This week we finally completed my wife, Iris's book entitled " Finding the Treasures Left Along the Trail - My Cherokee Heritage". It is available on Amazon.com. This book presents over 1200 years of ancestry that reaches all the way back to the Battle of Tours and the General of the Frankish Military, Charles " The Hammer" Martel. The book tells of the arrival of a young Englishman to the American continent in 1627 and his involvement with the Shawnee and Cherokee Tribes. You will read stories of Thomas Pasmere Carpenter's family and their significant contributions to Cherokee history and early American history. These stories will provide a very different image of our Native American brothers and sisters from what we were taught in our public schools. This is an exciting journey into family history where two people from very different cultures came together in marriage and contributed, in a very positive way, to the early establishment of our great Nation.
I must also disclose that helping my wife research this book, enlightened me about Native American traditional knowledge, and has strongly influenced the concerns and issues I have about our natural environment, forestry, which I have
been writing about in my book and this blog. We have significant concerns about the future of our natural surroundings and what it means for our grandchildren and their children. We are, only now, beginning to realize what our purpose has been, and realize we are finally beginning to scratch the surface. Somehow we can not allow the Traditional Knowledge of our indigenous people to be lost. Our very future depends on rekindling the wisdom of observing, understanding and managing the complexity and detail of Nature!