Joe White Tree is a member of the Euchee Tribe, and knows the old legends. |
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Joe White Tree, while playing cards on March 26, 2006, is interrupted by two young men, wanting to ask questions. The shorter one starts off by lying. Joe doesn’t want to deal with him, but the taller one is truthful, so Joe answers the questions. He tells of the story of the Indian tribe who lived on that land nearby.
"I'll tell you what my grandfather told me; what his grandfather told him. Two hundred years ago, a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant, the cavalry impatient. As my grandfather put it, on the night the moon and the sun share the sky as equals, the cavalry first raided our village. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again, and the next, and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time. And by the time the sun rose, every man, woman, and child still in the village was dead. They say on the sixth night, as the chief of the village lay dying, he whispered to the heavens that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. Nature would rise up and protect the valley. And it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people. And on the night of the sixth day, none would survive."The liar confirms the legend says six days, before the two thank him and leave.