{"id":26398,"date":"2016-04-07T12:02:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=26398"},"modified":"2018-05-01T09:32:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:32:27","slug":"fight-over-sardis-lake-entangled-in-ancient-history-indian-culture-and-sacred-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2016\/04\/07\/fight-over-sardis-lake-entangled-in-ancient-history-indian-culture-and-sacred-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight Over Sardis Lake Entangled in Ancient History, Indian Culture and Sacred Water"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_26406\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26406\" alt=\"Grave sites at the Sardis Cemetery go back well into the 19th century and many of them are homemade.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-BabyWilly.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-BabyWilly.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-BabyWilly-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-BabyWilly-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-BabyWilly-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grave sites at the Sardis Cemetery go back well into the 19th century and many of them are homemade.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/tag\/tribal-water-lawsuit\/\">fight over control of Sardis Lake and water across southeastern Oklahoma<\/a> pits the state against Native American tribes. To the Choctaw and Chickasaw who live in the area today \u2014 and for the Caddo who preceded them \u2014 water isn\u2019t just vital to life: It\u2019s culturally sacred.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/257808546&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Adopted waters<\/h3><p>Margie Jones has been minister at the Good Springs Methodist Church near Talihina for more than 20 years.<\/p><p>\u201cThis church started in 1897,\u201d Jones says. \u201cI think that\u2019s when it first started, if I remember it.\u201d<\/p><p>Her own descendants started the church way before there were any lakes in southeast Oklahoma, when this was Indian Territory. And <i>their<\/i> descendants were dragged here on the Trail of Tears. Margie\u2019s friend Pat Starbuck remembers the stories.<\/p><p>\u201cI keep thinking of <a title=\"MShistoryLink\" href=\"http:\/\/mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us\/articles\/12\/mushulatubbee-and-choctaw-removal-chiefs-confront-a-changing-world\" target=\"_blank\">Chief Mushulatubbee<\/a>,\u201d Starbuck says. \u201cThey literally tied him up and carried him and dumped him onboard of this steamboat so they could take him across the river and dump him out into this icy swamp and force him to come to Indian Territory.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_26411\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26411\" alt=\"One of several unknown grave sites at the Sardis Cemetery. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Unknown.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Unknown.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Unknown-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Unknown-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Unknown-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Allison Herrera \/ Invisible Nations<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of several unknown grave sites at the Sardis Cemetery.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Despite losing their homeland, and being pushed aside to build southeastern Oklahoma\u2019s lakes, a connection has developed between the water and the people here. University of Oklahoma Indian and environmental law professor Taiawagi Helton says it\u2019s no surprise that the Choctaw and Chickasaw people embraced the water resources of the land they didn\u2019t want.<\/p><p>\u201cRelationships immediately start being formed between humans and the earth,\u201d Helton says. \u201cAnd after generations and generations, after a century and a half, I would think that the bond between tribal communities here and tribal communities elsewhere is as strong as it would be anyplace.\u201d<\/p><p>He says tribal relationships with the land and water aren\u2019t limited to ancestral homelands.<\/p><p>\u201cTribes very often have sacred sites within their original territories, but I don\u2019t think that there\u2019s a geographic limitation to a sense that the earth is sacred or that we live in an animate universe,\u201d Helton says.<\/p>\n<h3>Sardis&#8217; (new) old cemetery<\/h3><p>There\u2019s a small island on Sardis Lake with only a cemetery on it. Headstones hold dates from the distant past: J.W. Ford, born in 1856. I.N. Doyle, died January 1911. &#8220;Baby Willy&#8221; and &#8220;Mary&#8221; are roughly carved into a lopsided stone. There are several graves marked &#8220;Unknown.&#8221;<\/p><p>The bodies were dug up and moved here when Sardis Lake was built in the late 1970s and early &#8217;80s. Many remain on the lake bottom. But that\u2019s not all archeologists found when the Sardis project started.<\/p><p>\u201cThere\u2019s evidence from the archaic period back to 8,000 B.C.,\u201d says University of Oklahoma cultural anthropologist\u00a0Michael Stanton.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_26404\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26404\" alt=\"University of Oklahoma anthropologist Michael Stanton at the Sardis Cemetery near Clayton, Okla.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Stanton.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Stanton.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Stanton-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Stanton-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-Stanton-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">University of Oklahoma anthropologist Michael Stanton at the Sardis Cemetery near Clayton, Okla.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Stanton has been studying the history and people in the Sardis area for the past year. He says this was Caddo country before the Choctaws arrived.<\/p><p>\u201cPeople have inhabited the area for a long, long period of time, and actually sedentary settlements,\u201d Stanton says. \u201cThey lived here and practiced subsistence agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;Salvage it before it\u2019s covered up with water&#8217;<\/h3><p>Stanton says archeologists uncovered entire settlements where the lake is now. But there was little time or money to remove and preserve anywhere near all of it. Back then it wasn\u2019t as big a priority, except for the archeologists who had to do what they could with the resources at hand.<\/p><p>\u201cOne person that I talked to said 81 bodies in one particular region, and then another site they excavated nine,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople came out and did what they could. You find as much as you can. You salvage it before it\u2019s covered up with water.\u201d<\/p><p>Local water advocate Donna McFadden was there when teams were excavating. She remembers some of the artifacts that were found when a construction crew was digging pits to build a road along the lake.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_26422\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26422\" alt=\"Donna McFadden holds one of the artifacts she kept from the Sardis Lake construction project. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-McFadden.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-McFadden.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-McFadden-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-McFadden-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/04\/PHOTO-4-7-McFadden-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Allison Herrera \/ Invisible Nations<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donna McFadden holds one of the artifacts she kept from the Sardis Lake construction project.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>\u201cIn that first borrow pit from the creek, 16-foot down, there was the most beautiful fire pit you ever saw,\u201d McFadden says. \u201cIt had those round creek rocks. It still had the coals and part of the wood chunks in it.\u201d<\/p><p>She tried telling the construction crew about it, but they didn\u2019t listen. Reporting the discovery would\u2019ve delayed the project. It was more important to finish the lake than worry about preservation or tribal concerns.<\/p><p><em>Invisible Nations&#8217; Allison Herrera contributed to this report as part of a collaboration with StateImpact Oklahoma exploring the Sardis Lake issue and the dispute between the state and Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations over who controls southeast Oklahoma&#8217;s water.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite losing their homeland, and being pushed aside to build southeastern Oklahoma\u2019s lakes, a connection has developed between the water and the people here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":26406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[107,108,163,538,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26398"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26436,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26398\/revisions\/26436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}