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TAHLEQUAH, OK - The Cherokee Heritage Center invites the public to participate in the making of beads for the Trail of Tears Exhibit, Saturday, March 10, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the pottery facility. The pottery facility is located four miles west of Tahlequah on Highway 51 behind Cherokee Nation Enterprise Corporate Offices.

Students & staff from Arthur Morgan School, NC

Students and staff from Arthur Morgan School, North Carolina dropped by Cherokee Heritage Pottery to provide many helping hands for the Trail of Tears Bead Wall project.

Cherokee Heritage Pottery, a division of the Cherokee Heritage Center, is making 16,000 hand made beads for the Trail of Tears Exhibit, which opens May 12, 2001. Each bead on this 28 foot long woven bead wall will honor the Cherokees who walked the Trail of Tears in 1838-39. 12,000 white smooth beads in the wall represent those who survived. 2,000 red and 2,000 black beads with ancient pottery designs represent those who died on their journey to Indian Territory now Oklahoma.

The beads will be woven into rectangles called the footprint design, which symbolizes two people walking side by side. The beads will be woven with copper wire, which is a traditional Cherokee metal. The bead wall is designed to be an experience using the senses of sight, feel and sound in the exhibit.

This Saturday’s bead making day follows up on a similar event last Saturday.

"The response was so overwhelming that we had to have another day," said Mary Ellen Meredith, director of the Cherokee Heritage Center.

To register and obtain directions, please contact Patricia Stewart, phone: 918-431-1016 or 918-456-6007.