I'm an Indian Outlaw...

Well, not really.  I did find out a couple of weeks ago, however, that my Cherokee heritage is more significant than I once thought.  Ivey and I traveled to Cherokee (via Maggie Valley to pick up Dad) to spend some time with my Papaw Bill.  It had been way too long since I had seen him.  He wanted to take Dad and I around Cherokee to visit some of the graves of our ancestors.  We began the trip up from the museum at the grave of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Nimrod J. Smith.

Nimrod was quite the historical figure.  He's got to be the only member of our family with a Wikipedia page.  He was the fourth Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.  He fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.  His Indian name was Tsaladihi (this roughly translates to "Charlie-killer" and was a conversion of his middle name "Jarrett.")  He worked very hard to get his people recognized as a tribe under federal law by the U.S. government and is generally credited as being the main driving force behind this taking place.  In short, he was pretty much a badass, although the world really could have done without that jheri-curl mullet:

From there we drove up into Birdtown where I saw the fantastically amazing headstone of Johnny (Bubba) Rowland:

Not only did this thing have an engraving of a dump truck on it, but his nickname seems to have been Cue Ball.  I can't remember exactly how he was related to me, but, based on these two things alone, I wish I could have gotten to meet him.  We also ran across the gravesite of Beauford Roland:

Beauford was shot in the back after a poker game gone wrong.  Three different brothers were tried for the murder, but none were ever convicted.  Seeing as how Papaw Bill and I both love Texas Hold'em a lot more than we should, it seems that the Roland gambling gene didn't die with Beauford on that night in 1981. 

We saw what has to be one of the coolest trees in the world:

It was a fun day and I really enjoyed learning a little more about the family history.  It's not often that you get three generations of Roland's together.  I'm glad Ivey finally got to meet Papaw Bill and I'm glad that she was there to take some good pictures.  I'll have to make sure not to put as much time in between the next visits.