I want to tell you a story. This story is true. It begins this way:
I was born in Georgia. When I was a child, my parents & I moved many times. Before I finished 6th grade, we had lived in 6 cities in 5 states. As a result, we did a lot of traveling... to move; to visit relatives in the summers; to visit relatives at holidays.
I am the oldest child in my family. My little sister was born 6 years after I was born; my little brother was born 9 years after my birth. Because neither my brother nor my sister was there when this happened, and because I was young, but old enough to remember this, I know that I was no older than 6 when this happened...
How I met the Spirits of my Ancestors...
One summer, my parents & I were traveling in the deep South. I recall that we were traveling in Florida; so we were probably going to visit my mother's mother. Imagine this: it is hot (no air conditioning) & we'd been on the road for hours. We were all bored and road-weary. I was in the backseat, hanging over the middle of the seat & trying not to irritate my folks. I'm looking out the car windows... but by now, all of the landscape looks pretty-much alike.
Up ahead, to the right & waaaay off the road, I can see some strange-looking building... For some reason, my parents look that way, too, and spot it. One of them speaks; asks the other one if they see it, too. My father says "It looks like an old fort. Should we go see it?"

I'm excited, " Yes! I want to go!"

My mother says "It's time for a break; let's do it, Jep."

So, we turn off the highway & on to a long drive... Up to the "visitor's parking"... We park and go into the entrance. This was the ruins of an old, old fort (don't ask me the dates for it; I certainly didn't care enough at that age to pay attention to such details!). It had been restored, to some degree, and was open to the public... complete with tourguide. We were the only tourists there at the time.
One way that I know that we were in Florida (or perhaps southern Georgia?) was because of the building material used to construct the fort. The walls, steps, and so forth, were made of something... I can't remember the name... which is a cement-like substance that bonds crushed seashells together. It is very distictive; with small, whole seashells and a rough texture. I've seen it in many old places and historical sites, like St. Augustine, but this was the first time that I took notice of it. Perhaps the tourguide pointed it out.
So, we walk around for a while. Go into the rooms--- "This was the barracks... This was the kitchen... This was where the soldiers ate..." or some such thing. It happened too long ago to remember some things...

I do remember that we walked up many steps to the top of the wall. I was tired by now, and young enough that steps took more effort to climb because they seemed so steep. We walked around the wall to see where the sentries had been stationed. We looked at the cannon. The wall seemed so high to me and I couldn't see over it very well and I had to be lifted up to look at the view.
Anyway, by the time we came down the steps, I was bored-bored-bored with this! Not that I wanted to get back into the car! I was just tired of staying with the grown-ups. Between the guide doing his guide-thing and my folks asking him questions (which I often wasn't interested in), I was pretty restless. Besides, I was really curious about the things which were down on my eye-level... Like this hobbit-sized doorway which was set in the lowest part of the wall beside us...
So, I asked what it was...
"Oh, it's not important. That just opens into a storage area, where things like gun powder and cannon balls were kept. It's empty now." the guide said.
"Can I see?" I asked.

"Sure; it's OK. You won't see anything interesting in there, though," said the guide. (Never tell a kid that "you won't see anything interesting" in some place where the grown-ups won't go!)
I remember opening the little door...
This is what I saw:
The room seemed huge; and it stretched back into the darkness... The floor was dirt. Uneven. The ceiling was the floor of the room above; made of the same material used to construct the rest of the fort. The only light came from the doorway where I stood and from a few, widely scattered, narrow slits in the wall. There was enough height that I could stand upright just inside the doorway, but the uneven, rolling dirt floor meandered its way higher as the room stretched out ahead of me... raising the floor until there was little space between the dirt floor & the ceiling in the back.
"Can I go in?"

"No, no..." I remember my parents protesting.
"It's alright. There's nothing in there now. There's nothing that can hurt her," says the guide... So, reluctantly, my parents gave their permission...
I went inside... It was cool, and not too dark to see, once my eyes had adjusted. I could stand upright inside the doorway. I remember pausing, to see if I felt frightened... I didn't. Slowly, I worked my way back into the room.... As the floor gradually sloped upward, I began to bend over while I walked... First my head; then my shoulders... Stopping frequently to be sure that I wasn't afraid... Until I made it nearly to the back of the room and squatted down on the dirt.
It was quiet. Peaceful. I couldn't hear my parents or the guide. But, I did slowly realize that I was listening to something. To the sound of voices, speaking quietly. I listened to them and felt soothed. And then I slowly realized that I didn't understand what the words were.... but I still didn't feel afraid.
I was old enough to know that there was something "wrong" with all of this. I knew that I "should be" afraid. And I did feel something which, as I got older & would think about the experience from time-to-time, I would come to identify as "apprehension." Not apprehension in regard to the voices, or any of the other things that I slowly became aware of. "Apprehension" which was almost tangible in the strange, dark room; and was shared by the others who were in the room with me.
There were others in the room with me. I wasn't thinking as much as I was feeling at that point. I clearly remember these feelings: body warmth from the persons around me; very dimly-seen forms near to me, and silhouettes farther away; adults and children (like me); I could smell "human" smells, hear the gentle sounds that would be present in a large crowd, see the small movements of a group of persons who were trying to be still; and sense a range of emotions that were almost tangible---fear, worry, concern, and the loving comfort toward each other, the controled-anger and the bravery of some of the people...
None of these words are adequate. I am trying to recreate impressions received by a child in a situation that lasted a few minutes. The impressions came so quickly, but they were so clear. I was not afraid because I felt like I belonged there, with these people. They were my people. I just knew that we had been gathered up, herded there to the fort, and driven into this small, dark, alien place. No one knew why. The mothers tried to comfort the children; and to comfort them, the children (who were old enough) pretended to be comforted. The men tried to reassure the women. I knew that the women & children (like me) were in the back of the room--- not because it was smaller, but because it was farther from the door, and the men needed to be between the door and their families.
In short--- I felt safe in the room among the dark-skinned, long haired, strangely dressed people who spoke a language that I didn't understand, but felt that I should understand. I felt afraid that the people who lived there, at the fort, might come back... and I knew that we were in a place we didn't understand, for reasons that we didn't understand.....
Suddenly, everyone became very quiet... The quiet seemed to spread from the front of the room, near the door, toward the back, where I was... Shadows and shapes around me moved, until everyone was looking toward the door...
...Then, I heard my name called. And called again... My father leaned over and looked into the room... Everyone else was gone, except me.
The experience left me bewildered; confused--- Should I have been afraid? I thought maybe the answer should be "yes," but somehow I wasn't afraid. I decided not to say anything to the adults... Especially since I heard what they were talking about when I came out of the room... The tourguide was telling my folks that the only thing the room had been used for, besides storage, was as a temporary place to keep Indians before they were relocated somewhere...
A few years later, when I was in about 4th grade, all of us in the class were given a homework assignment. Before starting a unit on "North American Indians" for social studies, we were all told to go home & ask our parents if we had any Indian blood. Until then, I had not consciously known that I did.

It would still be years before I would think to associate this strange, early-childhood memory with anything personal. And now I wonder... Did I encounter ghosts? Or, are more specific racial memories inherited by humans, the way they appear to be inherited by some other creatures; like birds or fish, who can be born one place & know how to return to traditional, seasonal foraging grounds without being led by their parents? What exactly happened to me, so many years ago? All I can be certain about is that I did experience this...
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