Yaya DaCosta Instagram – is CHEROKEE. . For thousands of years, at least as far back as 10,000 BCE, The Cherokee Nation’s (originally called Ani’-Yun’wiya) ancestral lands were located in what is now the southeastern United States (including parts of present day Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri). We were an agricultural people organized into matrilineal clans, with a deep connection to Nature, reflected in our spiritual beliefs, ceremonies, and art. Despite centuries of imperialist efforts, we remain the largest surviving indigenous American population to this day, with the majority residing in Oklahoma, as a result of the U.S. government’s “Indian Removal Act” and subsequent “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s. . Channeled message from a Cherokee ancestor: They tried to erase us, But we were not made of such fickle matter. We were made of earth, of water, of breath, of light… In order to survive many of us changed names, identities, communities… But society’s refusal to see us does not mean we don’t exist. You don’t have to know my name to feel me in your veins. We do not require that you speak Tsalagi, the old language, because we see the way you acknowledge the Four Directions, the way you’ve danced to our heartbeats through drums at pows wows your whole life, the beaded earrings you made and sold as a teenager, the way you translated the message we sent you through the Crow when your brother joined us, the way you connect with the lands you’ve lived on… We see you. This land asks only that you protect it. That you show up for it the way it has shown up for you, generation after generation, Through conditions that were impossible to survive. Yet here you are. Still. That you remain, and that you claim us out loud, gives others permission to do the same. We were here. We were here. We have always been here. . 📸: @thaisaquinophotography 💇🏾‍♀️: @chiomanvhair *who plaited my hair in a pattern resembling a DNA chain, representing the links of lineage 🎵: Walela- Cherokee Morning Song . #AncestryDecolonized #BlackFuturism #IndigenousFuturism #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHerstoryMonth #BlackFutureMonth