What follows is an incredibly eloquent view of modern life in the old Creek Country. Those of us who reside here now would do well to view this passage in a more real sense than I'm sure its author intended. The spirits of those whose land this was are still very much present and can indeed be found, and their voices be heard, in quiet places for those who know how to listen. Although the deepest parts of my Cherokee soul feel more at home in the ridges and valleys Where the Buzzard's Wings Touched the Earth, I grew in and grew to love the ancient home of the Muskogee. I like to think that its ghosts have accepted me too.
Enjoy...
"If you would know the early people of the (Chattahoochee) Valley better, you must search for them in their river home. You will find them in the sun-dappled canebrakes on the river banks and in the shadowy, black-water swamps, thick with vines and roaring with the drone of mosquitoes. You will find them in the melancholy light of winter afternoon on the river and in the earth-smell of a handful of clay. They are in the absurd squawk of the great blue heron and in the brilliant white slash of an egret probing in the bright green marsh grass. You will find them in the muscular suppleness of a water moccasin and in the pounding, contrapuntal rhythm of the nightheart, throbbing with calls of frogs and toads and pierced from time to time with the unearthly cry of the bobcat and the shrieks of the dreaded owls. They are with you when you swat at the droves of ever-present mosquitoes that swarm over the river in the hot months or when you marvel at the light caught in the branches of the sycamore trees on the river's banks. They are in the silvery leaves of the river birches whipped by the wind. They look upward with you at the silently circling black buzzards, now rising on the thermal winds, now spiraling steadily downward. They can be found in the deep, dusky green river on a hot summer day. The same water that laves you laved them. They are in the great thunderheads rolling in over the river and the sudden fury of the frontal storms, crackling with lightning and growling with thunder. Every time you hear the chilling rattle of the canebrake rattlesnake in the grass, they are with you. You will find them consorting with the catfish in the river's depths and with the alligators sunning themselves on the banks.
They can be found in the loud thwack of a beaver slapping it's tail on the water, the rustling sound that comes from the cane stalks in the wind, the sibilant hissing of the rain on the river, the drumming noise the rain makes on the summer leaves. You will find them in the whistling hiss the alligator gar makes when it surfaces in the darkness and the metallic glint of a shad's body deep down in the water. Especially they are in the soughing of the wind through the pines, the beady eye and mighty wingspread of the eagle, the tantalizing smell of wood smoke, the dry whistle of the deer in the deep woods, the singing of a hot fire on a winter's night, the sight of a long V of geese soaring overhead, the millions of stars in the night sky above the Chattahoochee. They said they would be in the stars. Look for them there."
-William W. Winn from The Old Beloved Path: Daily Life Among the Indians of the Chattahoochee River Valley
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