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| Image copyright Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; all rights reserved. |
About an eighth of the blood running through my veins comes from the Emerald Isle. Not much, true, but enough for me to feel some connection to that land, as well.
Sometimes, there are connections between our various peoples that are more ephemeral, yet more tangible — certainly more accessible — than the mixed blood that gives life to some of us.
This is one such connection.
The Choctaw, of course, are not my own particular blood. They come from a different part of this land — a land where they no longer live, thanks to the genocidal removal policy of the occupiers of that land (and all the rest of it).
But despite "removal" — such a polite, sanitized, antiseptic term! — the Choctaw not only survived, but thrived, and maintain a large and vibrant culture: With nearly 200,000 members, they are now the third-largest tribal nation in terms of membership. But what most people don't know is that, fewer than 20 years after losing huge numbers of their own during the forced march of their "removal," they heard the story of another people, half a world away, facing extermination from a different source.
And they decided to do something about it.
