Digging the Ocoee
In white water culture, “dig” usually means “to bury the paddle deep within the water, where the current is stronger than the surface.” You might hear your raft guide telling you to “dig”, that’s because if your paddle goes deeper in the water, the boat will move more and you’ll achieve better results. To “dig” is also to “like” or to “learn more” about a specific subject and to “bring to the surface what’s in the bottom”, like soil, or a forgotten past, a history that lies hidden from the surface.
Like the water, if the past sinks in the back of our memory, digging it up can bring a strong current of thoughts and enlightenment to the present. We often refer to the Ocoee River without thinking of where the name “Ocoee” comes from. “Ocoee” is a Cherokee word that refers to Passiflora incarnata, commonly known as maypop, purple passionflower, true passionflower, wild apricot, or wild passion vine. It is a flower the Cherokee used in culinary and in medicine; it’s also Tennessee state’s wild flower.
Hidden in words we use every day are sounds of a different culture, a different community that came before us and yet have seen some of the landscapes we can still see today. The landscapes change, as the sounds of words changes with time, with the clash of cultures, and with the arrival of newcomers that settle down. The river where we paddle used to belong to the Cherokees, a matrilineal community that was forced to move in warfare to new territory in Oklahoma, by the government that settled in the area. They were forced on the Trail of Tears in search of a new home.
The Cherokee might have cried a river of tears, but the river that’s named after the state’s wildflower is still in their language. The tea made from the roots of the Ocoee (the flower) has been used as a herbal tonic, to help restore, tone and invigorate systems in the body or to promote general health and well-being. The Ocoee River can be the perfect metaphor for digging our past in order to restore the well-being that was once broken and make peace with all communities that have lived here.
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