The Peppermint Unicorn

Ten years ago if you had told me I would be homeless, my Mom dead, all of my material possessions, and assets gone. I would not have believed it.

I walk in Nature in Alabama, where my Mvskoke Indian ancestors once called Home. They were driven out of their homes by colonialists who forced them to hand over their lives and possessions. Indians were haphazardly counted like cattle. Their names illegibly scribbled in books called ‘Indian Rolls,’ by unscrupulous Indian Agents moving from etvlwv to etvlwv. Indians were torn apart from all they knew, and many close kin they would never see again.

The Indigenous Tribes of the southeast were forced to walk in treacherous conditions for over a thousand miles to a land nothing like the lush green, warm environment of the southeast. The genocidal march is known as The Trail of Tears. The Indians were a financial inconvenience for foreign settlers who needed land to farm. These settlers killed men, women and children to possess the lands. Even the Christian settlers killed.

Some of the Indians of Alabama escaped the mass genocide, and the forced march. Some assimilated into the new ways in Alabama. Some just wandered through these woods, without a Home. They had to watch others take their ancestral homelands and they could do nothing about it. That is pure evil. I can relate to this as, I too, wander Alabama. I must watch others who stole my land live in a safe place, while I have no Home. My land was stolen from me by corrupt judges, police officers, politicians and agencies of the federal government who are supposed to uphold the law.

Not one treaty promised to the Indians of any tribe has ever been honored by the U.S. Government. They were lied to since day one, and nothing has changed. The U.S. Government has never apologized for the mass genocide of the Indigenous Peoples of what is now called America. Why no one wants to admit the genocide occurred is beyond me. There were more Indigenous Peoples killed in the world than any other group in history, going back hundreds of years or longer.

When I walk through the forests of Alabama, I feel a oneness and peace with the environment. I imagine catching a glimpse of a tvstenvke’s painted face and feathers peering from behind a tree. I see an old Mvskoke Indian woman walking towards me with precious herbs in a conch shell to cure my sadness. Sometimes there are many men on horses beckoning me to follow them Home. I go to the sacred mound to pray to my ancestors and feel the medicine of the heles hiya. I know these are illusions. But who is to say if I am communicating with my ancestors or not? I prefer to think I am. I know they are protecting me. The medicine is strong. 🪶

– The Peppermint Unicorn 🍬🦄🪶🪶🪶