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American Native Press Archives and Sequoyah Research Center |
A Collection of Works by William Eubanks [a machine-readable transcription] |
William Eubanks (or Unenudi), the son of a white adopted father and Cherokee mother, was one of the outstanding Cherokee intellectuals of the nineteenth century. As a young man he joined the Confederate army in the American Civil War under the celebrated Cherokee general, Stand Watie, and reached the rank of captain. After the war Eubanks taught school, but distinguished himself as a translator for the Cherokee Nation from 1870 until the nation was dissolved in 1906. For many of those years he translated for the Cherokee Advocate, the official newspaper of the Cherokee Nation. He also translated the constitution and laws of the nation in 1893 and later in that decade served as translator for the commission appointed by the Cherokee Nation to confer with the Dawes Commission. A self-taught linguist, in 1891 Eubanks invented a shorthand for the Sequoyan syllabary. In addition to his linguistic work, Eubanks was an essayist whose subjects included his amateur studies of astronomy, his unusual theories on the origins of the Indians, and his researches into ancient languages, religions, and philosophies. In 1893 he toured the South, lecturing on these subjects. Eubanks also wrote political commentary under the pen name Cornsilk. As Cornsilk, he fomented against the Dawes Commission's aim to dissolve the common tribal land titles and to allot individual parcels of the land to tribal members. Cornsilk foretold the vast changes that were to take place among the Cherokees after allotment and predicted its profound negative effects. His views reflected those of most of the members of the tribe. Eubanks married Eliza Thompson, and among their children was Royal Roger Eubanks, a teacher, artist, and writer whose works also appear in the Digital Library.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1892
"Hear ye all this moral maxim; and having heard it keep it well: Whatever be displeasing to yourselves never do to another. - Bstan-ligsur."
Several articles having recently appeared in our local press in regard to "Theosophy" and what it teaches, your readers would like to know, perhaps, something about the remarkable person to whom the Western world is indebted for the discovery of this new mine of knowledge. The professors and followers of "Theosophy" have taken Solomon's advice, where he says:
"My son - if thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, ... if thou criest after knowledge, ... then shalt thou find the knowledge of God." (Prov. 2; 2,3,5)
In pursuit of this knowledge - universal knowledge - a society has been formed called the "Theosophical Society," which has branches in various countries. No man knows or can know anything more of his creator and Governor than what He has chosen to exhibit of Himself through His works, and what that really is, goes with men by the name of "Truth." The leading maxim of Theosophists - "There is no religion higher than Truth" - in other words, higher than a knowledge of God - in a single word, higher than "Theosophy."
There are two doctrines or truths, however, upon which it lays special stress. They are called "Karma" and "Reincarnation."
Karma is based upon the fact if it is a fact - that every human being will be rewarded or punished according to his works or desserts. Yet, Theosophy as well as Christianity, teaches the doctrine of "justification by faith" and not by works. Let no smart man be in a hurry to see inconsistency in this - at least before he is thoroughly satisfied to see clearly. Because the [unintelligible] be more in his ability to see than in the things examined. If after gathering my crop of corn, I cannot see how it is that I have reaped the results of my sowing and work, and yet would nor could have reaped any crop at all, had it not been for the soil, the atmosphere, the sunshine and the rain furnished me free - if I cannot see how both facts may be true and consistent with each other the fault may be in my seeing faculty and not in the things seen.
So much for "Karma." The other prominent doctrine is an old one in the world, though new in our part of it. Reincarnation teaches that the real man or individual returns to earth over and over again, and takes on a new body, something like a man who wears out one suit of clothes and then another and another, supplying himself with a new suit as the old ones wear out. It is the same man but not the same vestments. So it is the same soul but not the same body. One body wears out, and the man or soul clothes himself with another. That one wears out also, and a new one is taken and worn out too, and so on until the purpose of living and changing is fully accomplished and then comes the end.
The sum of both doctrines - Karma and Reincarnation - is that what a human being sows in this life he reaps, and reaps in this life, or some other life on this or some other earth - the interim between lives being spent in heaven, or some place of rest and happiness, whatever name may be given it. Life on that earth is, therefore, just what the living man has made or is making it, so far in particular as concerns his sorrow, trouble and unhappiness. If he has done anything of consequence that is good, besides getting a fair equivalent in joy in some life afterwards, he gets more than an equivalent of blessing in the rosy existence that follows and precedes the trials and labors of material existence.
Under such circumstances, man is, of course, bound to progress and rise higher in the scale of being as he learns the lessons of experience, and a constant though regular growth upward is one of the teachings of "Theosophy."
This ancient Wisdom Religion, or Theosophy, though old as the hills, is new to the Western World. It was brought from the East by Madam Helena P. Blatvatsky, a Russian Countess who was born 1831 and died last May a year ago. [Unintelligible] good and kind woman [unintelligible] life of blameless benevolence [unintelligible] and suffered immense [unintelligible] at the hands of many whom she sought to benefit. In 1875, she and Col. Olcott founded the Theosophical Society in New York, a second one in India and a third in London. This is all one Society. It cannot be otherwise, although divided into sections and branches, as it is founded on unity - the brotherhood of man, excluding neither race or sex, to its membership.
[unintelligible] before Madame Blavatsky was abused and mistreated; especially by a class of men calling themselves Scientists whom a writer named Dr. E.F. Coues may be said to represent. This man gave in the New York Sun an account, endorsed by that Journal, of Madame Blavatsky and her doings and beliefs. The truth of these allegations and charges were challenged and disputed. Read what the Sun of September 26th 1892, says: -
"We take occasion to observe that on July 20, 1890, we were misled into admitting to the The Sun's columns an article by Dr. E. F. Coues of Washington, in which allegations were made against Madame Blavatsky's character, and also against her followers, which appear to have been without solid foundation. Mr. Judge's article disposes of all questions relating to Madame Blavatsky as represented by Dr. Coues, and we desire to say that his allegations respecting the theosophical Society and Mr. Judge personally are not sustained by evidence, and should not have been printed."
Judge for yourself what all that amounts to so far as Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy is con- [unintelligible] noble and kind-hearted [unintelligible] was dispi-[unintelligible] and abused [unintelligible] wrote after this style [unintelligible] disciples:
"Behold the truth before you; A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for ones co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive instruction, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perception which the secret science depicts - these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom 1"
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 19, 1883
Mr. Editor: -- I have before me a compass, with the little magnet so ingeniously arranged upon its delicate pivot that, when slightly disturbed, it not only vibrates from side to side but also dips up and down until it comes to a perfect rest.
The compass is nothing (as your readers well know) but a box containing a magnet, which constantly points north and south -- more particularly, the positive pole of the magnetic needle points to the negative magnetic pole of the earth. Consequently the geographical north pole of the earth is the magnetic south pole. So on the other hand the negative pole of the magnetic point to the north, or positive magnetic pole of the earth, or to the geographical south pole of the earth. The geographical north pole of the earth is farther than the magnetic pole in the same direction -- that is, the dip of the needle is such that it stands perpendicular at a point a little north of Hudson's Bay, about 70° north latitude. The verticle dip towards the south pole of the earth is in about 70° south latitude. On the other hand there are points about the equator where the needle is with the horizon, and consequently the dip is nil. These are some among the wonderful proprieties of the magnet.
Now the question comes up -- what is it? This is a problem with which the greatest of the great scientific minds have grappled with for ages, or ever since those barbarian Chinese gave us the magnet with nothing in the way of a solution "to amount to a hill of beans." The Chinese, no doubt can easily solve this problem, and give us [original unintelligible] and wherefore [original unintelligible] degrading for a civilized [original unintelligible] to go to those barbarians for information. It would be more honorable and christian-like to steal the secret and then claim it as our own. But [original unintelligible] we have no way of communicating with these confounded barbarians, in order to get them to reveal to us the mysterious nature of the magnet, we will try to solve the problem for ourselves. So here goes:
We all know that a rock or any other solid, composed of different kinds of elements of matter when let go at any distance from the earth's surface directly points or falls towards the earth's center. Why do solids invariable fall down towards the earth's center? The answer is, because the bodies are influenced by that mysterious principle or force known as gravitation, and which is said to be a primitive property of matter -- we might very properly add, solid matter. Again, where cork is let go down at any distance in water, it rises towards the zenith, or, as we might with equal propriety say, it falls up. Certain gasses rise in air -- why is this? The philosopher will say, because the cork is lighter than water -- because gas is lighter than air.
Again, a little bit of steel placed on a pivot, after having its back rubbed with a piece of lodestone, or which answers the same purpose, after a current of electricity has passed through it, to open up the pores of the steel, as we would suppose, or to arrange its molecular construction points, as we have said before, north and south. Now, we all know, or at least we think we know, that it is not a property of ordinary iron or steel to fall towards the north or south. Why then does the magnet point north or south? "Now comes the tug of war."
The reason is simply this: Iron or steel is no part of magnetism whatever, nor more than that wood is a part of the fire -- "fire" is said to be "caloric acting through a material substance." So we might say of magnetism, that it is pure matter acting through a compound material substance. What we mean by a compound material substance is simply this: Any kind of matter that is composed of two or more elements of matter of different kinds; such as rocks, water, iron, etc.
This iron or steel part of the magnet there is nothing but the medium through which the magnetic force acts. Only this and nothing more. After the passage way has been made in the steel by having its molecules peculiarly arranged by the transmission of an electric current through it, the steel is then said to be magnetized. And when it is thus prepared, then the way is opened up for the passage of this hitherto unexplainable force known as magnetism, and which is nothing but pure matter in its original, unadulterated, uncompounded ultra-gaseous state. These elements are divided into two great classes -- the positive and the negative -- each with its own peculiar property or force called positive and negative magnetism. Now the bulk of the positive elements are situated in the south, and go to make up the southern hemisphere of the earth -- that is, the south half of our globe interiorly is composed of the positive elements only. Likewise the northern half of our globe is composed of, or filled with, the negative elements of matter. These elements have the natural or primordial property of attracting one another -- the positive attracting the negative and vice versa.
Now, owing perhaps to the enormous pressure of the ever contracting crust of the earth and other causes, one of which may be the intense heat generated at the point of contact of the elemental masses, these elements move towards their respective poles -- for it is a well known fact, that whatever conducts heat also conducts electricity, or in other words the magnetic elements, and after escaping through the poles into open space, so to speak, the positive elements from the south move in a current toward the north by virtue of the attractive influence extended by the negative elements in the north, and vice versa. This wonderful ocean of pure matter passes through all things but more perceivable in the shell of the earth.
Some of this iron, which has been in situ for ages undisturbed, when dug from the mine is found to be magnetic, hence we call it magnetic iron ore, or lodestone, simply because it is loaded with the magnetic atmosphere.
Now it may be asked what [original unintelligible] after they reach the poles? [original unintelligible] this question by saying, that the poles become charged, so to speak -- the magnetic atmosphere. The positive current after it reaches the negative pole, the point from which the negative element. [original unintelligible] result of which union presents itself to us in the form of the aurora borealis in the north -- the aurora australis in the south. Another visible and tangible result of this union is the creation of crude matter known as cosmic or meteoric dust.
By William Eubanks
Indian Chieftain, April 7, 1887
The Jewish antiquities, as written by Josephus, 2 and the first books of the bible, as written by Moses, suggest some unusual inquiries in the mind of the reader. In the book of Exodus we read that as Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethio, in Mount Horeb he saw a burning bush and turned aside to “see this great sight,” why the bush was not consumed. When he had turned aside, “God called unto him out of the midst of the bush.” That part of the bible which Moses wrote, says that he was learned in all the lore of the Egyptians. What that lore consisted of may be the history of the creation and of many things not connected with the exodus of the Jews, their laws and wanderings. Josephus, in his Jewish antiquities speaks of a wonderful plant which he calls the Baaras plant, and which he says was present death to any one who touched it. It was only harmless when taken up by the roots. The usual way of doing this was to dig all around it until by a small root it was attached to the ground, when it was easily pulled loose by tying a dog by his tail to it and giving him a big scare. The last serious effect that bush had was the sudden demise of the dog. Josephus further says of the bush that Solomon used it in driving evil spirits out of the people, or demons as he called them. The root was the color of flame, and at evening the bush emitted rays of light like lightning. From the midst of the flames of the burning bush God told His name to Moses. I AM, as He then gave it, is Jehovah, the person being changed so as to mean, He IS. There is what may be termed a coincidence with the burning bush. The true name of the Cherokees is “Tsi-lu-kee” which in English means fire consumers or being consumed by fire. The name is written on their persons invisible to any but the initiate.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 11, 1884
Mr. Editor – Sometime about the middle of last October I noticed a peculiar red sky in the west directly after sunset. What attracted my attention was simply this: after the sun had gone down, the sky turned very red, something like the color of the red northern light; and as this red appearance approached nearer the horizon it assumed more the form of a band until it finally disappeared below the horizon. Not expecting anything more I was astonished to see the sky coloring up the second time. Not being a very early riser, it was sometime before I discovered that this phenomenon, in a reversed order, preceded sunrise.
My first impression was, that it was nothing but an ordinary red sun-set, caused by the accumulation of moisture in the upper regions of the atmosphere, and consequently did not think much about it, at the same time was somewhat puzzled to know why it should blaze out twice. This thing has continued to behave in the same way every clear evening, and as I have been taking morning observations for four or five weeks past. I would safely say, every morning, for two months, or ever since the middle of October last.
For the last two or three weeks I have been deeply interested in this strange phenomenon. After I found out that this great red dragon rose and set with the sun, I very reasonably suspected that he traveled with the sun. And my suspicions have not been groundless either; for this mysterious nebulous mass, whatever it may be can be seen all through the day following the sun in his daily course from east to west, floating along on the atmosphere of the earth in the form of three or four dim streaks resembling in some measure the cirro-stratus clouds.
Now I will try to describe to you how this thing first appears in the eastern sky at daylight and of course before sunrise.
The first thing you observe in the east, just at dawn, is a red band parallel with the eastern horizon. This band rises higher and higher until it overspread the whole sky and finally sets in the west. In a few minutes another band or streak presents itself which is [original unintelligible] into the preceding one [original unintelligible] individuals who [original unintelligible] about the time this [original unintelligible] luminous appearance [original unintelligible] as it begins to take the form of a half circle of a dull red color and a brilliant white sky in the center of the circle. Now about this time you will see the same thing in the west, caused perhaps by a reflection of this circle in the east. The last luminous red-mass rises higher and overspreads the sky like the first one and finally sets in the west, but the dull red circle remains. After this circle rises higher, dim white streaks can be seen in the circle and also on the outside. These white streaks are parallel with the eastern horizon, or in other words they run from north to south. After the sun gets up two or three hours high, and from that time to within two hours of sun-set two or more dim streaks can be seen directly under the sun running from east to west, extending more to the east than to the west. The mass seems to bank up more to the south. On December 26th there was a stiff wind blowing from the north. On the day following the circle about the sun assumed a dirty red color. On the 28th of December the wind blew strongly from the south, and the circle almost disappeared; in its stead there was a brilliant appearance resembling illuminated sand in the air. The evening of Jan 2nd was remarkable in those two particulars; the white streaks seemed to shoot from every direction, especially from the north, and to meet at a point a little south of where the sun went down. The same evening after sun-set the red color was more in the south as though the mass had drifted to the south and the color in the north-west was yellow when the sky seemed to be almost free from this nebulous stuff. This evening (Jan. 3rd) the mass is banked up in the south and directly over where the sun went down it is clear, and while there is no color in that direction, the north-west is illuminated; but strange to say, the color is yellowish instead of red. While in the south the color is a dark purple. The sunset appearance is exactly like the sun-rise appearance with this exception; it is the first illumination at sun-set that reflects a semicircle in the east, and on the contrary it is the last sun-rise illumination that gives the red semi-circle in the west. A great portion of the light of the sun is cut off from us by this strange power of the air. The questions that naturally present themselves are these: What is it? Where did it come from? What will become of it? Does it foretell good or will it bring destruction to the inhabitants of the earth?
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 18, 1884
Editor Advocate: - A few days ago I sent to your office a little notice with the above heading in which I made an attempt to describe the phenomenon that displays its beauty to us in the arm of red sunsets in the evenings and beautiful sunrise of the same color in the mornings. This strange appearance it seems, is awakening general interest throughout the world. Now my reason for penning these lines for publication is to arouse curiosity and inquiry. We wish to exchange views with others. We are deeply interested in this wonder of the upper deep, and would like to have some man solve the problem and tell us what it is and what it means. I proposed to give my opinion in regard to the nature and origin of this meteoric phenomenon; and although it may not be able to convince others of the correctness of my hypothesis, which I honestly give to the readers of the ADVOCATE, it will be some satisfaction to me to know that it will take some scientific fellow to refute the argument.
Before I go any further though, I want it distinctly understood that I stand upon two rocks, or in other words I have two theories to offer, so that in case some scientific opponent should maul one of my rocks into sand, or in other words prove my theory to be false, I will throw my weight on the other. And right here, before I forget it, I will further state that I propose to deal with this strange matter with that powerful faculty of the human mind known as horse-sense. The pen that dips into spiritual ink and talks about the wrath of God and the judgment day, we will pay no attention to whatever. Having the way thus blazed out we will now give our first theory in as few words as possible. And moreover we will state the theory in a manner so as not to be misunderstood.
In the first place the sun, the center and heart of the Solar System, is an organized body, just the same as the Earth, an animal or a plant. The interior of the sun is composed of two solid masses or globes, the one in the southern hemisphere I call the positive, and the one in the northern I call the negative globe. These two globes are joined together by flat or worn surfaces, and at the point of contact enormous heat is generated which on the other hand develops enormous quantities of electricity. This heat tends to disintegrate the constituent elements of which these two globes are composed. The disintegrated elements from the positive globe fly from the point of contact towards the pole of that globe, that is to say towards the positive pole of the positive globe.
The disintegrated elements from the negative globe, likewise driven by the intense heat, move from the point of contact towards the pole of the negative globe. Now there is a current of these elements continually flowing from the point of contact towards each pole -- the positive elements from the face of the positive mass moving towards the positive pole, and on the other hand the negative elements from the face of the negative globe moving towards the negative pole. Some man might say that this is contrary to the nature of things -- contrary to reason -- “contrary to scripture” -- I say it is not. What is it that heat cannot do? why heat is a god within its self. Heat is the force that is driving the universe. Heat can drive positive matter to the positive pole and negative matter to the negative pole. [original unintelligible] or you [original unintelligible] momentary digression [original unintelligible] the main subject [original unintelligible].
Now the positive elements from the south pole of the sun meet the negative elements at the equator and directly or nearly over the point of contact on the two globes. Here these elements accumulate until the pressure on the upper viscous envelope becomes enormous. Let me repeat, -- the pressure becomes enormous. And if the viscous envelope did not give, the result would be a solar explosion. But wise nature has so ordered, that when the pressure becomes great, enormously great, the envelope gives, and the great mess of uncombined positive and negative matter forces its way through the covering, and in the form of a huge bubble rises on the outside of the sun and forms what the astronomer calls a protuberance. These protuberances in the majority of cases explode and the astronomer, ignorant of what these phenomena are, simply calls them “solar spots.”
Now every intelligent man knows that the sunspots have reached their maximum period. That is they have kept on increasing until from this time on for seven years they will decrease. I saw a great spot only a few days ago, which if it had been measured in world measure would have exceeded the Earth in size.
Now these sun spots have been bursting for ages back, constantly at work removing the inside dust of the sun which we call positive and negative matter and scattering it out in space about the sun, forming what is today called the “Zodiacal light,” and which extends to an enormous distance from the sun, sometimes reaching and sometimes exceeding the terrestrial orbit. This zodiacal light has protuberances on it also known among astronomers as cones. Now strange to say, the Earth entered one of these cones about the first of September and passed out the last of October, and then entering a large cone in November out of which she will not pass until sometime in the latter part of March. So that if our red twilights continue until then or even to the last of May, because the Earth enters another cone in April from which it does not emerge until the last of May, then I for one will be convinced that the phenomenon is caused by the Earth’s passing through the Zodiacal light, which is universally and remarkably dense in this year.
Now if my theory is correct, we shall pass out of this heavenly dust, which the gods have swept out of their dwelling places about the last of March or May. The reason why I say that we are likely to pass through the latter part of March is because the cone that the Earth passes through in April and May is a small one. Yet it may be that this matter is just as dense in this little cone as any other, so I have fixed the time of our complete emergence from this red dust to the last of March, and if it continues it cannot last any longer than the latter part of May. Unless the gods have “kicked up an awful dust.” So then, if this peculiar crimson sunset [original unintelligible] them, and further if it disappears gradually then my theory will be hard to upset.
I am satisfied that the phenomenon is of cosmic origin or in other words sun dust, and the very thing that constitutes the Zodiacal light. One of these cones can be seen at this time in the western horizon directly after twilight. The others can be seen at different times of the year, either in the east or in the west before sunrise and after sunset.
If I had not promised to be brief in my statement I would have said something about meteoric showers but at this time I cannot.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, February 7, 1894
In my paper on “The Seed of the Plant and the Spirit of Man,” I gave the short outlines of the septenary constitution of man, as taught by the Wisdom Religion of the East. In the above named paper I described as well as I could in my rough way the four principles of man, commencing with the body, the astral body respectively, and closing with the animal soul as the fourth principle.
Now in this paper I propose to still dwell on the fourth principle of man, and deal with it in such an explicit manner as to be sure that I will not be misunderstood. I hope too that no one will take offence at what I say, because I shall make these assertions in good faith and with no other intention only with the view of teaching the truth. Of course some will say that that is too rough, and that milder language should have been used. In answer to this I might say, whoever accused Nature of being too rough in making an effort to teach her children her grand truths? If you plunge your hand into a heap of live coals of fire and get punished for your ignorance, would you say to the fire, you are a little too rough? Or fall off of a stump and get your head bumped and skinned, would you be so foolish as to curse that stump or swear at the laws of gravitation? Men are so stupid, that in order to teach them anything you have got to be, like Nature, a little rough.
The fourth principle of man, as I stated in my other paper is called the soul, more particularly the animal soul. This animal soul of man, according to the teachings of the Wisdom Religion, is the vehicle of all our desires, emotions, together with our nervous and sensory nature, and lower intellect.
And as I said before, the individual or race who has evolved nothing higher than the animal soul is low in his ideas, groveling, covetous, unjust, sneaking, and scheming, a covenant breaker, dishonest, with no love for God and Godly things, with no religion except that grossest kind of religion known as state-craft, which is nothing but the weapon of the thief by means of which he obtains great quantities of land and makes his brother a common tax payer. The man with nothing higher than the animal soul does all this and more, in the name of God, in the name of Christ, in the name of Religion, in the name of good and in the name of love for his fellow man.
What is to become of us Indians with such a race of people to contend with? We see them all through our country. One class saying to us: Step back, you are in the way of commerce. Another class, in a Christian way demanding a hundred and sixty acres of land on which to stand to tell us that the great God, who so loved the human race that He made a lake of fire and brimstone in which to plunge them. Give them the hundred and sixty acres they so much covet and they next demand of you in the name of God to build them a church house which they ever after claim as their own property, this done they next demand of you in the name of Christ to furnish it with organs and pianos, this done, they demand of you to pay church tax as long as you live or as long as you are a member of the church. If you object to paying tax, you are immediately excommunicated, and called a backslider and son of the devil by these money making, land grabbing materialists called Christians, who are deeply interested in the welfare of an Indian’s soul as long as he has any land. This class of Christians have laid claims all over our country, looking forward to the time, as they say, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ. But as Christ simply means anointed, I suppose these land and money Christians only mean that these Indian nations and lands will eventually become the property of the well greased. These so-called good people, these so-called Christians, who, it seems ought to know the spiritual meaning of the “Golden Rule,” are those monopolizing our lands and stealing them in the name of God, in the name of Christ as they say, but really to satisfy that craving of covetousness, that insatiable greed that emanates from the low-down animal soul of the unregenerated, undeveloped man, who has as yet evolved into nothing higher than a hog and hominy loving animal, whose sole delight is to revel in corrupt matter.
Now these common hog and hominy preachers who come into this country with no other object in view than to gull people out of their money and lands, whose sole object is to peddle out the gospel of the kingdom to the Indian whose spiritual welfare, as I said before he is so deeply interested in, as long as he has any land, know only two passages in the Bible. The first is, “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” In expounding this godly passage, he gives his hearers a hell-fired description of God’s mercy in constructing this lake of fire and brimstone and throws weak-minded women and idiotic men almost into fits.
Now he has everything cleared. He has blazed the way to accomplish his object. In the afternoon, this great man of God quotes the appropriate text from Solomon’s Proverbs--“The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.” Then the money comes in, more and more. Then the man of God gives thanks “that the spirit has been with us this day.” The preacher goes home proud, as only an animal could be under the circumstances, laughs in his sleeve, and exclaim with “Puck,” “what fools these mortals be.” 3
Is this all of the Christian religion? Is this the spiritual teaching of Christ? Is this the esoteric part of the Sermon on the Mount? If you say it is, with due deference to you and everybody, I say damn any such religion.
Does God approve of the way that these civilized people of great America are imposing upon us Indians? Does He approve of the great fish lies that these Christians are getting up on us? Does He smile at the progress His inspired hog and hominy religion is making? If you say He does, then with due deference to you and everybody, I say damn any such God. For a civilized cruelty is worse than the cruelty of the savage, and the brutality of those who know better is more cruel than that of the brute, which shows its nature and has not the stimulus of mind to refine its malice.
“This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.” 4
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, March 7, 1884
Editor Advocate:--In a little article I wrote sometime ago on magnetism, I concluded by saying that meteoric dust, which is abundantly found about the polar regions was a creation of the electric phenomenon known as the polar aurora or, as I should have said, the creation of meteoric dust is attended with electrical phenomena.
Now, in this article, I will endeavor to substantiate my statement by bringing up everything, consistent with the length of this paper in the shape of evidence that may be considered as strong proof in favor of the hypothesis, if not positively demonstrating it to be a fact. And if we can actually prove the correctness of the theory, aside from its novelty, we can at least say that another hard shell scientific nut has been cracked.
All will admit that, we have an atmosphere extending to a distance of a hundred miles up or away from the earth’s surface. This atmosphere may extend to a greater distance than a hundred miles directly over the equatorial regions of the earth but at any rate is deeper about the equator, and gradually diminishes or wedges off as we go either north or south, until we get in the neighborhood of the poles where it is almost entirely wanting, or at least so rare as to extend to a distance of only a few miles. This atmosphere in which rain, snow and hail are formed, in which clouds float and storms sport we will call the aqueous atmosphere. This aqueous atmosphere is the medium in which rise and float the inflated little globules of water in the form of vapor and clouds. These globules raised by solar heat after they reach a solid stratum of air in the upper regions of the atmosphere, dispense with the ether or whatever else they are inflated with and the conditions being favorable, become condensed and aggregate into drops of rain and fall back to the earth from whence they came. Some time these globules of water during the process of uniting freeze, and owing to the influence of repulsion and attraction of the elements concerned in the creation we have a shower of crystals of aqueous formation of beautiful and different forms, known as snow. Some time these globules consolidate to such an extent as to form masses of solid hailstones, weighing, in some cases, eight and even fourteen pounds. And were we not acquainted with Nature’s laws regarding the formation of these wonderful bodies, we would be very apt to say that, they fell from heaven--from the throne of Jupiter, or from the throne of some other mythical god.
The formation of hail in the upper regions of the atmosphere is accompanied with electrical phenomena of a peculiar yellowish cast, resembling the polar light in some respects, plainly visible in the day time and conspicuously so during the night.
Now, independent of what we call the aqueous atmosphere there is still another kind of atmosphere, which scientists have entirely overlooked. And the existence of which, with all their sagacity and acumen, they have not even suspected. This wonderful appendage to our globe I call the magnetic or metallic atmosphere. This magnetic atmosphere is the region in which rise and float, condense and consolidate, not the aqueous particles of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but the metallic particles evaporated so to speak, from that mysterious ocean that inflates and goes to make up the interior of our globe. This magnetic atmosphere is in form similar to the aqueous atmosphere, its greatest depth being directly over the equatorial regions, and touching the earth at the two points where the atmosphere proper ceases, or in other words, at the two poles.
This magnetic atmosphere extends to the distance of about ten times the terrestrial diameter, or at least we have strong reasons for believing that it does. Moreover, we have reasons for believing that this atmosphere runs to within a few hundred miles of the moon.
Now, however monotonous it may sound to your readers’ ears, I am compelled to say something more about positive and negative elements. These positive and negative elements are nothing but metallic vapor that has been evaporated, so to speak, from the point of contact of the heterogeneous elemental masses or hemispheres that go to constitute the interior of our globe. These hemispheres we call positive and negative hemispheres, because to the positive hemisphere belong those so-called forces known as positive magnetism and positive electricity, and to the negative hemisphere, those forces known as negative magnetism and negative electricity.
Now, at the point of contact of these two wonderful bodies we hold that, the original heat is still intensely great and consequently that there is generated an immense quantity of thermo-electricity. This first named force dislodges and drives these elements from the point of contact to their respective poles, that is to say, the positive elements are driven to the positive and the negative elements are driven to the negative pole of the earth. Now, as these elements reach and pass through their respective poles, they then move in an entire different direction, by reason of the temperature of the vapor being reduced in entering into a cold medium--the cold crust of the earth at the two poles. The positive elements now move toward the negative magnetic pole (the geographical north pole,) and the negative elements from the negative pole of the earth by virtue of that attractive influence which the positive has for the negative, and the negative has for the positive. This strange behavior of fine matter is what scientists call magnetism. Yet they do not know it to be metallic vapor, but have discovered and debated, or as they term it, pure force. This is all absolute nonsense, as far as I can see. I don't believe there is any force outside of matter, that can be called, strictly speaking, spiritual -- that is, an invisible nothing that has an existence and can be seen.
We will now follow one kind of these elements -- the positive -- because the negative magnetic pole toward which they are moving, is nearer to us. In the first place we know that there is a current of positive stuff, of some sort or another, moving towards the geographical North Pole, by the way the magnet behaves. This current is the positive metallic vapor moving towards the negative magnetic pole, the point from which emanates the negative elements. This magnetic current of metallic vapor is drawn towards the negative pole by the attractive influence of a mass of elements of an opposite nature. These positive metallic elements dive down into the earth in about 70° North latitude. This diving down at this point is called the magnetic pole -- at this point the magnet stands with the positive pole perpendicularly downwards.
Now the question comes, why does the magnet dip with its positive pole down? Simply because the northern hemisphere is charged with the negative elements. The positive elements seek to combine with the opposite elements and consequently are drawn in that direction. It is utterly beyond my philosophy to give you the inside reason why these opposite elements attract one another.
Now, on the other hand, the negative elements from the point of contact in the earth's interior move towards the negative pole by the heat as we have said, meet and come in contact once more with the positive elements, and both kinds of elements now move together and shoot out at the pole, and all the conditions being now favorable, the opposite elements unite and produce real concrete metallic substance, or ferruginous dust, that is a mist of iron particles. This combination takes place when the elements are in the magnetic atmosphere, something to the distance of a hundred miles from the earth's polar surface. The combining of these elements is attended with enormous heat and consequently light. The light is what is known as the [original unintelligible] aurora. The very certain authentication of the existence on the earth, in the polar regions, of large quantities of ferruginous dust, and even of masses of meteoric iron, is all the evidence we want in support of our theory. There has even been observed a falling of dust upon the earth during several auroras.
Now, these metallic molecules, iron and other metals, aggregate into larger masses and form the meteoric iron and meteoric stones, which, after following the earth in the magnetic atmosphere for several days, and even months, finally fall to the earth, if not consumed in the atmosphere while falling, by friction. When they strike the atmosphere, however, loud detonations are sometimes heard. This detonation is not caused as some ignorant scientists suppose, by the breaking up of the meteorites, but simply by their sudden plunge into the aqueous atmosphere, which is something similar to dropping a large stone into deep water. nevertheless, the meteors break up at the same time.
Professor Young 5, in lecturing on meteors says, "there is one thing certain, that the constant fall of meteors has a tendency to make the earth larger." This great astronomer might just as well have told us that, the constant fall of rain from the clouds would have a tendency to make the ocean deeper.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, April 18, 1894
This is an age of freedom, in which a man can express his opinion on anything without fear. And taking advantage of this privilege, I wish to say, as far as I am concerned, I am in favor of lands in severalty and statehood. I am a progressive man and wish to keep up with the age of progress. I want a state so that we could have everything that people have in the States of the United States, such as whiskey, saloons, gambling halls, poor houses and other kind of houses, such as we find all over Christian America. These, in my opinion would be a great blessing to the Cherokee people. Another great privilege we would have if we were a state, and that would be the right to kill our old mothers and grand mothers for sixteen dollars and forty cents.
If we were citizens of a state, we could be frauds, thieves, robbers, cut-throats and sneaks and if we felt any ways modest after learning all these things, we could join the church, same as they do in the states.
More than this I am an educated man, or in other words I am an enlightened man and don't believe in a God, don't believe in any spirit, don't believe in the law of retribution, or the theosophical karma; I don't believe in justice. I believe in nothing but gold and silver and land. I believe in that Brother-in-red kind of religion that can ask the U. S. Government in the name of Christ to crush the Indian out of existence so that we can get his land.
I want courts of injustice established all over this country every two miles. Let us in these courts construe the treaties. If any part is in favor of the U. S., let's get on the housetops and talk loudly about the treaties being the `Supreme law of the land,' but if it favors the Indian, let's see if it won't bear another construction.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 17, 1894
Theosophy 6 teaches the septenary constitution of man, or in other words, the highly evolved animal known as man, is composed of or made up of seven principles. These principles, starting from the material pole are first the physical or the body of man consisting of a frame work of bones covered with flesh. This is the first principle and is the vehicle that contains all the other six principles. This body, like the plant, which evolves from a seed, is the material covering of the spiritual ego.
You take a grain of corn or any other kind of seed and plant it in the earth and furnish it with moisture and warmth and it will soon germinate into a tender plant. This plant, by means of organs, which we call roots, extracts nourishment from the earth, by means of which its body, stem or trunk increases in size, branches out into limbs, develops leaves which are nothing but the organs by means of which the plant breaths, finally blooms into beautiful blossoms, produces seed and then dies.
Now man is as I said before just like a plant. This is no new idea, for some one has said that man was nothing but a vegetable of the second growth. For as the plant comes from the seed, so man proceeds from a spiritual seed or ego. This spiritual ego becomes incarnated or in other words becomes clothed with flesh. This incarnation of the spirit is what is called the descent of spirit into matter. This spirit or eternal living principle teaches the body how to get nourishment from the earth and the result is that the body of a tender child becomes finally developed into that of a strong man or woman.
Now we have said that the body of a man corresponds to that of the plant. The plant of which we are speaking has vitality or a life of the body; this vitality, which in man is the second principle, is simply the life of the body, it is not the spirit at all, it is simply the impermanent, the earthly, the dying principle and like the seed of the plant that contains the eternal living principle, it dies. You must understand me now to say that the eternal living principle of the seed furnishes the plant with its vitality, just as the spiritual ego of man furnishes the body of man with its vitality. When the plant dies it has lost nothing but the vitality of the body. Its eternal living principle is in the seed. So when man dies, as we say, he has lost nothing but his plant-like bodily vitality. But nothing like death of the body can effect his eternal ego. Man’s spiritual ego is not only immortal, it is eternal as God himself, for how could it be otherwise as it is a spark emanating from the eternal. This spiritual ego of man after the death of the body, like the seed of the plant takes a rest, and in the course of time reincarnates.
The third principle of man is the astral body or double of a man, the actual man in a finer, more tenuous condition than the material man as we know him. This paper is too short to furnish you the evidence to demonstrate the real existence of this astral man. But it is the body within the material body, and as the body is the casket in which is contained vitality, so this astral body is the casket or house in which dwells the soul of man.
This soul, called by Theosophists the animal soul, is the fourth principle of man. This principle is the highest of the lower principles and is the seat of our desires, emotions, the lower intellect and the lower reasoning faculty. The lower animals have this soul in common with man only developed to a lesser extent, that is one reason why it is called the animal soul. A man who has evolved no higher principle than this animal soul, although he may have the intellect of a Shakespeare or the reasoning faculties of a Bacon or a Newton, he is nevertheless nothing but an educated brute. Few men among the so-called civilized races of today have evolved anything any higher than the animal soul. But as we have said before this animal soul is the vehicle that contains the three higher principles of man this lower or animal soul becomes subjugated and completely controlled by the higher principles. Whenever this occurs it is equivalent to saying that the man has evolved into the higher principles. If we will we can extricate ourselves from the influence of this powerful force, the animal soul, and evolve at will into the higher principles. But it requires the strength of a God to do this, but then as we are Gods it is reasonable to suppose that we have the strength to do this.
These four lower impermanent principles are sometimes arranged, by mystic philosophers, in the form or shape of a cross; and a man wishing to evolve into the higher principles has to conquer or kill out these lower principles, or in other words, become dead to them. It is said that such a man has been crucified on the cross--such a man then becomes a master. He rises from the dead--principles. And having evolved into the living principles he lives for ever more.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 19, 1894
“Behold, the mellow light that floods the eastern sky. In signs of praise both heaven and earth unite. And from the four-fold manifested powers, a chant of love ariseth, both from the flaming fire and flowing water, and from sweet smelling earth and rushing wind.”
“Hark, from the deep unfathomable vortex that golden light in which the victor bathes. All nature's wordless voice in thousand tones ariseth to proclaim: Joy unto ye, O men of Myalba. A pilgrim hath returned back from the other shore. A new Arban is born.”
In the poetic language quoted above from “The Voice of the Silence,” 7 written by an eastern sage, we have a graphic and beautiful description of the advent of the new age of which the twentieth century is the beginning. The coming of this wonderful age of wisdom, peace and perfect bliss to the living of this earth, called men of Myalba, is just as certain as the day follows the night. And while, as we say, the twentieth century is not the age alluded to, it is the beginning of that golden age of wisdom and universal peace.
It may not be unnecessary to say that days, months, years, times, ages and aeons are measured by the rotation, revolution, spinning and whirling of bodies, clusters, constellations and systems around their respective pivotal centers. These circles of space and cycles of time are divided, by the wonderful cross, into four equal parts corresponding to our four seasons of the year--spring, summer, fall and winter. Also to morning, noon, evening and night, and the ages of man, infancy, youth, maturity and old age.
The greatest time cycle with which the inhabitants of this world are so deeply interested and concerned, and one influencing the moral standing of humanity to such an extent as to make it seem that the earth is transformed into a perfect hell at one time, and into a joyful heaven at another is that, which is caused by the revolution of the star galaxies and the whole stellar universe around the Pleiads or Seven Stars, as the great Pretorium of the universe. This time cycle is said to be a period of nearly twenty six thousand of our Solar years. This is the time required for the universe to make one complete revolution around the Alcyonic pivot. But the head swims, and the mind reels when we try to grasp the unfathomable depths of the diameter of this wonderful circle. But if we call the diameter and circumference of this circle wonderful, what shall we say of the power of the Pleiads, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiads, or loose the bands of Orion?” What is the secret of this hidden power that the deity calls the sweet influences of the Pleiads that enables them to sway the whole material, and it may be also the spiritual, universe to move around this wonderful Alcyonic pivot? We do not know because we have not got the understanding.
But one thing we do know and that is that, the mysterious cross divides this wonderful broad circle, in which the starry hosts move, into four parts, and each quarter ruled by a subordinate deity. Some are good and some are bad. The age from which we are slowly but surely emerging is what the people of the east call Kali Yuga or the black age, ruled by the Dragon Star or the black demon. It is the age of evil, the age of fraud, the age of robbery, the age of war and murder and the age of moral death. All the nations are under the influence of this devilish age, whose center, and ruler is the evil Dragon Star.
“Boast as we may of the civilization,” Christian religion “and advancement of our race, the stern facts meet us all along the dark and crimsoned march of humanity, that in all that bears upon the eternal world, in all that relates to the claims of God over mind and conscience, in all that belongs to true morality, man's way has been downward from the very beginning”--or day when this black demon, the Dragon Star began to rule and influence us with his evil nature.
Look at the civilized Christian powers of today in their united efforts to dismember, loot, rob and massacre the people of the Chinese empire.8 Look at the Christian missionaries sent ostensibly to preach to the heathen Chinese the gentle gospel of Christ urging the powers to rob and loot wealthy families among the Chinese. Look at the civilized Christian intruder in the Indian Territory through the instrumentality of the statehood newspaper and the pulpit, urging, petitioning, praying and memorializing Congress of the United States to open up the lands of the Indian to white settlement, suspend the laws of the Indian nations, abolish their councils and governments, and in a manner exterminate the race in order that their lands may be inherited by the merciful, just and upright Christian of the Dragon Star.
But, O what a consolation to now hear “All nature's wordless voice in thousand tones” proclaiming: “Joy unto ye, O men of Myalba.” For a pilgrim is now returning from the other shore. A new Arban is soon to be reborn. That age of peace that was on the other side of the circle is soon to make its advent. The age of the resurrection of truth, morality, justice and uprightness is to make its appearance once more as it often has done in the past golden ages of peace and wisdom.
Then the springtime of the great golden age will loom up like an incarnate god a moral sun with light, peace and purity. A new Arban or Savior will be born and instead of the United States of a government, we will then have a world of United Nations. Instead of low-minded preachers peddling out Grecian myths for Indian land and money we will have noble sons of God teaching the truth. All the seven great religions of the world will become united in one and hand in hand will dance in the mystic circles of moral truth, as dance the seven sisters of the Pleiads whose “sweet influences” on the material and spiritual universe no human being at this time can bind or understand. This golden age--this day of resurrection--this day in which a new Arban is to be reborn--this day of the second coming of purity (Christ) is now at hand. We are now ascending that arc in the great cycle that corresponds to the vernal equinox of our solar year, and we will soon begin to feel and enjoy the vitalizing rays of the great immortal god. Happily swimming in the divine sunshine of the Alcyonic age. 9
When the mellow light radiating from this great Pretorium of the starry hosts, begins to illuminate the hills and color the heavens with its rose and gold, the remnants of the despised red races now struggling in their weakness because they have refused to bend the knee to Belial, 10 will be exalted to the position of truly civilized races. Transcendentalism will once more be developed, and intuitive knowledge cultivated as it was in the previous golden age by the Atlantian race. Another pyramid, like Gezeh, 11 explaining in detail the Solar Systems, constellation and Milky Way universe will be built to confuse the worshippers of the Dragon Star for another black age. Another bible will be written by this inspired custodian of truth the interpretation of which will furnish another pretext for the worshipers of the Dragon Star to war and wrangle for land and loot and deluge the earth with the blood of the innocent in defense of the black demon for another age.
This is the grand truth of which the bible poets have sung--this is the grand truth of which the prophets have spoken--this is the grand truth of which the Dragon Star worshippers of today cannot understand. It is a time when a Christ--a new Arban is to be reborn and reign with men for a thousand years. An age when the Dragon Star and his worshippers will be confined in the bottomless pit, as the devilish light of Alpha Draconis at that time will be confined in the subterranean vault in the pyramid of Gezeh.
In this coming age, somewhere on the American continent, perhaps on the Pacific coast, the corner stones of a wonderful nation will be laid. A Pacific empire will be established and what the poet Avenel said of Atlantis will be said of this empire of peace. Her sylvan temples will be the glory of the world, and to the cult of Allah every votary subscribe; the pulpit will wear no sanctimonious mask to cloak hypocrisy, religion will be the bulwark of this empire's strength, but free from all alloy. No dogma will dwarf Deific attributes to serve vainglorious conceit; her oracles will be pure, no musty volume fossilize their lore--truth will ratify herself without sophistical harangue. And wisdom hold his searching torch in public view. There will be no chosen few--no preordained elect--no sainted patriarchs--no unctuous flattery of men--no crime condoning sacraments.
But in this Pacific empire of peace the citizen will be a master in philosophy, a sovereign in intellect--a king in thought, a counselor in deeds--a true worshipper of the Only One, the origin and ultimate Being Himself, un-circumscribed, un-searchable--without a center or circumference, beyond the pale of words--too condescending to ignore the law, to immanent within each life to violate its slightest need--too patient to retaliate--too provident to damn--too sympathetic for revenge; omnipotent in principles; omniscient in the operation of his laws and omnipresent in infinitude.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, July 11, 1894
“That which you measure out to other men shall be measured to you again.”
The above words were favorite expressions of the ancient Essenian initiates, 12 when imparting to their pupils the accumulated wisdom and experiences of the past ages. One of the masters using these words was said to have spoken as one having authority. “That which ye mete out to other men shall be measured to you again,” is one of the grandest truths that ever was uttered by man, and is strikingly illustrated in the treatment of the Indians of America by the so-called Christian government of the United States.
Sacred treaties have been made with these Indians and before the ink, with which the agreement is written, is dry, schemers have been allowed to intrude upon the Indians’ country against treaty agreements. They are used as battering rams to tear down the nationalities of the Indians and get up disputes that the government may find a pretext to show its animal power. We are harassed by an innumerable long haired, dirty, greasy and black skinned white men who have come into this country claiming to be Indians, but the government seems to look upon this as a very fine scheme and winks approvingly, being too ignorant to fully appreciate the grand truth, that which she is measuring to us Indians shall be measure to her again.
The measurer, is in fact, already within her borders with the measuring rod in his hand. The United States with ignorant literality has thrown wide open the doors and entrance ways to her country and admitted that class hostile to her welfare and prosperity, with not an iota of gratitude, but of the same element of our intruder and some citizens, continually squalling out for a change of government.
Think of the nihilist, the anarchist, the striker, the up-rising of that foreign pauper against the capitalist of your country--think of our petitions, prayers, and the oft repeated request to you to honor your sacred obligations to us, and then ponder on the true meaning of the above caption to our warning: “That which ye measure out to others shall be measured to you again.”
Yes, pour out the vials of indignation on the head of the despised Indian. Violate your sacred obligations which bear your signature. Trample the patent to his lands in the dust. Exterminate him from the face of the earth--but remember that according to the just laws of a just God--“That which you measure out to others shall be measured to you again.”
By William Eubanks
“Karma—all that total of a soul which is the things it did, the thoughts it had, the self it wove with woof of viewless time, crossed on the warp invisible of acts.”
There is an innate desire, an inborn, unfathomable craving, deeply and most mysteriously implanted in the heart of every individual man and woman to evolve into a higher life, into a noble, beautiful and purified immortal being, clothed with the immaculate robes of purity, perfect happiness and consciousness, and crowned with the crown of omniscience; or, in other words, made fit in every particular to associate with higher beings, which his own reason, together with nature, teaches him have an actual existence, somewhere, either in a paradisiacal locality or a purely spiritual state.
One with such a noble and lofty aspiration, groping in darkness and searching for light to illuminate his pathway that would lead to such a desirable high state of existence is apt to exclaim in the trouble of his soul: “What must I do to reach that happy state which my own intuition, or the voice of any own spirit tells me is an actual reality?”
The thoughts have been suggested by the remarks made a few days ago by a prominent lawyer on the law of retribution. This lawyer is no exception, for thousands of men like him, men of reason, men of thought, men of deep insight are slowly coming to a knowledge of the truth, that man is not only the “architect of his own fortune,” but that he is the worker out of his own salvation. Remember now that we are not writing as a preacher—for the word preacher is becoming synonymous with fraud. Remember also that we are not dealing with religion, for the word religion is becoming to be synonymous with the word farce. On the contrary we are trying to confine ourselves to the truth—to the naked truth—by spiritually digesting the teachings of the Great Master who said: “I am the truth.”
The remarks made by the lawyer alluded to, whose impression was that the growth, development, success and glory of a government was guided and destined by the laws of retribution, and which we would call national Karma, is about as near an occult truth as anything can be and shows a deep insight in the man. But it is individual Karma that we propose to deal with in this paper, leaving the explanation of national Karma to be disposed of at some future time.
The remarks made and the questions asked by this Tahlequah lawyer strongly remind us of the query put to the Great Master by another lawyer deeply interested in the higher evolution of his personal existence. The answer made by the Master to the lawyer's question has been rolling down the dark ages, and repeated, parrot-like, and sounding more like the mummery of an African Negro conjurer, to the present day, but cannot be explained by either bishop or clergyman to the satisfaction of those interested—the answer made to the lawyer’s question was simply this: “Love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Now, the way to understand this matter, and the only way, is to realize the fact, the grand truth that man in his higher nature, if that which is eternal can be called nature, has emanated from God, and having emanated from God, can be nothing but God or a spark from the Eternal; then that being the case, we are to understand by the injunction “Love the Lord thy God” to mean only this: for every man and woman and every responsible human being to love his own individual God, Higher Self, or Spiritual Ego, which is the only God with whom we can communicate, and with whom we can communicate only by meditation and concentration of the lower mind. As long as we are unacquainted with our own God, or refuse to keep the commandments of our Higher Self, it is absolute nonsense to address our petitions to, and expect to be heard by the Absolute Deity. This is the first step and having learned this you must also learn that—
| Before beginning and without an end |
| As space eternal and as surety sure, |
| Is fixed to a Power divine which moves to good, |
| Only its laws endure. 13 |
Now, just before explaining this law of retribution, or Karma, as it is called by the theosophists of the East, we wish to put you on a solid footing in order that you may be enabled to fully understand this law of Karma or retribution.
According to the teaching of this wisdom religion, man, leaving out for the present his physical nature, is a dual or twofold being composed of a spiritual entity, and a lower animal or terrestrial ego, called his personality. Now, it is this personality only that needs a savior, on this the so-called objective plane. For this personality is the progressing entity making its uphill climb from the spirit that descended into matter and after passing through all stages of matter, through the mineral, vegetable, animal, and now in the man, or mind state is on its way back to spirit. A portion of this spirit has lived so long in matter that it has fallen deeply in love with matter and wishes so to remain in matter. This spirit that we allude to is the descended spirit. At the same time a portion of this descended spirit is making an effort to throw off matter and rebind itself with the paraspirit or the Eternal Absolute. Now, this great warfare, this great struggle between spirit and matter has at stake only this one object—to elevate this low personality, or in other words, to make this mortal personality an immortal spirit or being. Now, it is the acts played or the things done on this plane by the personality with the spirit as instructor that is called Karma. You must understand also that this apparently intelligent and conscious law of retribution is no respecter of persons.
| It will not be contemned of any one, |
| Who thwarts loses, and who serves it |
| gains: |
| The hidden good it pays with peace |
| And bliss, |
| The hidden ill with pains.14 |
Briefly, the doctrine of Karma is that we have made ourselves what we are by former actions, and are building our future eternity by our present actions. There is no destiny but what we, ourselves, determine. There is no salvation or condemnation except what we, ourselves bring about. Because it offers no shelter for culpable actions and necessitates a sterling manliness, it is less attractive to weak natures than the easy religious tenets of vicarious atonement, intercession, forgiveness and death-bed conversions. In the domain of eternal justice the offense and the punishment are inseparably connected as the same event, because there is no real distinction between the action and its outcome. It is Karma, or our old acts that draws us back into earth life. The spirit’s abode changes according to its Karma, and this Karma forbids any long continuance in one condition, because it is always changing. So long as action is governed by material and selfish motives just so long must the effect of that action be manifested in physical re-births. Only the perfectly selfless man can elude the gravitation of material life. Few have attained this, but it is the goal of mankind.
Karma is that which from birth to death every man is weaving, thread by thread, around himself, as a spider does his cob-web, and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate inner man, who is too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the network of his doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. An occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of providence; but in identifying it with Karma-Nemesis he will teach that, nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this as in future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer so long in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in the infinite world of harmony has not been finally re-adjusted. Karma—an eternal and immutable decree—is absolute harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of spirit. It is not therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we who reward or punish ourselves, according to whether we work with, through or along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that harmony depends, or—break them. Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways—which one portion of mankind calls the ways of providence, dark and intricate; while another sees in them the action of a blind fatalism; and a third simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them—would surely disappear if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. The law of Karma is inextricably interwoven with that of reincarnation. It is only this doctrine that can explain to us the mysterious problem of good and evil and reconcile man to the terrible and apparent injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can quiet our revolted sense of justice. For when one unacquainted with the noble doctrine looks around him and observes the inequalities of birth and fortune, of intellect and capacities; when one sees honor paid to fools and profligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favors by mere privilege of birth, and their nearest neighbor with all his intellect and noble virtues perishing for want or lack of sympathy—when one sees all this and has to turn away, helpless to relieve the undeserved suffering, one’s ears ringing and heart aching with the cries of pain around him—that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from cursing life and men, as well as their Creator.
Karma has never sought to destroy intellectual or individual liberty, like the god invented by monotheists. It has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man, nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinize its mysteries. On the contrary, he who unveils through study and meditation, its intricate paths and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish, owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life is working for the good of his fellow men. Karma is an absolute and eternal law in the world of manifestation; and as there can only be one Absolute, as one Eternal, ever-present Cause, believers in Karma cannot be regarded as atheists or materialists, still less as fatalists, for Karma is one with the Unknowable, of which it is an aspect, in its effects in the phenomenal world. Neither can we hide from the all-seeing eye of this apparently intelligent law of retribution.
| It seeth everywhere and marketh all, |
| Do right—it recompenseth! Do one |
| wrong |
| The equal retribution must be made, |
| Though Dharma 15 tarry long. 16 |
Every individual is making Karma, either good or bad, in each action and thought of his daily round, and is at the same time working out in this life the Karma brought about by the acts and desires of the last. When we see people afflicted by congenital ailments it may be safely assumed that those ailments are the result of causes started by themselves in a previous birth. It may be argued that, as these afflictions are hereditary, they can have nothing to do with a past incarnation; but it must be remembered the ego, the real man, the individuality, has no spiritual origin in the parentage by which it is re-embodied, but it is drawn by the affinities which its previous mode of life attracted round it into the current which carries, when the time comes for re-birth, to the home best fitted for the development of those tendencies. It must also be remembered that this conscious law—this invisible, intelligent agent of the unknowable cannot be reached by lip prayers—it turns a deaf ear to the deceiver’s groans and hollow amens.
| It knows not wrath nor pardon utter |
| true, |
| Its measures mete, its faultless balance |
| weighs; |
| Times are as naught, to-morrow it |
| will judge |
| Or after many days. 17 |
This doctrine of Karma, when properly understood, is well calculated to guide and assist those who realize its truth to a higher and better mode of life, for it must not be forgotten that not only our actions but our thoughts also are most assuredly followed by a crowd of circumstances that will influence for good or for evil our own future, and what is still more important, the future of many of our fellow creatures. If sins of omission and commission could in any case be only self-regarding the fact of the sinner’s Karma would be a matter of minor consequence. The effect that every thought and act through life carries with it for good or evil a corresponding influence on other members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and selfishness so necessary to future happiness or progress. A crime once committed, an evil thought once sent out from the mind, are past recall—no amount of repentance can wipe out their results in the future. Repentance, if sincere, will deter a man from repeating errors; it cannot save him or others from the effect those already produced, which will most unerringly overtake him in this life or in the next re-birth.
| Such is the law which moves to |
| righteousness, |
| Which none at last can turn aside |
| or stay; |
| The heart of it love, the end of it |
| Is peace and consummation sweet, |
| Obey. 18 |
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, January 12, 1901
Dear Sir:--In compliance with your request to furnish you with a sketch of the ancient and legendary history of the Cherokee people, I send you the following which is not to be considered an exhaustive treatise, but simply a brief sketch of the history of the Cherokees as well as other kindred aboriginal tribes of North America, gleaned from important works, now extant, as well as from traditions of the Cherokees themselves.
It is a remarkable fact, generally known, that nearly all writers grappling with the problem of the origin of the aborigines of North America, make the same error, and run in the common groove, hold to the coming of the North American Indian from the Eastern continent. On the contrary, according to the traditions of the Indians themselves, they never came to North America at all, but were placed here in Ah-ma-yedi (in the midst of the waters) by Nel-ho-nu-hi (Elohim), perhaps at that time when the earth was divided, in the days of Peleg. 19Those Indians who speak of coming to this land say that they crossed no water, while others say they crossed over on a bridge which afterward sank to the bottom of the ocean.
Who the Cherokee is and what is really the name of the tribe has never been found out, and perhaps never will be. Cherokee, the present name of the tribe, is simply the name given him at the time he was initiated as a tribe into the eastern mysteries, at the seven Sacred Lakes, by a wise branch of the tribe known as those who spoke the language of Seg, and means (Esh-he-el-o-archie) the keeper, custodian, repository or ark of the fire of El lo, or in short, the custodian of the sacred fire. And while a volume could be written on this subject, it is too burdensome for this sketch.
While the Cherokee is neither Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, nor Hindu, he has in his language many words purely Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian and Sanskrit, and while his ancient religious customs and rites bear a strong resemblance to the rites and religious customs of the ancient Jewish religion, and his secret religion or mysteries, is similar in many respects to the Egyptian, still there is strong evidence that he is neither Hebrew nor Egyptian. His other name, which is also the name of the other tribes belonging to the initiated brotherhood, is Ah-ni-gi-too-way-gi, and means lights received from the sun. This name classes him with that ancient Solar race. 20 But speaking generally of this class of people and to distinguish them from all other races of the earth, the Indians speak of them as the `red race.' Now the great writers of the present age with unbiased minds, unfaulty judgment and with no other object in view but to find and promulgate the truth, give this red race the credit of inventing or receiving from a divine source the great religions of the world, as well as building the greatest structures in the world together with discovering and formulating the grandest scientific truths on record. Further than this, one of America's greatest writers (Parsons) says: “All the heraldry of the nations, it will be shown, and all the emblems, ceremonies, and figures of speech, of religion and of Epic poetry, are derived from the art and the science, the triumph and the destruction of the ancient Americans.”
It now appears that the red race of America, of whom the Cherokee is a direct descendant, were not only the builders of Stonehenge in England, but were the originators of the Ancient Apollo worship, known at this day and time as the Christian religion. As proof of what we assert we give you the Cherokee legend of the Son of Man and U-tsa-yi, in connection with Plutarch's story concerning the coming of the Greeks to America to participate in the worship of Apollo or Saturn. This story of Plutarch's gives us a key and explains the reason why there are so many Greek names in America, especially in the vicinity of the Appalachian Mountains.
In ancient times, we don't know just exactly when, it might have been before the sinking of Atlantis, that wonderful continent that was situated in the Atlantic Ocean, and which was the headquarters of the grandest civilization that the world ever saw, there came among the Cherokees, according to the first story the great man of games; the terrible Ogyie or U-tsa-ye. Previous to the advent of Ogyie came also among the Cherokees the strong man Su-too Jee perhaps the same that was known by the Greeks as Hercules. There also dwelt among the Cherokees “Great Man” with his seven sons on Mount Lookout, in what is now the State of Tennessee. These seven sons of the American Jupiter according to the Cherokee story were ordinary men with the exception of the seventh or youngest son, whose name was “Son of Man.”
Now the story as told by the Cherokees in form of a legend, relates principally to the game played by the Son of Man and the great gambler, Ogyie, or U-tsa-ye. This story was written once before, and at this time, on account of our limited space instead of going into details, we will simply confine ourselves to the main points of the story.
This man Ogyie (if he was a man) came among the Cherokees as a great gambler, or man of games, and challenged everybody he met to play a game with him. The game was played with marbles and with two sticks, something, we would suppose, like the old Cherokee ball play, which was played with two ball sticks, but in this game only two men played at a time. Ogyie being an expert in the game, all those agreeing to play with him, were beaten, and as the rule was, when a man had nothing else to bet, to stake his life. Ogyie always coming out victorious, whole villages in the Cherokee tribe had become depopulated. Ogyie killed all whose lives he had won, and no man was found to defeat him in his favorite game.
Finally Ogyie came into the neighborhood of “Great Man,” the Cherokee Jupiter, and began to challenge his sons to play a game with him and they consenting were all slaughtered, with the exception of the youngest, Son of Man, who was warned, instructed and prepared by his father to play with the marble player, and finally defeated him. Ogyie, after his life had been won, fled to the wilderness but was finally captured by Son of Man and imprisoned at the base of one of the Lookout Mountains. These mountains are called by the Cherokees, Tah-nah tah-cah-tu or watching one another.
When Son of Man, or this seventh Son of Great Man, imprisoned Ogyie, in a vast cave at the base of one of the Lookout Mountains, he caused a grape vine to grow through Ogyie's body, which branched out into four roots in the earth, one running North, another South, one East, another West. This vine then entangled itself among the strong branches of a tree known as the wise fire. Crows were then placed on guard, on the tree, to notify Son of Man, in case any of Ogyie's friends should make an effort to release the prisoner.
Son of Man then made his abode upon the top of the Mount where he is supposed to dwell to this day. An animal known as the Toh yah, made an effort to gnaw these roots in two, and thus liberate the prisoner, but the crows notifying Son of Man, of the fact, he would throw his ball and chain, which his father had given him, into the heavens, which on descending, would come down in the form of lightening and thunder bolts, and thus keep away the animals gnawing on the roots with which Ogyie was bound.
The place where Ogyie is bound was called by the Cherokees “Saturn Yuga,” known to this day by the whites as Chattanooga. This place was so named to commemorate--the defeat of Ogyie, which was in the age of Saturn, or Saturn Yuga. And the country around Saturn Yuga was called the place of the corners, that being the name of Tennessee. Tu-nu-see-yah in Cherokee meaning the corners, in allusion to the corners, made by the roots of the vine shooting to all points of the compass from the body of Ogyie.
STORY SECOND--FROM THE “NEW LIGHT FROM THE GREAT PYRAMID.”
A further connection both of the Greeks and of the Hebrews as the people of Saturn, the resting planet, and the observers of Saturday, the seventh day, as a sacred day of rest, with the continent of America, is found in Plutarch (“On the apparent face in the moon:” C. A. King,) 21 where he writes: “An isle Ogygiah lies far out at sea, distant five day's sail from Britain going westwards, and three others equally distant from it and from each other, are more opposite to the summer visits of the sun; in one of which the barbarians fable that Saturn is imprisoned by Jupiter. The great continent by which the great sea is surrounded on all sides they say lies less distant from the others, but about five thousand stadia from Ogygiah. The Greeks believe that with the peoples of Saturn (these people of Saturn have been identified by Blacket 22 with the aboriginal Satanus, or Shawnees) were united later with those who wandered about with Hercules and being left behind there, they rekindled into strength and numbers the Greek element, then on the point of extinction, and sinking into the barbarian language, manners, and laws; whence Hercules has the first honors there and Saturn the second. When the star of Saturn comes into the sign of the Bull every thirty years, they having got ready a long while beforehand all things required for the sacrifice and the games, they send out people appointed by lot in the same number (thirty) of ships furnished with provisions and stores necessary for persons intending to cross so vast a sea by dint of rowing, as well as to live a long time in a foreign land. When they have put to sea, they meet naturally with different fates, but those who escape from the sea first of all touch at the foremost isles, which are inhabited by Greeks also. Having spent ninety days there, treated with honor and hospitality, being both considered and entitled holy, thence forward they voyage, with the help of the winds. No other people inhabit the isles save themselves and those that had been sent out before; it is indeed allowed to such as have served thirteen [King prefers thirty] years in in waiting upon the god, to return home, but the greatest part prefer to remain there, partly out of habit, partly because they have all things in abundance without toil or trouble, as they pass their time in sacrifices and hymn singing or in studying legends or philosophy of some sort. There Saturn is imprisoned in a vast cavern, sleeping upon a rock overlaid with gold.”
These two stories, one from Plutarch and the other from the Cherokee, go to prove that Hercules, Jupiter and Saturn or Apollo were first worshipped in America, and the worship was finally carried to Europe and other parts of the world. We quote further from the writer named above 23--“Of the five mightiest tributaries of Christianity; viz., the Apollo worship of Greece, the Bacchu-Osirus worship of Egypt, Judaism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, the Apollo worship would thus appear to have traveled from the Appalachian Mountains of North America to Greece, via England; while the Bacchus-Osiros worship traveled overland to Egypt by a southern route prior to the division of the land which according to Genesis occurred in the days of Peleg.”
St. Augustine undoubtedly was well aware of the fact that the Cherokees and other tribes of the red race of America had the Christian religion, prior to its introduction into Greece by the Greeks who had visited America where they were initiated into the mysteries of the Apollo worship, when he wrote--“That in our time is called the Christian religion, which to know and to follow is the most sure and certain health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing in itself of which it is the name, for the thing itself, which is now called the Christian religion, really was known to the ancients.”
From the following quotation it also appears that the North American red races introduced into Europe or England the religion of the Druids and built Stonehenge. “According to Didoras Seculus, 24 Stonehenge was a temple to Apollo. Great Britain could not have received the religion of Apollo from Greece, for it is expressly said that the religion of the Apollo of Greece came from the Isle of the Hyperborians, or Britain. To find the birth place of Apollo in America is a natural and credible explanation of the mystery of Stonehenge.”
And not only was this Hiddekelic 25 or red race, of whom the Cherokee and Creeks, and other tribes of the Ah-ni-gi-too-wah-gi brotherhood, the direct descendants and remnants the greatest moralists and metaphysicians, but they were the grandest architects and astronomers the ancient and truly civilized world ever produced. As evidence of this fact we quote the following from Parson's wonderful book. “The color of Esau denotes that he pertains to the Hiddekelic or red race. This race excels in all the branches of literary and scientific attainment that gives beauty and strength to a nation. The history of the Hiddekelic race shows that they were the most learned of the races preceding the deluge. Among them were the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent and the ancient, the honorable man, the counselor, and the eloquent orator. The indications are that the Hiddekels built an altar in the midst of Egypt, which altar most probably is the great Pyramid. Such an altar must have been made durable as time itself. This people was eminently qualified, both physically and mentally, to erect such a wonderful monument as an altar of witness. If, therefore, the great Pyramid really is this altar, erected by the Hiddekelic or red race, then it must have been constructed between the years B.C. 13,465 and B.C. 12,098.”
Now coming nearer home and still continuing the valuable quotations from Parson's great work--“New Light from the Great Pyramid”--we quote the following, which, as we have already shown, demonstrates the identity or relationship of the Cherokees and our neighbors, the Creeks, to the Hiddekelic or ancient red race who were the builders of all the great and everlasting works scattered over America and the eastern continent.
“In Le Plongeon's Sacred mysteries of the Quiches, 26 the hieroglyphics of the Mayas of Yucatan are placed in parallel columns with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and thus the inscriptions of the ancient pyramid builders of Central America are shown to be the work of subsequent builders upon the Nile. The great earthworks of the ancient races of the Ohio Valley were examined by the late Sir Daniel Wilson, who described them as characterized by the perplexing element of elaborate geometrical figures executed on a gigantic scale, giving proof of skillfully equaling that of scientific land surveyors. The groups of symmetrical enclosures, square, circular, elliptical, octagonal, connected by long parallel avenues, suggest analogies even with the temples and sphinx avenues of the Egyptian Karnak and Luxor.”
They were sun worshippers and maintained a perpetual fire. Now the Ohio Valley was the ancient seat of the Creek Indians, who are supposed to represent the powerful Talligew or Tallegewi Nation, whose name survives in the Allegany Mountains. And we might add--whose name survives in a better and more exact form in Tahlequah, the name of the central district of the Cherokee Nation, as well as the name of the capital of the Cherokees in the above named district.
Quoting further from Parsons we get this fragment of one of his paragraphs which furnishes a key that unlocks to us the true meaning of Tahlequah, one of those difficult names in the Cherokee language to find a meaning for. He says:--“Now Bryant shows that the Telchines--whose name again suggest both the Tellegewi and the Alleganies--were Egyptian priests who bore the device of an eagle upon their standards, and that they belonged to a race which had escaped to Mauritania upon the destruction of Atlantis.”
By William Eubanks
Wagoner Record, January 24, 1901
The following is a portion of a lengthy and interesting article contributed to the Cherokee Advocate by Wm. Eubanks, one of the most learned Cherokee Indian scholars of the present day:
It is a remarkable fact, generally known, that nearly all writers grappling with the problem of the origin of the aborigines of North American, make the same error, and run in the common groove. They hold to the coming of the North America Indian from the Eastern continent. On the contrary, according to the traditions of the Indians themselves, they never came to North America at all, but were placed here in Ah-ma-yo-li (in the midst of the waters) by Nel-ho-nu-hi (Flohim), perhaps at that time when the earth was divided, in the days of Peleg. 27 Those Indians who speak of coming to this land say that they crossed no water, while others say they crossed over on a bridge which afterward sank to the bottom of the ocean.
Who the Cherokee is and what is really the name of the tribe has never been found out, and perhaps never will be. Cherokee, the present name of the tribe, is simply the name given him at the time he was initiated as a tribe into the eastern mysteries, at the Sacred Lakes, by a wise branch of the tribe known as those who spoke the language of Seg, and means (Esh-he-el-o-archie) the keeper, custodian, repository or ark of the fire of El lo, or in short, the custodian of the sacred fire. And while a volume could be written on this subject, it is too burdensome for this sketch.
While the Cherokee is neither Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, nor Hindoo, he has in his language many words purely Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian and Sanscrit, and while his ancient religious custom and rites bear a strong resemblance to the rites and religious custom of the ancient Jewish religion, and his secret religion or mysteries, is similar in many respect to the Egyptian, still there is strong evidence that he is neither Hebrew nor Egyptian. His other name, which is also the name of other tribes belonging to the initiated brotherhood, is Ah-ni-gi-too-wah-gi, and means lights received from the sun. This name classes him with that ancient Solar race. 28 But speaking generally of this class of people and to distinguish them from all other races of the earth, the Indian speak of them as the `red man.' Now the great writers of the present age with unbiased minds, unfaulty judgment and with no other object in view but to find and promulgate the truth, give this red race the credit of inventing or receiving from a divine source, the great religions of the world, as well as building the greatest structures in the world together with discovering and formulating the grandest scientific truths on record. Further than this, one of America's greatest writers Parsons 29 says: “All the heraldry of the nations, it will be shown, and all the emblems, ceremonies, and figures of speech, of religion and of Epic poetry, are derived from the art and the science, the triumph and the destruction of the ancient Americans.”
It now appears that the red race of America, of whom the Cherokee is a direct descendant, were not only the builders of Stonehenge in England, but were the originators of the ancient Apollo worship, known at this day and time as the Christian religion. As proof of what we assert we give you the Cherokee legend of the Son of Man and U-tsa-yi, in connections with Plutarch's story concerning the coming of the Greeks to America to participate in the worship of Apollo or Saturn. This story of Plutarch's 30 gives us a key and explains the reason why there are so many Greek names in America, especially in the vicinity of the Appalachian Mountains.
In ancient times, we don't know just exactly when it might have been before the sinking of Atlantis, that wonderful continent that was situated in the Atlantic ocean, and which was the headquarters of the grandest civilization that the world ever saw, there came among the Cherokees, according to the first story the great man of games; the terrible Ogyie or U-tsa-ye. Previous to the advent of Ogyie came also among the Cherokee the strong man, Su-too-lee, perhaps the same who was known by the Greeks as Hercules. There also dwelt among the Cherokees `Great Man' with his seven sons on Mount Lookout, in what is now the state of Tennessee. These seven sons of the American Jupiter, according to the Cherokee story, were ordinary men with the exception of the seventh or youngest son whose name was `Son of Man.'
Our story, as told by the Cherokees in the form of a legend, relates principally to the game played by Son of Man and the great gambler, Ogyie, or U-tsa-ye.
This man Ogyie (if he was a man) came among the Cherokees as a great gambler, or man of games, and challenged everybody he met to play a game with him. The game was played with marbles and with two sticks: something, we would suppose, like the old Cherokee ball play, which was played with two ball sticks, but in this game only two men played at a time. Ogyie being an expert in the game, all those agreeing to play with him, were beaten, and as the rule was, when a man had nothing else to bet, to stake his life. Ogyie always coming out victorious, whole villages in the Cherokee tribe had become depopulated. Ogyie killed all those whose lives he had won, and no man was found to defeat him in his favorite game.
Finally Ogyie came into the neighborhood of “Great Man,” the Cherokee Jupiter, and began to challenge his sons to play a game with him, and, they consenting, were all slaughtered, with the exception of the youngest, Son of Man, who was warned, instructed and prepared by his father to play with the marble player, and he finally defeated him. Ogyie, after his life had been won, fled to the wilderness but was finally captured by son of Man and imprisoned at the base of one of the Lookout Mountains. These mountains are called by the Cherokees, Tah-nah-tah-cah-nu, or watching one another.
When the Son of Man, or this seventh Son of Great Man, imprisoned Ogyie, in a vast cave at the base of one of the Lookout Mountains, he caused a grape vine to grow through Ogyie's body, which branched out into four roots in the earth, one running North, another South, one East another West. This vine then entangled itself among the strong branches of a tree know as the [wise-fire?] Crows were then placed on guard, on the tree, to notify Son of Man, in case one of Ogyie's friends should make an effort to release the prisoner.
Son of Man then make his abode upon the top of the Mount where he is supposed to dwell to this day. An animal known as the Toh-yah, made an effort to gnaw these roots in two, and thus liberate the prisoner, but the crows notifying Son of Man of the fact, he would throw his ball and chain, which his father had given him, into the heavens, which on descending would come down in the form of lightening and thunder bolts, and thus keep away the animals gnawing on the roots with which Ogyie was bound.
The place were Ogyie is bound was called by the Cherokee "Saturn Yuga," known to this day by the whites as Chattanooga. This place was so named to commemorate the defeat of Ogyie, which was in the age of Saturn, or Satan Yuga. And the country around Saturn Yuga was called the place of the corners, in allusion to the corners made by the rope of the vine shooting to all points of the compass from the body of Ogyie.
By William Eubanks
Cherokee Advocate, April 20, 1901
One of the most damnable schemes to destroy the Cherokee Nation and rob its people of all that is valuable and worth living for is, to be found in the provisions of the so called agreement, entered into by the United States Congress and the Dawes Commission, instigated by that enormously wealthy railroad corporation whose pathway and play ground is between its two headquarters--St. Louis and Galveston--through the Cherokee Nation.
In a few days the citizens of the Cherokee Nation will be at the polls for the purpose of voting as to whether to ratify or reject this outrage. This enormous outrage in the form of an agreement made, as we say, and as claimed by the purported Cherokee delegation, was entered into, amended sanctioned and ratified by the Congress of the United States and the Dawes Commission, over the signatures of said delegation affixed to an agreement of which this the amended agreement upon which we are to vote has no relation or resemblance. It appears now that a foul game has been played upon said delegation by confidence men of the Congress of the United States and the Dawes Commission, with the approval of the railroad corporation. Now if this is a fact we see no reason why the Principal Chief would not have the right to revoke the proclamation issued by him setting forth a day upon which to vote for the ratification of this spurious and illegitimate agreement.
Now before we vote upon this death warrant that seals the fate of the Cherokee people, I wish to point out a few of the objectionable features, to be found in nearly every clause.
I think I have a right to do this. I think I have a right to defend the interests of my people just as much as Judge Springer 31, as an attorney, has a right to defend the interests of railroad magnates, trust corporations, or any other company by whom he may be employed. It must be remembered though that, Judge Springer happens to be an attorney for the Cherokee Nation. One reason why I mention Judge Springer is that, he has strongly urged the Cherokee people to ratify this destructive document.
In the first place I wish to say that, the Curtis act 32, so prominently placed before the eyes of the Cherokee voter is nothing but moonshine, a mere matter of expediency for the ends sought, and really has no existence as a means to disrupt the vested rights of the Cherokee people. It is something like an act passed by an unconstitutional minority in the halls of Congress, that is a mere bluff and has no constitutional weight as a law to interfere with or disrupt our vested rights, and cannot be enforced. We have been told this by the United States government herself, through the ermined judiciary 33, using as a mouthpiece, the Honorable John R. Thomas, a man of courage, a jurist and a conscientious upholder and preserver of the honor of the United States of America. His noble stand, not only for the Cherokee people, but for justice and everything that is noble in man in an official capacity, reminds us of the immortal Wirt, who in an argument while defending the Cherokees in the courts, made these memorable remarks, over half a century ago:--
“The faith or our nation is fatally linked with the existence of the Cherokees, and the blow which destroys them quashes forever our glory: for what glory can there be of which a patriot can be proud, after the good name of his country shall have departed? We may gather laurels on the field of battle, and trophies on the ocean, but they will never hide this foul blot on our escutcheon. ‘Remember the Cherokee Nation,’ will be answer enough for the proudest boasts that we can ever make. I cannot believe that this honorable court, possessing the power of preservation, will stand by and see these people stripped of their property and extirpated from the earth while they are holding up to us their treaties and claiming fulfillment of our engagements. If truth and faith and honor and justice have fled from every part of the country, we shall find them here. If not, our sun has gone down in treachery, blood and crime in the face of the world; and instead of being proud of our country, we may well call upon the rocks and mountains to hide our shame from earth and heaven.” We might say here that Wirt lived long enough to see that stain fall upon the escutcheon of his country’s honor, which he so much feared. This stain was in the form of a flagrant national injustice perpetrated upon the Cherokee people of Georgia. 34 A crime so enormous and ignominious that, Karma Nemesis, 35 the eternal intelligent goddess of justice who is the enforcer of the law of retribution inflicted a punishment upon the people of Georgia, only twenty five years later, by reducing to ashes the homes of the Georgians built on the graves of the Cherokees, and destroying millions of dollars worth of property and mingling the bones of thousands of her people with the bones of those they had murdered. Karma Nemesis commanded General Sherman to carry into execution this terrible law of the gods. 36
These Christian people had been warned by Wirt and others in the courts, in the halls of legislature, before the departments and Congress of the United States, but they heeded not the warnings, but hardened their necks and were suddenly destroyed and that without remedy.
After the Cherokees were driven to the Indian Territory, and settled down in their homes on land for which the government of the United States had given a patent, or deed, the United States, as though regretting that she had unwittingly given the Cherokees a patent to their lands, offered a prize to a great railroad corporation to destroy the Cherokee Nation by annulling this deed to their lands. The prize was 800,000 acres of Cherokee lands to be deeded to this railroad corporation when the Cherokee Nation should become extinct and their title to the lands extinguished.
This railroad went to work years ago to win this prize offered by the United States, and this agreement is one of their plans. If we ratify this agreement, the lands this corporation will get will be worth $50,000,000; money enough to feed and clothe the Cherokee people fifty years. If we ratify this agreement these lands according to Sec. 54 will be reserved from allotment. Now Sec. 64 is a blind. What does the railroad corporation care for a title from the Indian? This railroad corporation will simply wait until after 1906, when the Cherokee Nation will be dead, and then the Cherokee lands having reverted to the United States, they, the United States, will then give the railroad a title for this land. Then the railroad company will have won the prize, and come into possession of $50,000,000 worth of property. Judge Springer says, ratify the agreement, I say do it and be destroyed without a remedy.
Now Sec. 54 reserves from allotment about 100 towns which we have in the Cherokee Nation, and provides for about 100 more town sites. This makes 200 towns in the Nation, with an average of four square miles to the town. There are 640 acres to the square mile, making 2,560 acres to the town and 512,000 acres for all the land reserved for towns. This, at the low figures for lands having a good location valued at $50 per acre makes $25,600,000 worth of land given by the railroad as an inducement to ratify the steal. Judge Springer says ratify the agreement, I say do it and you will be destroyed without a remedy.
This powerful railroad corporation, in allotting the property of the Cherokees, to all parties in the world, is more liberal to the United States, inasmuch as she is the guardian of the Cherokees. This corporation gives to the United States about two million acres, which will revert to the United States according to the treaty of 1866, of which nothing is said in this agreement. Besides the United States is given Fort Gibson, embracing the whole old military reservation or as provided in the agreement “a sufficient amount” of land. This itself is worth about a million of dollars.
Nearly the whole agreement is in relation to town lots and town sites, and made so complicated that it is difficult to understand just what is meant in some of these clauses. This is done on purpose, so that after the Nation is destroyed, the ordinarily intelligent owner of these lots will be beat out of them. I heard a lawyer from the states remark a few days ago: “When this agreement is ratified, all we will have to do then will be to kill and eat.” This lawyer spoke the truth, for when this agreement is ratified, the only thing the lawyers will have to do will be to take the provision of this agreement and the Arkansas law and by law, suits to kill out the unsuspecting owner of allotments and town lot holders and eat up his property in the courts.
Now this benevolent railroad corporation in its unlimited charity has not forgotten the Christian missionaries of all denomination. But gives to them about 320 acres to the value of about $100,000. We can all see now why the missionaries were so urgent in their demands for the Cherokees to give them 160 acres each upon which they proposed to rebuild the pure gardens of Eden, wherein the game of the devil was to be played at last. There is one thing though, that we have learned from this missionary. He has taught us how to acquire the knowledge of good and evil, but after we get this we open our eyes and find out that we are naked and have been stripped of everything we had, and then we will have to make for ourselves coonskin aprons to hide our shame, and be driven from our own country.
Now, I wish to call your attention to the fatherly advice of Judge Springer. He says: “By Sec. 9, when a citizen has received a certificate for his allotment, the Secretary of the Interior shall immediately thereupon put him in unrestrained possession of his allotment.”
I have my doubts about this. I think the government will just wait until after 1906, when the Nation will become extinct or dead, and our land reverts to the U. S. and we will get no land unless we buy them from the U. S.--this will be a cruel joke, but it is the agreement.
He further says: “By Sec. 60 of the agreement it is provided that no funds of the tribe shall be used or paid out for any purpose by any officer of the U. S. without consent of the tribe expressly given through its National Council, except as herein provided.”
Now, I am here to tell you that according to this provision, you will never see the payment of any of the funds in any manner. For Sec. 58, provides that on March 4, 1906, the Cherokee Nation will become extinct, and having no National Council at the time how will the consent of the tribe be expressly given though its National Council? This is about as sweet as the $4,000,000 dollar clause in the Strip agreement. Where is your four million dollar claim that the U. S. was going to pay you just as soon as the Strip agreement was ratified and the Cherokees should demand it through the National Council? It is before the court of claims and will stay there, not only till the Cherokee Nation, but the Cherokee people become extinct.
Now, after giving away to the U. S., about 2,000,000 acres of land for which you relinquish your right and title--and to the railroad company about 800,000 acres for which you relinquish all your right and title--to the towns about 600,000 acres to which you will have no right and title--and 157,600 acres segregated in the Delaware suit for which you will never live long enough to get a title--and giving to the U. S., all your invested funds of which you will never see a dollar--and after you have destroyed your Cherokee government and given up all your schools and other institutions to the U. S., of which you will never receive a dollar’s worth of benefit after 1906--Yes, after you have destroyed your manhood and liberty and sacrificed thousand of your poor people to this infernal god of greed, to be dragged around in the courts of the U. S., until the last vestige of their property is eat up by this Christian demon who proposes to have nothing to do after the agreement is ratified but to kill and eat. I say after fully knowing all these things are you Cherokees going to vote for the ratification of this agreement? I ask you adopted white citizens of the Cherokee Nation, if you are going to cast your vote for the ratification of this agreement when you know well and good that the ratification of this damnable railroad scheme will open the doors for this country to be flooded by that proud arrogant class from the States who will look upon your half Indian children as a mongrel cross between the whites from the states and the Cherokee Indian woman, you have already been reproached, by this class, with the opprobrious name of squaw men. Do you propose to give this class the opportunity to add more of these insults to your Cherokee wives and Cherokee children, they will continue to call you squaw men and your wives as squaw-women and your children as squaw children.
What are you darkies of the Cherokee Nation going to do? Whatever you do I want you to remember what the Cherokees have done for you, in the way of giving you homes, a portion of our funds and schools in which to educate your children.
Now, before the die is cast and a vote is taken on this agreement--the outgrowth of an unrighteous proposition, made by an unrighteous government, to an unrighteous corporation for an unrighteous purpose.
I wish to say that, whatever their fate may be, the Cherokee has kept the law and preserved a living tradition coinciding with the ancient Hebrew command:-- “The stranger that comes to you shall be among you as the native, and thou shalt love him as thyself.” This we have done and kept our souls clean, and in order to keep clean and pure our higher spirits, we have also preserved that law of the higher gods in words like these: “If thou findest a hungry serpent creeping into thy house, seeking for food, and, out of fear it should bite thee, instead of offering it milk thou turnest it out to suffer and starve, thou turnest away from the Path of Compassion.”
Sources for the selections are as indicated. Source texts have been followed faithfully except for silent emendations to correct obvious printing errors and to regularize the form of attributions. No attempt, however, has been made to follow typographical idiosyncrasies or to produce a facsimile edition. All footnotes are the editor's unless otherwise indicated.
1. A quote about the Golden Stairs of the Path from Blavatsky's Teacher who, in turn was quoting a still more ancient document, per e-mail on Dec. 4, 2004 to Kristy Hales from Jerome Wheeler (ultinla@juno.com), Blavatsky.net.
2. Flavius Josephus (37 AD-100 AD), Jewish priest, scholar, and historian wrote several works of history.
3. From William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, III.ii.
4. This quotation has not been found.
5. Charles Augustus Young (1834-1908), an American astronomer.
6. Theosophy is a system of philosophy and religious thought based on claims of a mystic insight into the nature of God and the laws of the Universe, which holds the belief that the truest knowledge comes not through reason or senses, but through a direct communication of the soul with the Divine Reality.
7. The Voice of the Silence was authored by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in the United States in 1875.
8. Eubanks refers to the encroachment of the European nations upon China as they established “spheres of influence” in that Asiatic nation.
9. Variation of halcyonic, i.e. peaceful, calm.
10. Belial is a name that refers to the embodiment of evil, often synonymous with Satan.
11. The Great Pyramid of Giza, near Cairo, Egypt.
12. The Essenes were an ascetic Jewish religious sect in ancient Palestine.
13. Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880. Book the Eighth.
14. Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880. Book the Eighth.
15. Dharma is the Buddhist practice of improving human life through inner development.
16. Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880. Book the Eighth.
17. Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880. Book the Eighth.
18. Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880. Book the Eighth.
19. See Genesis 10:25
20. That is, early cultures that revered the sun.
21. Albert Ross Parsons (1847-1933) who wrote Parsifal; the Finding of Christ Through Art (1890).
22. C. A. King, editor of Plutarch's "Moralia (XII): Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb of the Moon."
23. William Stephens Blacket, in Researchers into the Lost Hisotries of America; or, The Zodiac Shown to be an old Terrestrial Map in which the Atlantic Isle is Delineated; So That Light can be Thrown Upon the Obscure Histories of the Earthworks and Ruined Cities of America. London; Philadelphia: Thibner and Co; J.B. Lippincott, 1884.
24. Didoras Seculus, actually Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian historian of the first century who wrote a world history in 40 books, including Caesar's Gallic Wars.
25. Hiddekel was the name of a river in the Pre-Flood era. After the Flood, the name refers to the Tigris.
26. Augustus Le Plongeon's Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches. New York: R. Macoy, 1886.
27. See Genesis 10:25, King James Version.
28. Ancient cultures that revered the sun.
29. Albert Ross Parsons (1847-1933).
30. The entire article, which includes Plutarch's story, was published in the Cherokee Advocate, January 12, 1901.
31. U. S. Judge William M. Springer appointed March 1, 1895 to the Northern District, composed of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Nations.
32. Charles Curtis (1860-1936), U. S. Vice-President 1929-1933, as a U. S. Congressman (1892-1906) was responsible for the Curtis Act of 1898, which weakened and helped dissolve the Indian Territory tribal governments by placing all persons in the territory under federal jurisdiction, abolishing tribal courts, providing for the survey and incorporation of towns in the territory, and giving all townsmen the right to vote, and setting up free public schools.
33. So called because judicial robes were sometimes lined with ermine, a fur associated with royalty and other high offices.
34. William Wirt (1772-1834), U. S. Attorney General 1817-1829, after returning to private law practice, represented the Cherokee Nation in U. S. Courts against the State of Georgia regarding the forced removal of the Cherokee from their native lands in Georgia.
35. Refer to Eubanks’ essay, “The Doctrine of Karma.”
36. Eubanks recalls U. S. Army General William Tecumseh Sherman’s “March to the Sea” across Georgia in the U. S. Civil War.