Native American Forum Thread Chapter 9 Usquanigodv aquatseli tsuqutanvsv g

Keeping Our Past Alive

In November, 2009, I started a forum thread in honor of National Native American Month. My only prayer was to generate enough interest so that the thread would have a respectable showing during that month. To my delight and amazement, it has been met with such continued enthusiasm and support that we are fast approaching the maximum number of posts in our 8th chapter! As a result, Chapter 9 has been started.

Since Etsy is in the process of changing the forums, we are unsure of our fate. If the Promotions Section of Forums also migrate to teams, we will be forming a team. But in the interim, we will continue to use the forum as we like the “openess” it allows.

If you are new to our thread, Welcome! Visit us anytime! I promise that you will be warmly received.

Here is a bit of our history and what we do here:

The title of Chapter 2 was “ Walking with the Wind”. It was suggested by Kicking Bear, our spiritual leader, Tsalagi (Cherokee) language mentor and wise man. Kicking Bear continues to provide us with the name for each new chapter..

This new chapter is named Usquanigodv aquatseli tsuqutanvsv gvnodv. It means Keeping Our Past Alive
in Tsalagi (Cherokee).

Tsalagi is the official language of our thread. We learn new words along the way thanks to Kicking Bear and are considering a “Tsalagi Thursday Night” special session for enhancing our vocabularies. Plans to be announced.

Many friendships have been formed as a result of our thread “Gathering”. We are constantly welcoming new friends to our cyber campfire community and hope that you will join in.

One does not need to be Native American to participate in this thread. We warmly welcome all people who are inspired by and/or appreciate our culture.

Do promote your favorite Native American or Native American Inspired work here. Tell us about your new items, your sales, your blogs, your treasury features, or just come sit by our “cyber” fireside and chat.

There were many good things on our previous threads that we do not want to lose, so a blog was started to archive them. It is a work in progress and can be viewed here:
www.jstinson22.posterous.com
Just click on the items that interest you in the “tags” section.

We have purposely left previous chapters of the thread at less than 10,000 posts so they could be accessed if one wanted to back track on something there.

The link to “Chapter 1” is:
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6335843

The link to “Chapter 2” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6492204

The link to “Chapter 3” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6534543&page=1

The link to “Chapter 4” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6574444

The link to “Chapter 5” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6611587&page=1

The link to “Chapter 6” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6647249

The link to “Chapter 7” is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6665711&page=1

The link to “Chapter 8 is
www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6711033&page=1

We have a periodic Forum Challenge and a Wednesday Night Story Telling Session. If you would like information on the challenges, just convo me.

If you would like to participate in the Wednesday Night Camp Fire Story, join the thread each Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. EST.

During the past Chapter, we made Fridays “ SSP Day.” SSP is “ Shameless Self Promotion”.

Our wise man and mentor, Kicking Bear, wrote this preamble to Chapter 2 of our thread. It was carried over to subsequent chapters and is repeated here. It will let you know what we are about and the purpose of this thread.

Kicking Bear says: “This thread is like a campfire ....at the center is the flame which represents our creativity. We are each a log sticking into the fire.

As we go about our art, our log burns and goes from having a flame on the end to just a hot coal and will eventually go out.

Our creativity is used up and our log begins to grow cold. Along comes someone from this thread and pushes that log back in closer to the fire ...

The log is re-ignited and once again begins to burn brightly.
…………………………………………………………….....Kicking Bear

We have a perpetual candle lighting ceremony to request prayers and guidance for those in need and to give thanks for our many blessings.. Our gusdi, SonoraKay, is the “keeper of the candles”. She reminds us each morning and evening (and sometimes mid-day) of the need to pray. We thank Sonora Kay for providing us with the link to our candle routinely.

On the last Thursday of each month at 2:00 EST, our Hostess With The Mostess, Spirit Bear, hosts a special party where we honor one of digusdi (cousins). Giftings are done. Toasting, and sometimes roasting, makes these events great fun.

Grannie Girt is our official address and birthday tracker. This was a new idea from Chapter 6 and continues to be in the developmental stage.

Van Fleet Street Design is our dutiful and appreciated back up messenger. When I am away, she sees that new people are notified of their item(s) being promoted on our thread. This is a valuable role in our community.

We select a site for each of Chapters. We pitch our tents and tee pees and build our cyber campfire on the site and learn a little about its history.

Our site for Chapter 8 was Cahokia Mounds. Since there is much to be learned about this location and our title is Keeping Our Past Alive, we have decided to remain here for Chapter 9.

Cahokia Mounds is the remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico. Within the 2,200-acre tract, located a few miles west of Collinsville, Illinois, lie the archaeological remnants of the central section of the ancient settlement that is today known as Cahokia.

You can learn more about this site here:

cahokiamounds.org/learn/

We have had great fun on this thread as well as promoting our work, growing spiritually, learning and remembering the old ways of our people and rendering support to one another.

As you know, we are being “migrated” to a team. Announcements regarding this will be forth coming. Just follow us on the thread for more information.

No that you will all be invited to join and our membership will be "open".

Posted at 3:35pm Jan 26, 2011 EST