Wichahpi Wall Face Collage
by Kathy K McClellan
Title
Wichahpi Wall Face Collage
Artist
Kathy K McClellan
Medium
Photograph - Photographs
Description
Wichahpi Wall Face Collage by Kathy K. McClellan is a photographic image created for Day 316 of the 365 Challenge (Journal 2022).
This collage shows several individual face stones contained in a ten foot section of The Wichahpi Commemorative Wall a few miles northwest of Florence, Alabama (USA). This is the part of the memorial wall that you will see that meanders throughout the property. What this collage shows is a very small example of the many face stones in the wall.
Notice that these river stones have holes eroded in them that resemble faces. The Lakota people who modified this section of the Wall told the man who built the wall that all bad things come out of the west, so they positioned the rock faces facing west, saying they would protect Te-lah-ney’s Wall.
The Commemorative wall, which would measure 6,600 if straightened out, is said to be the largest un-mortared wall in the United States and was built by one man over a period of 30 years. It is also known as Tom's Wall,
The builder, Tom Hendrix, built the wall as a memorial to his great-great grandmother Te-lah-nay, a Yuchi Indian healer who was sent to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma when the US government relocated Indians. She was a teenager at the time.
After spending one winter in Oklahoma, Te-lah-nay spent the next five years making her way back to The Singing River (Tennessee River) in Alabama.
Mr. Hendrix spent his childhood hearing Te-lah-nay's story repeatedly from his grandmother and has even written a book about her and her journey (If The Legends Fade).
Uploaded
November 12th, 2022
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