The Way to Happiness
participated in this year’s annual Intertribal Powwow in Clarksville,
Tennessee.
The Native Cultural Circle
(NCC) of Clarksville held its eighteenth annual Intertribal Powwow earlier this
month with festivities all weekend long. Attendees came from all walks of life
and enjoyed learning about and exploring Native American culture and
traditions.
The Powwow is held each
year in a location with special significance to Native peoples. According to
the website, “during the Indian Removal of 1838, the Cherokee nation was taken
from their traditional homes in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and
Alabama, and forcefully relocated to the Indian Territories in what later
became Oklahoma. The Powwow grounds lay along the northern land route. Diary
records of the removal identify Port Royal, as ‘the last stop before leaving
Tennessee, and as an encampment site where the Cherokee stayed overnight or
longer to re-supply, grind corn and rest.’”
During the removal, an
estimated 4,000 - 6,000 Cherokee died. The journey became known as “The Trail
of Tears” or, as a direct translation from the Cherokee Nunna daul Tsuny, “The
Trail Where They Cried.”
The powwow is a time to
commemorate the Trail of Tears and special ceremonies are held in remembrance
of it.
This year, a volunteer
from the Way to Happiness Foundation was welcomed to the powwow to distribute
booklets written by humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1980s. The Way to
Happiness booklet contains a common sense moral code that is interreligious and
can be used by anyone.
Rebecca Carter, the
volunteer for The Way to Happiness said, “This booklet, when distributed to
people in need, has such a great effect. You see whole communities uplifted
once they learn the values contained within.”
More than two-hundred booklets
were distributed to those attending the Intertribal Powwow. For more
information, visit thewaytohappiness.org. For more information on the next
Intertribal Powwow, visit discoverclarksville.com.
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