Tribe Arpeggios

Book excerpt: The naturals (native Indians) on the eastern seaboard of the United States during the years 1500 AD through to the present suffered beyond the reasonable as collateral-damage innocents. If the invasion of colonials to the extremes of forcing movement, assimilating-in or killing-off in order to occupy and to control the new world proved anything, it established the need for the justice of law and order to be in the hands of a third party or a benevolent despot. The Tuckahoe, an extinct tribe with roots on the Eastern Shore of Maryland near Cambridge, was forced to choose from the following list: war, sell, run, or join and hope for the best. Running away over land, whether west, north or south, meant bumping into others exercising the same option. In TRIBE ARPEGGIOS, the Tuckahoe chose a flight to freedom, afloat in a ship. Circumstances allowed for a schooner, conditions fed the need, and heritage nourished the will under leadership with unrestrained imagination. The organization was tribal with a benevolent chief and a controlling tribe council as the government. Generations of Tuckahoe floated to and in freedom while forming into a flotilla that moved down the eastern seaboard, through the Bahamas and Caribbean, and around Florida into the swamp shielded mangrove covered sands of the 10,000 Islands. When given the cause of threat, harm or attack, they fought violently. Tribes voluntarily joined in freedom and the theme of survival repeated itself relentlessly. To offend a friend, harm or degrade an innocent, or break tribal rules meant judgment rendered. Life was as the chief said it would be after blowing pipe smoke to the left, smoke to the right and smoke straight ahead, "Let it be so "