Wall in Lauderdale honoring
Native American woman contains
8.5 million pounds of stone
Condensed by Native Village
– In 1839, when she was forced
from her Alabama home to
Oklahoma along the Trail of
Tears, a Euchee Indian teenager
was given a metal tag to wear
around her neck. Her name was no
longer Te-lah-nay. She was No.
After five long years, Te-lah-nay
left Okla., and returned to her
beloved land in Lauderdale
County. She brought with her the
tag placed around her neck by
soldiers, or as she called them,
the “Shiny Buttons.”
“She said, ‘We all thought the
‘Shiny Buttons’ had changed our
names so I brought my name back
with me,’” explained Tom
Hendrix still owns her tag.
her return, the strong Indian
woman was called Mary Hipp. Mary
living as an herbalist. She
befriended a Methodist minister
named Wiley B. Edwards who
soon recorded stories of Te-lah-nay’s
life in a 168-page journal.
Official records are scarce
because Te-lah-nay was not a
U.S. citizen but Hendrix said
she lived to be about 35 years
old and is buried in Parsonage
Cemetery in Lauderdale County.
Nearly 100 years later, in 1936,
Hendrix was a child. He
would sit by his grandmother,
Parmelia, and listen to tales of
his Indian heritage. It was from
her that Hendrix learned of Te-lah-nay’s
“My grandmother wrapped me up in
an old quilt and started telling
these beautiful stories to me,”
In 1988, Tom Hendrix felt the
urge to honor the
stories inspired him as a child.
What resulted was a 1.25 mile
long rock wall. It required
8,500,000 pounds of stone and
“wore out three trucks, 22
wheelbarrows, 3,800 pairs of
gloves, three dogs and one
80-year-old man,” Hendrix said.
winding rock wall on his
property off the
Natchez Trace Parkway is
known as "the largest
non-mortared rock wall in the
United States and the largest
memorial to a Native American
woman,” Hendrix said.
“She was one of the very few who
came back. I decided to build
her a memorial and I decided to
do it out of stones,” he said.
His grandmother told him, “We
all shall pass this earth; only
the stones will remain.”
The wall is 1.25 miles long.
Some tribes refer to the wall as
“wichahpi,” meaning “like the
stars,” while others call it “ishatae,”
or “holy or spiritual place,”
The wall to the left as drivers
pull onto the property
represents Te-lah-nay’s journey
from Lauderdale County to
Oklahoma. The wall to the right
represents the return trip.
Hendrix’s wife Doreen
recommended that he lay each
stone individually to represent
Te-lah-nay’s journey. “I laid
them one at a time for each step
she made,” he said.
2000, Hendrix wrote a book about
journey and the wall called
“If the Legends Fade.”
Last year, the wall was listed
on the Library of Congress's web
site. Now dozens come to visit
the wall each weekend including
priests, Tibetan monks and
Aboriginals from Australia.
“To me, it’s so spiritual,”
Hendrix said. “It’s something
that I had to do.”
He insists he doesn’t own this
“I’m just the keeper here,” he
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