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If you're wondering if this is referring to the theme song from the movie "Billie Jack", you are correct.
What does that have to do with Cherokee, or any other Native American group? To answer that, first read the words to the song closely.
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Listen children to a story that was written long ago
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain, and the valley folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore they'd have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven - you can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing, come the Judgement Day.
But on the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure - tons of gold for which they'd kill.
Came the answer from the kingdom "With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there."
Now the valley cried with anger "Mount your horses! Draw your swords!
We will kill the mountain people!" So they won their just rewards
Now they stood beside the treasure on the mountain dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it - "Peace on Earth" was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven - you can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing, come the Judgement Day.
But on the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.
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Okay, there were no Indians mentioned or even implied. How does this song relate to anything Native?
In the song, a fundamental misunderstanding, coupled with greed, unnecessarily led to great tragedy.
When the Europeans first came here, most of them didn't come to exterminate Indians. They didn't understand that the "riches" the natives were willing to share were living in harmony with the Earth, and respecting and treasuring each other.
To the newcomers, the riches were the lush, fertile land itself. They had no way of knowing it was the natives' way of life that had kept the land so fertile.
(Not that the natives were perfect. There is archeological evidence to show that the Mississippian Culture did a lot of ecological damage in their time. It is surmised that their culture collapsed in large part due to their practices of overlogging, overfarming, etc.
The remnants of the Mississippian Culture eventually coalesced into some of the eastern tribes we know today. These people learned the hard way how to live in harmony with Nature.)
Because the natives lived so differently than themselves, and through lack of adequate communication, the newcomers saw the natives as a threat, and their land as the "treasure". We know too well the unnecessary tragedies that followed.
The damage has been done. Now the stone has been turned, and modern culture is learning the value - even the necessity of being in harmony with the Earth and each other.
The descriptions of this land given by early European and American settlers show how well the land recovered from the abuses of the Mississippian Era. Since Western Culture now has some understanding of Ecology there is potential for the land to heal again if we allow it to.
Fortunately, not all the "mountain people" were killed. As their descendants, let's keep sharing "all the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there"
