Why is District 13 named Gadusi?
Gadusi, On the Hill?
In the 1990’s, Durbin Feeling (Cherokee National Treasure and champion for the preservation of the Cherokee language) taught college courses in the Cherokee language for the anthropology department at the University of Tulsa. Some of the students in that original cohort included Angela Yatlin, Catina Drywater, and Bobi Hill Deere. Durbin always made Cherokee interesting by showing how it has been a part of our everyday life, even if we didn’t notice it. For example, one day he named off town names on the Cherokee Reservation to tell us their Cherokee meanings and origins. He told us how Pryor was originally named, “Coo-Y-Yah” (there is still a street there with that name) and it meant, “Place of the Huckleberries”. Of special interest was when Durbin talked about Catoosa, because that is my hometown. Durbin said that Catoosa was the English version of the Cherokee word, “Gadusi”. I remember him looking up and to the left, trying to translate, as he often did. He said some people say Gadusi means, “hill”, or, “the hill”, but he said that it translates better as, “on the hill”. There is a Catoosa County in the Old Homeland, back in North Carolina. The Cherokee people brought this place-name with them as they were forcibly removed to Cherokee Nation West. I can only imagine that they saw the hills in and around what is today Catoosa (which includes the hills in the east of Owasso) and were reminded of their home back east. I always imagined Gadusi being a special place, honored with the memories of the Cherokees who came here in the 1800’s. Today Catoosa is a small suburb of Tulsa, still amongst the hills, on the edge of the Cherokee Nation Reservation. In 2021, the Cherokee Nation Council was tasked with giving the District’s names, to replace the non-historical numbered system. District 13 is in the old Cherokee District of Cooweescoowee, and that was the first choice of name. However, three other districts also are in part a constituent of the original Cooweescoowee district, and also asked for that name. Joe Deere chose Gadusi as the name for District 13 to honor the ancestors, the native terrain, and the history of the district.