Oklahoma author retraces Cherokee ancestors’ tearful steps
‘Walking the Trail’
BY DAVID ZIZZO
Comments 
7
Published: November 3, 2009
Jerry Ellis
Jerry Ellis was 41, frustrated and "feeling like I had not accomplished anything of worth.” So he went for a walk that changed his life.
It was 20 years ago when Ellis stepped off a bus in
Tahlequah and headed east. On foot, he would cover 900 miles across eight states. In his mind, he would reconnect with the spirits of his ancestors, Cherokee Indians, and "basically redeem my soul.”
Ellis’ account of the walk, which traced in reverse the infamous Trail of Tears relocation of 17,000 Cherokees, during which 4,000 died, became a successful book that is still in print, "Walking the Trail.”
Ellis would go on to do other epic walks and write and speak about them, including the route of the Pony Express and Sherman’s march across
Georgia.
Born and raised in
Fort Payne,
Ala., Ellis at 17 was bored and restless. He ran away from "Fort Pain” to
New York, where his sister was directing a theater group. He returned home in a couple of weeks, but he had changed, realizing for the first time "how big the world is.”
"Every opportunity I had from that point on, I would hit the road,” he recalled. By age 26, the young man who as a child once walked 20 miles to see a place he had read about, had hitchhiked more than 100,000 miles from
Mexico to
Canada and in between. During one trip in his 20s, Ellis met, fell in love with and married a woman in
Oklahoma City. The marriage lasted two years.
His sojourns presented Ellis, a bodybuilder, with the opportunity for varied encounters, including getting rides from a reigning Mr. Universe and from Hell’s Angels.
In quiet moments on the road, he said, "people would confess their deepest stories. That led me to become a writer.”
Mostly a starving one, though, as Ellis financed his wanderlust with odd and menial jobs.
During one stint of eight years waiting tables in
New Orleans, Ellis wrote a screenplay about a modern-day Indian who had a vision that he was meant to walk the Trail of Tears in reverse to metaphorically bring home those who died.
Ellis moved to
Hollywood to promote the script but found little interest. "They didn’t think the public would buy a ticket to see a movie about Indians,” he said.
At 41, Ellis was disappointed with himself and his life. But it also was a cathartic moment, he said. "I realized it was probably me in the script.”
He resolved, like the character in his screenplay, to walk the Trail of Tears. Ellis sold everything he had and headed to Tahlequah.
On his first day, temperatures were in the 90s, he ran out of water and was hobbled with blisters, and "I wondered what the hell had I gotten myself into.”
Soon, however, Ellis got into the spirit of the trail, and it got into him. He spent time with people whose ancestors witnessed the Indian migration; he slept in graveyards; he stuck his hand in the soil at a rock outcropping on the
Ohio River where Cherokees died of exposure.
"I felt very empowered,” he said. "I felt I connected with something spiritual.”
He also learned the value of home, he said, returning to his roots.
Today, Ellis lives in Fort Payne with Debi Holmes-Binney, his wife of 18 years, an author and composer he met while on a tour speaking about "Walking the Trail.” The couple operate Tanager House, a guest cottage named for a bird that makes a perilous journey to survive.
The couple also spend time in
Italy, where Debi is a tour director.
Ellis hopes to write a book on walking the ancient Apian Way road across Italy.
Ellis gives motivational speeches about what he learned from a life of roaming, that "with a lot of faith and luck, one person can make a difference.” Everyone, he tells people, has their own journey to make. And, whenever he can, Ellis still wanders and wonders.
"I still spend a great deal of time walking alone in the woods.”
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Now, I hear liberals/"progressives" bray constanly about "cultural diversity" and that it is an outrage against humanity for outsiders to meddle in the business of and/or attempt to define how any particular cultural group - as long as they're not WASP's - wishes to defines themselves. That includes, I presume, membership.
So, which is it? Are you for tribal sovereignty, or agin it?
I wonder if he knew that the Cherokee Freedmen who where slaves at the time also walked the Trail?
The Black Cherokee who where made Cherokee Citizens after the Civil War are still facing problems.
Chad 2wife Smith called for their removal from the CNO Inc. and told them they could not Vote anymore in the CNO.
I find this hard to believe that Chad 2wife would do this.
Seems to me he upset many in the Old Cherokee Nation.
His Band the CNO Inc was started in 1975 but the 1839 Cherokee made them members.
Now we see that Chad has spent Millions to fight them and their right to Vote.
He also has been wasting Cherokee Federal Funds by playing the Stock market buying worthless stock in Global Energy Group which lost Multi Millions of Federal Feunds meant to hire Cherokees.
These Federal Grants he uses to by up Company's everywhere except where A Cherokee can get A Job the last one in Colorado A IT company from Koera ?
His site the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has been shortned to Cherokee Nation.
Go there and try to watch A Council Meeting and you will find you can not even do that as he has shut off the News in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma because of the FBI and SEC Investigation of his misuse of Federal Funds.