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OFFICIAL MAGAZINE O F 'THE STATE O F OKLAHOMA

OKLAHOMA

Vnl 47 N n 1

F E A T U R E S

THE FIRST AMERICAN 16 Alligators, camels, woolly mammoths-and maybe man-were at home on the range here more than twenty-five thousand years ago. By BurihardBilger, i l i ~ r a t i o n s by Jon Goodeli

INVISIBLE TOO LONG 23 Sadie Skeeter lived in the centuries-old way of the Yuchi. But according to the ITS. government, her tribe no longer exists. By JuliePearson,photographs by Dave Crenshaw*

A MAP TO INDIAN COUNTRY 27 When rivers ruled and the salt plains were more than a curiosity.

CRAZY SNAKE'S REBELLION 31 Chitto Harjo, a law-abiding man, earned the respect of his neighbors and an audi-ence with Teddy Roosevelt. But his efforts to abide by a U.S. treaty branded him a radical. By Rabh Marsh

NATIONS WITHIN A NATION 34 Indian tribes struggle to define themselves as sovereign governments. By Robert Hemy

CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF A SPIRITUAL KIND 52 On a dark country night, things aren't always what they seem. By Julie Pearson, illustration by Merlin Little Thunder

THE TRADITIONALISTS 54 Tradition governs those who make it pos-sible to carry on tradition: Four makers of gourd rattles, turtle shell shakers, hair roaches, and drums. By Jeanne M. Devlin, photographs by David Fitzgerald

Page 13 Page 43

I D E P A R T M E N T S

ONE ON ONE 6 IN SHORT 9 LETTERS 10 OMNIBUS T h e Brush Arbor, bv Jeanne M. Dmlin 13 PORTFOLIO Postcards from Indian Country 44 FOOD T h e Native American Pantry, $Suzette Brewer 58 ARTS Creek Laureate, by Maura MrDetmott 62 WEEKENDER Walking the 'Trail, by Jerry Ellis 65 ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR A guide to what's happening 68

COVER: Osage Louis Gray with the porcupine roach and eagle feather traditionally worn in Osage ceremonial dances each June. Photograph by Kurt Maurer.

May-June 1992

Rewriting H

From the moment we realized 1992 would be the 500th an- n iversary of C o l u n ~ b u s ' s voyage to the Americas, we

knew we couldn't overlook it. W e live in a state with the largest concentration of both Native Americans and Native American tribes in the country. W e would have to ignore, literally, the his- tories of more than 250,000 Oklaho- mans not to know there was an America before Columbus.

T h i s quincentenary just screamed for the Oklahoma perspective.

Enter our new publisher. Last fall Berl Schwartz broached the idea of a special issue on Native Americans that would coincide with Oklahoma's Year of the Indian and Oklahoma City's an- nual Red Earth Festival, one of t h e largest gatherings of Indian people in the world. H e knew our editorial staff was small, and he wondered if we'd be interested and, more importantly, if on such short notice we c o ~ ~ l d pull it off.

What could we say? It was the answer to our Columbus dilemn~a-an entire issue to help fill the holes in history left by the history books (at least the his- tory books of our youths).

Ironically, we began our work in a small room filled with textbooks on U.S. and Oklahoma history, the books our children use to learn about this land. In their pages we found refer- ences to the New World, empty spaces, and uncoopera t ive Ind ians (you'd think some of this would be mutually exclusive), b u t t h e worst sins were simple sins of omission-with rare ex- ceptions there just wasn't much to be found on Native American history. What was between the covers tended to lump Indians into two groups: T h e Five "Civilized" Tribes, and every- body else.

Experience told us that thirty-six tribes meant at least thirty-six different stories-different languages, custon~s, games, treaties. So our bedtime read- ing became books on individual tribes,

tribal leaders, and tribal customs. Many written by Oklahomans. Many pub- lished by the [Jniversity of Oklahon~a Press. In the pages of Angie Debo's AwdSti//the Waten Run, Alice Marriott's The Tet) Gmndrnothers (a staff favorite), and Rennard Strickland's TheI~zdiat~sit~ Oklahoma, we found material enough for a hundred Dattres 1.Virh WoLves.

And our path became a little clearer. Contributingeditor Burkhard Bilger

signed on to explore an archaeological find near Freedom that Oklahoma ar- chaeologists suspect could be the first human settlement in America. Former attorney general Robert Henry agreed to explain the concept of Indian sover- eignty, and associate editor Barbara Palmer dug up examples of how sov- ereignty has manifested itself in dif- ferent times among different tribes.

I f any one thing, however, under- scores the parallel worlds that coexist here, it would have to be the map of Oklahoma drawn by art director Felton Stroud (see pages 28 and 29). Person- ally, I have always pictured Oklahoma as a pan-shaped state crisscrossed by interstates 35, 40, and 44, and State Highway 3. I have been accustomed to taking my bearings from the skyscrap- ers ofTulsa or the high-rise dormitories ofstillwater. And though I know most of my Cherokee friends lived near T a h l e q u a h a n d most of my Kiowa friends near the Washita River, I have always dismissed it as a coincidence of time and place. T h e historical signifi- cance eluded me.

But Felton's map has no roads, much less interstate highways. Cities are of secondary importance, and county lines don't exist at all. T h i s is a map that removes what the white man has added to the landscape; it is a map that shows Oklahorna at a time when boundaries were rivers, landmarks were moun- tains, and mighty tribes cut this pan- shaped piece of land into dozens of individual nations. I t is a map of the "old days" that explains a lot about "modern-day" Oklahoma. And if you squint your eyes slightly, you can see it still.

-Jeanne M. Devlin

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OklahomaToday

STANDING r tanding Rock, a landmark for early day pioneers, entered recorded history in 1820 with Major Stephen Long's misexploration of a miscommunication, a Commanche chief's having told Long the Canadian River was a red river, not THE Red River. Today the water is usually+ blue because the North and South Forks join to slip under the main body of the now-dammed Canadian River, over three and one-half

miles of which serve as the south boundary for Standing Rock Development. Ever-present wave lift and winds channeled against our northshore mountainside create cooling breezes all summer long, while soaring birds grace our skies all day, every day of the year. In 1830, immediately before his historic journey to the Northwest Territories, Capt. B.L.E. Bonneville surveyed the midline of the Canadian River westward from the locus the Old Arkansas Territorial Boundary Line crossed the river: translation, the Lake Eufaula Dam lies in 1830- Arkansas! Bonneville came on Standing Rock 7.5 miles due west of his P.O.B. His survey line determined the dividing line for the Choctaw Nation on the south and the Creek and Cherokee Nations on the north. In 1833 Nathan Boone, son of Dan'l, troached what was to become the Indian Treaty Line, our approximate midline, with the Creek Nation to the west and the Cherokee Nation to the east, the literal end for the Trail of Tears. To our knowledge IM-2, a four foot cast iron monument set by Boone, is the oldest historical marker in Oklahoma, IM-1 's having disappeared in the river sands long, long ago. More? You may reach us at (918) 689-7600 or Standing Rock Development, Eufaula, OK 74432-9442. To protect the privacy of property owners, by appointment only, please.

Photo By David Fitzgerald

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OKLAHOMA mDN

David Walters, Governor

@ Published by the Oklahoma

Tourism and Recreation Deparfment

Berl Schwart~ Publisher

Jeanne M. Devlin Editor

Felton Stroud, Stroud Design, Inc. Ar t Direction

Barbara Palmer, Associate Editor Melanie Mayberry, Circulation Manager Lisa Breckenridge, Administrative Assistant Pam Poston, Subscription Services Pam Fox, Accounting Steftie Corcoran, Copy Editor

Contributing Editors Burkhard Bilger, M. Scott Carter, Ralph Marsh, and Michael Wallas.

Tourism and Recreation Directors James C. Thomas, Acting E m & Dinctor David Davies, Lkpury Dimtor Tom Creider, Pads Kristina S. Marek, P/anningandDNc/opment Kathleen Marks, Trawland Tourism Mike Moccia, Administmrie,e Semi-es Tom Rich, Resortr Berl Schwartz ORIahoma T o d q

Tourism and Recreation Commission Lt. Gov. Jack Mildren, Chairman Sweet Pea Abernathy J. Patrick Bark C. Coleman Davis Linda A. Epperley Charles S. Givens Henry A. Meyer, 111 Ray H. Quackenbush Michael D. Tipps

ORIaLoma Today(ISSN 0030-1892)is published bimonthly in January, March, May, July, Septem-ber, and November by theOklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, 401 Will Rogers Bldg.. P.O. Box 53384. Oklahoma City, OK 73152. (405) 521-2496 or ( 8 0 ) 652-6552. Subscription prices: $13.50/yr. in U.S.; $18.50/yr. outside.

U.S. copyright O 1992 by OR/ahoma Today magazine.

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. T h e magazine is not responsible for unsolicited material for editorial considerat~on.

PnnrPlia~PmlV~llPnnnng, Tulsrr.

%=-Second-classpostage paid at OklahomaCity. OK and

additional entry offices.Postmaster:Send address changa to Oktahoma TodoyCir~ulation,P.0 Box 53384, Oklahoma City, OK 731.52.

Oklahoma 'Today

A Walk To Remember In 1831,the

Choctaw ceded their ten-million acre homeland east of the Mississippi River to the United States govern- ment, and

Tired, a s m w a of the Choctaw Trail of Team, @ Dosrg&pfi. The trip m k

In late Apd, James Smith will drive five hundred miles from his house in Meeker to Natchez, Mississippi. Then on May 1, he'll start walking home.

Smith is making the trip to memorial- ize the same trek his tribe, the Choctaw, made in the 1830s. (Though the Chero- kee Nation's Trail of Tears is better known, the Choctaw tribe actually made the journey first.)

Casting- Their Influence

When actress Casey Camp-Horinek is on a movie location in Montana or South Dakota or Wyoming, she sometimes finds herself tooking around and thinking, "Yup, this could be the Osage Hills." Or: "We have beautiful moun- tains like this in the Arbuckles."

Camp-Horinek, who is Ponca and lives in the White Eagle community near Red Rock, flies out of Oklahoma City two or three times a month for auditions or work (she has a rde in an upcoming movie, ~ R O P I IMoon, produced by the Fox television network). The actress, along with many other Native Americans in Oklahoma, thinks the movie industry could just as well come to her.

' V e should have had D a m wifh Wohs," Iamenrs Patrick Whelan, a program director at the State Aim Council. Before filming began on the 1991 blockbuster? a scout visited Oklahoma, checking it out as a possible movie location. But after it looked like it

three winters and an estimated 2,580lives.

On June 6,Smith will be joined by other Choctaws for the final ten miles of the journey. The Trail of Tears Com- memorative Walk will begin just over the Oklahoma border in Pcreala, Arkansas, and end in Scullyville, the onetime site of the Choctaw Agency and now a ghost town. (Iskai'i is the Choctaw word for money; Scullyville got its name from the

would be a problem to pull together enough buffalo to make a respectable herd, and no centralized information about actors and technicians could be found, the movie-makers headed for South Dakota.

But before they did, they had to change the script. Instead of Kevin Cmtner begin- ning a wary friendship with the Comanche, the movie tribe became Sioux. WesSrurfi phyed a Though Pawnee in Oklahoma Dances With Wolves; did play Parts in he wiII~tm- in Last of the movie it Was a the Mohicans, disappointing loss.

Enough so that last year a group began to put together the Oklahoma Indian ' Registry for the Performing Arts. (It's patterned after the national American Indian Registry initiated by the late actor Will Sampson, who was from Oklmulgee.)

When completed, the printed registry

annuities paid out there.) Though tragedy inspired the June 6

walk, planners intend to make the day a celebration of che modem C h ~ w Nation, now the third largest tribe in the country.

"It's not a protest walk of any type," says Judy Allen, editor of the tribal newspaper BiShinriR. "We want to draw attention to the fact the tribe has survived, despite the fact we were encroached upon and removed. We've taken what was given us and made something with it."

Many walkers will wear traditional Chocraw dress-brightly colored cotton dresses and shirts that date from the eighteenth century, when the Choctaw were allied with the French-and traditional foods such as hominy and a boiled black-eyed pea and cornbread dish called &&a will be served at Scullyville. Organizers plan to pull in a podium for speakers on a trailer because all that's left of the town is the cemetery.

All are invited to take pan in the walk, says Allen. There is no registration fee, and walkers can join in at any point along the way. For information, call the Choctaw Nation at (405) 924-8280. -BP

will carry about three hundred pho~o- graphs of actors, singers, dancers, and ozher performers.

Says Camp-Horiiek, "So when someone says 'We need 'x' amount of Native Americans,' we say 'Here are &cir pictures, here are their phone numbers, how can we help you?' "

Native American photographers set up temporary studios across the state early this year collecting the portraits, Organiz- ers required that thase on the registry show proof of Indian heritage, either by tribal enrollment documents OF a Certificae of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) cards. They also asked perform- ers to wear street clothes, in order to underline the fact that Indian actors can play any roles, says Helen Burgess, Indian Affairs Cornmiasion deputy director.

The callection represents most of Oklahoma's thirty-six tribes. If the registry is tangible proof of the resources in the Oklahoma Indian commumity, it also makes another point, says Burgess,

"There are a lot of nice Indian faces out there." -BP

May-June 1992

Letters PRESERVATION KUDOS

Sometimes an issuefinds its place it/ time. Atzd so it a~ould seem has our special look at the histotic presetvation movewerzt iri Oklahoma (March-April'92). Letters and phone calls from readers (and to ta l strangers) made i t clear-at least to us- how deeplv Oklahonzans fee/ ahout pre- semiltg their arzkitecma/past. We couldn't help but agree wifh otzepresetvationist who was so psvched afer readitzg the issue that she dashed off the following letter to the Norman Transcript:

I am writing to t h e people of Norman who love Oklahoma and Norman as I do. If you have not read the April issue of the magazine Okla-homa Toda-y t i t led "Main S t ree t Makeovers from Blah to Beautiful," buy or borrow the magazine and read it. You will not stop until you finish. You will find a lot of interesting Okla- homa places you will want to see. We know what Guthrie's few inspired citizens have done for their town ...We

know what a few inspired Norman citizens have accomplished with our depot and theatcr.

With a look at the past, I only wish "Making Over" had come sooner. Norman had a beautiful old courthouse that could have become a comn~unity center; there was the 1900 Franning Opera House where our early leaders brought in entertainment from New York, St. Louis, and Chicago, and homes, like the Ed Johnson home with its beauty and charm.

Anyway, thanks to those who have worked at re-making Norman and Main Street.

Nellie Childs Norman

My wife and I have been reading your magazine for several years, but the April 1992 issue was the first one that made us want to read every article.

Herb and Betty Jones Oklahoma City

As a member of the construction fraternity, perhaps most would be sur- prised at my praise not only for your

"Historic Preservation Issue" but also for the very cause it celebrates. hly firm, however, has been involved with several restoration projects, and we have found a sense of satisfaction and happiness not normally associated with our standard projects.

We have also felt displeasure at projects that require us to cover up the work of other craftsmen.

When I read over your biographies of artisans in our state, an old stanza kept repeating itself to me:

A man who uses his hands is a laborer. A matt who uses his hands and head is a craftsman.

A man who uses his hands, his head, atzdhis heat7 is utz artist. T o the ones in your magazine and

numerous other ones, this aptly applies. This issue like so many others does our state well. Thank you.

Michael R. Slankard Tulsa

Your April issue of OkLahoma To- day struck a chord within the heart of all of us at the National Main Street Center. It is a beautiful, well written

Oklahoma Today

8

- -

and illustrated preservation issue. that one of your brightest country mu- The l a p s t cottonwoodtree on recordin Jan Taylor-Day

Washington, D.C.

OSU CHIMES IN Congratulations on your fine issue

on historic preservation. Given the friendly rivalry between the two com- prehensive universities, I am com- pelled to point out that OSU, like the designlresearch center of Oklahoma University's school of architecture, has also long been on the front lines of preservation. Since 1978, the history department 's Oklahoma Historic Preservation Survey has completed twenty-nine preservation projects, documenting such historic resources as residential neighborhoods, downtowns, WPA facilities, industrial areas, and coal mines.

Anyone desiring additional informa- tion about historic preservation at OSU may call me at (405)744-8183.

Bill Bryans Stillwater

BECKY HOBBS, AN OKIE? I truly enjoy your magazine but feel

M A S T E R S

sic stars was omitted in your recent ar- ticle on country music stars from Oklahoma (January-February '92), namely: Becky Hobbs from Bartlesville. I have seen her perform often on "Nashville Now" as a singer, pianist, and guitarist, and she is most entertaining. Hasn't she been over- looked?

Mary Sweeney St. Petersburg, Florida

Yes, she has. Thanks for setting the 1zcord straight.

CHAMPION TREES We have a large cottonwood tree on

our land in Ottawa County that is very large in diameter. We were wondering where we could find some information about the largest tree in Oklahoma.

T h e story is that in the days when the automobile did not exist, people would stop and let their horses drink at the stream that emerges from the ground by the cottonwood tree.

Pete and Roberta Baker ,.,,_- Fairland

I ~ ..*- "t ;<L'

Oklahoma is owned by Rolla Chihers in ' Woodward The tree's cimmference is 340

inches. The Dtpamnent of Agr,'mfturr? maintains

a list of record-setting trees, known as Oklahoma Champion Trees. To obtain a copy, write Forestry Deparment, Depar- ment of Agriculture, 2800 Lincoln B/vd, Oklahoma City, OK 73105-4298.

lW. ,-

ANY REQUESTS? I wish you would devote more of

Oklahoma Today to the history and culture of the Indians in Oklahoma. They are one of Oklahoma's proudest assets. I especially enjoyed the article "Oklahoma Tribesmen" (May-June 1991) with photographs by David Fitzgerald. T h e pictures were amazing, all the wonderful culture and beauty of the Indians captured so well.

Thanks for making Ok/ahoma Today a publication to be proud of; I take it to work and share it with my friends so that they can see what Oklahoma is all about. ,.

, - . Linda M. Te :,I t Camarillo, California

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UnderTheBrush Arbor The Kiowa Szcmmerhozcse

May-June 1992

The Morgans of Anadarko renewed theirfamily's arborsfor the marriage of their son Gabriel Pokeitay to Hankie Poafpybitg of Binger. It was "*a thefirst traditional Kiowa wedding in modern memory. David Paddlety, a chaplainfor the Kiowa Black Leggins,pegormed the ceremony. !

-9

When the Kiowa traded their tipis for houses in the winter of 1892,it was a historic first. So his-

toric, in fact, that the entry in the Kiowa pictorial calendar for that year simply reads: "The winter they first built houses."

It was taken as a sign that the Kiowa had finally left the old ways behind.

Evidence to the contrary came with the first breeze of summer, when Kiowa men headed to the banks of the Washita River in search of green willow boughs. In short order, willow arbors went up behind their houses, and

Kiowa families abandoned the white man's airless box for the natural air conditioning of a well-made arbor. , And so it remains today in Oklahoma.

Though ordinances in some Okla-homa cities and towns prevent the use of willow arbors, one need only travel west of Anadarko into the rolling hills of Caddo County to see that the old ways endure. Behind ranch houses and on gentle hillside slopes, the sight of a willow arbor remains a sign that sum-mer has arrived in Indian country. On the old Mopope allotment west of Anadarko, Robert and Vanessa Morgan and their three children cook, eat,

4 sleep, and, on occasion, string an ex- ..<-tension cord so they can watch 5 "Northern Exposure" reruns under the - 4.r

family arbor. "Kiowas don't like to be J ,1(<

closed in,'' explains Vanessa Morgan. ,<-

"We like to be able to touch the earth. 2 We like to be able to be where we can J

hear the birds and hear the wind-too .';I .r; often these days people are boxed in away from the elements." ,

Known as "a wicky," a shade, or a "squaw cooler," the arborwas originally %.k..- -

-yan alternative to t he tipi on short camping trips in hot weather, according 4;

r, -0

to Reginald and Gladys Laubin's book '? TheIndian Tipi. When Indians moved 4

12

into houses, it became their answer to a screened-in back porch.

Anadarko arbor maker Ernest Doyebi, who was born in 1920and now lives in town sans arbor, recalls fondly the days of his youth when summer nights always meant sleeping under his grandmother's arbor. "It was cool out there," Doyebi recalls, "and the mornings, pretty."

His grandmother spent the early hours of each summer day watering the willow boughs on the arbor roof, as well as its dirt floor and a six-foot circle around the periphery of the arbor. T h e result: "Any little breeze that came across the ground you could feel," re- calls Doyebi. "We say, 'Now that's air conditioning.' "

Doyebi helped his grandmother and father carry bundles of willow branches and boughs for years as a child; he made his first arbor single-handedly at the age of thirteen. He's been building them ever since.

A request for an arbor sends Doyebi, armed with a razor-sharp machete, to nearby riverbeds where willow thickets and stands of hardwoods can be found. Making an arbor is not unlike weaving

a basket the size of a small building, but instead of blades of buckbrush, Doyebi uses hardwood tree trunks, leather straps, and, of course, green willow trunks, branches, and leafy boughs.

T h e forked oak trunks act as posts as well as supports for the roof; slender green willow trunks are woven with leafy boughs into a wall that encircles three sides of the arbor while remaining open from the waist down to accom- modate summer breezes; and big fluffy willow boughs the size of a man are lashed to the roof braces to ensure a sturdy roof. When an arbor is done, says Doyebi, it is proper to bless it and ask protection for those who will occupy it.

Making a ceremonial arbor can take Doyebi at least a week. He has been rushed only once (he built a quickie arbor for someone in desperate need using two-by-fours and wire) and has always regretted the lapse. "All I'm interested in," he says, "is in building a good arbor. I'll have no branches sticking out. I build them smooth. All my arbors they know. Other arbors look like hair standing up."

There is no disputing the aesthetics of a Doyebi arbor. T h e green willow

NATIVE SPIRIT IN

STONE Sculpture by Bobby Creepingbear

Route 3, BOX 33-A Carnegie, OK 73015

(405) 654-1092 Whirlwind

\ I

boughs of a fresh arbor bring out the blue in an Oklahoma sky, and even after the boughs dry to brown there is a classical balance to the minimalist structure that is pleasing to the eye. "It stands there, too," says Doyebi proudly. "It takes the wind."

This is no boast. Once when a big wind came up at the annual American Indian Exposition in Anadarko, Doyebi watched in amazement as everyone took cover under his arbor, leaving a campground full of empty tents and tipis. All in all they made a wise choice-when the storm passed, Doyebi's arbor was about all that was left standing.

A well-made arbor, woven together as it is, is indeed as sturdy as it is beau- tiful. "One year I built a large arbor for the American Indian fair," Doyebi re- calls, "and a man came up and asked, 'Can I take it home?' I told him, 'Yeah, but you'll need a helicopter to carry it off.' "

Jeanne M. Devlin

Doyebi's prices for an average arbor to go behind a house begin at$500. He can be reached by writing: Ernest Doyebi, P.0.Box 656, Anadarko, OK 73005.

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Oklahoma Today

- -:w r

TEXAS $wY X,> 9

Turnpikes encourage tourism and economic develbpment fiom Miami to Lawton, 3li~go to Henryetta, ~ t i h t e r to Muskugee andSuCpfiur to Ada. These ffmtive traih" were created to f i l f ia a vital need essentialfor fu~regrowth. With convenient and safe access ofthe turnpikes, many cities and towns have attracted industries and tourists into thir lbcaf economy every day. Turnpikes not on& save time, money and fives, they aLFo create jo6s, commerce and opportunities.

- -~k f imaTurnpikeAuthority

American As Oklahoma archaeologists draw close to

proving man f rs t walked this land 13000 years earlier than anyone expected, one thing becomes clear: Columbus made a fashionably late entrance.

B Y B U R K H A R D B I L G E R I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y J O N G O O D E L L

Jungle Fever B eginning at dusk, they come down to the water hole in

polite shifts, glancing briefly to each side before bend- ing their heads to drink. Bison, camels, llamas, saber-

toothed cats, a ground sloth, and an alligator: wading into the water or delicately lapping it up with their tongues, lowering themselves knock-kneed to the shore or flopping their whole bodies in with snorts of relief. Summers are warm and dry on the prairie, but it rains often enough to keep this gypsum lake filled, and papaw fruits lay ripe on the ground for lazy snacking. One after another the animals drink their fill, then fade into the gray-blue savannah again. T h e alli- gator, always the slow one, finally leaves in disgust after he breaks a tooth on a turtle. Now, as shadows in the arroyos deepen to black, the mammoths finally take their turn.

Thirteen feet high, with tusks like massive rork lifts, these animals, in a land that will someday be known as Oklahoma, are some of the most impressive land mammals the planet will ever see, and they seem to know it. Pounding down to the water with a dull rumble, they jostle for position on the tight shore, breaking the night's decorum with trumpet calls and clashing tusks. Soon the air around the pond is rank with the smell of mammoths flinging water across their backs and shaking their shaggy coats, settling down as noisily as steam locomotives.

In the commotion, the muffled thud of a spear striking home goes unnoticed. Squat- ting beside a tree, the man who threw it glances anxiously toward the rest of the troop, then runs forward in a crouch. He has the folded eyelids

middle distance, a souped-up red Volkswagen is jostling forward along it, kicking up a tail of dust that hangs for a moment in the still noonday air.

Inside the cab, Vic Burnham gazes out across the Badlands of northwest Okla- homa, imagining what they might have looked like when the first Indians arrived. Born in Freedom and raised on his dad's ranch, Vic feels about as native to this country as a bison. He can count back three generations of Oklahomans, back to when his great-grandfather was a cowboy for the Comanche Cattle Pool before statehood. This morning, though, his sense of personal history has been thrown for a loop. This

morning, he feels like he's looking at his life through the wrong end of a

telescope. and flat face of his an- A few minutes ago, WC Burnham W ~ S~tf!pp'in! O U ~ofcestors, who learned to .ic was getting his kill these beasts on the teeming steppes of Si- dad's track ready dirthis car I0 plant a la! next 10a ditch twenty-five milefor a beria. Leaping to avoid when he saw the tusk-chalk white race, setting up flags to his victim's lurching warn the other racers charges and swinging and as thick as an arm. away from dangerous tusks, he jabs at exposed flanks with another spear, bringing the mammoth first to its knees and then to its back. Outmatched though he may seem, he makes quick work of the mammoth. By the time the troop of animals finally notices, the hunter has already retreated to an outcrop- ping of rock a few meters away.

He'll wait there until dawn, when the troop will abandon its dead to go graze on the plain. Then, after a few breathless hours of butchering, he will carry the hide and meat to safety before dusk, when the first shift returns to the water hole.

Ten thousand years pass. Papaws give way to cottonwoods along the streambeds, and the pond receives fewer and fewer visitors. Camels, horses, ground sloths, and mam- moths all disappear-victims of the changing climate in the waning Ice Age-leaving bi-son to rule the plains alone. Summers grow hotter, winters cooler, and the alligator's tooth sinks slowly beneath layers of red earth.

Another 15,000 years slip past, the pond filling with silt like the bottom of an hour- glass. It's 1986 now. Streams cut deep into clay canyons, and the parched climate has left only shortgrass and shrubs where trees once stood. Along the crest of a hill where the mammoths once waited their turn, a flat dirt path snakes off toward the horizon. In the

spots. H e was just stepping out to plant a flag next to a ditch when he saw the tusk. Chalky white and as thick as an arm, it was sticking out of the ground about eighty feet away. Vic has dug up hundreds of old bones in his day-when you operate bulldozers for a living in west- ern Oklahoma it's hard to avoid them-and he could tell that this was ivory. I t was scattering flakes of itself down the slope, the way old ivory always does when it touches the air. Standing there next to his idling car, staring at the tusk and thinking about the race he still had to run, Vic had a hunch. He thought he might drive home and give Don Wyckoff a call.

It was only a hunch, one with the pecu- liar power to attract other hunches, but it would lead to a discovery that could radi- cally change how we view this continent's past.

The Whisper of HeresyS ix years, three summers of digging, and

six thousand pounds of dirt after Vic made his call, Don Wyckoff sits behind

his desk at the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey. "I think that the Burnham site has t he best chance of any si te in North

Oklahoma Today

America of proving that people were here before Clovis times," he says. T h e flat as- surance of his voice notwithstanding, Wyckoff has uttered the archaeological equivalent of heresy.

For much of the last thirty years, archae- ologists have built their theories of Native American history on the unshakable belief that people first arrived here eleven to thirteen thousand years ago. T h e artifacts that launched this theory were discovered at the Blackwater Draw near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932;long spear points elegantly chipped and fluted, they would have made excellent weapons against mammoth and bison-early man's favorite prey. In the years since their first discovery, Clovis points have cropped up everywhere from under- water ledges in Florida to ancient stream shores in Canada. They are so uniform and ubiquitous, in fact, that archaeologists be- lieve they were brought to North America by a single band of hunters crossing the land bridge that once connected Alaska to Kamchatka.

During the coldest stretch of the last Ice Age, some ten to thirty thousand years ago, glaciers reached down from the northern pole and up from Antarctica like giant sets of teeth. These ice sheets tied up so much water that they lowered sea level by three hundred feet, exposing patches of sea floor across the globe to the wind and sun. It was across one of these ephemeral landscapes, a thousand mile-wide strip of land that ge- ologists now call Beringia, that hunters first followed their prey to the New World.

A hard time they had of it. If the geological evidence is correct, then the only way south from Alaska at the time was a narrow corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, a corridor that may not have opened until twelve thousand years ago. Meltwater lakes, windswept tundra, and the occasional lost herd of game were all that lay between the ice blue battlements on either side of the corridor. It would have taken warm, well- fitted hides and exceptional hunting and foraging skills to survive that passage.

Had they managed to reach what is now Montana, however, the hunters would have found a promised land of more than biblical richness: green and relatively temperate, overrun with animals too clumsy and dull- witted to avoid humans. With two conti- nents at their disposal, those hunters could have begun a population explosion. In five hundred years' time, archaeological geolo-

May-June 1992

gist C. Vance Haynes has estimated, the hunters' numbers could have grown from a band of twenty-five to a population of ten million, their migration stretching all the way to Cape Horn, on the tip of South America. Wherever they went, the theory goes, these first Americans would have car- ried Clovis technology with them.

If Not For luck yckoff has no problem with most of that. He has believed in the theory of Clovis man's migration since his

graduate school days at Washington State University. The Clovis culture has been the shadowy forerunner of every site he has excavated since 1968, when he became Oklahoma's first official state archaeologist. Wyckoff is beginning to doubt only one thing: that Clovis came first. If the dates for the artifacts that Wyckoff has found are le- gitimate, by the time the Clovis culture made it over hunters had been lounging in the American paradise for more than twelve thousand years.

It has taken a good deal of money, sweat, and hard evidence for Wyckoff to question this article of faith. Working with grants from National Geographic and the National Science Foundation, Wyckoff and a team of scientists and volunteers, unfazed by 105 degree summer heat, have painstakingly destroyed the arroyo, or stream channel, where Vic Burnham saw his tusk. In the process, they've uncovered the bones of prehistoric animals alongside a stone knife and a scraper. Radiocarbon dates, taken from pieces of charcoal and snail shells found next to the artifacts, have shown the deposit to be about twenty-five thousand years old. Though this evidence is just shy of conclusive, Wyckoff hopes to bolster it with even stronger finds this summer, when his team returns to Burnham.

Such excavations have grown into a quest for an archaeological grail. From the Yukon to Chile, people like Wyckoff are caught up in the search for pre-Clovis sites-cautious archaeologists, bred by their profession for low expectations, hoping to find that one undisputed artifact in a charcoal-laden, layer-cake stratigraphy. Each of them living for the moment when they can call the most famous skeptics over the phone and say, "You'd better fly on down here. I've found

More Digs:A Hide Factory

Since 1917, archaeolo-gists have been poking around in the corner of a

Kay County pasture, studying the remnants of what may have been the first industrial corridor in

the state. Between about 1725

and 1760, French trappers and traders visited two Wichita villages on the Ar-

kansas River (known to researchers as the Deer Creek and Bryson Pad- dock sites). There, the French exchanged guns, glass beads, and kettles for the Wichita's help in hunting bear, deer, and bison. Piles of bison bones and quantities of hide scrapers found at the site are evidence that the resi- d e n t Wichitas helped

clean the hides before they were shipped down river.

After about 1760, when the Osage began blocking trade routes, the Wichita moved south to the Red River. There, archaeolo- gists have noted the con- tinued influence French and Spanish traders ex- erted: "We find arrow- heads being replaced by bullets," says Dr. Robert Bell, an archaeologist from Norman, "and pottery be- ing replaced by pots and pans."

something that might surprise you." Don Wyckoff has his list of big names: C.

Vance Haynes (the most persistent of the pre-Clovis skeptics and the one who cast doubt on the last contender, Meadowcroft rock-shelter in Pennsylvania), Don Grayson at Washington State, Jack Hofman at Kansas, David Meltzer at SMU in Dallas. H e sounds uncomfortable reading the names aloud, as if doing so might jinx his search. H e may, however, just want to appear dispassionate. Others have been undermined by too much enthusiasm-a willineness to see ancient -tools where others saw only rocks. If Wyckoff has any advantage, it's his Oklahoma sobri- ety, the no-nonsense conservatism that has forced him to be dragged, nearly always against his better judgment, into believing in Burnham.

"In 1986,if you had given me $20,000 and said, 'Go dig,' I never would have spent it on that site," he says. Initially Burnham was meant to be a quick dig aimed at uncovering some evidence of Oklahoma's environment during the Ice Age--early humans weren't supposed to even come into it. I n fact, Wyckoff says, normally a paleontologist, not an archaeologist, would have excavated the Burnham tusk. But the state's paleontolo- gists were too busy examining the extremely distant past-when oil deposits were formed-to pay attention to mammoths. As a result, the state's Ice Age is largely a mys- tery, despite fossil beds that rival those in the Gobi desert.

Moving from the site of the mammoth tusk to a nearby skull belonging to an extinct species of bison, Wyckoff s first dig uncov- ered dozens of prehistoric beasts a t Burnham. From ground sloths to saber- toothed cats, lemming to a prehistoric alli- gator (its tooth was one of Burnham's big surprises), the pond that once lay at the site drew an extraordinary menagerie to its wa- ters. "Even if there weren't any evidence of early man, the site would be extremely im- portant," says the team's paleontologist, Larry Martin of the University of Kansas. "Burnham is probably the most important late Pleistocene site in Oklahoma."

If it had not been for an overachieving lab assistant, Martin's praise might have been the final word on Burnham, too. Sifting through dirt at the Archaeological Survey's labs in the fall of 1987,Linda Ragland came upon some tiny flakes of flint from around the bison skull. Peering closely at them, she realized they probably came from a tool

sharpened by human hands. "When Linda brought them to me, I was tickled," re-members laboratory manager Peggy Flynn. "So I took them over to Don and said, 'What do you want me to do with these?' " After a moment, Wyckoff and Flynn both started giggling. "But when we continued to find these flakes, we started rethinking the whole thing."

T h e flint from which the flakes were thrown, it later turned out, had originated in central Texas, five hundred miles away from the Burnham site. "The only animals I know that carry flint that far are two-legged," says Wyckoff with a laugh.

Ridmg A Ground Swell he evidence of a pre-Clovis culture has only gotten stronger in the years since, but Burnham, itself, has never quite

escaped that anxious zone between revela- tion and disbelief, euphoria and discour- agement. Every discovery, it seems, is hounded by a new pack of doubts: T h e dirt around the tools maybe around twenty-five thousand years old, but the tools could have washed into it from a younger site. Yes, the snail shells gave firm radiocarbon dates, but shells are notorious for absorbing old carbon and throwing off archaeologists. T h e knife and scraper were definitely made by hu- mans, but they could have fallen into older earth through an animal's burrow.

Wyckoff s colleagues at Burnham aren't an excitable bunch. Their opinions of the site pretty well represent the range of opinions within the archaeological com- munity. On the believers side of the scale lies paleontologist Larry Martin: "The possibility that every artifact at that site fell through a crack or gopher hole is almost unbelievable," Martin says. "In my mind, the site is definitely twenty to twenty-five thousand years old."

Privately, such statements may please Wyckoff, but publicly they worry him. "Some people on the team would like to promote the site's age," he says, "but I don't think that's the way to go. I t polarizes people." Though Wyckoff admits "most of us are pretty comfortable with the fact that the site is pre-Clovis," he won't publish that opinion without irrefutable proof. In the meantime, he's more comfortable with the cautious optimism of anthropologist Jim

OklahomaToday

1 1

Theler from the University of Wisconsin. to a site near California's Calico mountains, 1 When Wyckoff first asked Theler to join where the tools are a bit too much like rocks

\the team, Theler told him flatly that he to convince the skeptics--every pre-Clovis \5 didn't believe in pre-Clovis Americans. Af- pretender has been cast in doubt. Most re- \\ ter two seasons on the site, Theler is begin- cently, in Monte Verde, Chile, archaeologist

\ning to waver, if only slightly. "I don't feel Tom Dillehay uncovered the remains of \ like Burnham has proven pre-Clovis man's wooden houses, a human footprint, and a \\ existence," he explains. "There's some hunk of mastodon meat thirteen thousand 8 doubt still in my heart." years old, as well as charcoal from three Q\

In June of 1992, Wyckoff's Oklahoma hearths thirty-four thousand years old. \$ team will try to resolve that doubt, to silence Ironically, Monte Verde's remains are so 3 the naysayers and turn the archaeological well-preserved that many archaeologists $ world on its head once and for all. Convinced question their authenticity. 8 that the tools washed into the ancient pond h As directorof the National site from somewhere on the surrounding 8

8 Congress of American Indi-slopes, the team hopes to find the original place where the tools were used. If they can 8

from El Reno, helped ham-track the eroded earth to another group of A Visionary's lonely Path 8 ans, Suzan Shown Harjo,

tools-this one clustered in ground that 6 6 believe that the best pre-Clovissites are h3\ mer out the language of the

never washed away,with enough charcoal for I better than the best Clovis sites," Larry \3 Native American Grave half a dozen radiocarbon dates-then Martin from the University of Kansas $

\ Protection and Repatriation Wyckoff will get out his list and start making says. "But then I have no shame or fear. I'm \ Act of 1990. Under the fed-calls. Because the tools found so far are not a vertebrate paleontologist-these people 8

\ eral law, staffs of federallytoo eroded, Wyckoff believes they will be can't ge t to me." Archaeologists l ike \3 funded museums have timefound within one hundred and fifty Wyckoff, on the other hand, risk be- 8

feet of the spot they washed from. * ing seen as intellectual renegades if 3 to survey their collections, Unfortunately, that spot they publicly sub- 8 then tribes can ask for the could be as much as scribe to pre-Clovis 8 return of human remains and twentv feet below the Oklahoma's Ice Aue notions. Back in the $ surface. is largely a mystery, says 1930s, those W ~ Obe- B artifacts.

With the help of lieved that the first 8 Some instances of repa-

Oklahoma State soil despite Americans arrived 8 triation have already oc-

scientist Brian Carter, ~chae010gi~(DonWycko&

more than five thou- 8 curred. The Nebraska His-the team will drill long- fossil beds rival those in sand years ago ran $ torical Society has returned cores of earth from into similarproblems. around the ancient the Gobi desert At the time, the ideas

the remains of more than 750

ancestors to the Pawnees. pond, hoping to zero in of archaeologist Wil-on the original site. Although Wyckoff is liam Henry Holmes and Bohemian-born T h e tribe is now in Okla-

sanguine about their chances of success, physical anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka held homa, but the bones were

Carter isn't so sure. "It's as if the ancient sway. Convinced Ice Age humans never reburied in Nebraska, the landscape were a puzzle that we're trying to lived in the Americas, the two systematically Pawnee's ancestral home. put back together," he says, "but we only examined evidence from every potential Ice Gary McAdams,chairman have ten or twenty percent of the pieces. It's Age site, exposing them all as frauds. of the Wichita tribe, expects a bit of a long shot." Martin agrees, "It's a I t took a black cowboy named George

his tribe will recover remainshuge gamble, but if we didn't think that we McJunkin to turn the tide of opinion against had a reasonable chance of finding the them. O n e spring morning in 1908, from both the Smithsonian

original site, we wouldn't go back." McJunkin was searching for a lost cow along Institutionand a Texas mu-Even if the team hits the mother lode, and a dry gully near Folsom, New Mexico. Like seum. First, however, they

the naysayers are called to Oklahoma, Mar- the Burnham ranch, Folsom lies in the must resolve a dilemma. tin isn't sure the debate will end. "I think Cimarron watershed, and like Vic Burnham, "We never expected our there is a significant body of people that George McJunkin was brought up short by nothing would convince," he says. Over the some bones protruding from the ground. people to be dug up and be

last fifteen years, dozens of potential pre- When the Folsom site was finally excavated reburied, so there's no tra-

Clovis sites have been found and discounted. in the late 1920s, it revealed a spear point ditional way of reburying. From Meadowcroft-where C. Vance buried between the ribs of an extinct bison, We strugglewith it. How do Haynes argued that ancient coal from nearby a find that archaeologists from all over the you do it? We don't know deposits could have contaminated the earli- country came to see. While the site con- the correctand proper way."est artifacts, skewingthe radiocarbon dates- vinced most archaeologists that humans ar-

May-June 1992

Whether you want to join an archaeologicaldig or just do some weekend fossil hunting, the Bad-lands of northwestern Oklahoma are the best place to go in the state, if not the country. Even better, the Burnham family has the rare gra-ciousness to open its ranch to fossil buffs from across the state. "We don't post our land, and people can camp out there if they want," Vic Burnham says. "I give free tours of some of the sites when I can." For directions, call (405)621-

3424 or write Vic Burnham, Box 58, Free-dom, OK 73842.

To volunteer for a dig call Don Wyckoff at the Oklahoma Archaeology Survey in Norman, (405)

942-3764; he's always in need of new recruits.

rived in the Americas more than ten thou- Badlands of northwestern Oklahoma, where sand years ago, Hrdlicka continued to call the land shows its age as plainly as an old Folsom-and later Clovis-the Achilles' man at a physical. Withered and bare, heels of American archaeology. "Now, stretching across northwestern Oklahoma people who are against pre-Clovis sites use with a kind of calm exhaustion, the hills here the exact same arguments that Hrdlicka reveal a continent's history in the sweep of used against Clovis," Martin says. "It goes an eye. Brittle ribs curve just beneath the on and on." dry ground, deep creases show where

If pre-Clovis people are having more streamsonce cut through the grasslands,and trouble reaching archaeologytextbooks than arroyowalls bear the scarsand wear of steady they did the Americas, it may be because use by wind and hoof. their story still doesn't quite make sense. "Western Oklahoma is an exciting place How did pre-Clovis people get here, ar- to work," agrees University of Wisconsin chaeologists wonder, if the ice-free corridor anthropologist Jim Theler. "You can walk into the Americas was blocked until twelve out in those arroyos and see fossil bones thousand years ago? Did they paddle down sticking out...in western Wisconsin, every-the northwest 'coast?And if they did make thing is buried under feet and feet of allu-it to the Americas, why have so few of their vium." remains been found? "If people were here Just walking around his ranch, Vic before Clovis hunters, one of two Burnham has found seventeen things must have happened," Jim q mammoth skeletons and more than The le r says. "Either three thousand ar-they left a culture that we can't readily identify because its tools are so mundane, or they didn't

InJune of 1992,the Oklahoma team will trv to slence the

rowheads. Four or five times a year, he calls Don Wyckoff about a new site he

survive. I'm not corn- has discovered-fortable with either of naysayers adturn (he archaeological of ,hem ,, those reasons." Tools good as the Burnham from comparably early world on its head once adfor aU site.17 The tips-Siberian sites have been easily identified by archaeologists, Theler points out, and the pre-Clovis people would have had to be exceptionally inept to starve in prehistoric Oklahoma. "Twenty-five thousand years ago, this was the Serengeti of the Americas," he says. "It was a game-rich, well-watered, striking place. I mean striking. It 's hard to believe that they couldn't have succeeded here-that just doesn't sound like humans much."

Wyckoff has a more plausible explanation for the dearth of indisputable pre-Clovis sites: people aren't looking for them in the right places. "Nobody was finding Folsom and Clovis sites before 1930either," he says. Now, Clovis sites have been found in every one of the forty-eight contiguous states, as well as Canada and Mexico. "When most archaeologists see a deposit older than eleven thousand years old, they don't want to have anything to do with it," Wyckoff says. "But we have to start looking in de-posits that are older than Clovis if we want to find remains that are older than Clovis."

If you had to find evidence of early man anywhere, you might expect to find it in the

good as they are-go on a list for now. There is too much left to learn about the site that started it all. This summer, Wyckoff and his teams will take one more stab at finding what may some day be called the Burnham Culture, knowing full well that their discovery might not please everyone. Archaeologists aren't the only ones who have resisted the claims of this continent's previous inhabitants. Ever since Columbus found people living in the Americas-and yet claimed to have discov-ered it-European colonists have worked hard to convince themselves that they are the first Americans. T h e Burnham culture might tarnish that fantasy even further. It might have the power to make us see our civilization, for a moment, as Vic Burnham saw his life that morning in the Badlands: through the wrong end of a telescope, made as small and indistinct as a star.

Burkhard B i k e r p up in Sti//water;he is now an associateeditor a t Earthwatch magazine in Watertown,Massachme~ts.Jon Goodell is a national4 known Noman-based illustrator.

OklahomaToday

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Invisible Too longA Yuchi Woman Who Would Not l e t Her Tribe Be Forgotk

B Y J U L I E P E A R S O N P H O T O G R A P H S B Y D A V E C R E N S H A W - 4,., '

S he was seventy-nine years old, and she came to Tulsa once a week selling the kind of lunch you couldn't buy anywhere else: Indian meat pies and fruit cobbler, whole

pies and Indian tacos, served up by fin- gers as strong and thick as cane stubble. $ T o those who bought her dishes, she was g known simply as Sadie, an old-fashioned name that seemed to describe her homespun manner and simple, yet handsome, appearance. T o those who comprise Oklahoma's Indian commu- nity, she was Sadie Skeeter, a woman admired for her fine cooking and her adherence to a traditional lifestyle. (In 1988, Indian Health Care in Tulsa voted her "Indian Elder of the Year.") But -3%

Sadie was remarkable in yet another way, for she was a guide through time to one of Oklahoma's most elusive tribes: the Yuchi.

FARMERS ALWAYS fl adie was born in 1910 on allotted

I ucnz

Indian land south of Bixby, and she lived all her life within a ten-mile radius of her birthplace. Half Creek

on her father's side, half Yuchi on her mother's, she was- in Indian parlance-raised Yuchi. Thus, if asked her na- tionality, Sadie would respond, not American Indian, nor Creek, nor Creek-Yuchi, but simply, Yuchi-as would any Indian asked about her. This was not a matter of happen- stance. Her parents and grandparents lived by each other, and Sadie, like many Indian children, had a choice as to who raised her. She chose her grandparents' way, the traditional way. "Everywhere my grandparents went, I went," she re- called. "That's how I learned my Yuchi language."

Her grandfather, as was typical in his tribe, farmed his allotment rather than leasing it to outsiders. Though the Plains tribes looked down on farming, the Yuchi had been agriculturally oriented for centuries. Each household planted gardens of green beans, tomatoes, and other small veg- etables. Corn and cotton were raised in carefully tilled fields across the pasture. There were the usual farm animals- chickens, pigs, horses-but no cows. Sadie was never sure

why, but none of the Yuchis kept cows. Even without cows, there were plenty of chores. As soon as she could reach the stove, Sadie helped her mother and grandmother cook. She

chopped weeds, picked corn and cot- ton, and, along with her brother, made nests of dirt in the freshly plowed fields to accommodate totsonh, a special kind of Indian sweet potato: white, not yel- low inside, longer than a regular sweet potato, and, once baked, the delicate blue of a bird's egg. T h e seeds for the vegetable were believed to have been carried from the Yuchi's homeland in the southeastern part of the United States, and it was a favorite planting of older members of the tribe.

I Her life as a child followed the gentle

rhythm of the agricultural cycle, broken only by the family's weekly trip into Bixby. On the way into town, Sadie's grandfather dropped off sacks of shelled

R ' white Indian corn at the mill. Thus, in addition to their other supplies, the family had white cornmeal-a staple

ingredient in traditional Yuchi cooking. If Sadie was helpful on the farm, she was invaluable in

town, because neither one of her grandparents spoke En- glish. Once, when they needed to borrow money from the bank, Sadie, age six, went along to translate for them.

THE MEMORY OF LANGUAGE

The Yuchi refer to themselves as "children of the sun," and their original residence in Tennessee, South Caro- lina, Georgia, and Alabama is so ancient that, according

to the Creeks, when they arrived in prehistoric times, the Yuchi ceremonial grounds were already in place. Despite such deep roots, the small, mobile tribe confounded early European explorers, who called them a variety of names- Chisca, Hogologe, Westo. Even the word Yuchi is suppos- edly derived from an answer to the question, "Who are you?" posed by a Spanish explorer. What the scholars do agree upon is this: the Yuchi were fierce fighters, even then.

Absorbed into the Creek Confederacy during the colonial

May-June 1992

7 hmorning of tire Green Corn, Yuchi men are scratcired on t i r a mand kgs by a medicine man. The men then take medicine--o tea made from w i / d p / a n ~ and roots mixed in water and steeped in the s ~ ~ n - t h a t makes them vomit. Tnot afternoon after meditasion andprayer, the men wash their faces, arms, and legs in thmedicine as e a n of corn are placedin the f i e . T h corn is then removed, and each man prays ouer it. The men finish about sunset, andeveryonejoins in the Friendship Dance, above.

Indian wars of the 17th cen- tury, the Yuchi never sur- rendered their ethnic au- tonomy. T h e y lived in separate villages, clinging to their customs and language, until they were forced west to Indian Territory with the Creeks in 1836. Because they were so few in number, the Yuchi were devastated by the loss of so many of their people during the forced march west, but their farming skills, centuries old, helped them survive. Their allotments were in t he

in Bristow, Bixby, Mounds, Sapulpa, and Kellyville. (A Yuchi boarding school erected in Sapulpa operated until 1928.)

Less than fifty years after their Trail of Tears, how- ever, the Yuchi suffered a more subtle form of geno- cide when they were en- rolled as Creeks by members of the Dawes Commission.

The relationship between the Yuchis and Creeks is a complicated one. Clearly the two tribes are bound by many ties-including inter-

same federal roof their cus- toms, ceremonies, and lan- guage are distinct. Thei r physical appearance is dif- ferent, too. Yuchis are gen- erally lighter complected than Creeks, and in contrast to what you might expect, gray eyes are a common characteristic of Yuchi full bloods. But the greatest dif- ference may be found in their languages, which are no more alike than English and Chinese. T h e r e is also a more painful difference. While the Creeks have

dozen people-mostly el-ders-are fluent in Yuchi.

Sadie was one of them. And she taught Yuchi under the auspices of the Creek Nation for some time, only to have the classes discon- tinued from a lack of stu- dents. Her students were typically ten years old and younger, and since no stan- dardized alphabet exists for Yuchi like that Sequoyah created for Cherokee, Sadie had the children develop mnemonic tricks to remem- ber their vocabulary. She

northeastern part of what marriage-but even after a slowed the attrition of their found the best motivation would become Oklahoma- century of living under the native tongue, less than a came in surprising forms-a

Oklahoma Today

Blacks Get Together. And highly symbolic of the Yuchi clumps of witch hazel and December, with its religious predicament. It's as though, cottonwood. Another eight

I -

message, translates as Big having been uprooted once, willow arbors at Duck Creek Sunday. the tribe is determined not are occupied by the main

to increase the distance be- Yuchi families, including

liter of pop, say, in exchange for a child's fluency.

I t is hard to put a price on a language. But it seems fair to say that language is a window to a people's soul, to its common experience. In Yuchi, the names of t he months reveal the tribe's closeness to nature. Febru- ary is Windy Month; June, Blackberry Month; while March is known as Little Summer. But even more fascinating are the names of months that reveal just how long Anglo culture has pushed up against the Yuchi: July with its Independence Day celebration is T h e Month When T h e Whites

RIVAL WORLDS

A s a Yuchi woman, Sadie lived in two occasion- ally rival worlds. There

was the secular world with its need for money and the constant problem of how to raise it. Then there was the Yuchi world with its tribal dances and ceremonies- t he Arbor Dance, which marks the spring cleaning of the Yuchi campground; the Green Corn, which has been described as Thanksgiving and New Year's all rolled into one; and the Soup Dance, the center of which is the butchering of a hog and its distribution through- out the camps.

Sadie's home campground has for decades been at Duck Creek, where her husband, Jim, is one of the Yuchi headmen. In summer, if one is anywhere in the vi- cinity of Duck Creek, he can pull off the road, get out of the car, and listen. Beyond the buzz of cicadas, like the shimmering of heat close to the ground, can be heard the hum of singing and the soft swish of turtle shellshakers, sounds which can be fol- lowed all the way to the ceremonial grounds. Practi- cality is said to be the main consideration in selecting a site for ceremonial grounds, except for one inviolable rule: Each time the Yuchi ceremonial grounds are moved, they must be moved east. Never west.

T h e east is a sacred direc- tion in all Native American cultures. Sweat lodges, tipis, and churches all face east,

1 n C D U J J U J V U U 7 J L C J V 4 4 V W J 4lJC l ' / Z C l 4 U J / l & ~ U U I J L C . I J I C C n U L J J U nUl84-

the round up, selecting ones to hawest, and re/ease of buf//o not neened.

tween themselves and their Sadie's. In the arbors are Southeastern homelands by stored cooking equipment, a single inch. cots, kerosene lamps, and

Four ceremonial arbors at anything else that might be Duck Creek surround the needed during the three square grounds, known as consecutive days of ritual the yu-ah, or big house, a and all-night dancing at the place often compared to the Yuchi Green Corn. white man's church. One of While her husband, Jim, the medicines used by the participated in the ceremo- Yuchi in their ceremonies nies at the grounds, Sadie's grows nearby, as do stands of job was always to feed the hundred-year-old oaks and guests and family at her

Get Together. August is toward the rising sun. But Jimmy Skeerer, Sadie's husband, addresses the gathering at Duck Creek T h e Month When T h e this custom also seems b4ore a stomp dance begins.

May-June 1992

I lutions of the seasons, the passing of the years. They were, in effect, the only cal-endar she needed.

FUTURE PERFECT

I f Sadie could have had only one wish for the fu-ture, she once said it

would be "to see the Yuchi achieve federal recognition as a tribe."

That is because of all the roles she played-grand-mother, linguist, community treasure-she was first and foremost a Yuchi woman.

rucna wztn sms-may jor a game of stickball at Duck Creek. And though she did not dwell on it, there were times

camp. Done as it was out-doors on a wood stove and fireplace, it was a master-piece of logistics and timing. Some of Sadie's dishes were prepared at the house and warmed up in camp, while others, like her sourdough

time-honored, sacramental relationship between danc-ing and feasting. She-nay is Yuchi for spoon. Add one syllable, and you have the word for the ceremonial grounds: go-srlrtee-nay.

For Sadie, cooking was

when she thought about the day the Yuchi were enrolled as Creeks and, in the eyes of the U.S. government, ceased to exist. And as tribes like the Wyandotte know, re-versing this kind of error is a frustrating, time-consuming

cornbread, were mixed there ~//////////////X//P////////P//////~~//////P/////////////////PA

on the spot. A typical Green Corn feast might include fry bread, fried chicken, fried Theircollective memory goes SO far back pumpkin, fried pork, beef-and-hominy, corn-on-the- that Sadie could recall hearing her grand-cob, parched corn, corn soup, blue dumplings, grape dumplings, several kinds of cakes and pies, and sofke, flavored in the Yuchi man-ner with hickory nut oil. Because of Sadie's reputa-tion as a cook, the table at her camp seemed to fill ear-lier and stay busy longer than any of her neighbors. Yet despite the strain of cooking for so many, Sadie looked forward to these ceremonies as surely as she looked forward to the spring's wild onions.

The sharing of food is an important part of most In-dian activities and the source of countless good-natured jokes. But the Yuchi lan-guage offers a rare insight into what is essentially a

parents talking about the "Red Clothes." -//////////////////////////P//J:

part of her traditional lifestyle, an application of everything she had learned. And though cooking was frequently her means of supplementing the family's income, it was also her way of rendering service to oth-ers. At a meeting of the Na-tive American Church, a powwow, or fund raiser, Sadie could invariably be spotted working behind the stove. Yuchi ceremonies and gatherings were a chance to renew her bonds with family and friends, to make contact with the spiritual world and the traditions that sustained her. They marked the revo-

iC////////////////////////////PA

process. In 1986, the Yuchi sent lobbyists to Washing-ton, D.C., seeking federal recognition for the tribe. Nothing came of it. Current tribal enrollment stands at 3,000, and the Yuchi aren't about to fade away. Or for-get. The i r collective memory goes so far back that Sadie could recall her grandparents talking about the "Red Clothes." How many other families with colonial roots can boast of having passed down stories about the British?

In a time when Americans have to practically be shanghaied to vote, t he

Yuchi cherish the responsi-bilities of tribal government. A few years ago, one of the Yuchi chiefs announced his desire to resign from office. His health was bad, and he felt unable to carry out his duties. However, chieftain-ship is a lifetime office among the Yuchi, and, de-spite his personal wishes, tradition could not be waived. As for Yuchi council meetings, they are by turns a frustrating and hopeful experience. One by one, old and young, men and women, rise and speak their minds. T h e Creek Nation provides video equipment so the meeting can be filmed and used as additional proof that Yuchis do exist.

T h e Yuchi don't want to separate from the Creek Nation. Nor are they de-manding to change their representational form of government with the Creeks. All they ask is to be recognized as the ancient people they are.

Sadie died three years ago at the age of seventy-nine. She did not live to see her preferred future come to pass, but in the way she lived she communicated to ev-eryone whose life she touched something of the vitality and tenacity that make the Yuchi unique. And when the Yuchi succeed in their quest-as they surely must-their restored tribal status will be a fitting me-morial for Sadie, and the one she would have liked best. TheDuck Creek Green Corn is

held in late June ten miles south-west of Bixby. For infomation call A n d m Skeeter,Sadie's son, at (918) 749-6957.

Jalie Pearson of Tulsa is a regtclar contributor to Southwest Art. Dave Crensrlraw is assistantphoto editorfor the Tulsa Tribune.

OklahomaToday

A Map to Indian Country FINDING THE OLD PLACES TODAY: HUNTING GROUNDS, CAMPS,

CAPITOLS, MISSIONS, HISTORIC HOMES, AND MUSEUMS.

ARCHAEOLOCICIL SITES Ferdinandia,Kay County. From 1725 to 1760, this Arkansas River community was the home of the Wichita. Artifacts-both Wichita and European-have been found in villages on the site.

Devil's Canyon, Lake Altus. 'The site of the first peace meeting between 1J.S. troops and Plains Indians in what's now Oklahoma. Frontier artist George Catlin documented the 1834 expedition. Bones and metal scraps have been found.

Pueblo Mounds, Plainview. Mounds and ancient irrigation canals that predate the arrival of Columbus in America.

Longest Site, Jefferson County, Red River. l ' he Wichita Con- federacy (Taovaya, Waco, Towakoni, and Kichai bands) was feared by the Spaniards during the 18th century as the mighty "Nations of the North." A village excavated in 1965 uncovered six houses and 52,000 artifacts, including knives, European trade goods (mirrors, glass, and beads), and one clay marble.

Spiro Mounds, Spiro, (918) 396-3702. An Indian ceremonial and trade center that dates from 800 to 1200 A.D. Statues, shell work, and other artifacts have been found.

0 OLDTOWNS Town of Cayuga, eight miles northeast of Grove. Built by Wyandotte Mathias Splitlog, its church and cemetery remain.

Town of High Springs, twenty miles southeast of Okmulgee. 'This was the first capital of the Creek Nation.

Town of Tnmaha,nine miles north and seven miles east of Stigler. An agricultural trading post for the Choctaw Nation, Choctaw Confederate forces sunk a steamboat headed for Fort Gibson here on June 15,1864. After the Civil War, a flood changed the course of the Arkansas River and the town disappeared.

Town of Tahlonteeskee, one mile south and two miles east of Gore. T h e capital for Arkansas Cherokees until they united with the Eastern Cherokees in 1839. Replicas of the court and council houses are on U.S. 64.

CAPITOLS Creek Council House, Okmulgee, (918) 756-8700. From 1830 to 1870, the Creeks operated out of a log building. Okmulgee became the capital in 1868. In 1876, a capitol was built in the town square. Now the sandstone building is being restored; it houses a museum.

Cherokee National Capitol, 'Tahlequah, (918) 456-0671. Built in 1869 in the town square, this capitol was joined by a council ground and a camping site for delegates of the eighteen tribes that regu- larly attended council meetings.

Choctaw National Capitol, Tuskahoma, (405) 924-8280. 'The Choctaw built their first capitol in 'Tuskahoma, but moved the

capital to Iloaksville in 1850. In 1883, the capital returned to 'l'uskahoma, and a capitol was built. It is now a museum.

Chickasaw Council House, 'I'ishomingo, (405) 436-2603. When the Chickasaw were removed here, they were to settle on Choctaw land and have representatives on the Choctaw Council. 'l'hey won the right to self-government and built a capitol here in 1855. 'I'wo of their three capitols-the1855 log building and 1896 granite building-now stand together.

Seminole National Capitol, Wewoka. ?'he Seminole declared Wewoka their capital in 1867. T h e capitol is gone, but the Semi- nole Whipping T'rec, a pecan, still stands on the Seminole County courthouse lawn. ('I'he Seminole National hluseuni. (405) 257- 5580, is also in Wewoka.)

MISSIONS Rainy Mountain, Gotebo. Established to serve the Kiowa tribe, it stood in the shadow of Rainy blountain.

Sacred Heart Mission, Konawa. From 1876 to 1943, this mission on I'ota\\.atonii land \\,as the "cradle of Oklahoma <:atholicism." Students included Sac N Fox athlete Jim l'horpe and statesman Patrick J. Hurley. A stone bakery and log structure remain.

Union Mission, Maxie. Established in 1820 by the Osage, it was the first mission in Oklahoma.

Nuyaka Mission, Okmulgee. Built in 188.2 to replace the burned 'Tullahassee Mission, Nuyaka cost the Creeks $2,500 and the Presbyterian Church another $10,000. 'I'he school closed in 1923.

Dwight Mission, Sallisaw. One of almost seventy missions es- tablished in Indian Territory between 1820 and 1861, its school caught home and trade skills to Cherokees. It also served tribal elders-its press printed hymnals in Cherokee.

Shawnee Indian Mission, Shawnee, (405) 273-5062. hlission work by the Quakers began among the Absentee Shawnee about 1871. Part of the remaining mission, now a museum, dates to 1880.

AGENCIES Darlington Agency, El Reno. Established on the North Cana- dian River in 1870 to maintain the peace following Custer's nias- sacre of the Cheyenne at the Battle of the Washita.

Kaw (Washunga) Agency, Kaw Lake. T h e surviving agency building once located at Washunga (the reservoir covered the town) now sits above Kaw Reservoir; it is still used by the tribe.

Union Agency, kluskogee, (918) 683-1701. In 1874, the affairs of the Indian agents for t h e Five 'I'ribes were spread from 'I'ahlequah (Cherokees) to Boggy Depot (Chickasaws) to Skullyville (Choctaws) to Wewoka (Seminoles) to Fern hlountain (Creeks). In 1876, they were consolidated here on Agency Hill. l ' h e sandstone building now houses the Five Tribes hluseum.

Osage Agency, Pawhuska, (918) 287-2495. T h e third of three Osage agencies built in Pawhuska, this 1922 sandstone building stands on a hill overlooking the town. Nearby is the Osage Tribal Museum and the klillion Dollar Elm.

Choctaw Agency, Skullyville. Skullyville was the principal town of the Choctaw before the advent of the railroad. T h e agency site is still here, as is Agency Spring (water's piped to the roadside). In the cemetery, headstones date to the 1840s and read like a who's who (Folsom, LeFlore, McCurtain) of the Choctaw tribe.

Pawnee Agency, Pawnee, (918) 762-3621. Massive sandstone buildings, along with the agency itself, are situated on reserve land in an idyllic clearing east of Pawnee.

Wapanucka Academy, Bromide. Built in 1852 with limestone brick quarried from nearby Delaware Creek, it was a headquarters for Confederate General Douglas H. Cooper, a Confederate hos- pital, and a military prison.

Seger/Colony School, Colony. In 1886, John H. Seger led an initial "colony" of 120 Arapaho here in an attempt to give them a solitary place to learn the white man's ways (without his bad hab- its). T h e 1893 school included some thirty-five buildings where students studied masonry and carpentry.

Wheelock Academy and Wheelock Church, Millerton, (405) 286-2321. Choctaw children were schooled here from 1844 to 1955. T h e plain stone church-the oldest in the state-dates from 1846; the remaining academy building, from 1882.

Cherokee Female Seminary, Park Hill, (918) 456-6195. Park Hill was known as the "Athens of the West," in part because the Cherokee opened two seminaries--one for girls, one for boys-in 1851. Both burned, but three of the Female Seminary's twenty- five massive columns still grace the Cherokee Heritage Center.

Riverside Indian School, Anadarko, (405) 247-6673. This 1871 school is one of five all-Indian boarding schools left.

HOUSES Quanah Parker Star House, Cache, (405) 429-3238. T h e son of a Comanche chief and white girl captive, Quanah Parker fought his last battle at Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle in 1875, then brought his band to Fort Sill and surrendered. 'I'he fourteen stars on the roof of his home appeared after he noticed the liberal use of stars on a visiting brigadier general.

White House of the Chickasaw, Emet. Col. John Johnston built this house in 1895 in anticipation of becoming the Chickasaw governor (which he did in 1898 and two other times); Johnston wanted a house suitable for a governor.

Peter Conser House, Heavener, (918) 753-2493. Peter Conser, Choctaw on his mother's side, was chief Lighthorseman (some- thing like a county sheriff) of the Mosholatubbee District. His third home-now restored--overlooks the family cemetery.

Old Choate House, Indianola, (918) 823-4421. T h e double log cabin was built in 1867 by Choctaw leader George Choate.

Wd Rogers Birthplace, Oologah, (918) 443-4201. Humorist Will Rogers may well be the most famous Cherokee who ever lived.

Murrell Home, Park Hill, (918) 456-2751. 'The home of George M. Murrell and Minerva Ross (niece of Cherokee chief John Ross) was built in 1844. It was one of the first mansions in Indian coun- try and reflected the Cherokee's level of sophistication; the house had a wine cellar, smokehouse, and servants' quarters.

Sequoyah's Cabin, Sallisaw, (918) 775-2413. T h e son of a Cherokee chiefs daughter and a white trader, Sequoyah created a phonetic alphabet for the Cherokees. 'I'he cabin was built in 1829.

Choctaw Chiefs House, Swink, (405) 873-2492. One condition of the Choctaw moving to Oklahoma was the building of a house for the tribe's chief. T h e original log home was built in the 1830s.

Jim Thorpe House, 706 E. Boston, Yale, (918) 387-2815. Sac N Fox Jim Thorpe was hailed as the world's greatest athlete after winning the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm.

White Hair Memorial, east of Ralston, (918) 538-241 7. Osage Lily Burkhart bequeathed her home and headrights for a research library and museum in honor of the White Hair Clan.

Gardner Mansion, Broken Bow, (405) 584-6588. T h e 1880 home of Choctaw Chief Jefferson Gardner.

OTHER SITES Washita Battlefield, Cheyenne. Monument and memorial mark where General George Custer killed Chief Black Kettle and massacred his Cheyenne tribe in November of 1868. (The Black Kettle Museum, (405) 497-3929, is in Cheyenne.)

Antelope Hills, western Ellis County. These hills were once a camping ground for the Comanche.

Horsethief Canyon, Perkins, (405) 547-2131. Once the summer camp of the Sac N Fox tribe (hide scrapers and arrowheads have been found), this canyon is now a private park.

Creek Council Tree, 18th and Cheyenne, Tulsa. Arriving in 1834, the Creeks deposited ashes brought from their homelands and kindled a new fire. On that spot, they laid a traditional square, cleared but for a burr oak near the southeast corner. Here they conducted tribal business-from purification rites to thanksgivings for corn crops-until 1896.

Battle of Honey Springs, Rentiesville. During the1863 Civil War battle, troops on both sides were from the Five Tribes. It was the first battle in U.S. history where Native American, black, and white soldiers fought together. (The Yankees won.)

Big Salt Plains and Great Salt Plains, along the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River, Alfalfa County. Osage hunting trails crossing the northern plains led to the salt plains, where hunters could pack game with salt to cure the meat. T h e Osage used feathers to col- lect salt from the flood plains of the Salt Fork. (The Great Salt Plains State Park, (405) 626-4731, is near Cherokee.)

Cheyenne Winter Camp, Roman Nose State Park, Watonga, (405) 623-7281. Chief Henry Roman Nose set up winter camp in these canyons. T h e Cheyenne took their sick to a cedar tree on top of a bluff in the park; the "Medicine Tree" is still there.

Grave of Chief Ne-kah-wah-she-tun-kah, Pawhuska. Born in 1839, Ne-kah-wah-she-tun-kah was governor of the Osage four times and a member of the council seven times. His was the last traditional Osage burial ceremony. It included the killing of his favorite horse and the placing of a scalp in his grave to allow his spirit to enter the spirit world. (The scalp belonged to a chief from another tribe and precipitated an intertribal incident that led the government to ban all future scalping.) A life-sized statue of the chief marks his grave. [fD]

For u 199-7 hrochure / i s t i r zgZ~~diap /es undments ilr Ok/ahol,ra, arite: Ok/ahotna Tow~snr and Rerreution Deput~tnerzt, Division of T r a d a n d Touristn, P.O. Box 60789, Ok/aho?t~a Cig,OK 73146.

Oklahoma Today

Snake llion

HOW CHITTO HARJO LIVED, AND DIED, BY A TREATY'S PROMISE

B Y R A L P H M A R S 0

Down with him! chain him! bind him fast! S/am to the iron door and turn the k g ! The one tlue Creek, perhaps the last To dare dec/are, "You huve mv-onged me!"

Definnt, stoical, den t , Suffers imprisoamnent!

As the old man recited the poem, a fire came into his eyes that had not been there before, and he rose suddenly from his chair to stand in the center of his well-appointed living room in Tulsa, in the year 1986:

Such r o a m (,/at3 hair! surh engle uje! S r ~ hstutc/y t ~ / i e ~ ! - h o ' ~ ~ at-row-str{~i.At!

,Surh '~j i / / ! to dej'jsuch ~.ourxgu 7Xe po'~,utfu/ tnc~kers of his fate!

A tr(~itol; out/aa~,-a~hutyou mi//, Hfis the N O / J / ~red mall sti//.

Emotion choked the old man's voice, and it dropped to an explosive whisper:

fillde~nn Airn u~zdhis kind to shurrrr! I hoe1 to him, exalt his natre.

'H ot dam!" T h e old man exclaimed, and he leaped- this old man in his nineties in his white shirt and string tie, this former elected official of 'Tulsa city and county government who had mastered the art

of bureaucrats, time payments, and new cars-he leaped clear of the floor, and he slapped the heels of his boots to- gether, and he clapped his hands with the suddenness of a rifle shot. And then he looked at me.

"The Creek poet Alexander Posey knew Chitto Harjo, and he wrote that poem about him," said the old man, known as Dode McIntosh, a half-blood Creek who had been a chief himself but had never lived a day in the old Indian way.

Then the fire died slowly from his eyes. H e returned to the chair and sat down, and he talked about the one time he had seen Chitto Harjo.

"My papa," explained McIntosh, "was the first Creek Indian to practice law in the United States federal courts. Chitto Harjo came to see papa ...H e wanted papa to t q to do something (about the government and the land allot- ments). 'We are captives,' papa told him. 'There is no way that we can ever get it back like it was.' "

So Chitto Harjo, whose name means Crazy Snake in Creek, got back on the old pony he plowed with and rode west from the nice home ofCheesie hlcIntosh, the smartest Indian in the nation, who lived in a town the whites had built and nanled Checotah by misspelling old Chief Checote's name. Chitto Harjo rode slowly toward his cabin of hand-hewn walnut logs that sat in the middle of a hand-cut clear- -

ing sixteen miles west of town. T h e pony's hooves made soft, fiamiliar sounds in the dirt of the road as they moved closer to the place where the ground still grew Indian corn, and the hogs still ate it and got fat, and the pony still pulled the plow, and the stone still sharpened the neighbors' plowshares, and a fire built in the hand made forge still purified silver so he could hold it up for the sun to see. Nowhere else, however, was anything the same.

o white person, historian Angie Debo tells us, ever un- derstood the spiritual shock the full blood suffered when tribal land was allotted."(He) grieved deeply as a

man without a country," Debo wrote. "He cared nothing for the few paltry acres in his own name that had replaced the wide sweep of mountain and prairie, the winding rivers, and the deep forests that had all been his. Shy and distrustful as any wild thing, he hid from the enrollment parties, and he returned his allotment certificate to the Agency."

Chitto Harjo once tried to explain this to a gathering of U.S. senators who had come to Tulsa to figure out the "In- dian problem." H e told the senators he could remember standing before Columbus with the free sweep of a whole continent at his back, could remember what Columbus said to the fathers of his father's fathers who stood awestruck at the appearance of white-colored people from the sea, but who nonetheless believed they were a gift from God. Co- lumbus had said: This land is yours. If any people come into your country, I will stand by you and preserve you and de- fend you and protect you. He said as long as the sun shines and the sky is up yonder these agreements will be kept. Tha t is what he said, the old man told the senators. This was the first agreement we had with the white man.

Those who could not remember the words of Columbus

Chitto Harjo had never violated a single treaty with the Great Father,whom he obeyed next to the Great Spirit that ruled them all. Even in the Great War between the two brothers, when the Great Father could not protect him and he was urged to unbury the hatchet and raise it against the Great Father, he had fought and left his own country to get to the soldiers who fought for the President, and he had helped them. H e did it to protect the precious treaties that guaranteed to the Creeks their Nation and the land and the rivers and the deer and the wild turkey that contained the essence of their very souls. And they told him that if he kept the treaties, the land was his forever. T h e Treaty signed by the Creek Indians in 1832 that removed them from their old land and traded to them this one in its stead was the last legal

were those who did not listen to the Old Ones whose wis- 8 dom went all the way back. And the meaning of Columbus's $ words passed intact from full blood to full blood, as did ev- ery word of every treaty entered into with the white man !j unto the present day. Like the Cherokee full-blood Red- 2 bird Smith, who disputed the allotment path by producing 3 the feather given his great-grandfather at the treaty signing O that gave his people their land, Chitto did not bother to separate what he had seen from what the Old Ones had seen for him. Chitto heard. And remembered. And none of the words that had been spoken told of a plowed country of businessmen and a land where the Creek tribe had no say.

H e wasn't the only Creek who knew that something had gone very wrong, but he knew it earlier than the others. In 1902 the Creek Chief Pleasant Porter would look back on the land allotments and admit: "I was compelled under the advance of civilization to sign the paper that I (now) know took the lifeblood of my people. If we had our own way, we would be living with the lands in common, and we would have these prairies all open, (and we would have) our little bunches of cattle and bands of deer that would jump up from the head of every hollow, and flocks of turkeys running up every hillside, and every stream would be full of sun perch."

The full bloods came to Chitto now, and he had done all that he knew to do, and it had done no good, and there were no Old Ones left to go to. "We are pushed out of

all that we had," they told him as they sat in the dust by his little forge. Chitto kept his face turned from them, because he had no answers. When they had gone, their questions lingered unanswered in the smoke of the little forge.

In 1906,after things had grown worse, Chitto Harjo would tell a Senate committee what the full bloods had told him that day. "The full-blood Indian people are pushed out to- day, and they have left their homes and taken what they have and are camped out in the woods today. T h e half breeds and Negroes are the ones that have taken all the land, and there is nothing left for the full-blood Indian at all. I t is going to be cold weather after a while, and there is the women and the little children and the old people, and we don't know what to do with them or where to get a house to put them in. All the property such as cattle and hogs and horses-it is all gone, and we have not got anything left."

Crazy Snake followers imprisoned at FortGibson in 1901.

treaty signed between the President of the United States and the Creek Indian Nation. And that was the one Chitto Harjo lived by.

But the trains came anyway, and white men came and married the Indian women so they could gain access to Creek lands, and the country began to go in a direction

that Chitto knew the treaty did not say. So Chitto went to the white man's lawyers in Washington and told them the trouble, and they said to come home and put his country back together-according to the treaty. And he did.

Full bloods who had observed all the treaties and never raised a hand against the President set up a new Creek capital at the Old Hickory Stomp Grounds near Checotah. Chitto brought in from the hills the frightened women and the hungry children. Altogether they elected a chief and a council and appointed Indian police. T h e y went about re- storing the Creek Nation, bothering nobody except those who still were bound by the old law. For those who wished to live in the new way, they set aside a fifteen-mile square of land. Then their newly elected chief, Lahtah Micco, wrote

Oklahoma Today

to the President of the United States (as the President had encouraged him to do should anyone try and bother him or his people) and asked for protection from the U.S. Marshal and the Indian agent who continued to hinder them in the re-establishment of their nation under the treaty. No answer came. But blue-coated troops did. From Fort Reno. T h e President's own men.

Still Chitto Harjo did not hide. He posted the new laws all over the Creek Nation and signed his name to them. Nobody was hurt, with the exception of one Seminole who had a Creek wife and was prone to stealing and under the old law he was given twenty-five lashes on his bare back, and Red Breast, who was given fifteen for defying the Lighthorse. It seemed like things were getting back to the

way they should be until the blue coats came and arrested him, all those who followed him, and all those in the other Indian nations who still showed interest in living in the old way. They put him in jail in 1901for following the laws and constitution of his own nation. They threatened to leave him for a long time in the jail like an animal unless he agreed to let them give him a little piece of the land that was already his and to never again try to restore his nation under the law.

So he told them if he could look into the eye of the Great Father and be told this was how the treaties said things would be, he would accept it. Otherwise, he would not. And so they took him to the President. Chitto Harjo carried the treaties in his hand. T h e man they called Theodore Roosevelt shook his hand and did not look at the treaties. Chitto Harjo was led away without a word being spoken about the right of things. H e came home again to the pony and the corn patch and the little silver forge. White men from Washington kept coming and asking him what the trouble was, and he kept telling them: "I had no other troubles. T h e troubles were alwaysabout taking my country from me. I could live in peace with all else, but they wanted my country, and I was in trouble defending it."

It was a terrible thing to be thought an Old One and not know what to do. T h e day that Chitto Harjo was sent away by Dode McIntosh's father, all hope was gone. T h e weather was turning to winter. Indian children who kept to the law of the Creeks had no food to eat. Indian parents who kept to the law of the Creeks had no food to give them. There was no hope with the white man. T h e fate of the Creek Nation rested in the hands of the Great Spirit.

In the winter of 1909,activity was again noticed in the vi-cinity of the Old Hickory Stomp Grounds. Some feared the Indian-Chitto Harjo, Crazy Snake-was up to something. Someone else said a group of renegades had raided some farmers' smokehouses; yet another that a dog had simply chased a rabbit into a smokehouse and made a frightening clamor. A constable attempted to search the tents of a group of Negroes who were living at the Old Hickory Stomp Ground, but the Negroes denied him admittance. So he or-ganized a posse and captured forty of them, including one half-blood Indian, and one white man. Then, for no par-ticular reason, the posse of McIntosh County attempted to arrest Chitto Harjo."Five deputies proceeded to his house, where seven Indians were assembled," Debo writes in And Stillthe WatersRun. "A fight ensued, and two deputies were killed and Chitto Harjo and one of his followers were wounded. T h e Indians escaped and were never captured, but four counties were thrown into turmoil by this 'Snake Uprising.' T h e state militia was rushed to the affected lo-cality, and quiet-which had never been endangered except by the deputies-was restored."

Chitto Harjo was gone. And look as they might even the militia of the new State of Oklahoma could not find him. As is the case with much of Oklahoma history of this era, people believe what they choose to believe. Some say Chitto es-caped to Mexico as outlaws were known to do, or burned in the fire that destroyed his hand-hewn walnut log cabin dur-ing that gun battle as a true Creek patriot might have done. What is known is that Chitto Harjo was never seen again in the Creek nation or anywhere by a white man.

The old man leaned forward in the chair in his well-ap-pointed living room in Tulsa, a different light in his eye. "I will tell you what happened to Chitto Harjo," Dode

McIntosh said. His people put him in a wagon and covered him with some hay and hauled him to the Kiamichi Moun-tains because they were after him. T h e injured Chitto crawled from the wagon and looked up the slope of Boktukulo Mountain. This, Chitto Harjo said, is the last free place.

"They never did find him," the old man went on, "and he died down there in the Kiamichi Mountains."

An exile, maybe, but not a captive. That is the true story of the great Snake Rebellion? T h e old man chuckled and held out a reassuring hand. L ' A l ~ a y ~remember," he said, "the history of the con-

quered is written by the conqueror.

Rabh Marsh of Heavener is a contributingeditor to Oklahoma Today.

May-June 1992

Nations Within A Nation

ONCE THEY RULED THIS CONTINENT- NOW THEY'D LIKE TO BE ALLOWED TO RULE THEMSELVES-

B Y R O B E R T H E N R Y

When I was about seven years old they took me to this damn crops and holidays, the basic policy toward Indians has Indian school of thegovernment's and we al lhad to stand in line changed many times. What began as agreements between andthey cut my hair off: Theyjust cut my braids offandthrm them equal nations deteriorated over time to land seizures, land into abox w i h allthe otherchildren's braids. My oldgrandmother allotments, assimilation, tribal reorganization, tribal termi- wentoverth~eandgotthemandmygrandfolksstayedatthewinternation, and, some would say, deliberate attempts to do to camp aN winter to be near me ...It was hardbeing Indian in them Native Americans what Hitler once tried to do to the Jews. days. Later I learned to beproud.

likes to say, when "Colum- bus discovered the New World." They lived as inde-

or on DrdIIcII,115 ~x5cULlY5 lyyl, "&',pendent nations, by Southern Cheyenne Merlin Little establishing borders by settlement, con- ~ h ~ ~ d quest, or custom. They had laws. They had precedents. They had law enforcement. And they had leaders. They were nations. When Europeans began to colonize what is now the United States, they negotiated treaties with them, just as they did with France or England. And, in many instances, they bought land-albeit some-times at bargain basement prices.

I'n the more than three-hundred years that have elapsed since Squanto supposedly helped the Pilgrims with their

Osceola, Defiant One, 1966,tempera, byfd-b/oodCrrek Seminole Jerome Tiger.

May-June 1992

~ ~ ~ f

It is an amazing tribute to the charac- ter of Native Americans that the East- ern tribes successfully maintained their tribal coherence into the nineteenth century. T h e Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole early on determined that survival required adaptation. Many leaders among these tribes, which had agricultural econo- mies, or what the white man called civilization, long before Columbus, be- lieved their people could endure only by outsmarting whites and adopting

~ ~ l ~ ~ .white institutions-schools, capitols, churches. "Our very existence as a

people depends upon it," Cherokee Chief Charles Hicks once told a missionary.

They adapted-to a point. And the of the adap-tation varied even among these tribes that the white man always liked to think of as a unit. In 1836,for example, more than one-half of the Cherokees understood some English, but they would not use it in front of strangers unless they could soeak it flawlesslv. The Choctaw. on the other hand, would speak every word they knew hene ever it was ~ ~ e c e s - sary. Still as hard as each tribe worked to adapt its traditional

W i i Says...

If ever there was a har-

binger of what the future would hold for Indian

tribes, it was Andrew Jack- son. Even Will Rogers, who

never met a man he didn't

like, couldn't much abide Jackson...

"I am not so sweet on old Andy," wrote Rogers. "He

is the one t h a t run us

Cherokees out of Georgia and North Carolina ...But old Andy made the White

House. T h e Indians wanted him in there so he

would let us alone for

awhile. Andy stayed two terms. He had to get back

to his regular business, which was shooting at the Indians...They were for a

third term for Andy ... "(The Indians) had a

treaty (in Oklahoma) that said, 'You shall have this

land as long as grass grows and water flows.' It was not

only a good rhyme but looked like a good treaty, and it was till they struck

oil. Then the Government

took it away from us again. "So the Indians lost an-

other bet. The first one was to Andrew Jackson, and the second was to Rockefeller,

Sinclair and Socony."

ways to the ways of the whites, each worked equally hard to preserve its Indian nationhood. Four of the Five Tribes adopted written constitutions, and they emerged as independent Indian republics that counted farmers as well as educated merchants and professionals among their countrymen. In addition, the tribes retained a com- munalism, an altruism, and an environmentalism that would be the envy of many nations in the 20th century. What the tribeslacked, however, was a military position strong enough to force the U.S. government to deal with them as political equals. As a result, the tribes saw a steady stream of settlers take their land and push them further and further west. As early as 1803 Thomas Jefferson, who personally admired the Indian's collective society, spoke of a permanent Indian territory beyond the boundaries ofwhite settlement. It wasn't until 1829, however, when Andrew Jackson became president that the formal American Indian policy became what the informal policy had been for some time: forced removal of the tribes to the west. By 1831 the Choctaw had started on the first removal that would be known as the Trail of Tears.

As the era of relocating the tribes advanced, Congress began to pass laws aimed at bringing Indians into the white mainstream. Tribal schools, controlled by the some- times friendly, sometimes hostile, Bureau of Indian Affairs, actively discouraged the speaking of native languages or practice of native culture and religion. In 1887 Con- gress passed the Dawes Act, which began to divide the communal lands of the tribes into individual "allotments" so that the extra land could be sold. In Oklahoma, sev- eral Indian leaders favored this allotment policy, but most full bloods did not. Cer- tainly the result was a disaster. Even though the sale by an Indian of his allotment had to be "approved" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, this protection was minimal. When allotment was abolished in 1934, 90 million acres had been taken from the tribes out of 140 million once owned throughout the United States. There was a ten- year hiatus, and then Congress embarked on another eighteen-year push to termi- nate the tribes.

W e are accustomed to hearing about the winds of change blowing through Eastern Europe and what was once the Soviet Union, but if we listen carefully we can

hear them in Oklahoma, too. Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have endorsed the idea of Indian nations governing themselves, and in 1983 Reagan reaffirmed this policy, saying: "This administration intends to restore tribal governments to their rightful place among governments of this nation and to enable tribal governments, along with state and local governments, to resume control over their affairs."

T h e last nine years have been spent trying to figure out how far to go. As far back as the 1830s the Supreme Court described an Indian tribe as a "dis-

tinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself." Justice John Marshall tempered the opinion, however, by calling Indian tribes domestic dependent nations and likening their relation to the United States to that of a ward to his guardian. This guardian-to-ward relationship became a cornerstone of modern Indian law, and just as it is presumed a guardian's duty is to protect and care for his ward, it became assumed that the federal government, usu- ally personified as Congress, would protect the Native American. (President Andrew Jackson's response: "John Marshall has made his law; now let him enforce it.")

In 1831 Marshall argued that Indians "have an unquestionable and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy." In the landmark case Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall said that Indian tribes had sovereign treaty-making power akin to that of England, and he reminded American politicians that "the words 'treaty' and 'nation' are words of our own language ...We have applied them to Indians, as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense."

T h e Worcester case established a second important doctrine. T h e defendant in the case was the remarkable Samuel Austin Worcester, a devoted missionary who later came to Oklahoma with the Cherokees when they were forced from their lands in Georgia; his family worked with Oklahoma tribes for three generations. Worces- ter had been arrested and imprisoned by the state of Georgia for violating a state law that made it a felony for a non-Indian to reside on Indian land. (One wonders how a

Oklahoma Today

HIGHS AND LOWS sr:z LL--3V ~ ~ Y J :INTRIBALHISTOl

18,000 B.C. 18-20.000 B.C. People may have

been living near present-day Freedom

9,500 B.C. Humans are living in Clovis. New Mexico.

800 A.D. Spiro Culture appears south of the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma during the Mississippian period.

1400 1492 Queen lsabella of Spain fi-

nances a voyage by Cristbbal Col6n (Christopher Columbus) that lands him in the Bahamas.

1877 The Ponca are removed to I.T.; Northern Cheyenne, to Ft. Reno.

1878 Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf lead a band of 353 Northern Cheyenne from Ft. Reno after leaving word they were going home. Despite the fact that they are pursued by soldiers from seven forts, the Cheyenne make it to the northern plains. Upon capture there. they refuse to go back south, even after being de- nied fwd, water, and fuel. The southern buffalo herddisappears.

1879 The Nez Perc6 are brought to I.T. as prisoners of war from Or- egon; Cherokee humorist Will Rogersis born in Dologah. Ponca Chief Standing Bear and a small band leave the I.T. resewation. carrying the chief's son's bones in a box to bury them in their Nebraska homeland, butthey are arrested. In Standing Bear vs. Crook, a judge rules that no au- thority exists for transporting In- dians withouttheir consent. The band is freed.

1881 Massachusetts author Helen Hunt Jackson writes ACenturyof Dishonorto dramatizethecrimes against the lndians.

1500 It is estimated that about 12 million Indians are living in Mexico-only some 4 million in Canada and the U.S.

1502 Montezuma II ascends the throne of the Aztec Empire.

1513 Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Le6n arrives in Florida and plants orange and lemon trees.

1519 Hernkn Cortes introduces horses to Mexico and meets Az-tec ruler Montezuma. Smallpox makes its American debut in Santo Domingo, killing half the indigenous population.

1520American chocolate arrives in Spain; turkeys follow.

1538 The Flemish map-maker Gerhardus Mercator uses the name"America"forthefirsttime.

1883 U.S. Secretary of the Interior enacts a federal criminal law against"old heathenish practices of dances such as thesundance" in the hopesof eradicating lndian culture; Kansas photographer William S. Prettyman sets out to photograph I.T. and its tribes- men before it is overrun bywhiis; Paiute Sarah Winnemucca pleads the lndian cause in her book Life AmongthePaiutes, 77wir Wmngs andclaims, and large crowds at- tend her lectures around the country.

1 0 4 The notthern buffalo herd is gone.

1885 Congress votes to allow the Nez Per& to return to Oregon.

1887 Dawes Act providesamecha- nism for allotting tribal lands (then 138 million acres) to indi- vidual Indians; the U.S. commis- sioner of lndian Affairs decrees that lndian children must speak English.

1888 Kiowa cancel annual Sun Dance because thereareno more buffalo (nearly 4 million were killed between 1872 and 1874).

1889 A U.S. Court is established in I.T.; Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands are opened to settlement; Kiowas dub it "the time when

1WOChoctawsfirstmeet the"more numerous race" when Hernando de Soto makes his way from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Missis- sippi.

1541 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado spots tipis in the Great Plains and introduces horses, mules, pigs, cattle, and sheep here.

1609 Settlers follow Spanish mis- sionaries into Santa Fe.

1626 lndians sell Manhattan Island to Dutch colonists for about $24 worth of trading goods.

1680 lndians in New Mexico revolt against the Spanish; all Europe- ans are forced to flee. They do not return until Spanish soldiers reclaim the area in the 1690s.

The tipis Comnado spotted on &Gnat Plains may h a lookui like this Chmenne cam5 on the Cimanun Rivrr. ohotographed in the early 1870s.

1719 French trader Bernal Harpe travels up the A River and meets in cour nine Caddoan (or Wichit in what's now Haskell COI Harpe reports thats 6,Of members live in village the Arkansas River.

1725 The Wichita settle or sas River.

1754French and lndian Wa at Great Meadows; battl fought in America. Eurc even India. It is truly a wc

1763The Shawnee. Delawa eca, and Ottawa go on 1 path against their new masters, who they beli rob them of their t grounds. By Junethetrib captured eight of the elel ish forts west of the App; Mountains. The British

D SMA

1900 19M Snake Uprising of '

which Creek full bloods stitutional means try to I lotment only to be arrt the U.S. marshal, tried, ; tenced to long prison ten judge releases them up promise to drop their op to allotments.) Presidt Kinley has told the full b let him know of anyon? ing them, so one writes I ing that this Dr. Benn! marshal, be cleared out.

1902 Creek poet and humo Posey publishes his fi Futico letter in Eufaula'! JoumaMefolksy colu~ a group of fictional Cra tionalists to comment 0 cal issues of the day.

1903 Southern Cheyenna to recognize or use the ne names given them by tt missioner of l~d'bn Affair Chief Pleasant Porter b Board of lndian Commis that lndians are dying from disease but from "t of hope."

1905 Delegates from the half of I.T. meet in Mus the Sequoyah Const' Convention with the i making I.T. its own sta

TITAN

white farmers came with wives." The Ghost Dance movement comes to Oklahoma's Plains tribes; recordsestimate there are 1,000 buffalo left in the U.S.

1890 Organic Act establishes Okla- homa Territory; the Battle of Wounded Knee in S.D. results in the deaths of 200 Sioux ghost dancers and Chief S i n g Bull; thefirstU.S.census in I.T. shows 50,055 Indians, 18.636 blacks. and 109,393 whites and reports there is no longer an unbroken line of wilderness frontier.

1891 Smithsonian ethnologist James Mooney arrives in Anadarko; soon he has Kiowas create models of painted tipis.

1893 Congress establishes the Dawes Commission to negotiate extinguishment of tribal title to the lands of the Five Tribes; Quapaw Council passes a reso- lution to organize its own allot- ment program and to give 200 acres of land to each member of the tribe; James Mooney exhibits 31 miniature buckskin tipi mod- elsattheworld's Fair in Chicago.

1894 Apache chief Geronimo and his people are imprisioned at Ft. Sill.

7 C - - 7 ~ - -@am -

C C o wis o r~ppcr"gkt).

the Quapaw Council; Quapaws becomethe only tribe in history to cany out their own allotment program.

1898 Charles Curtis, a blood de- scendant of White Plume (son of OsageleaderPawhuska,whowas adopted bythe Kaw),authorsthe CurtisAct, whichabolishestribal laws and cou& but does allow for tribal retention of mineral rights; Dawes Rimmission be- gins to assemble tribal rolls- 101.506 persons are entered on the rolls by 1907. (Some names are added in 1914.)

GENEVA CONVENTION EIC~ELTOWER RAISED THE MAINE SINKS THEORY

RADIO WAVES PRODUCED HAWAII A REPUBLIC KITTY HAWK

i I

call the whole war "Pontiac's Conspiracy" after the able Ot-ky tawachiefkn Pontiac. The Brit- ish become so desperate they resort to sending blankets in- fected with smallpoxtothe tribes. The war, however, does not end until 1765, when Pontiacand his followers are put down by the British.

1776 The American Declaration of

1813 Creeks resist whik domina- tion in the Creek War of 1813-14.

1814 Andrew Jackson wrests 23 million acres from the Creeks in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, ending the Creek War and open- ing the south to white settlement.

1818 Andrew Jackson marches against Seminoles in Spain's East Florida.

1827Creekpartyselectslocationin I.T. near Arkansas River.

1828 First issue of Cherokee Phoe- nixprinted at New Echota. Geor- gia. The Lower Creek, along with some Yuchi, emigrate to Ft. Gibson area.

1829 Andrew Jackson becomes president. Plains lndians unite to raid hostile lndian camps in

183l Senecas exchange land in Ohio's Sandusky Valley for 67,000 acres in I.T.north of the western qherokees; Choctaws begin their Trail of Tears.

1832 Sac N Fox lose Black Hawk War: Kiowa establish a home base, and Washington l ~ i n g tours I.T.; a treaty cedes Creek land west of Mississippi but al- lows Creeks to remain and re-

tribe to I.T.; the Second Semi- nole War--the most successful lndian opposition to U.S. in his- tory--lasts seven years. In 1836 the first wave of Seminoles are relocated to I.T. under m i l i r y escort.

1836 Treaty at New Echota that sets removal of Cherokees is ratified despite protests of Chief John Ross; Comanche capture

Independence passescongress. 1820 First mission isestablished in ceive allotments; Treaty at CynthiiParker,thefuture mother Oklahoma-the Osage Union 1830 Andrew Jackson signs lndian Payne's Landing callsforcession of Quanah Parker. from Texas

1789GeorgeWashington becomes Mission; Treaty at Ooak's Stand RemovalAct; Choctaw Treaty of of land in Floridaand for removal settlement.

first U.S. president. makes Choctaw firsttribe tocede Dancing Rabbit Creek, Missis- of Seminoles to Creekland in I.T.

1837 Osceola is captured when the land in the southeast; Sequoyah sippi, states "no territory or state 1833 Quapaw take reservation in U.S. violates a flag of truce; invents Cherokee alphabet; gov- shall ever have a right to pass northeastern I.T. inexchange for Chickasawand Choctawagreeto ernmental policy is to push laws for the government of the a flood-prone Louisiana reserva- plan where Chickasaw will settle eastern lndians westward across Choctaw Nation of Red People tion on the Red River. in Choctaw Nation. the Mississippi River. and their descendants, and no

part of the land granted them 1634 Frontier artist George Catlin 1838 Osceola dies in prison; Chero- 1824 General Matthew Arbuckle re- shall ever be embraced by any encounters a Comanche village kee Trail of Tears begins.

ports 2,000 hunters systemati- territory or state"; Samuel Colt of 600skincovered lodges made cally killing animals for pelts in invents the six-shooter, giving of buffalo skins in I.T. 1839 Osage introduce smallpox to present-day Oklahoma; Ft. the Kiowa, Apache, and Co- Gibson is established.

the white invader a weapon equal 1835SeminoleChiefOsceolahides manche; year becomes known to the Indians. (Even then, ac-

Seminole women and children in as the "smallpox winter." The 1825 U.S. begins removal of Indi- cording to General Sherman. 50

the Florida swamps, while re- assassination of three signers ofans to western lands. lndiinscould halt3.000soldiers.)

sisting a U.S. plan to relocate the the New Echota treaty launches a

BOLSHOI BALLET FOUNDED

NAPOLEON EUROPEANS WALTZING ERIE CANAL OPENS ALAMO l

1901, in 1906 A Cherokee testifies before a 1918 The Native American Church Church to hold the first tribal tional acclaim: Yvonne Chouteau, by con- Senate committee that "before is formally incorporated in Okla- election since the election of Cherokeefromvinita; Moscelyne esist al- thisallotment scheme was put in homa. Pleasant Porter; the Wheeler- Larkin. Shawnee-Peoria from !sted by effect in the Cherokee Nation we Howard Act, or "Indian New Miami; and sisters Maria and md sen- were a prosperous people ...And 1923The Osage receive$27million Deal," attempts to rebuild the Marjorie Tallchief, Osage from ns. (The 'I'am here today, a poor man in payment for oil leases and oil tribes and their tribal culture, Fairfax. on their upon theverge of starvation..you under their 1.5-million-acre re- stops further allotment of lands position will not forgetthatwhen Iusethe serve. held by the tribe, authorizes ex- 1943 The musical OWahoma!, based

on the book, Green Grow the Li- !nt Mc- word "I," I mean the whole 1624 All lndians born in the United penditure of $2 million per year lacs,byCherokeeplaywrigMLynnloods to Cherokee people." States are finally given full citi- for the acquisition of land for Riggs, is produced; CreekErnest bother- zenship. landless Indians, and establishes

iim ask- 1907 Oklahoma becomes a state; a student loan fund for Indians. Childers, a member of the 45th

?tt,U.S. buffalofrom NewYorkZooarrive 19211 The paintings of the Kiowa (The Oklahomadelegation works Infantry DiiSiofl, single-handedly in Cache to begin herd at Wichii Five are exhibited in Prague, as a unif against the application takes out three nests of Germans Mountains Wildlife Preserve; Czechoslovakia, to high acclaim of this law to Oklahoma.) in WWll and reeeives the Medal

rist Alex Creek chief Pleasant Porter dies. and full-page stories in major of Honor-the U.S.'s highest rst Fus 1935 Osage writer John Joseph military honor.

1908 Creek poet and humorist Alex newspapers. Mathew's addresses the prob- lndian

i n uses Posey dies while trying to cross 1929 Osage-Kaw Charles Curtis lem of lndian youth in transi- 1944 Cherokee Jack C. Montgom-

c tradi- a flooded river--the young man becomes vice-president of the tional generations in his novel, ery of the 45th Infantry Division

politi- becomes a Creek folk hero. U.S on the Hoover ticket. Sundown. leads a platoon against three strong German positions in

1909 Modocs permitted to return 1930 U.S. Senate holds hearings 1936 After drastic amendments to Padiglione. Italy, in WWII; he is refuse to Oregon. Unidmnfii CLoc&w woman and on reported famine among Okla- satisfy Oklahoma objectors, awarded the Medal of Honor-

Nwhite 1912 Sac N Fox Jim Thorpe wins cLiM,photographedbejm 1914. homatribes; 1930 censusshows Congress makes the Oklahoma the U.S.'s highestmiliiry honor.

e com- Olympic pentathlon and decath- 92,725 lndians living in Okla- lndian Welfare Act law, allowing ;;Creek lon in Stockholm. The Supreme Owen (Oklahoma's first U.S. homa (only those with appre- tribes to adopt constitutions and 1946 i h e Philbrook Museum of Art

!Ils the Court decides thattaxexemption senator) co-authors the Federal ciable lndian blood were receive charters of incorporation in Tulsa holds its first annual Na-

sioners is a vested lndian right, and as ReserveAct establishing the Fed- counted). giving them the right to engage tional Exposition of American In-

off not long as it is held by the original eral Reserve banking system: the in business, administer tribal dian Painting.

allottee, the Cherokee, Creek,and comes to an end. sional Football Club playsthe New 1450 President Eisenhowerchanges

Seminole homesteads and the York Giants. (Eleven tribes are 1938 Choctaw dancer Rosella federal policytoward lndi ionce entire Choctaw and Chickasaw 1914ChiricahuaApacheartistAllan represented on the Oklahoma Hightower, from Ardmore, joins again, and Congress enacts laws

ie want Cherokee tribal school system 1931 The Hominy lndians Profes- property, and elect officers.

eastern (Wee at

allotment remain tax-exempt for Houser is born on a small farm, team.) the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. for a new lndian program called

tutional periodsvarying fromtwenty-one the first Apache child born into 1934 Creek delegates from each of Over the next few years, four "termination." The idea is to end

ntent of years to 'in perpetuity." freedom since his tribe's release the Creek towns meet northwest more Natiie American ballerinas all federal involvement with the

e. 1913 Cherokee Senator Robert L. from internmentat R.Sillin 1913. of Okmulgee at the New Town from Oklahoma attain interna- lndians and leave the states to

deal with them.

OF RELATIVITY PANAMA CANAL OPENS V.A. FORMED MANHATTAN PROJECT JFK ASSASSINA

TITANIC SINKS MICKEY MOUSE BORN WPA LAUNCHED STALlN DIES

herokee feud that lasts until I.The Second Seminole War

Comanche Quanah Parker is

1855 Chickasaw win right of self-government.

1WTexans adopt policy of mur- dering all lndians within their borders. Tonkawas and Caddos are brought from Texas to the Washii Rier.

Tribes at Fort Smith contain pro- visions that ultimately open the way for railroads to cross their domains; Delaware tribe pur- chases resewation from the Cherokee as well as rights for palticipation intheCherokeetribe.

and corn gardens for the Kiowa; an epidemic follows after tribes- men eat the new foods.

1870 Osage tribe purchases reser- vation from the Cherokee; in westem Nevada,theGhostOance surfacesamong Paiute Indians--

1867 Treaty Council of Medicine led by the religious mystic 1EW Abraham Lincoln becomes Lodge in Kansas is first step in Wovoka, who prophesies ihe re-

16th president; South Carolina putting Kiowa, Cheyenne, Ara- turn of the buffalo and the resto- is first state to secede from the paho, and Comanche on resewa- ration of their lands to the Indi- Union; tribesmen encounter ac- tions; the Citizen Band ans. count-ledger paper from traders Potawatomi sell Kansas allot- and storekeepers and begin to ments and purchase a resewa- 1071 The lndiantreaty eraendsand draw on ilas well as on hides. tion in I.T. where they reestab- is replaced by executive order

lMlPotawatomi land in Kansas is lish the tribal way of life. Omni- and congressional governance. enty-two Red River war patiii-

divided into allotments, and the bus Treaty signed, removing ten 1872 The O s w resewation is es- pants (and one woman) are ac- surplus land sold. l n d i i tribes from Kansas. (The tablished in I.T. cused of war crimes and impris-

Peoria, Ottawa, Miami, Seneca, onedatR. Marionforthree years. 1062 President Lincoln signs the Shawnee, and Wyandotte tribes 1873 153 Modocs exiled to 1.T. (A number of the warriors be-

HomesteadAct, offering anyone move to I.T.) Sac N Fox sell 1874 Quanah Parker and his band come ledgerdrawing artists.) over 21 years old a free 160-acre Kansas land; most move to I.T., fight their last fight against buf- 1The Cherokee build two semi- plot in thewest betweentheCimarron and North falo hunters at Adobe Walls in 1876 Sacred Heart Mission is built

1863 In the Battle of Honey Springs Canadian rivers. Texas. five Tribes' affairs are in Konawa; in what became known as 'Custer's Last Stand."

nearRentiesville, Indians, blacks. 1066 George Custer massacres centralizedat Union Mission in Col. George Custer and 264 and whites fight side by side for Black Kettle's peaceful Cheyenne Muskogee. troopers from the 7th cavalry are

The Chickasaw build tribal first time. village in Battle of the Washii. 1875 Quanah Parker surrenders at killedbv the Sioux--led by Chief llss New treaties with the F ie 1869TheOovernmentplants melon R. Sill; the Pawnee move onto a ~ i n gB u l k e a r L i i~bHorn

resenration in central I.T.; sev- R i r in Montana. -I..-.-- 1 A-

?;-=,--SSACRE :c _,-,DARWINISM . BLACK CITIZENSHIP BARBED WIRE ARRIVES

Kiowa-Comanche Blackbear demandthat itbe made an lndian Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in withinthegaographic boundaries lOgg Doc Tate Nevaquaya. Co- cultural center. U.S. marshals South Dakota. They demand a of the State of Oklahoma defined manche, gives lndian flute recital evict them in 1971. N. Scott Senate investigation into the as 'lndian Country.' " The BIA at Camegie Hall in New York. Momaday wins a P u l i r Prize conditions of Indians. Two Indi- concludes that tribes may estab- leOI U.S. Supreme Court declares for HouseMadeofDawn. ans are killed in the shooting lish criminal codes and coults to

peyote use in the Native Ameri- /57 The federal government is in between the lndians and FBI control criminal conduct by Indi- can Church to be subject to law the thmes of a new lndian prc- 1QIOThe direct election of principal agents. ans on restricted or trust 'allot- gram called "relocation." which chiefsforthe FieTribes replaces mentsiftheir tribal constitutions governing illegal substances; offers jobs to induce rural lndii federal appointments; the U.S. 1975 President Gerald Ford signs authorize them to do so. Oklahoma Seminoles receive ansto relocate to big c i t i i in the Supreme Court rules that the lndian Self-Determination and Oklahoma's terminated tribes paymentof $42 million from land hopes of mainstreaming them. Cherokees, Choctaws, and Education Act, which promises (Wyandotte, Peoria, Ottawa, and

dispute with US.--a result of Many I n d i i , including Chero- Chickasaws own the bed of the lndians more say on their own Modoc) are restored. 1832 treaty. keeChief WilmaMankillerwhose Arkansas River between resewations and in educational family is relocated to S.F.. are Muskogw and Ft. S m i t M h e malters. 1979The Creeks formally replace persuaded to relocate, but the land's appraisal in 1976: $177 their 112-year- constitution end result is new urban l n d i i million. 1976 The Creek Nation's House of with a new document.

Warriors and House of Kings are ghettos.

1972 The American lndian Move- revived after the Supreme Court 10W There are morethan 1.3 mil- President Johnson, in a spe- ment occupies the offices of the rules that historical evidence lion lnd i i s in the U.S.

cial message to Congress, calls BIA in Washington, demanding showedCongress had not termi- 1915 Cherokee Ross Swimmer be- the lndian "the Forgotten Ameri- all the rights and property they natedthesovereign status of the

comes head of the BIA; Wilma can." He points to their poor say has been guaranteed to the Creek, nor had it abolished the

Mankiller becomes first woman housing. 40 percent unemploy- lnd i i s in Dast treaties with the tribe's territorial iurisdion.

chief of the Cherokee Nation. ment, and the fact that only half After'week of ta'ks--and 1977 President Car& createsa new of young Indians complete high damageestiwatE500*- post of W.Sec. of the Interior 1W7 Chickasaw ratify new consti- school. Congress replies by vot- the lndians leave the building. for Ind i iAffairs to advance In- Mion. ing $510 million for l n d i i aid The exhibition Two American diminterests. 1mOklahomaCity hoMs its firstprograms--the highest amount Painters. which featuresthe work 1eOI "flight of Spirit," a mural of

Red Earth festival, drawing in U.S. history. Federal provi- of C a d d c - K i artist T.C. Can- 1871T.C. Cannon dies in an auto- tribesmen fromamundtheglobe;

five Native American ballerinas sions granting stategovernments non, opens at the Smithsonian mobile accident; in OMahomavs. Alan Houser's statue AsLongAs

from Oklahoma painted by the right to assume jurisdiction Institution, Washington, O.C. It l.M&Y,AttomeyGeneralLany Chickasaw artist Mike Larsen, is

The Waters Flowisd e d i on over lndian country are changed is a turning point in Cannon's Denybenyacknowledges "Okla- the steps of the state capitol.

d e d i i at the state capitol. so thattribal consent is required; career. homa oossessesno iurisdiction 1993 United Nations celebrates the Poncan Clyde Warrior dies.

1973 For 69 days, some 200 armed to pr&cutecrimesand offenses 1990 U.S. Census shows 252,420 'Year of the Indigenous People."

I69 Seventy-eight lnd i i s seize members of the American lndian defined bythe Major Crimes Act, Native Americans live in Okla-

Alcatraz Island with its deserted Movement take over the village committed by Indim against In- homa-the largest concentration

prisoninSanFmnciscoBay.They of Wounded Knee on the Oglala dian, upon trust allotment land in the U.S.

WOODSTOCK THE BOAT PEOPLE AIDS DIAGNOSED GULF WAR

WATERGATE DISCO OZONE HOLE

I

Signs of

Of the 128 Native Amer-

icans who posed for por- traits commissioned by Indian Superintendent Thomas McKenney in the

1820s and 1830s, nearly a

third wear a peace medal- or two or three-around their necks.

Between 1789 and 1889 federal agents presented

the medals-bearing the likenesses of U.S. presi- dents- to mark treaties or as signs of friendship. No one knows how many of

the silver, copper, and brass medals were cast, but Lewis and Clark carried them west, Indian agents wrote to Washington ask- ing for more, and scads of

counterfeits were made. The peace medals are

prized by collectors (the Museum of the Great

Plains is exhibiting 37

medals purchased in Oklahoma), but they are

controversial. They were so highly revered, some Native Americans were

buried wearing them. "You have to rely on the

credibility of how you ob- tain the artifact," says mu-

seum curator Joe Hays.

missionary could accomplish his ordained tasks with such a law.) Marshall stated, for the United States Supreme Court, that "the Cherokee Nation then is a distinct com- munity occupying its own territo ry... in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. T h e whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our con- stitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States."

In other words, state law generally is not applicable to Indian affairs within the territory of an Indian tribe, without the consent of Congress. Some states (but not Oklahoma) have significant state control in both civil and criminal matters as defined by a federal statute, and the U.S. Supreme Court has invented certain federal com- mon-law based exceptions to tribal jurisdiction in some circumstances involving non- Indian activities on Indian lands. These cases, together with case law, give rise to three generalizations about Indian law: T h e tribes possess inherent governmental power over internal affairs. States are precluded from interfering in tribal self-gov- ernment, and, finally, Congress has full and complete power (though not absolute) to limit tribal sovereignty.

Where does that lead us? Recently, state governments and administrative agen- cies of such governments have battled the tribes over sovereignty issues. By and large, the states have lost. It seems that after centuries of ignoring the rights of Indians, the courts are now applying the law more vigorously, and Congress has begun to take its task more seriously.

Oklahoma Today

In Oklahoma, disputes over sovereignty first came to popular attention in the field of criminal law. State governments (with a few exceptions) have exclusive authority over crimes in "Indian Country" only when they concern a non-Indian accused and a non-Indian victim (basically Indian Country refers to reservation land, dependent Indian communities, and unextinguished Indian allotments). In all other cases, ei- ther the federal government, the tribal government, or both have jurisdiction. Ini- tially, noting the near impossibility of determining whether a piece of land was "Indian Country" (or indeed whether an accused or victim is "Indian") caused great concern in state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies. But the parties came together and set up a framework in which local governments cross-deputize tribal police and vice-versa. Eventually, police officials of all entities may be able to enforce state, local, and tribal law.

Another area of conflict has been in "gaming." Since the tribes are "domestic de- pendent nations" they enjoy many attributes of sovereignty, as do the states. And Congress has decreed that the tribes must be allowed to engage in the same types of gaming or gambling activities that the state allows other parties to so engage. Thus, since in Oklahoma we allow some kinds of "bingo" the tribes have free access to establishing bingo gaming.

Since the tribes have exclusive control of internal taxation, they may in fact be able to offer bingo at a reduced cost and may offer greater prizes, since once the state permits others to conduct bingo games, it loses any claim to regulatory jurisdiction over Indian bingo operations. T h e tribes seem to be satisfied with those operations as a source of tribal revenue and jobs for tribal members.

Since Oklahoma allows pari-mutuel betting on horse racing, the tribes presumably will also be authorized to offer this form of gambling. Tribal and state negotiations are underway at this time. But since Oklahoma does not allow casino gambling for any non-Indian persons or entities, the tribes will not be able to engage in this activity without an agreement with the state.

Tribes have been criticized for their reliance on these types of industry, yet many of the critics are strong advocates of the horse racing industry in Oklahoma. Legally, the tribal position is unassailable. Other tribal sovereignty powers have also been attacked. T h e taxing power has spawned much litigation, but the courts have ruled that the "power to tax is an essential attribute of Indian sovereignty because it is a necessary instrument of self-government," though it is subject to congressional regulations. In the tax area, courts have allowed tribes to tax cigarette sales to non- tribal members, to impose severance taxes on non-Indian mineral extractions in Indian country, to tax personal property owned by non-Indians located on the reservation, and likewise to tax sales by non-Indian merchants on the reservation.

Aside from tribal taxing power, the existence of state power to impose taxes on activity on Indian lands has been the subject of much controversy recently in Oklahoma. Last year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe could be ordered to collect Oklahoma state sales taxes from non- Indians buying cigarettes from smoke shops, but the Court did not specify how the taxes were to be collected (leaving that issue to congressional legislation or nego- tiation). A Midwest City legislator introduced a bill providing for a 23 cent tax per pack for non-tribal members. By the time the legislative smoke cleared, the bill had been gutted and tribes were calling for negotiations with the tax commission rather than legislation. T h e repercussions from this will be watched across the country.

Other issues of tribal sovereignty continue to arise. On a recent visit to Oklahoma, one U.S. Supreme Court justice noted with suprise that each term it seems at least two major cases are heard on Indian law topics. T h e full sweep of tribal and state regulatory jurisdiction is still unclear, but cases continue to stack up, in an attempt to clarify these issues.

Tribes have retained the power to restrict the adoptions of tribal children in non- tribal courts when all parties are reservation Indians and to grant divorces to Indian couples married under state law. Tribes can also zone land and determine inheritances of deceased tribal members. T h e recognized civil jurisdictional powers of tribal courts have grown so fast that many tribes have had to race to train judges and lawyers in

May-June 1992

Sequoyah, the State

Even as chiefs from the

Five Tribes gathered in a

Muskogee hotel room one August afternoon in 1905, they knew they were bet- ting on a long shot.

T h e chiefs (with the

exception of Chickasaw governor Douglas John-

ston) called for delegates to a constitutional convention

to put together a plan for a

46th state. It would be made up of Indian Terri-

tory and called the State of Sequoyah.

Like the Choctaw po-

litical system, the consti- tution adopted September

8 called for three major districts. The first capital would have been a t Ft.

Gibson. Banks could op- erate for no longer than 20

years,and women would

retain their property rights

after marriage. Among the list of proposed c o u n t y

names were the familiar Garvin, Washington, and Dushmataha, but also Tom Needles, Blue, and Coo-

weescoowee. Indian Territory voters

ratified the constitution by 59,000 to 7,000, but the plan was rejected by the Republican Congress, who

-with Oklahoma Ter- ritory organizing for state-

hood-objected to the ad-

dition of two new western,

Democratic states.

They R legal

Truman Carter

In 1984, Truman Carter

thought the law was on his

side as he drove along S.H.'

99 in a car bearing a tag is-

sued by the Sac N Fox

Tribe. State highway patrol

officers disagreed.

Carter and eight other

tribal members were tick- eted for driving automo-

biles not licensed by the

state, and Carter's car was

impounded. The next year

a state judge, ruling that the

tribe did indeed have the

authority to license and

register cars on Indian

lands, dismissed the

charges.

The car tags, along with

taxes on sales, tobacco,

bingo, oil and gas produc-

tion, and income earned on

Indian lands, are part of an

economic development

plan that has more than

doubled the Sac N Fox

Nation's budget since

1987, from $3 million to $7

million.

"We are a government,"

says Carter. "We should be

doing the things other

governments do."

Like levy taxes.

When The Plains Were His, acrylic, 1991,by Robert Taylor.

the laws and customs needed to function in these courts. T h e field of Indian law continues to search out its boundaries, just as European

explorers searched out the perimeters of the New World. In the long run, tribal sovereignty is anything but a burden to non-Indian society. As Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller recently told the state legislature, special Indian exemptions from taxes offer creative means of financing similar to tax credits and incentives long used by state and local governments but now largely restricted. Innovative entrepreneurs can form partnerships and joint ventures with the tribes that benefit Oklahoma as well as investors and tribal members, because money made in Indian Country is often spent in Oklahoma.

Some Oklahomans complain about the problems tribal sovereignty entails. But as United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote many years ago, "great na- tions, like great men, should keep their word." Tribes keep winning in non-tribal federal courts; they win their rights as defined by our federal, non-Indian laws and by the United States's treaties with the tribes.

Indian nations are coming into their own so fast and so softy that it can sometimes be dzficult to hear the winds of change. One of the best source.s.for informatiorl, however, is in our own backyard at the annual Sovereignty Symposium held in conjunction cith Oklahoma Ci0 iRed Earclr jktiwal.

Oklahoma Today

t i Capitol G a i i

Tlr~yeur'spu~~cf will include one on inter-governmental L,.- - /PI~/I /~/J .dis~ussions d/)to/tgchr panelists: Governor David Waltefs, Oklahoma Attorney General Susan Loving, and Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller. Cynthia Pn'ce-Cohen of the United Nations willulso speak on 1993,the Interna- tional Year for Indigenous People.

Somgnty Symposium V ,the nation's most prestigr'ous gathering of Indian /aw scholats, will be at the Mam'ott Hotel in Oklahoma City, June 9-11, (405) 521-3841. T kfollowing reference books a n also a good place to begin: O T h e Rights of Indians and Tribes: T h e Basic ACLU Guide to Indian and Tribal Rights

is one of the finest quick references to Indian lam. Written by Stepden L. Pmar, it was published by Southern Ilknois Unimily Press, Carbondale and Edwardwille, Illinois.

O The 1982edition of Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law is a classic. A parfial update of it entitled "Contemporary Tensions in Constitutonal Indian Law" was published in the 1980 OCU Law Review by Oklahomu's own Dennis Arrow.

O American Indian Law in a Nutshell-published by West Publishing Co. of St. Paul, M h e - sota-is a good quick o v m i m of Indian law.

O Angie Debo always considemdAnd Still the Waters Run: T h e Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes to be her most important book. Publisher: Gordian Press, Inc., in conjunction with Princeton Univenity.

O For an ovemim of Indian history, look no farther than RennardSmmckiand's T h e Indians in Oklahoma, one of 0.U. Press's Nmcomen to a N m Landseries.

Robert Henry, a former atdorney general for Oklahoma, is the dean of the Oklahoma C i t ~ U n i v e n i ~Law School, which includes The Native American Indian L e d Resource Center.

May-June 1992

Historic Chickasam capitol in Tdomingo.

After s tatehood, t h e

Chickasaw Nation sold its

grani te capitol to t h e

Johnston County adminis-

tration for $7,500.So in the

1960s when Ovenon James

was appointed governor of

the Chickasaw Nation, h e

didn ' t have a place to

headquarter the newly re-

vived tribal government.

For a few months, he work-

ed out of his car.

T h i s June, t h e Chick-

asaw Nation will make the

final payment on the hun-

dred-year-old building, re-

purchased for more than

seventy times its 1910sell-

ing price: $575,000.When

restored, the building will be the ceremonialcenterof

government once again.

(Tribal administration will

stay in offices built in Ada

in 1977.) T h e Johnston

County administration will

rent the building from the

tribe until a new courthouse

on Main Street in T ish-

omingo is finished.

Though some local resi-

d e n t s g rumbled a t t h e

transfer of t h e s tately

building,"It 's a n e v e n t

whose time has come," says

tribal spokesperson Lona

Barrick.

Postcards From Indian Country Oklahomamay be a young state,but Indian Country

has been around for a long, long time.

The Choctaw were forced born Mississippi

in the 1820s and1830s by white settlers' appetite for

land-rich bottom land that could be planted

with cotton. Once here, Choctaw chiefs laid

out their own plantations.

Cypress fmes in t h Mountain Fork River, M d u r h Cuung

he central point in all Native American religion is the sacred-

3 ness of the circle of life. "Our immortality comes

from our relationship with Mother Earth," says Carter Camp, an activist who, as a leader of the American Indian Movement, led the occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973. Camp, who lives in Red Rock, is a founder of the Campaign for Sover- eignty, a group organized during a recent fight against dumping waste in Indian country.

"We are a part of the land in a real sense. Our ancestors were buried in the land and became a part of the earth. We grew up among the dust of our ancestors," he says.

"We see a place like Rainy Mountain as a sacred place for us to be able to $ join with our ancestors. 2-From the sweetgrass to the animals to the winged Q' ones, we are able to speak with our relations.

"Our struggle to preserve the Indian ways is tied up with our struggle to preserve the ecological balance. T h e two things are almost the same."-BP

Oklahoma Today

In the eighteenth century, the Panhandle was a hunting ground for the Comanche and Apache, the Kiowa, and Cheyeme. The buffalo droppiigs were so thick, one story goes, that one could cross the Ciiarron River by s tepp i i on them

The Cimamn River,Cimamn County

May-June 1992

On old maps, the Wichita Mounta'is are sometimes

called the Shumano Mountaiis, from the Spanish name

for the tribe, Jumano. During the eighteenth century,

the Wichita, farmers who were inthe region at the

time of Columbus, traded pumpkins, corn, and

tobacco to the Comanches for horses and

buffalo robes along the North Fork of the Red River,

I M e r the treaty of ldediciie lodge in 1867, the Southern

Plains tribes were restricted to land that included the

mountains, but the Kiowa and Comanche continued to raid

settlements in Texas. In 1869, Fort Sill was built on

Mediciie Bl@ both to control the raiding tribes and to

eep aorse thieves and outlaws out of Indian Territory. M e r the Red River War in 1874, the Kiowas and most of

the Comanche surrendered. Theirshields, lances,

and rilles were confiscated and some of the horses

were given to scouts or returned to Texas. The rest

were slaughtered or sold at auction.

In 1894, the Apache Chief Geronimo and three hundred

- 'Chiricahua Apache came by train to Fort Sill from an r - Alabama prison. l e r a dozen years in prison away from

the Southwesl the Apache heard a coyote's howl for the

Erst time. They kneeled and blessed the ground.

Post Oak Lake and Elk Mountain in the Wichita Mountains, Comanche County

Overleaf, the gypsum-striated canyons of the

Badlands run for a hundred miles south of the Cimarron

River. In November, 1868, members of the 19th Kansas

Volunteer Cavalry got lost in the breaks on theii way to the

winter camp of Black Kettle, chief of the Cheyenne.

The Badlands, Major County

After the Kiowa came down from the mouth

of the Yellowstone River in the 1700s, they became

such far-ranging hunters they once went

on a raiding expedition to Honduras.

In an interview, Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday told

Charles Ikbodard: "I've always thought it was interesl-

ing that of all the places on the plains, (the Kiowa)

finally settled in view of the l c h i t a Mountains. It's

as if they remembered their existence in the

mountaiis and they were somehow more

comfortable with the mountains in view."

The wins of Rainy Mountain Srhool, Rainy Mountain, Kiowa County

Close Encounter ofaSpiitualKind B Y J U L I E

0ne summer night, four Cheyenne-Arapaho women sat at Daisy Old Bear's house outside of Canton, playing cards. T h e game was penny ante poker, and the poker

chips were the brown, dime-sized seeds of the American coffee bean tree. One year, when a federal marshal in search of illegal gambling showed up on the Old Bear allotment, the coffee beans had caught his eye. He was told they were Cheyenne religious paraphernalia used by the old ladies when they prayed.

On this night, Madeline and Willima and Minerva and Daisy sat around the big wooden table, joking and calling out their hands. It was a night like so many others-the women in their cotton print dresses and thick pink stock- ings, the windows and door of the house thrown open to the warm country night. Or so it seemed until the noise. T h e noise began as a moan, as though something were in pain, and it ended in a high-pitched shriek. T h e chatter stopped. T h e women raised their heads and looked at each other.

Nine miles from town on Indian land, where the night is black as ink, strange things have been known to happen. A farmer walking along a row of trees or a creekbed may stumble without meaning to upon an old Indian burial ground. T h e card players, who were careful about such things (and who made sure their children and grandchildren were careful), had nothing to fear from that corner. The same could not be said of the mistad, a ghost known to enter the bodies of owls. Being of a generation that still remembered the old stories and having carefully weighed the loudness of the groan and the shriek that followed it, each woman decided this was no regular mistad. It was the Monster Owl, with long white braids, tall as a man, the Owl who devours -not mice and birds but people.

Not a word was said about the sound. For that would mean admitting they had heard it. No one wanted to do that, so they lowered their heads and continued playing. Over the sound of cards came another wail. Only this time, no scream followed. Yet. Madeline picked up her black purse. "I bet-ter get home now," she said. And one by one the women found excuses to leave. Daisy Old Bear went outside and lit a cigarette and started talking Cheyenne in a loud, angry voice, cursing whatever it was that made her friends divide up their stake and leave early-just when she was winning.

After that whenever Daisy saw her friends in town, at the post office, or a benefit dance she would invite them over to cards. T h e y always refused. T h e y would play at Madeline's or Sally's house, but they weren't going back to the Old Bear place.

Daisy told her son-in-law Irving Bull about her dilemma.

P E A R S O N Irving was a solid, good-natured man, who'd seen his share of the inexplicable but was nonetheless careful about jumping to conclusions. "It was probably just one of those kids," he said. But a few nights later, standing out on the porch, with the wind riffling her dress, Daisy heard the sound again. And this time, so did Irving. T h e grandkids heard it, too. And it brought them running, followed by an assortment of barking dogs. The mistadhadn't crossed Irving's mind yet. His thoughts were on the time a panther from a circus in nearby Woodward had escaped deep into the country, frightening people with its banshee scream till the authori- ties finally caught it. Irving went in the house for his twelve- gauge shot gun. Then he called together his nephews, who ranged in age from thirteen to fifteen years. He gave Clifford a four-ten shotgun, Butch a thirty-thirty, and Merlin and his brother, Jimmy, got out the twenty-twos their Dad had given them. "Everybody get a flashlight," ordered Irving, and so, armed to the teeth, the party set out across the pasture in the direction of the sound.

T h e country night was so dark that it seemed to suck up matter as well as color. T h e boys stumbled across four acres of wheat stubble as if they were blindfolded, instead of armed with flashlights. By this time, they had heard the story of the panther, so the images of the big cat and the mistad fought on the field of their imaginations. At one point, sensing, rather than seeing, dense bodies closing in on them, the boys turned their flashlights on a herd of cows with kryptonite eyes, the cows blissfully unaware how close they had come to being steaks.

It had been quiet since leaving the house, the only sound the sound of their own footsteps. But as the fence that marked the boundary of the second field loomed, they knew they were close. "Push your guns under the fence and then climb over," Irving said. And, on the other side, they heard it: a long wail, followed by an ear-splitting shriek, less than fifty yards away. "Fan out," said Irving, "and I'll stay in the middle. Don't shoot behind you, don't shoot on the side of you, don't shoot anyplace but straight ahead." T h e boys lined up elbow to elbow. They could hear each other breathe as they carefully eased forward. When the sound came again, they were almost directly beneath it. "Okay," whispered Irving, "when I turn on this flashlight, everyone open fire."

And, as the beam of the flashlight broke the night, each and everyone of them fired at once into the darkness, into k z his own fear, and into the rusty blades of an old windmill. ?-

b t

Cheyenne artist Merlin Litde Thunder dared this fami4 story with his wife, writer Julie Pearson.

Oklahoma Today

itionalist s THEIR HANDS CARRY ON THE DANCE OF TRADITION.

B Y J E A N N E M. D E V L I N P H O T O G R A P H S B Y D A V I D F I T Z G E R A L D

- 1 I

i i '.

drummaker Bill williams has lnade

drums small enough to be used as earrings (yes, you can play them)

andme~~~ameas(o(ktWes~HisMand~amestdNmslmich a n cost $800 or more, he sells to IlIUSeUmS, galleries, and Indian

drum groups.~h~~ i l l i ~ ~ ~trademark the misted leather wand on

one of the ties that zigzags around the body of the drum.

THE BEAT GOES ON It is a family joke that Bill Gene Williams can no more sit

down to make a drum in his Anadarko home than another Indian will drop by to visit. "They act like they've just hap- pened by," says wife, Shirley, "but they come to see how he does this or that with his drums."

Williams, you see, makes traditional Southern drums. Small solo drums for the Eagle Dance. Large powwow drums that can be heard over the din of town noises and across hills and valleys-sometimes as far as seven to eight miles away. H e has made them ever since he realized a few years ago that "everybody doesn't know how to make a drum anymore."

T o learn himself, the Cheyenne-Arapaho studied old In- dian drums: drums that used tree trunks for bodies, elk hide for the drum's top and bottom, leather strips to attach the drum hide to the base, and bois d'arc wood for drum sticks. What proved most elusive, Williams says, was finding someone who knew the prayers that once accompanied the making of a Cheyenne drum. His one consolation: the Cheyenne drum blessing endures.

His first drum made a good sound, but then collapsed upon itself because he had tied the wet rawhide strips so tight that once dried in the sun they choked the drum to pieces. Drummakers get no second chances. They just start . .

another drum. Williams says he persevered because "these drums are really essential to the Indian tribes and have been throughout all continuum."

Though his drums now sell in fancy galleries, Williams retains the values of a traditionalist. When his first bie one- . , man museum show was found to be in conflict with the graduation of a grandson, Williams didn't even hesitate. H e canceled the show and went to the graduation.

Bill Wif/iums run he reached writing: Bi// IYi//iams, %Okfahorna Indian Art (;clflery, 2.j3.5 S. lV. 44th Str.ret, Okfuhorntl Ciity, OK 7.31 19,3548.

Oklahoma Today

It takes sirteen turtle

shells-eight per leg-and the

tops off a good pair of leather

NkOiiU Of Justin conbg

before Christine Henneha of

Castle is ready to make a

woman's set of QeeLturtleshell

1leggings. (Littlegirls can get bl with eight skells.1 Her leggings

are priced at $150to SV5, but

because Henueha can make only

as many leggings as she can

catch turtles, she usualll has

about four pain a p a r to sell.

SHAKE A LEG It is said that more than two hundred years ago a Creek either. "You've got to get the right kind of turtle," Henneha

woman ~ i c k e d a turtle shell off the bottom of .-1 creek. a d explains, "the round and smooth /om that has a little flower it rustled as if the creek was still running through it. T h e source of the sound? A round pebble trapped inside.

E v e r s ince , t h e tradit ional musical backdrop for Creek ceremonies has been provided by turtle rattles worn by women around their calves. Christine Henneha of Cast le r emembers watching t h e shel l shakers as a girl and dreaming of becom- ing one when she was a woman.

By the 1930s t h e soft swish of turt le rattles had been replaced by the louder tinkling of rattles made from milk cans, and it was hard to find a woman who still knew how to make a pair in the old way. "I didn't much like the ones made from milk cans,"

Christine Henneha

explains Henneha, "so I (eventually) looked at a set of ones made from turtles, and I got the way it was made in my mind, and then I was able to d o it myself."

T h e Creek believe turtle rattles have their own tiny spir- its, and so not only is much care taken in their making, but much responsibility goes with owning a pair. (Newly preg- nant women, for example, are not supposed to touch them.) 'I'o make things more difficult not just any turtle will do,

design on its back. Not the ones with stripes , on their back ...and not turtles that look like

I pancakes either, or the ones that swim." I Henneha hunts for turtles in the early

morning between April and June, before the hot sun sends the turtles into hiding, and she uses little black ants to clean the insides of the shells, because black ants eat only t h e meat not t h e membranes that connect the top and bottom. For the ideal swishing sound, she uses small sand rocks

I that she finds where the creek runs fast on I

1 her family allotment. S h e is particular about everything, bccause "getting the sound right is the most important thing."

Henneha made her first rattles sixteen years ago, and they are again a common sight at the sum- mer stomp dances. (One Cherokee ground in Oklahoma only allows turt le rattles.) H e n n e h a won't tell young women-not even her grandchildren-how to make the rattles, because she says that's not her tribe's way. "Lye don't teach our little ones," she explains. "We say, 'just get in there and watch and learn.' " WriteCh:/stine Hetlnehu at P.O.Bor.?72. Okctt~uh,OK 74K5Y.

Joseph Rice of Meeker uses

sterling silver needles bought

from traders (or ordered from

England) to sew on the tin!

beads called for in his traditional

beadnorl. "Ittakes patience and

t r i i l s , " Rice quips. Rice often

incorporates one-of-a-kind an-

tique beads in his rattles, which

start at $125, but equally in-

triguing are the customen from

as far away as Canada who bring

him their family heirlooms to

repair. In such cases, Rice may

replace a gourd that has been

thinned @ too much use or re-

place a missing patch of Ponv

Soldier blue beads on a rattle's

handle.

HEAVENLY MUSIC

Many years ago Joseph Rice of Meeker was in a fearful In fact, gourd rattles have traditionally been part of both car accident. When the doctors had done what they could the Native American Church and the Kiowa's Fourth of July for his battered body, family members asked to bring in two dance that honors the tribe's veterans of American wars. men from t h e Nat ive American (The gourd dance is now also a so-

-

Church. T h e doctors said, "Sure," cia1 dance that opens most tribal thinking their patient might soon be powwows in Oklahoma.) in need of some kind of last rites. T h e rattle itself is a symphony of ' So two Indian men came. And parts: a white horsehair plume sur- they prayed. And Joseph Rice got rounded by hackle feathers, a dried well (no doubt making a lasting im- gourd shell filled with rocks, a pression on the hospital staff). hardwood handle covered with

Rice, who lost an eye in the inci- beaded buckskin, and, finally, a den t , won't say t h e holy men rawhide tassle. Few of these items brought him back from the brink. are bought off the shelf. Friends "But it was a good indication to me," with white horses send Rice clip- says Rice, "that there is more to life pings of horsehair in the mail. His than getting up in the morning and gourds come from the few Indians put t ing your c lothes on and b who still raise gourds on small fields eating...It made me think." JoJo Rice throughout Indian Country.

And his first thought was that he Despite similar components each should go and see what these men actually did at church. rattle is highly individual. One may have a black ebony On that first visit twenty years ago, he saw the importance handle and large rocks in a very dry gourd for a clear, slow of songs to the church's ceremonies and how the men used rattle; another may have a yellowish handle of mesquite the gourd rattle to accompany their singing, like some wood and small rocks in a smaller gourd for a fast, high rattle. preachers use the organ. "And I started making gourd rattles "Everyone has his own way of singing," says Rice," and you and giving them to the men to use," says the Pawnee-Otoe- more or less want the rattle to blend in with that style." Sac N Fox-Potawatomi beadworker. JoJo Rice fun he reortied by c a / / i n ~(40.5) -775-7255.

Oklahoma Today

HEAD-TURNING HEADPIECES Originally the Sac N Fox were woodland Indians from the

-

north, and their men wore mohawks to prevent their hair from becoming tangled in the timber. In those days, it was tradition to adorn one's mohawk with a hair roach made of porcupine hair or wild turkey beard.

In the 1860s, the need for a mohawk diminished with the removal of the Sac N Fox to Indian Territory, but the hair roach itself has endured as an important piece of dance re- galia for straight dancers and as a sign of one's roots. "It's like the military," says Donald Marland, a Sac N Fox from Shawnee who makes hair roaches, "but instead of showing what branch of the service you're in a hair roach can say what clan you're in."

It is done by color, or the lack of it. For a member of the Fish Clan, Marland will incorporate deer tail dyed a dark green along with the dark hair of the porcupine; for a mem- ber of the Thunder Clan, he'll use blue; for a member of the Fox Clan, red.

It is hard to overestimate how critical a hair roach can be to a competitive dancer, says Marland. A long well-made hair roach bounces more as one dances, accenting the rhythm of the drum and the complexity of one's footwork. "You can tell if you're in time or out of time (by your hair roach)," says Marland. "The longer the hair the more action you get. For the better dancers, it helps show how good they are."

Most everybody would like a really long hair roach, says Marland, but some must take what they can get or, more specifically, what they can afford. Porcupine hair comes from porcupines in the northern pine country-when you can get it. (After the Yellowstone fire Marland had to wait a year for the porcupines to grow a new batch.) When it is in supply, it can cost $37 an ounce. One ounce, depending on whether it is thick or thin hair, will yield about one row of hair thir- teen inches long-if you're lucky. "I know it doesn't go very far," says Marland.

Nor does the work go very fast. Marland may spend six hours just separating an ounce of porcupine hair into simi- lar lengths and colors (Canadian porcupines are blonder, those from Wisconsin, darker) so that his finished roach will look uniform. Many days may go into tying each hair into place. A typical Marland hair roach will have nine-inch-long hairs in front that taper to almost nothing at the end, and it is not unusual for one to be four-feet long, or longer.

- * --Why does he do it? "I am a traditionalist," says Marland,

who still dances himself. "The only thing I know is tradi- tions. All that I make comes from the things that we've al-

0

I-L 1

LI L

Donald Marland of S h a m is so for his hair rolclles

that it Is the rare dance competition that lets the Sac IFox cMer

leave wHA the hair roach he wore In. "nnlbul tker fight Off ly

he ronfida. Marland mka - N ~ hir-,

1-

which Can ea~ilyc~st ways worn. It is tradition to make everything (cuffs, ~ h ~ k - $600if he llses deerskin instead o f 1 lurb;rse,

ers, moccasins, roaches) that you have to have to participate as a Sac N Fox. So that is what I do."

Dottu/d,Cfur/~~tzdtunbe reached ly cclllirlg (40.5) 275-9179u t ~ d

Jeanne '41.Dadit/ is editor of Oklahoma Today. David Fitzgerald is an Oklahotna City photographer whose photo- graphs have beet! the subject of books oon Oklahoma, the Ozarks, and tsruel .

but that price pala in colnplrison the cost of a rw from turkey beard. lTbeylre $600 to start, and Inore like $1,000,"

says Marland.

TheNative American Pantw d

From chocolate to corn, the goodstaff came from here.

Consider the Irish > enne, and Arapaho) whose without pota- $ way of life centered on the toes, the Italians buffalo. T h e woodland without toma- farmers of the Southeast

toes, the Hungarians with- (most notably t he Five out paprika, t he French Tribes), and the northern without vanilla, the Ger- prairie tribes (Osage, Paw- mans without chocolate, nee, and Otoe) that were a t he Russians without combination of nomadic vodka. hunters and farmers.

Whether you believe T h e gastronomic result is Columbus is the dashing a combination of hunting, hero of our childhood text- gathering, and farming books or the progenitor of techniques that converged slavery, disease, and geno- to create a hodgepodge of cide, he deserves credit for Native American dishes. one thing: were it not for 01' Some of which have sur- Christdbal Coldn haplessly vived for 160 years; some of washing up on the shore in which have become rooted 1492, the universal ques- in our cultural conscious- tion, "What's for dinner?" ness-Indian tacos, beef would be painfully short. jerky, and beans and

In 1492, Europeans were cornbread, for example; living on cabbage, cheese and some of which, like curd, and dark bread; their grape dumplings, remain constant quest for spices common fare only for the was, in part, the need for Native American popula- something to camouflage the flavor of Unaware of the chain of events they tion. In fact, in light of the impact Na- rotten food. Little wonder that the had started in Europe (or how dire the tive American cuisine has had on the foods Columbus returned with from consequences would be), Nat ive cuisines of the world, the most surpris- t he Americas spread like wildfire Americans adapted to the introduction ing thing may be the overall lack of through kitchens in Europe and the of domesticated European animals, Native American cookbooks on book- Orient, leaving a mark on every na- such as cows, sheeps, goats, hogs, and store shelves. Indian food tells a lot tional cuisine. It was a culinary trail of chickens introduced by Hernin Cortks about how tribes are alike, and differ- potatoes, tomatoes, beans, corn, in theearly 1500s, by developingataste ent. Here are recipes from some local squash, chocolate, nuts, and peppers for cheese, milk, and beef. cookbooks that try to tell this story: (just to name a very few), all of which As always, it seems, when you mess can be traced to the meticulous culti- with Mother Nature things happened. "Corn is a purely domestic crop," vation of the first people who popu- T h e new animals devoured the says Dan McPike, an anthro- lated our continent. And it was a furor American landscape eating everything pologist for the Gilcrease Museum in about more than taste. in sight, and as the native vegetation Tulsa. "It doesn't grow wild, so if the

Potatoesand corn are more nutritious disappeared tribes had to adapt to Indians hadn't tended to it, it would acre for acre than the grains they re- new-and not always better-foods. have vanished." placed. In the end, their European By the 1830s, some sixty-five Native T h e Choctaw traditionally use corn appearance fueled a population explo- American tribes were living in present- in Shock Bread, a type of corn bread; sion that eventually led to Europeans' day Oklahoma: T h e Plains tribes the following recipe is from Teepee insatiable appetite for American land. (Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Chey- Cookey by Gwen Fisher.

Oklahoma Today

DESIGNAND CRAFTSHOW June 29 -July 3,1991

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FORA FREE VACATION GUIDE CALL 1-800-6S2-6SS2 OR WRITE OKLAHOMATOURISM,P.0. BOX 60789, OKLAHOMACITY,OK 73146.

I Certificate Program in American Indian Law I

Special Indian Art Issue Limited quantities still available.

$5 per copy Name Address City State -Zip Method of payment(pleasecheck)- Discover1 -MoneyOrder/ M a s t e r C a r d / V i s a / - P e r s o n a l Check Card No. Expiration Date -Signature Send 'To: OKLAHOMA TODAY Back Issues P.O. Box 53384, Oklahoma City, OK 73152-3384 OR Call (405)521-2496 (Oklahoma City); or call 1-800-652-6552and ask for OKLAHOMA TODAY.

L

PLAIN SHOCK BREAD 3 or 4 cups yellow cornmeal

112 teaspoon soda 2 cups water 1 cup cooked, unseasoned pinto

Beans Boil two quarts of water while preparing bread mixture. Mix three cups of cornmeal with 112 teaspoon of the soda. Add the two cups of water; stir while adding water. Add beans. Mix until balls can be formed. If needed, add more water. Drop balls into boiling water. Cook forty-five minutes to one hour. Turn bread after first thirty min-utes. When done, season with shortening salt, and/or bean juice.

theqreenfaPP e

Clothing Gifts *A 119 Wmd Broadway

Anrdrrko, Oldr. 73005 (405)247-2221

"The Calfskin Jacket" Washed denim jacket with authentic calfskin

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The Cherokees have long been regarded as expert farmers and

TULSA college o f ~ a w

Law students enrolled in the J.D. program take the following:

American lndian Law Native American Rights American lndian Law Seminar Two related courses One of the externshiplinternship programs described below: - A Legal Internship Program with an

administrative agency; -An internship program with a tribal court; - A Native American Affairs Externship

Program to help solve lndian Law problems.

For more information, contact: The University of Tulsa

College of Law 3120 East Fourth Place

Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3189 (918) 631-2406

The Unlvm$ of Tulsa has an Equal OpportunityIAn~rml~veAcflon Prouramfor nudents and empbyees

horticulturists-even to the point of showing the early day Europeans a thing or two about growing crops. "It was an exchange," says Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller. "The Euro-peans brought over their equipment, but the Cherokees had ideas and farm implements of their own." L i k e most North American tribes, however, the Cherokees' survival rested on their ability to live on seasonal vegetation, such as the wild onions found in east-ern Oklahoma in the early spring. This recipe is from The Chief Cooks by Mankiller. WILD ONIONS AND EGGS

12 bunches of chopped wild onions (about one hand encircled around the stems is a bunch), including stems

1 dozen eggs Dash salt and pepper

Gather tender young wild onions, wash carefully, and remove the roots. Chop on-ions and pour into lightly greased skillet to cook. hlix eggs as for scrambled eggs, pour into skillet with onions. Salt and pepper as desired. Cook over medium heat stirring occasionally until eggs are done.

Native American Art "On'IWsa's Beautiful Main Mallw

h I)PAINTINGS Joan Hill Bill GIaas

Vdjenn Haslng

I,SCULPTURES ~ o b w~ c ~ u n r yBobby CreepingbaPr* BASKETS Lnrry Hood Rutho Bldock Jona

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I,PRINTS Austin Redrider Ken Woodwnrd Mavis Dwrlng

323 S. Main 584-5792

H ickory nuts are a staple flavoring in foods of the Five Tribes; this

recipe for Conutchia is by Center for the American Indian docent Doris Smithee. It can be found in the do-cents' new cookbook Atnaizin'Cooklll'. CONUTCHIA

Hominy grits Hickory nuts (whole) Sugar and salt (optional)

Cook hominy grits until tender, about four or five hours. Beat hickory nuts to a fine pulp (hulls and all) until you can press to-

Oklahoma Today

May-June 1992

gether to form a ball. When hominy grits are done, put hickory nuts (cutrutchia)in a pan and cover with boiling water. lrse enough water to stir the nuts well to get off all the hulls. Strain through a fine sieve to catch hulls. Now add the sugar and salt.

0n e of t h e bes t things about Na-t i v e A m e r i c a n c u i s i n e is h o w

closely it follows t h e seasons. Sassafras tea is a s taple in early spring; you can d ig sassafras root, bu t C h e r o k e e Mar-garet Nelson buys hers a t a local mar-k e t in Tahlequah; s h e grows her o w n min t for M i n t T e a . T h i s recipe is from Oklahonza Cooks: Treasured Fami/y Recipes, a cookbook produced in 1989 by t h e Oklahoma Folklife Council. MINT TEA

Fresh mint leaves Water

Place fresh or dried mint in a saucepan and pour water over it. Bring slowly to a boil and remove from heat. Cover and let stand until steeped to right strength. SASSAFRAS TEA

Sassafras root Water Honey (optional)

Clean root a n d boil i t in water. 'T'wo or t h r e e pieces will m a k e a b o u t o n e quart.

-Suzette Brewer

ONPsign that Ir~dantacos huve becortzepart of the culit~ar~l/ur~dscapeis that Hauy Beari. utr Ok/ahotna Cig r-tstaurantchain, offen the tt~eut-toppedfor head at a// four of its loca-tions. The Sub-Way Express, (405)525-5.400. wesr of the capitol on Z.?rd Str-tefin Ok/ahottza Cify..wt'~)esIt~diuntacos at /utrch on 7iresdays and Thursdays.

The south err^ Plairzs Restuuran~in Anadurko, (40.5)247-2491,adds Itrdium tacos to thenretzu in thesutnnrer,us does thesnack bur (~tlndiutrCig,I1.S.A .,atnilesouthofAnadurko on S.H. 8 (405)247-5661.

It's possib/e tofind ttrot-t Irrdian tacos (~tzd other, mow traditiorzu/,founsforsa/e at 1t1diatz ~~etztsatzdfairs,suchas RedEat~hin Oklahort~u Cig,June 12-14;the CherokeeNationul Holi-du-yin Tahlequah,Septetnbet-3-6;andth Tu/sa Poawow at rIriohaa~kPark,Tulsa, August 7-9.

T h e Chief Cooks is avai/ab/e at the CherokeeHetitageCetzter,Park Hi//,(918)456-279.3. Teepee Cookery, $12,can be otderd f/.utn Fhutzs P~b/icutiotzsin Inola, (918)54.7-8786.

The docents of the Center of the Ariler-iratz ltmdiutr sell their new cookbook, Amaizin' Cookin'fo1.$.5 at the Center of the Att~ericurr Indi(~nin the Kirkpatrid (I'Pnter,Ok/uhorna (,'ig,(405)427-5228. 7LOk/ahonraHistori-cal Socie~bookstore in OKC se//s copies of Oklahoma Cooksfor-$I 1.98.

--

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~ ~ /

Creek Laureate Poliia t m d a CmeR poet into thvoice of thpeoph.

There is a scene in the movie the 'natural' reticence of the Indian," ti1 he was fourteen, but that didn't keep Dances with Wolves in which says Daniel Littlefield, who has written him from entering Bacone Indian Uni- two braves discuss in a new biography on Posey. "In reality versity in Muskogee at the age of six- Lakota (with English sub- it was a product of the small world in teen. After five years of a rigorous clas-

titles) the bizarre behavior of the cav- which Alex Posey moved. Few days of sical education, the shy Creek boy, alry soldier played by Kevin Costner. his life were spent beyond a fifty-mile well-versed in the secrets of the woods Instead of ughs or war cries, moviego- radius from his birthplace. Fewer were and the river, emerged an intellectual, ers overhear an ordinary ex- well-versed in Shakespeare, change between two men. In and sporting a tailored suit, that cinematic instant the ste- white gloves, and a cane. reotypical "wild Indian" is $ Though he had already es- transformed into an individual. 5

!i tablished a local literary repu-

It is a revolutionary moment. 3 tation (one Posey newspaper Save for the noon broadcasts of story on a land allotment issue Gary Fife's Native American 2

3 was a parody of Hamlet's so-News Network on the Still- liloquy), he did not go right into water-based KOSIJ or tribal journalism. Instead, he was newspapers such as the Iowa elected to the House of War- Tribe's monthly Bah-Kho-Je riors, the lower chamber of the Journal, few mediums exist Creek National Council, and he where one can regularly hear the took t he first of a series of Native American viewpoint, educational posts. which makes the legacy of the When the government de- Creek poet and humorist Alex cided "forever" was too long for Posey all the more important. the Creeks to keep their land Posey was the Mike Royko of I and his father died soon after, his day, a turn-of-the-century Posey sensed the ending of the columnist who wrote from the world as the Creeks had once point of view of the common known it. He bought the Indian man, in this case, the traditional Journa/ in 1902 and, as a coun- LCreek. "His column was usually try editor, found his voice. read firstwhen a copy of the Alex Posey. Many ralled Aim the Native American's Will Rogers. ~ h ,/,d;,, J ~had a cir-~

paper came in the mail," reports culation of one thousand; a then-Eufaula resident A.H. Pratt. spent outside the Creek Nation, and year's subscription could be had for a

Posey's column, like Dances With fewer still outside Indian Territory. His silver dollar. Within six months, Posey Wolves, crossed ethnic and political best literary efforts were those in which had created a paper that gave better lines. I t used the ruminations of an he was true to the subjects he knew billing to an eighty-two-pound turtle imaginary Creek full blood named Fus best-the people and landscapes of the caught in Wewoka Creek than to a U.S. Fixico and his traditional Creek bud- Creek Nation." visit by an English prime minister. dies to analyze issues of the day. T h e Born in 1873 on a farm at Bald Hill, Reasoned Posey, "The independence column was so popular it was not only eight miles west of Eufaula, Posey of Cuba isn't a drop in the bucket in picked up by the national press but led learned the Creek language and leg- comparison with a Sunday ball game in to Posey being asked to write on na- ends from his full-blood mother, Pohos Checotah." Always the poet, he made tional issues-something he refused to Harjo. His father, Lewis Henderson poetry in newsprint--once reporting a do, claiming an Eastern audience Posey, was Scotch-Irish, a one-time fight between two women as being would not appreciate his humor. "His Confederate soldier turned Republi- "veiled in mystery and a fog of hair." eulogists would eventually explain it as can. Alex Posey spoke no English un- Disliking nothing more than writing

Oklahoma Today

editorials, Posey filled the void in 1902 by writing and publishing a letter to the editor from a fictional Creek full blood named Fus Fixico. T h e letter encapsulated the campfire political discussions of Fus, Hotgun, Tookpafka Micco, Wolf Warrior, and Kono Har- jo-characters Posey based on Creek IThe Tradition Continues . . . ' men he admired.

Though Posey believed Creeks I should follow the white man's way, Fus America's Largest CFixico was the voice of the "real Indi- Native American ans," as Posey called them, the tradi- Cultural Festival tionalists who wanted the Creek Na- tion restored and allotments done away with. T h e Fus Fixico letters recalled I

Myriad Convention Center and Plaza Downtown Oklahoma City, OKearly nineteenth century Alabama and June 12-14, 1992

Georgia, when Creeks pointedly re- named the governor of Tennessee "Kingfisher Man" by Tillier Wesley "Dirt King" and the governor of Geor- 30" x 40", Acrylic

1991 Grand Award gia, "Always-Asking-For-Land." In the Red Earth Art Competition early 1900s with the white world again encroaching, Fus protested:

The white man he made town and made town and bui/t raihoad and (then) appointedfederaI judge to say it was a// *t.-

In another, Hotgun marvels: I 1 / \ 0

-We//so, BigMan at Washington made

H More I@ Iljm: Red Ealth, Inc. P.O. Box 25886 Oklahoma C i , OK 73125 (405Im-2ianothr ru/e. ..BinMan he say this time the Injin have to change his name ...So if the Injin 's name is Wolf Wam'or, he have to ca// himself John Smith or maybe Bi//Jones ...Big Man say Injin name /ike Sitting BUN or Temmseh too hard to remember and don't sound civiliwd /ike Genera/ Cussed-Her.

Posey sold the Indian Journal in 1904,yet continued to write as Fus Fix- ico for other papers. He went to work for the Dawes Commission, prompting some to say he had become a puppet of the white man. Posey actually be- lieved allotment was in the best inter- est of the tribe, says Littlefield, though it was later shown to be just another scheme to take Creek land.

Hotgun, however, was never fooled: The grafter he been here a long time and was a pioneer /ike the Dawes Commission. Hefint come andse/lthe I n f i a /ightning rod...T hthegrafter The Bah-Kho-Je in Coyle is an intimate gallery, representing the

come and se// Injin stee/ range cook finest Indian art both of the Iowa Tribe and others. These are

stoves too big to get in cabin ...So the fine investments in a buyer's market. Among fine artists

Injin had to bui/da brush arbor over represented is the renowned Jean Bales of Red Star (above). it out in the yard and it rust. ..So eu-ephere you go you find /ightningrod 201 Main, Coyle, Oklahoma for c/othes/ine and steel range cook 1 1-6 Tuesday through Saturday, 1-6 Sundays stme for c/ridmn 'splayhouse. (405) 466-3 10 1

In a last ditch effort to regain some

May-June1992

control over their own affairs, I n d i a n l e a d e r s b e g a n to p u s h for s e p a r a t e s t a t e h o o d for I n d i a n Territory. A s P o s e y wrote, " ~ fthe H e b r e w s of old b e c a m e a mighty n a t i o n inEgypt, there i s no r e a s o n why the I n d i a n s o f t h i s territory c a n n o t b e c o m e a g r e a t n a t i o n in America'" Itis that P o s e y w a s one o f the p r i n c i p a l w r i t e r s for the c o n s t i t u t i o n of the p r o p o s e d Indians t a t e of S e q u o y a h . ' T h o s e h o p e s were d a s h e d when C o n g r e s s rejected

the idea* leavingIndian norl'erritor~ but join with Oklahoma

Territory as the f o r t y - s i x t h s ta te . P o s e y died three y e a r s l a t e r while

tryingto c r o s s a r a g i n g NorthC a n a d i a n River. He w a s thirty-four y e a r s old. With h i s drowning, one of the only N a t i v e A m e r i c a n v o i c e s to be h e a r d a b o v e the c r o w d w a s s i l e n c e d .

-Maura McDermott

In 1988, the townsfolk of Eufaula (Posey's great-neplrwvJut.JohllSon i.r ,cryor) dedicated posq park,. town? annual whole Hmg Days and Firecracker Daysfestkities are M d there.T h e Indian Journal, establiskedin 1876, is stillpublished

Poems of Alexander Posey is a t Oklahoma libra&, as i s ~ i n [ & e w s ~ l e Xposey: creek Poet, Journalist, and Humorist. Typescrzpts of the Fus Fixico letten are in the Western History Collections, Norman, (405)325-3727.

OKLAHOMA BIRDLIFE By Frederick M. Baumgartner and A. Marguerite

Oklahoma is remarkable for the variety and extent of its bird life. Ornithologists, students, and amateur birders will wel- come this lavishly illustrated guide to birds in the state. It contains 5 1 color plates and 58

line drawings by Wallace Hughes, and more than 150 black-and-white photo- graphs compiled by Herbert Chezem.

$49.95

In the Oklahoma

among the rocky of Cherokee country . . . A marvelous evocation, related

BIRDS WORTH WATCHING By George Miksch Sutton New foreword by oiin Sewail Pettingill, Jr. "A POp~lar account of 60 North American birds that is written in a graceful and carefree style which should interest all of us who are birden or nature enthusi- asts."-lndiana Audubon Quarterly.

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Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission

~ b f i s o t ~ r Oklahoma Conference

On lndian Tourism CO-SPONSORED BY:

OKLAHOMA TOURISM & RECREATION DEPARTMENT

MAY 18 & 19,1992 LINCOLN PLAZA HOTEL

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK Come be a part of the exciting events which will take place at the second annual Oklahoma Conference on Indian Tourism. All persons interested in the promotion of Oklahoma Indian arts and culture are urged to attend.

SUVHJSl3 l t iN ' l 'Y SYMPOSIUM V

CO-SPONSORED BY: OKLAHOMA SUPREME COURT &

SOVEREIGNTY SYMPOSIUM, INC.

JUNE 9,10 8111,1992 MARRIOTT HOTEL

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK

The Sovereignty Symposium was established to provide a forum in which ideas concerning common legal issues can be exchanged in a scholarly, non-adversarial environment. Lively and informative. this event will prove to be important to all persons interested in the delicate balance which exists in Oklahoma pertaining to lndian sovereignty

"The spirit of lndian people lives through the preservation of enduring traditions and cultures. We salute the people who work to preserve their tribal cultures and to strengthen tribal sovereignty. Let 1992,the Year of the Indian. prove to be the positive beginning of shared awareness and understanding for all cultures."

Nathan L. Hart Executive Director, OlAC (Cheyenne)

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: Oklahoma lndian Affairs Commission

(405)521-3828 4010 N. Lincoln, Okla. City, OK 73105

Oklahoma l'oday

Along the Trail In 1838, the Cherokee were eighteen thousand strong and thriving it1 Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. T/rey had their

own newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix; /ived in log cabins; raised corn, cotton, hogs, and cattle; and belitvedthq would remain where their ancestors/ranlived for more than five hundred years. t But in 18-38, President Van Bumn orderedstwen thousandsoldiers to round them up a t gunpoint. They watched as their homes burned andsoldien dug into family gruves in search of gold and silver. The Chemkee were thrown into thirteen forts newly built to act as concentration camps. t T h winter, they were forcedto travel nine hundred miles across eight states to Indian Territory. Their shoeless feet left tracks of blood on the earth and in the snow. t On a fall morning in 1989, Jeny Ellis, a Cherokee descendant raised in the old Cherokee Nation of Fort Payrze, Alabama, arrived in Tahlequah. His plan: to retrace the route walked by his forefathen--andthen to write a book about it. It wouldbe a spiritualjourney. What follows is from his book Walking the Trail.

T find myself in the cen- 3~ pologist. Not in my reli- -ter of Tahlequah, across 91 & &on. I'd like to make a the street from the old $ 1 couple of calls. I know Cherokee courthouse, $ some Indians who would

surrounded by trees. It gives like to talk to you. me chills to think that this is While he uses the where thousands of Chero- phone, I study old photo- kees planted themselves af- graphs of his Cherokee ter being uprooted from their ancestors hanging on the homes back in the mountains walls. I'm struck yet again where I was born and raised. that their mothers and fa- More chilling yet is to recall thers learned to crawl, the four thousand Indians, walk, dance, and cry on the mostly children and elderly, same soil where my father who died along the Trail, and I grow beans and corn. only to be buried in shallow I have found arrowheads unmarked graves. It strikes Govenzmet~rissue on the Trail of Teau was a blanket and a bow/. in the area where I plant me that I may well sleep on gourds each summer, but those unmarked graves as I walk back warns me it's not the Hilton, just a one- how many generations will it be before home. room cabin. wrecked cars cover the spot? I

Tahlequah (pop. 15,000), means Noble's great-great-grandmother straighten one of the photographs on "two is enough" in Cherokee. When died on the Trail ofTears while giving the wall as Dr. Noble returns. the Indians arrived from the south, they birth to his great-grandmother. He's That was my friend, Earnie Frost, he planned to have three chiefs, but one also researched his non-Indian blood says He's big into his Indian heritage. was late. T h e two who made it decided and traced it back to Russia. He's re- He's invited us to join him and his they were the right number, and the lated to the czar. An expert on the family for dinner. Sounds good, I say, word stuck. Cherokee culture both past and savoring the thought of going to his

Today is Thursday. T h e Cherokee present, he is as modest as he is gener- home for a Cherokee meal. National Holiday begins tomorrow and ous, for his one-room log cabin turns Do you like Chinese food? he asks. runs through Sunday. T h e dancing and out to be a beautiful place in the woods We meet Earnie and his family that bow-shooting events intrigue me, but overlooking a breathtaking valley. It's night at the Beijing Restaurant. Ernie it's one-on-one human contact I seek. a log cabin all right, but it's two stories is deeply rooted in his hometown of I go to the local college to inquire about high. Tahlequah. He is in his late-thirties housing for the weekend. T h e housing I'm a member of the Bird Clan, says and wears shoulder-length, crow-black director is out of town, but his secretary Noble. My bird is the redbird. hair. After the meal, we go to his home. insists I meet Dr. Justin Noble, head of Some coincidence, I say. I like birds I'm always touched when someone in- Native American Studies at NSU. He a lot. vites me into his home and means it invites me to stay in his home, but he No coincidence, says the anthro- from the heart. Then, too, I'm a sucker

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for kids. I like how Earnie and his tall blond wife treat their two boys with tenderness and love.

We talk about Earnie's concern for his children's future, and it's no sur-prise that we recall how our streams and oceans bubble with pollution as hypo-dermic needles wash upon our shores. If the Earth is our mother, I say, how must she feel about what we're doing to her?

Don't worry about her, says Earnie's wife. T h e Earth was here long before us, and it'll be here long after we're gone. It doesn't need us for anything. It's mankind we've got to think about.

Man has lost his vision, says Earnie. Power is what he lives for now. H e has forgotten the wisdom of the ducks and geese.

I don't understand, I say. When birds fly in t h e "V," says

Earnie, they take turns being t h e leader. As one tires, the next one comes forward. There's no battle of egos.

Earnie has not commented directly on my walk, and I can't deny I seek the blessings of each Cherokee I meet along the way. When he drives us back to Tahlequah, he s teps beyond all shadows of doubt. About your journey, he says. Remember the words "Willow Feather."

Willow feather, I say, puzzled. Yes. I will give you my number. If

you have any trouble, just call and say those words or leave them on the an-swering machine with your location. We will come to you. Wherever you are.

I awake in the morning to the call of a crow. I hope you have a safe journey, says Dr. Noble as I prepare to leave. I couldn't march alone like you.

Thanks for everything, I say. Talk to the birds for me. Ask them to keep me company along the way.

I strap on the backpack and walk the Trail down Highway 62.

-Jerry Ellis

The Trail of Tears is presented metzing, Monday throughSaturday,JunethmughAugust, at the Cherokee Heritage Center, Park Hi//, (918)456-6195.

In 1991,theNationalParkSemiredesigtzated the Trai/ of Tears a National Historic Trail. Thus fur, the route has been depned, but an actualtrailhas notbeen mapped. Thebestsourre for blazing your own route wou/d be Jeny E l k ? hook, Walking the Trail, publishedin 1991 hy Delacorte Press.

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THE INDIAN YOUTH EMPOWERMENTPROJECT I IS PROUD TO DISTRIBUTE I RETHINKING COLUMBUS Essays and resources for learning and teaching about the 500th anniversaryof Columbus's arrival in the Americas. This 96page anthology of Native American responses to the 1992 quincentenary, a $6.00 value, is yours free for supporting our work.

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RETHINKING COLUMBUS IS YOURS FREE 1c As our way of saying thanks for supporting us. Since 1987,The Indian Youth Empowerment Project has been creatively working with urban Indian youth, confront-ing addictions and other social problems by emphasizing cultural and spiritual traditions. Help us preserve Native American culture and spirituality.

To recctvc your free copy of RETHINKINGCOLUMBUS, tlrail your lax-dcduct~blecontributit~nin any amount to. Indun Youth Empowcnncnt Pmjcct. Po* Oflicc Box 60803.Oklahoma City. Oklahoma73146

May-June 1992

i.

- - - - - -

M A Y J U N E ' 9 2

C A L E N D A R Allan Houser: An American Original June 10-September 13

Allan Houser's art has taken him from a government grant farm near Apache, where he was born in 1914, to his place as a grand master of American sculpcure. Along the way, Houser, who is Apache-Chiricahua, has transcended such categories as "Indian artist" and challenged the boundaries of realism and abstraction.

T h e results of more than five decades of work will come to the artist's home state this summer when a Houser retrospective opens at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman.

:fifty-piece exhibit, titled Allan Houser: A Life in Art, spans his career, and includes paintings

) and drawings done during the 1930s while Houser was a student at the Santa F e

Indian School, early sculptures in

Lwood, and ten pieces-both

paintings and sculpture+om- pleted last year.

T h e museum staff has sched- uled workshops, lectures, and children's activities to coincide with the exhibit.

For information about events or the hours (they change according to university class schedules), call (405) 325-3272. T h e museum, at 410 W. Boyd, is closed Mondays. -BP

Houser's bronze, I Want to Dance With Him.

n

MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES MAY

David Halpern Photo Exhibit, Community Center, Bartlesville, (918) 337-2787 Red Earth Circle of Honor Exhibit, Kirkpatrick Center, OKC, (405) 427-5228 Museum Quilt Collection Show, Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum, Woodward, (405) 256-6136

1-5

-- - - . . ..-

JUNE 1-30

MAY 1

1-17

7-9

8-9, 14-16

14-16

14-17

15-31

21-June 14 29-June 6

How Will They Learn? The Art of Gertrude Jacobson, Fenster Museum of Jewish Art, 'Tulsa, (918)582-3732 Competitive Art Show, Five Civilized Tribes Museum, Muskogee, (918) 683-1 701 Cowboy Chuckwagon Gathering and Reenactment, Nat'l Cowboy Hall of Fame, OKC, (405) 478-2250 Images of Heaven and Earth: The Mexican Icon, Philbrook Museum of Art, 'Tulsa, (918) 749-7941

Pastels by Marsha Bell, Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum, -Woodward, (405) 256-1058 Barking Waters Art Show, Seminole Nation Museum, Wewoka, (405) 257-5580 Garment of Brightness: Native American Weavings, OU Museum of Natural History, Norman, (405)325-471 1 The Gift Goes On: Native American Inspiration, Jacobson House, Norman, (405) 366-1667 Allan Houser: A Life in Art, OU Museum of Art, Norman, (405) 325-3272 Nat'l Academy of Western Art, Nat'l Cowboy Hall of Fame, OKC, (405) 478-2250 The Strong Black Arm: Oklahoma Blacks in the Military: 3866-1948, Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, (405) 581-3460 Indian Art Show, Bah Kho Je Gallery, Coyle, (405)466-3 101 Trail of Tears Art Show, Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah, (918) 456-6007

DiarnondStuds, OCCC Theatre, OKC, (405) 682-7523 Light Up The Sky, Jewel Box Theatre, OKC, (405)521-1786 Hello, Dol/y, Woodward Arts Council, Woodward, (405)256-7 120 My Fail-Lody, Ponca Playhouse, Ponca City, (405)765-2442 Damt? Yankees, Bartlesville Theatre Guild, Bartlesville, (918)336-2787 Runaways, Lawton Community Theatre, Lawton, (405)355-1600 Anenirand Old L.ace, Pollard Theatre, Guthrie, (405)282-2800 As You Like It, Hafer Park, Edmond, (405) 340-1222 Cheaper By Tht Dozen, Southwest Playhouse, Clinton, (405)323-4448

Oklahoma Today

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Highway 62 eastP Anadarko, Oklahoma

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presentsoriginal paintingsby area American Indianartists 4051247-2787 115 N.E. First

d L> Forgiving I 3 Their Press

Passes June 25-27

Name any event in :he combined American ~ n dNative American ~istories,and you're

#m I ikely to find one-sided )r befuddled accounts

media-beginning with the billing of Christopher Columbus's voyage to South America as the "Discovery of the New World."

'The goal of a three-day conference "Media and the American Indian: 1492-1992 and Beyond," at the University of 'Tulsa is to address longstanding misconcep- tions, says conference co-chairman Kirke Kickingbird, director of the Native American legal center at Oklahoma City University's law school. Organizers hope to educate t h e media a b o u t American Indians and American Indians about working with the media.

Indian leaders, including Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller; Gary Fife, the founder of National Public Radio's Native News Network; and Oklahoma-born writer and activist Suzan Shown Harjo, will tackle topics ranging from tribal diversity to the discovery myth. Registration for the three-day conference costs $75, or $25 for Friday only, and is open to the public. 'The confer- ence is partly sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. For conference information in Tulsa, call the NCCJ office at (918) 583-1361; in Okla- homa City, call (405) 840-3860. -BP

hf)~Three Angels, Liberty Park, Edmond, (405) 348-7567 Ok/nIronm!,Discoveryland Outdoor Amphitheater, Sand Spring$, (918) 496-0190 Trodof Tkarr, Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah, (918)456-6007 Annte, Lyric Theatre, OKC, (405) 524-71 1 1 Grease,Shawnee Little Theatre, Shawnee, (405) 275-2805 Arsenir atld Old L.ace, Theatre Oklahoma, Lincoln Plaza Hotel, OKC, (405) 528-4664 TroilMs ntldCres.riXz, Hafer Park, Edmond, (405)340-1222 Into the Il'oods, Lyric Theatre, OKC, (405) 524-71 1 1

FAIRS AND FESTIVALS MAY

Pioneer Days, Guymon, (405) 338-3376 Arts for All Festival, Lawton, (405) 248-5384 Iris Festival, Ponca City, (405) 762-1002

Downtown Edmond Arts Festival, Edmond, (405)341 -2927 Onion-Fried Burger Day and Festival, Downtown, El Reno, (405) 262-8888 Rose Rock Festival, Downtown, Noble, (405) 872-9216 Kolache Festival, City Park, Prague, (405) 567-2616 Rivers Heritage Festival, Tahlequah, (918) 456-3251 Springfest, Means Parks. Weatherford, (405) 772-7744 Springfest, Bethany, (405) 495-1313 Quilt Show, Pontotoc Co. Fairgrounds, Ada, (405)332-2153 Celebration of Tradition, OKC, (405) 235-9223 Wheat Harvest Festival, Sultan Park, Walrers, (405) 875-2450 Art in the Park, Mc1,ain Rogers Park, Clinton, (405)323-2222 Strawberry Festival, Stilwell, (918) 696-7845 Earthwise Fair, Hardy Murphy Coliseum, Ardmore, (405) 223-2541 Int'l Mayfest, Brady District, Tulsa, (918) 582-6435 Gusher Days Festival, Seminole, (405) 382-3640 Adafest, Main Street, Ada, (405) 436-3032 Italian Festival, McAlester, (918) 423-2550 Memorial Day Arts and Crafts Show, Tahlequah, (918)456-3742 Sunfest. Sooner Park, Bartlesville, (918) 337-0999 Cantcrbtlry Arts Festival, Hafer Park, Edmond, (405) 755-3942

JUNE 4-7 Santa F e Trail Daze Celebration, Boise City,

(405) 544-3344 Seiling Trail Days Festival, Seiling, (405) 922-738 ChisholmTrail Festival, KirkpatrickHomestead.Yukon, (405)354-3567 Summerfcst, Ardmore, (405) 223-7765 Disney and Tia Juana Festival, Disney, (918) 435-8242 Juneteenth, Greenwood Cultural Center, Tulsa, (918) 586-0708 Kiamichi Owa Chito Festival of the Forest, Beavers Bend State Park. Broken Bow. (405) 286-3305 Pecan Festival, Okmulgee, (918) 756-6172 Kite Festival, Edmond, (405) 34-2527

MUSIC AND DANCE MAY

1 Chopin Society Concert, Edmond, (405) 340-3500 2 H./M.S. Pinafore, Tulsa Opera, Performing Arts Center,

Tulsa, (918) 587-481 1 Big Band Social, Stephenson Park, Edmond, (405)359-4600 Tulsa Barbershoppers Concert, Pawhuska, (918) 287-1208 Tulsa Philharmonic, Tulsa, (918) 747-7473 Victor Borgc, Perform~ng Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-71 1 1 Tulsa Philharmonic Classics Concert, Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 747-7445 'Tulsa Philharmonic Pops Concert, Perform~ng Arts Center, 'l'ulsa, (918) 747-7445 L.E. McCullough and Pipe Dream, Performing Arts Center, Tulsa, (918) 596-71 1 1 Gospel Music Show, Langley, (918) 256-3202

Oklahoma Today

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West End of Dam KIDDIELAND Snow's Restaurant, For all your fishing and .RV CAMPGROUND

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Cultural Center -1Bass Tracker-Nitro

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Ponca City, OK 74601 Ponca City, OK.

Ponca Plaza

Open 1 1a.m.-2p.m. & 5:30 -10p.m.

Best Little Steak House inOklahoma

of Commerce

Champion boats, Christmas in July

Johnson outboards, prices and pass the Sundancer pontoons. savings on to you. Service and sales.

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May-June 1992 71

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OK Watts 1(800) 722-4640 Out of state

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- -

Farm Fest '92, Myriad, OKC, (405) 297-3000 I"ai Chi Ch'uan,Prairie Dance Theatre, OK<:, (405) 478-4132

JUNE 6 Picnic Pops, Great Plains Coliseum, Lawton,

(405) 248-2001 11-21 OK Mozart Festival, Bartlesville, (918) 336-9900

12-Aug. 8 River City Players Music Show, NSU, Tahlequah, (918) 458-2072

18-21 Jazz in June, Norman, (405) 325-5468

lNDlAN EVENTS MAY

1-31 Horse Power 111, Jacobson House, Norman, (405) 366-1667

2 PittsburgCounty Intertribal Club Powwow, Fairgrounds, McAlester, (918) 423-2667

2-23 Spring Encampment at the Red River Trading Post, Museum of the Great Plains, I,nwton, (405) 581-3460

16-17 Kiowa Black Leggins Ceremonial, Indian City, USA, Anadarko, (405) 247-3987

16-17 Peoria Tribal Powwow and Festival, Tribal Grounds, Miami, (918) 788-3384

22-24 Vietnam Veterans Reunion Powwow, Wichita Tribal Park, Anadarko, (405) 247-2425

22-24 Delaware Powwow, Fall-Leaf Campground, Copan, (918) 336-4925

23 Spavinaw Days and Powwow, Spavinaw, (918) 589-2758 23-25 Red Moon Powwow, Hammon, (405) 473-2704 24-26 Mountain Men and Indian Rendezvous, Skelly Ranch,

Kenton, (405) 261-7474 25 Memorial Day Benefit Dance, Red Rock,

(405) 723-4466

JUNE 9-10 Red Plume Int'l Dance Competition, Caddo Co.

Fairgrounds. Anadarko, (405) 247-6330 12-14 Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival, Myriad

Convention Center, OKC, (405) 232-2784 18-20 Creek Nation Festival and Rodeo, Creek Nation

Complex, Okmulgee, (918) 756-8700 19-21 Iowa Tribal Powwow, Perkins, (405) 547-2402 19-21 Iowa Tribe Art Show, Coyle, (405) 466-3101 25-27 T h e Media and the American Indian, University of

Tulsa,?'ulsa, (918) 583-1361 25-28 Potawntomi Powwow, Shawnee, (405) 275-3121

MAY 2-3 Elk City High School Rodeo, Ackley Park, Elk City,

(405) 225-1333 3 1992 A11 Breed Horse Show, State Fairgrounds, OKC,

(405) 948-6704 8-9 Ben Johnson Pro Celebrity and Auction, Lazy E Arena,

Cowboy Hall of Fame, GuthrielOKC, (405) 282-3004 9 Paint Horse Show, Expo Bldg., Purce11, (405) 478-1599

15-17 OK Prairie Regional Team Roping Championship, Lazy

29-30

29-3 1

30-3 1

JUNE 13-14

13-14 19-20

2 1

22-July 5

29-July 5

MAY 1-2

1-July 31

1-3

1-3

15 23

23-24 23-25

30

JUNE 5-7

6

6

6-7

6-7 6-7

11-16

12-16

13 13

19-23

27-29

27-July 4 20

(918) 647-8660 OK Cattlemen's Range Round-up, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-3004 Junior Calf Roping Competition, Hardy Murphy <:oliseum, Ardmore, (405) 223-2541 OK Arabian Horse Show, State Fairgrounds, OK<;, (405) 948-6704

Appaloosa Horse Show, State 1:airgrounds. OKC, (405) 948-6704 Paint Horse Show, Expo Bldg., Purcell, (405) 478-1599 Shortgrass Rodeo, Sayre, (405) 928-3386 Ben Johnson Memorial Steer Roping, Fairgrounds, Pawhuska, (918) 287-1208 Oklahoma Jumping Festival, 1,azy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-3004 OK Hunter Jumper Show, Lazy E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-3004

SPECIAL EVENTS Washita County Centennial, Cordell, (405) 832-3538 Flathcad Catfish Contest, Grand Lake, Langley, (918) 782-2227 OK Steam and Gas Engine Show, Pawnee, (405) 762-2 108 Mexican War I.iving History Encampment, Ft. Washita, (405) 521 -2491 Armed Forces Day Parade, Lawton, (405) 355-3541 Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show, Pawnee, (918)762-2513 Heritage Fair and Reenactment, Ft. Sill, (405)351-5123 Scissorcut and Woodcarver Show, Disney, (918) 435-8080 Chili Cookoff, Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, (918) 333-2414

Bi-Plane Expo, Bartlesville, (918) 336-8708 Okie l'wist Off, Municipal Airport, Stillwater, (405) 372-7881 Cowboy Rendezvous, Prairie Song I.'l'., Dewey, (918) 534-2662 Rt. 66 Cruise and 66th Birthday, Statewide, (405) 495-7866 Freewheel '92, Statewide, (918) 581-8385 Gem and Mineral Show, Payne (20. Fairgrounds, Stillwater, (405) 377- 1275 Chautauqua, Ponca City, Marland Mansion, (405) 762-3695 Great Plains Chautauqua Society's American Renaissance, Ada, (405) 235-0280 Confederate Encampment, Ft.'170wson, (405)521-2496 Cow Pasture Golf'l'ournament, Langley. (918) 782-9448 Great Plains Chautauqua Society's American Renaissance, Pryor, (405) 235-0280 Air Race Classic, Elk City Airport, Elk City, (405) 225-0207 Heritage Days, Duncan, (405) 252-8696 Tour of the Wichitas Bike Ride, Lawton, (405) 355-1808

E Arena, Guthrie, (405) 282-3004 A/though the information it] the cafendar is curnetit, dates and times can Frontier Days Rodeo, CASC Arena, Poteau,

Oklahoma Today

D E V E L O P M E N T ver ten miles of meticulously tailored, truly majestic lakefront, mountainside and mesatop homesites overlooking blue water (usually+, for a river has its seasons; at its 'worst', with upstream flooding and the annual temperature inversion, the water is buff-coloured at mid-day, yet blue early morning and late afternoon, and NEVER the "Big Muddy" to be seen along 1-40). Each homesite is a three-

dimensional painting in which one may live with the delight and exhilerating stimulation to be found in an incomparable combination of a vast mountain forest, cliffs, bluffs, rocky and gentle shale pebble beaches, openness, and commanding, awe-inspiring views. There is nothing like this Labor of Love, 20 years in its realization, to be found in all of Oklahoma! Carefully thought-through restrictions preclude mobile homes and determine public access to the beach at midpoint only. To make arrangements for a grand walk, call Eas Massey, developer-agent, at 91 8-689-7600 (to protect the privacy of property owners, by appointment only, please!). For a Lake Eufaula map and more information send a SASE (52G) to Standing Rock Development, Eufaula, OK 74432-9442. Ten per cent of self-referred sales will be paid into this mountain community's Property Owners Association.

Photo By Mary Ann Massey

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Attracted by warm, open waters and plentiful food, L WJE ,M ,,spend months each gear at O G , E ~

m m n . . ~ n n n nmlp Sooner and Xonwa Reseruoirs.

For decades, OG&E's environmental team has drawn on the strengths of a diversely talented group of El['m'".n-~l--- -------4 biologists, chemists and wildlife management experts, engineers, meteorologists and landscape architects.

Together, they've built Oklahoma lakes for recreation as well as power production. They've cultivated thriving aquatic ecosystems, wildlife preserves, trees and prairie preserves -all while keeping a constant eye on our air, soil and water quality.

There's one more thing they nurture: a keen appreciation for nature. Our Sooner and Konawa Reservoirs and Recreation Areas offer phenomenal fishing, as well as a window on 160species of fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

It's the kind of commitment that won the Oklahoma Wildlife Federation's coveted Conservation Organization of the Year Award. It's simply making life in Oklahoma the brightest it can be. It's Positive Energy.

ELECTRIC SERVICE