Artist Team:
Team Gadugi: Bill Glass Jr., Demos Glass, Kenneth Foster, Robert McMurtry, Gary Allen, and Wade Bennett

About the Artwork:
Integrated into the space between the Tennessee Aquarium and the Market Street Bridge, The Passage connects visitors physically to the riverfront and visually to the history of the area. The permanent public art installation by Team Gadugi honors the ancient Mississippian era culture of the region’s indigenous peoples. It brings this heritage all the way to the 19th century forced removal of the Cherokee and other local Native American tribes from this area on the deadly journey known as the Trail of Tears. At the same time, it celebrates the rich and thriving culture of Cherokee people today.

The Passage is one of the most significant public installations of contemporary Southeastern Native American art on the continent. More information on its history, meaning, and artistic elements can be found below.*

Artists’ Statement:
“The Trail of Tears, a catastrophic event in history, passed through this place. A great many Cherokees perished on the Trail and this journey will never be forgotten. Through perseverance the Cherokee people survived. We continue to strive forward keeping our culture alive through strong family values and the retention of our Arts, our Traditions, and our Language.

To truly honor the memories of our ancestors, past and present, we felt it necessary to create a contemporary public art that expresses true cultural relevance and establishes an aesthetic that inspires an appreciation of Chattanooga’s artistic past, with narrative insight from an indigenous perspective.

It is our team’s honor and privilege to complete the circle begun by our ancestors so many years ago by bringing back to this area the vitality and visual strengths of our Cherokee forefathers’ artwork. Through this art installation, we feel as though we are symbolically returning to our ancestral homeland.”
-Team Gadugi, 2005

Background:
Almost two centuries before the creation of The Passage, the area was home to thriving Native American tribes and settlers. In 1816, John Ross (1790-1866), a mixed-blood Cherokee, selected the site for his ferry and trading post. As Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Ross advocated against forced removal; however, in 1838 he succumbed under the terms of the Treaty of New Echota and left the area with the last of his people on the tragic journey west that became known as the Trail of Tears. Over time, Ross’s Landing evolved from a trading post to an industrial river port and eventually, into blight and dereliction.

In 2001, Chattanooga launched a multi-million dollar redesign and revitalization of its waterfront and began to revisit the history of Ross’s Landing and examine its importance to the city and to the Native American people who once called the area home. Under the guidance of tribal representatives, the city’s new Public Art Committee, formed in 2003 by Mayor Bob Corker, decided to use art as a way to interpret and celebrate this area now known as The Passage.

The Design and Art of The Passage:
Composed of Bill Glass Jr., Demos Glass, Ken Foster, Robby McMurtry, Gary Allen, and Wade Bennett; Team Gadugi was selected from a national competition seeking qualifications from Cherokee artists or artist teams.** Gadugi is a Cherokee word meaning “to come together.” According to artist Bill Glass, “Gadugi spirit means working together, not only as people, but also in harmony with nature and mother earth.”

The art of The Passage consists of glazed ceramic disks and figurative stainless steel cutouts that bear a relationship to the designs found on archaeological artifacts of the Mississippian Era (358.9 to 323.2 MYA). The disks represent a contemporary interpretation of cultural themes found on ancient shell carvings. The steel figures bring aspects of Cherokee life more directly into focus by referencing the story of the water spider and the traditional stickball game. Repeated throughout the installation, the number seven is sacred to the Cherokee, whose system of matrilineal kinship is based on seven ancient clans.

Team Gadugi worked closely with Hargreaves Associates (now Hargreaves Jones), the lead architects for the 21st Century Waterfront Plan, on the design of the space. The Passage is approximately 300 feet from First Street to the river and is composed of four different areas that each have a distinctive water feature.

The first area is located at the entrance to The Passage which begins at the Aquarium Plaza. At the top of the space on the west wall are seven recessed brass “doors”. Drops of water drip down from the top of each door and form a runnel along the base of doors and into The Passage. They symbolize that the Trail of Tears began at the doors of the homes of Cherokee people.

The second area widens out between the east and west walls and consists of seven landings with stairs in between. The runnel water feature becomes a tumbling cascade of water down the stairs. At each landing on the west wall is a six-foot diameter glazed ceramic disk produced by the artist. The seven colorful ceramic disks are made from hand carved and extruded pieces of clay that fit together in intricate patterns to form the overall design of each disk, which are as follows:

1. Sun Circle (designed by Bill Glass) – symbolizes the power of the sun on earth, the sacred fire sent by the Creator. The central cross, also called the “Four Logs of the Sacred Fire,” refers to four logs that keep the fire alive. Cherokee myth states that as long as the fire burns, the Cherokee will survive.

2. Four Journey Directions (by Ken Foster) – depicts the four journeys the Cherokee have traveled in their many migrations. North points to an ancestral homeland; east to the rising sun, a temporary move; then south to peace and contentment for many generations; and west to death and sorrow.

3. Warrior Birds (by Gary Allen) – symbolizes the opposing sides in a traditional stick ball game. The two wild turkey cocks also refer to the two mountains that face each other along the Tennessee River at Chattanooga.

4. Connections (by Knokovtee Scott) – depicts two intertwined loops representing two roads that Native American people must travel. The red road is that of man on earth, and the white road is that of eternity. The circles in the pattern illustrate the time of conception and of crossing over into the spirit world.

5. Strength of Life (by Gary Allen) – symbolizes the Cherokees’ spiritual counter-clockwise Stomp dance around the sacred fire. The counter-clockwise movement also depicts the orbital direction of the earth around the sun and the galaxy’s spiral movement.

6. Coiled Serpent (by Bill Glass) – symbolizes the winged serpent of ancient myth, a creature that was the source of ancient wisdom and traditional teachings. The interpretive panel in “The Passage” also states, “The motif was used during times of cross-cultural exchange and signifies the return to traditional customs to stop the loss of ancient knowledge and more tribal lands.”

7. Weeping Eye Mask (by Knokovtee Scott) – represents the Warrior’s Death Mask which is decorated with the wings and body of the falcon, a respected warrior. Masks using this fallen warrior motif were used to honor the followers of Dragging Canoe in his futile resistance of white expansion into Cherokee Territory.

At the final landing, which extends under Riverfront Parkway, the cascade of water enters a shallow pool. Embedded in the floor of this pool is an 8-by-12-foot stainless steel cutout of a water spider designed by Demos Glass. The water spider is drawn from an ancient myth and based on shell carvings from the Dallas site, approximately 1250 AD. The story relates to the return of the sacred fire by the water spider, who transported an ember in a bowl on her back woven from thread spun from her body. Because of her bravery, the spirits granted the water spider the gift of prophecy, and legend has it that she foretold the tragedy and western movement of the Cherokee that came with the Trail of Tears. Water in the pool is recycled back to the top of The Passage.

The final water feature at the base of The Passage consists of seven dramatic jets of water rising into the sky angled at various heights. Facing the jets of water and the river is a wall clad with seven stainless steel cutouts of traditional stickball players designed by Robby McMurty. The ancestor of lacrosse, stickball was played in some form by most Native American tribes throughout the eastern United States. The skin and clothing of the seven steel figures is decorated as it might have been at the start of a game with lighting bolts, deer antlers, the seven-pointed star, the four logs of the sacred fire, and other symbols. Trailing the players are the seven stars of the Pleiades Constellation, called “The Boys” by the Cherokee. Myth says that the stars were once a group of boys who, angry with their mothers for taking away special stones they used to play the game, prayed and danced to the spirits to help them.

*For a comprehensive account of The Passage, including origins, detailed description, and history of the area, please refer to “The Passage at Ross’s Landing," prepared for Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga (now ArtsBuild) in July 2006 by Ann Coulter.
The information here was informed by this report.

**Knokovtee Scott, a gifted artist credited with reviving the ancient art of shell gorget carving and the elder of the team, had to drop out of the project early on for personal reasons.