook pages, you will find one of my tales that I hope will feed your imagination, inspire you to discover and develop the greatness I believe is in you, to make you think, and to nudge you to create something personal, beautiful, and important in some way. A tale is defined as,  a fictitious or true narrative or story, especially one that is imaginatively presented. This is my first tale, written with a nod to NCIS character Jethro Gibbs, who after years of life and career experience developed a code to live and work by. I decided to post of few of my own rules that are important to me. I hope to collect enough of these rules to create a book eventually. Let me know what you think,

Pittman’s Rules

1. Do the hard things first.
2. Be the last to believe gossip about a friend and not the first.
3. Give people space and privacy after a tragedy, especially when a family member dies. You don’t need to know all the details. If they want you to know, they will share it with you.
4. Nothing changes unless you do something different.
5. When you do something wrong and are confronted, admit it. Do not lie or place blame on others, Be a man and admit your error and face the consequences.
6. Learn from Confucius. He believed in these principles:
   a.Devotion to family and friends
   b.Love and benevolence for humanity
   c.Reverence and respect for ancestors. (This is described incorrectly and negatively by Westerners as “Ancestor Worship.”)
   d.Education, cultivation, and discipline of the mind.
   e. Government should be the servant not the master of the people.
   f.Men should think for themselves and stand up for what is right.
   g.The elderly should be treated with honor and respect.
   h. Men should be gentlemen, civilized, and demonstrate integrity. A person should be judged according to his or her own abilities and not by noble birth or government position.

There seems to be no end to the protests regarding any attempt to present anything positive about American history and the people who had roles in that history.  The WOK mindset finds wrong everywhere through their nitpicking spins on the facts, including the recently erected statue of Tomochichi in Atlanta.  In the Monroe Newstarr, an article by Michael Warren entitled “Atlanta statue dismays Muskogee (Creek),” Warren says some tribal historians of the Creek have issues regarding the statue. Those opposed to the statue claim:

1. It’s disrespectful.
2. It’s incredibly inappropriate.
3. It presents an offensive and historically conception of Native Americans as primitive savages.
4. It glorifies a heavily mythologized figure, whom the Muskogee say initiated a century of ethnic cleansing. The critics claim Atlanta is “erasing them again, acting as if they vanished without a fight after handing over their land and heritage
5. The article finds fault in Tomochichi supplying slaves to the British and promising to return any escaped negro slaves,

Here’s my general observations about this article: Yes, the statue shows Tomochichi in a loincloth instead of buckskin breeches and long white shirt. Yes, he probably did generally wear western style clothes (as did the Seminole), but the loincloth is also accurate as Creek warriors would fight nearly (or often totally) naked when in battle or hunting. The statue honors a Creek leader who basically is responsible for founding the city of Savannah by giving the British permission to build there. He did not give ALL the Creek lands away.

He also did not initiate ethnic cleansing. If anything really started the Creek (Red Stick) war, it was the Fort Mims Massacre when 500 settlers (many Southern Creek among them) were attacked  and horribly killed and mutilated by hundreds of Northern Creek.  The Creek wars are proof that the nation did resist. Besides, much of the Creek nation had intermarried with the Scots and Irish, and they were sent also on the Trail of Tears.

About slavery: The Creek nation, just like other Native American tribes, as owned and took slaves, enslaving both blacks and Native Americans. There was no innocent party on the topic of slavery.

No statue can present all facts (whether good or bad) of a person. Statues can make the viewer think and research who the statue represents and their place in history. Would it be better to not know anything about Tomochichi? Whether tribal historians like it or not, Tomochichi is a part of Creek history. Are there other Creek leaders who should be represented as well or instead of Tomochichi?

Creek history, like that of other Native American tribes, is a complicated, and unfortunately often sad story. I encourage you to read and research for yourself. I’d suggest you visit the Georgia Historical Society page on Tomochichi: https://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/online-exhibits/featured-historical-figures/tomochichi/