Jesus before Columbus

A Cherokee story by Edna Chekelelee!
A story from,
"Living Stories of the Cherokee"
By Barbara R. Duncan


"Before the Columbus time" we lived in log houses,
we never did live in Tipis.
And on each end of the
Indian Village where we lived
would be one of these crosses
would sit on each corner of the village,
and it's much bigger than this.
I carry this to show you
what I'm talking about.
This is a circle meaning four corners
of the world. We live, we're sitting
on four corners of the world.
And right in the middle is
the cross where Jesus died.
And Columbus came, he said, "What's that?"
We said, "Well, this is what represents what we
believe in. What was our hearts.
And this is where
Jesus died on the cross."
And each color represents something.
Red is purest blood,
and that's East and means success.
And White is peace.
Jesus has made peace for us where
it was rough before.
And we got punished before.
Now a days it's so much easier,
all we have to do is believe
in him in our hearts as we walk
"close to Thee." Red-East, White-South and West is Black
- and honor the dead.
And the North is Blue.
And Green, Green is our Mother Earth
which we walk on. When you're walking on
the Mother Earth and see trash,
pick it up,
keep your Mother Earth Clean,
by doing that you keep her clean.
All right, we go on down,
and this Yellow, which is sunrise
and someday we're going to see
sunrise and God's son will be coming.
So I thought we'd pass that on.
And Columbus say
"How did you know that?"
"We always knew it;
we knew that God was in our hearts,
and He always told us what was
right and wrong.
When we go and do something wrong,
we always knew it was going to be wrong.
So we always have to keep our
hearts clean by believing in Him
and as He died for us,
for our sins."