History is context. We choose our history by selecting certain events to include in the narrative. Those events take their meaning in relation to other events. And these narratives make up the myths of our culture, myths that are changing all the time. The human spirit is beautiful and stubborn at the same time. Resilient yet bending, the flexibility of American Indians is like river canes in the Muscogee Creek tradition that dwell by the rivers, weathering the most vicious storms but rising back toward the sky when all is done. Like canes, Indians have been able to respond and adjust to new situations, mostly harsh circumstances, and they succeed. This acquired flexibility, called adaptation-essential for survival- enabled tribal leaders and their communities to exercise the powerful dual themes of resilience and rebuilding. After 400 years of colonized suppression, the indigenous responded, but not in the way that those in power thought. Certainly not over night, but within a century's stretch, the Native nations arose from the ashes of near ethnic cleansing and third-world neglect. In this book, we are beginning the exploration of America's deeper, uncharted history.