In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Afterword The Western Muscogee (Creek) perspective Ted Isham as a Muscogee (Creek) citizen and member of the Wind clan from the Tulmuchusee tribal town and an adopted member of the hillabee ceremonial ground, my goal is to present the western Creek perspective of this history that is so important to us. What I did was listen to the people of the Creek Nation.It is an interesting thing to come back to the Creek homeland to talk about these events. every time I come to the South, to my homeland, there is a very special connection to the area. Before the symposium, I came and revisited some ancient spaces and visited the ancient hillabee town site. It is always a very special moment and feels like home, and all the Creek names I see on the road signs make perfect sense to me. It is like we never left. and I encourage all tribal members to come back. Creek people are connected to these places where our towns once were, and it gives us our identity. our history, language, and rituals connect us to our ancestors and the places they lived. The Creek people still have a root to this place, and that is who we are. What I want to bring to the table is their perspective. how do they view these events? What can we bring to the table? I surveyed a variety of Creek people and collected their thoughts. It was difficult. Ceremonial ground people would not speak on the topic—it wasn’t appropriate since the ceremonial ground wasn’t a venue to discuss this topic. But even from that we get their perspective. This was a horrific event—a civil war—much like the Trail of Tears. We choose not to bring it out. We gloss over it. We don’t want to pass it on to our children. So, collectively, we have these ways of thinking about this that have been handed down generation to generation. First is the idea that the Creek War was a horrific event and many warriors were lost. It is part of our ethos as a people that we see those Red Stick warriors taking a last stand. That piece of information is handed down: we take the last stand. We call ourselves Este Maskoke Ispo- 248 Isham cogees: “the last people.” We take “last stands” and pull together. The people pull together in these moments of extreme danger. and that is what they were doing at horseshoe Bend—pulling together. The tribal towns at Tohopeka were okfuskee, hillabee, Nuyaka, okchai, Fish ponds, and eufaula. They came together to make this last stand. What is interesting is that most of us believe that the whole Creek Nation was involved. But at Tohopeka, it was only these six towns. as Muscogees, we strive for peace, first and foremost; that is the ultimate goal, and that is part of our ritual today. But when there was a dire need, the war side came out.There is a mechanism to handle that danger. as the prophets came through and made their war talk and visited war towns, the people who took the war talk came together also. These six are still in existence, and this effect of pulling together is called etenhvlvtetv. Unfortunately, during the war, the Creek towns and people were not all together. They were divided and fighting each other. and it resulted in disaster for the Creek people. But at the end of the war, the survivors came together again. and they rebuilt their towns, only to have them taken again when removal came about fifteen years later. But they stayed together and rebuilt their towns in the West. They survived. In the Southeast, there were upwards of eighty tribal towns. Forty-four were reconstituted in the West, and now we have fifteen to seventeen today. okfuskee, hillabee, Nuyaka, and Fish ponds still maintain their fires. okchai and eufaula have put their fires to sleep—and only in recent times. So that is a testament to who we are as a people. We are survivors.The confederacy pulled together in times of dire need and protected each other. and thus it happened in Tohopeka. even though we may not know all the details of what the event was about—our elders chose not to pass it on to us—we need to come and ask the feelings and ideas of the Creek people, and we can all learn. We...

Share