Some Interesting Notes...
Some years ago Prince Edward, who is 4 years younger than the Oukah, said in humor: "I speak only to the Oukah, and the Oukah speaks only to God!" Well, fortunately that is not true, or the Oukah would be very lonely indeed. It is true that He does not get out in public as much as formerly, but several times a week he gets out and enjoys chatting with everyone. He can be reached by regular (snail) mail.
The Oukah and his two brothers started "Cherokees of North Texas" about 3 years ago, and have turned it into an educational institution after learning that people living today with Cherokee blood know virtually nothing about being a Cherokee, or the old ways and customs. They are related to nearly everybody who is anybody in the Cherokee Nation, either through Dayunita or his second wife, Elizabeth Pack Fields. Descended from Sir Ludovic Grant from Scotland, (more about him later), a recent chart showed that the present Oukah is related (by blood or marriage) to all the Cherokees who were elected Principal Chiefs under the Constitutional Government in the late 1880's, except the two full-bloods. There are famous relatives on both sides of the family, on the Cherokee side and the white side, including General Rucker (for whom Ft. Rucker was named), General Sackett, General Sheridan, the famous Will Rogers, Jesse Chisholm of the famous Chisholm trail, and the descendants of Redbird Smith, Chief of the Nighthawk Keetoowahs..
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The Oukah has sometimes been accused of praying his enemies to death. Some of them do seem to die rather quickly. I was with him one day when a man came on rather rude and insulting, and the Oukah turned away after saying, "God bless you!"
I said: "I wouldn't have blessed him! I'd have put a curse on him!"
Oukah smiled at me like I was a child, and said, "I just did!"
It took me a while to catch on to the way that things work.
Later, Oukah told me that he did sometimes use an ancient Cherokee incantation when he felt bad vibrations coming his way. He says: "Return the evil to the source, double strength and double force!" Somehow it works.
"Don't ever let it stay on you," Oukah says. "You don't have to accept it. And if they don't want it back they'd better not put it out!" Yeah, what goes around comes around!
When really threatened, the Oukah has a way of letting evil destroy itself. He sometimes invokes another ancient Cherokee priestly ritual, called "Commending their soul to God". By commending their soul to God, the people are turned over to a higher power, and the Oukah's hands are clean. They are usually gone before the year is out.
Oukah goes around saying: "Thank you, Father!" a lot.
Oukah once said, "I have become the crystallized essence of Oukah!" And it seems that he has. We are reminded of a line from an old movie. It said, The diamond is the hardest of all substances, and everything inferior rubbing up against it is worn away!
So be it!
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In 1955 the Oukah met Ruth Smith, Executive Director of a non-profit organization called the "American Ind. Heritage Society". They got along very well for over a year, when the Oukah discovered that not only could Ruth Smith not prove any Native American blood at all, neither could any of her board of directors. The Oukah dropped them all, but this was not known to a blond-headed Jewish woman writer who set out to do the hatchet-job expose feature about Ruth Smith for the weekly freebie, The Dallas Observer.
The Oukah met with the writer and gave her a very powerful insight into Ruth Smith's white organization, which the writer mostly ignored. But, realizing what Zimmerman was doing, the Oukah set out to protect himself, as he also realized that he was going to be included in the blood-letting.
Sure enough, the writer misquoted, ignored other things (including letters addressed to His Royal and Imperial Majesty, the Oukah, Emperor of Tsalagi, from the White House dated from 1964 down to the present, from Buckingham Palace, from Wilma Mankiller on Cherokee Nation stationary, etc.). She said: "I'm not sure that is recognition". The Oukah said: "Does she want God to reach down his finger and write it on the wall for her?" Evidently she did.
Anyway, the article was published, along with a picture of the Oukah taken with the cameraman crouched down in front of him (trying to make it look like the Oukah had his nose up in the air?) So the Oukah and his brother, Prince Edward, wrote to the Editor, and here are the letters from the Aug. 15-21, 1996, Volume 702, Dallas Observer.
Later, the Oukah remarked, "I wish somebody else would take me on. I always come out smelling like a rose when the truth is presented, and I haven't been able to get that much truth out to the public in ten years!"
Here is Prince Edward's letter:
The article by Ann Zimmerman "Trail of Tears", August 1, is full of calculated lies and distortions, to my personal knowledge. I am a registered Cherokee from the greatest Cherokee family (Ross) and have been a college professor of mathematics for nearly 40 years.
Your quote from a "Cherokee Nation" source (unnamed, of course) that our beloved man, our "Oukah" (always translated as 'king') was a joke means only that this writer is ignorant beyond belief. Without this Oukah there currently would be no "Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma" or any legal governments of the "Five Civilized Tribes" (all of which are nations, not tribes). I know who he is, what he represents, and what he has done and said. He is my elder brother.
Danny Hair's quote that he did not recognize the Oukah's Cherokee language in last year's ceremony at the Chief Bowles marker in East Texas is remarkable. If Hair had been present (which he was not) he would have learned up front that the Oukah would do the ceremony in the ancient ceremonial dialect of the "Kutani" (high priesthood). I personally translated each phrase into English. (note: there are only 2 and 1/2 incantations in the Kutani language extant, translated into Cherokee, and from the Cherokee into English).
The current Oukah has been written about off and on since 1962. He inherited the ancient Cherokee title, plus the Emperor title taken by the Cherokee Oukah (who ruled the three Cherokee Nations) in 1729, which was confirmed by King George II of England in 1730 when the Cherokees then visiting London signed our first treaty with a foreign power. When members of our family wrote the Cherokee Constitution of 1827, the ancient ways and customs were never abolished. We take pride in keeping them alive today, and our royal status has been "recognized" by every world leader and royal personage that we care about. Zimmerman has proof of that in her (your) files and knew it when she wrote her vengeful article.
I join my brother in deploring these white people muddying our waters, bringing disgrace upon us, and selling "certified degrees of blood" cards and non-native arts and crafts as genuine. These very people are not worthy of even speaking the name of our spiritual leader, our beloved Oukah, who has courageously, at the risk of his own life, restored to us something genuine from the past, asking nothing for himself.
His Royal and Imperial Highness
Prince Edward of Tsalagi
The Cherokee Nations.
The Oukah wrote:
Under a photograph of me (any resemblance to anyone living or dead must be accidental) in your August 1 issue, you wrote the caption "His Royal and Imperial Majesty, the Oukah, a claim the Cherokee Nation disputes".
Let me put things in sequence. I inherited the Oukah and Emperor titles, which belong to my family, in 1968. Later that year, I sent a message to my people which brought about a lawsuit. The court decision, some three years later, gave the "Five Civilized Tribes" (all of which are legal nations) the right to form and elect their own governments again.
In 1975, some "white businessmen" established the "Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma". Many Cherokees do not recognize it as a legitimate government. There is no authority in their constitution to "recognize" an Emperor. They have no jurisdiction over me or my family affairs, but they may owe their very existence to me.
For the hateful, misleading implication of your remarks, I think you owe me and your readers an apology.
His Royal and Imperial Majesty
The Oukah
Emperor of Tsalagi
The Cherokee Nations
Dallas.
NOTE: Everybody knows that the Constitution of the USofA forbids the use of royal titles in this country. And, as usual, what everybody believes is wrong! The Constitution says only that the federal government shall not have the power to GRANT such titles. Obviously, neither the Cherokee Oukah or the Hawaiian royalty alive today have any such titles from the present federal government, and would spit in their eye if offered one! Their titles are more than a thousand years old, going back to the beginning of their history.
The Oukah has said to some: "If you don't like it you certainly have my permission to go back to whereever the hell your people came from!"