1895, August Twenty Third

Dear European Born,

Ive written this letter to you today in the hopes of one parent to another that
you may understand my eternal heartache. As a father, you must understand a
parents natural, defensive protection towards their child. My child was my life,
when she first was brought to me, before I ever felt her sun kissed skin or met her
golden hazed iriss she was my everything. Nothing more in the world meant so
much to me, that child I carried I would go to the end of the world and over the
moon for before she even had a namesake towards her. That child not only carried
my blood in her but my heart, my soul and my meaning. As you can understand I
hope, it felt like when my young one was brought to me that my entire life was
meaningless, all those many years meant for preparation so I could care for that
sweet one. Awenasa was her name, not that she would be allowed to ever speak it
once she was torn from her own home. Do you, white man, know that that means?
Awenasa is Cherokee for my Home and she truly was, my home she still is. Where
she was my entire being was held between her hands sculpted by our great
ancestors. I write this letter as not a plea, as not a threat, but so you may feel the
never ending ripping of two of my heart that occurred between my very ribs when
Awenasa was torn from my arms, screaming and sobbing for her Aibiba. I could only
cry out in the lowest moment of my life, truly the most desperate few seconds I will
and have ever felt. As I reached for my child her eyes meeting mine for the last
time, she knew nothing of what was ahead of her. Do you know how that feels,
European? To watch mercilessly as you could do nothing to protect your child, I can
only compare the feeling to my own flesh lit on fire from the sun itself as my skin
seared open and my heart ripped from between my very ribs. The pain, the distress
and cruelty my child endured was lost in the letters she attempted to write me once
every full moon. Those letters filled with her weakly written letters, her Is and Rs
curving to the left just as her Elisi had written. Those letters I clutched to my bosom
with such a wretched ache in every inch of bones as I mourned for my daughters
safety and happiness. What creature brought to life by Unahlahnauhi, could do such
things to just a child, to even another human. I prayed without ending every night
to Kalvlvtiahi, that He would keep my sweet one safe. But my prayers were not
heard above my aching heart, before the Green Corn Ceremony was held a single
letter containing only seventeen pathetic words. Your daughter will not be able to
return home, she has passed. May God be with you. My daughter was ruthlessly
murdered within your forsaken schools walls and a letter officialised with a broken
seal and seventeen words was the only empathy to inform me. My Stesi is dead,
with her Elisi and the great Unahlahnauhi; I can only pray she lays peacefully now.
My sweet Awenasa, the child who clutched my bosom when she first entered this

world, the child whose soft hidden smile could release her from any sort of
punishment from me if she broke one of my pottery vases, she was killed by your
people white man. And I do not seek revenge, as it goes against every lesson my
own Aleutsi taught me as a child. But I hope whatever god you speak of, whatever
god you hope to protect you from the fiery pits of punishment when your time on
this earth is done, I hope he strikes you down and brings you the unbearable pain I
have felt. I hope your crops wither and the fertility in your village ends the next
generation of your blood line, because white man, I have no sympathy for you. And
even if it is I who will not deliver your punishment trust me when I say this
Dihiortihi, the worlds wrath shall rain down upon you. My Awenasa should have
walked this earth for many more moons to come, and now I shall never hold her to
my own ever again, I shall never wipe away her tears or kiss my Sogainisi that she
never was able to bear. My sweet one never made it to become the woman I know
her Elisi would be proud of, that I would be proud of to call my child.

Sincerely written, Ominotago.