2
10
213
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/a6d92c28c92a49eb8e30a86a312703f4.jpg
cf26af8a34cece4a6f3e0705f0cbfb14
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
James Hedrick
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Shawn L. Collins
Location
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Great Basin College (Elko, NV)
Transcription
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Transcription in progress
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The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP4
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01:31:51
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Title
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Shawn L. Collins - Oral history (07/12/2017)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral History Interview with Shawn L. Collins, Western Shoshone from South Fork, NV, on 07/12/2017
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Shawn L. Collins addresses students at the Shoshone Community Language Initiative (SCLI) program at Great Basin College. Shawn L. Collins is a Western Shoshone from the South Fork area. He tells some of the stories of the Shoshone, about traditions such as tanning and hunting, and he also speaks about how the Western Shoshone viewed and interacted with the world. He elaborates about whirlwinds, old animals (no longer exist), and water babies. He gives an overall explanatory talk about the heritage and traditions of the Western Shoshones. He also warns the younger generation not to brag because it’s against the traditional Shoshone lifeway.<br /> <br />Presented at the 2017 Shoshone Community Language Initiative summer youth program (SCLI 17).</p>
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<a title="Shawn Collins Oral History video in spearate page" href="http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/el3ic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">View Oral History video in separate page if above player not working</a><br />Transcription pending
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 061
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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07/12/2017 [12 July 2017]; 2017 July 12
Contributor
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James Hedrick [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/397
Format
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MP4
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
folktale
GBIA
hunting
Shoshone
Story
sun dance
sundance
traditions
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/9e975c4b50834c0ddeb8c9d653af3991.jpg
0badecae15dd241874b963514a0993b5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
James Hedrick
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Katherine Blossom
Location
The location of the interview
Great Basin College (Elko, NV)
Transcription
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Transcription in progress
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:40:45
Dublin Core
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Title
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Katherine Blossom - Oral history (07/10/17)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Katherine Blossom, Western Shoshone from Elko, NV on 07/10/2017
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Katherine Blossom addresses students at the Shoshone Community Language Initiative (SCLI) program at Great Basin College. Katherine Blossom begins her discussion by describing the benefits of learning the language. She speaks about how her mother and others were punished at boarding schools for speaking their native language, and as a result she was denied the opportunity to learn it growing up. She then goes on to sing a song on the hand drum. Afterward, she begins to speak about the different native plants and other materials that traditional Western Shoshones would use.<br /><br />Presented at the 2017 Shoshone Community Language Initiative summer youth program (SCLI 17).<br /> </p>
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Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 060
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
07/10/2017 [10 July 2017]; 2017 July 10
Contributor
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James Hedrick [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only):
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP4
Language
A language of the resource
Enlgish; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Elko
GBIA
language
Shoshone
Story
traditional food
traditional medicines
traditional songs
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/35a20c762bca69dc4211e5e78bf04681.jpg
398860dce33d24c71b39eb21a4751de5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Rosie Hall Jones
Location
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Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID)
Transcription
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Transcription in progress (07/01/2017)
Original Format
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AVI and MP4 format
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00:23:21
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Title
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Rosie Hall Jones - Oral history (04/14/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Rosie Hall Jones, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID) on 04/14/2014
Description
An account of the resource
Rosie Hall is a Western Shoshone from Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID). Her family came from various areas throughout the Great Basin region such as Ruby Valley and Paradise Valley. Her family was came from the Ainga diccada group. She speaks about how her family always had kids playing in their house, and how the traditional medicinal practices were carried out. She tells us about how the water rights issue took place in Owyhee too. Rosie also speaks about how the U.S. cavalry used to treat the Western Shoshone people.
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 031
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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04/14/2014 [14 April 2014]; 2014 April 14
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/393
Language
A language of the resource
Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
Owyhee
Shoshone
Story
traditional medicines
U.S. Cavalry
water
water rights
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/6d63b696bd95f455952cbbf791ff5253.jpg
d6465d5714add134db2975e18f63860a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
James Hedrick
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Alfred Jackson
Location
The location of the interview
Great Basin College (Elko, NV)
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Transcription in process
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MP4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:34:34
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Title
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Alfred Jackson - Oral history (07/07/2017)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Alfred Jackson, Western Shoshone from Elko, NV, on 07/07/2017
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Alfred Jackson addresses students at the Shoshone Community Language Initiative (SCLI) program at Great Basin College. Alfred Jackson speaks about the decay of the Shoshone culture, but also speaks about the steps necessary to preserve such a unique culture. He also speaks about his experiences growing up in the area, as well as how language is important in keeping up the traditions and values within the Shoshonean culture. He also tells the students about his experience Sun Dancing at different areas within and outside of the Great Basin region.<br /> <br />Presented at the 2017 Shoshone Community Language Initiative summer youth program (SCLI 17).</p>
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<p>Transcript pending</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 059
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
07/07/2017 [07 July 2017]; 2017 July 07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
James Hedrick [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/390
Language
A language of the resource
English; Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
GBIA
language
Shoshone
Story
sun dance
sundance
traditions
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/512fff8689c166679dceb7f95ee91e9c.jpg
b6a52bbe4a8d363f8f70bfc9544d5e21
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/ab603700111f3061e9bfcca6ae7f8d09.pdf
4fb4dab4cffa5062592f597356ce993a
PDF Text
Text
Dennis
F.
Pete,
Sr.
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
032
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
April
15,
2014
Owyhee,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hDp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 032
Interviewee: Dennis F. Pete, Sr.
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: April 15, 2014
P:
My name is Dennis F. Pete, Sr. I was born in Owyhee, Nevada, to Bessie Cleveland, and
my stepdad was Alec Cleveland. And I got some sisters and brothers over there from
Alec and them. And then I have another brother, his name is Herman Pete. He stays in
McDermitt, Nevada.
C:
So, your dad was—puhadik [1:18]? [medicine make?]
P:
Johnny E. Pete.
C:
Oh. And where was he from?
P:
He was born here in Owyhee. And my grandmother was Stella Bean, who was married to
Simon Bean. She was from Oregon. Burns or somewhere up that way. That was—I don’t
know what year that was. And then, Eva, her daughter Eva was my aunt. And Roger
Bean was my step-grand, grand, like that, something I guess. [Laughter] And then, I got
some relatives here and there. They got quite a few here in Owyhee. The Gibson bunch,
and then the Humpy bunch, they’re all related to them. Soose noha [2:42]. [Somehow
like that.]
C:
Yeah. And so, then where did you begin school? Where did you go to school at?
P:
Oh! I went to school here in Owyhee. Ne towaik [2:55] [I study.] Owyhee, Swayne
School, it’d be, they call it. Used to sit way down here, below where the football field is.
That’s where they had it. Somewhere on in that area. Went to school, and then they had
that big gym, that right over there, where they would play basketball and this thing is still
there yet, that gym. Right today. But they don’t use it anymore. And then we played
football right there, same place, in the football field, where they had it. It was back in
1955, I think. Trying to think—yeah, [19]55. I was start school in the high school. Then
�GBIA
032;
Pete,
Sr.;
Page
2
after that happened, got through with that, I just went to work for some ranchers,
buckarooing for them for here and there. And then, finally I got a job here in Owyhee
hospital, as a driver for the—ambulance driver, and janitor, and work with a maintenance
man when I was needed. And then after I get through, I was work there for eight years,
and I finally gave it up. When I moved, I moved away, then. I moved clear to—what do
they call it—down on Pyramid Lake. Pyramid Lake Indian Paiute Tribes. I was there for
39 years, going here and there. Playing hand games, and going to the powwows there, or
rodeos. There’s one guy from Pyramid Lake, used to team up with him. When I would
get a chance to, so then I went and rope with him a few times when I was there. And
then, finally, my wife over there finally passed away. Then I moved back to Owyhee
next. And that’s where I am right today.
C:
So do you have children over there in Pyramid Lake?
P:
Huh-uh, no. Just two boys I got here. [Laughter]
C:
Who’s the two boys you have here?
P:
Oh, Kenny Pete, and Dennis Pete, Jr. Those two.
C:
And you got grandchildren?
P:
I got about four grandchildren, then a lot of first/second grand kid. Can’t name ‘em all,
there’re two many of them! [Laughter] That’s about as far as I know right now. And I’m
stay right here, living here, in my own house, and take care of whatever I need to do. Go
to handgames, powwows, or whatever. Basketball game, football game, do all, watch all
that stuff. That’s about all I could do nowadays. Go to the store and come home.
[Laughter] And that’s it.
C:
So where did you learn how to play handgames?
�GBIA
032;
Pete,
Sr.;
Page
3
P:
I used to watch them here. In Fourth July ground, they had that camp down here. Big
camp, big campground down there, down where they had the—that’s where I learn it.
Used to watch them people play that handgame all the time. Well, my grandfather, Simon
Bean, he always used to play that all the time. I used to watch him when he played and
everything, and then started to learn how to—how they do it, learning slow. And then
evening comes, they have a round dance, where people round dance out there in the little
place out there where they have a round dance all night long, until in the morning. That’s
when they finally quit dancing. And then during Fourth of July, we have a big celebration
here. We had to have a rodeos and stuff down here. We used to go and go watch that.
Every year, they used to come go down there to go watch them. Got a lot of people
camping down there, I remember. There were tents all the way around that place down
there. Now, there’s hardly any people at that camp down there. A few, maybe. That’s
about it. So that’s it, now. And then, there’s few of those guys play handgame. And still
sing round dance songs once in a while, whenever they can get into it, I guess. There’s
more to it, but I can’t think of all of it.
C:
I notice you’ve got your handgame sticks and bones, I guess. That’s what they call them?
P:
Yeah.
C:
Can you explain the game to us? How it’s played, and, you know, what the colors mean
on the bones and on the sticks?
P:
Okay. When the handgame—well, the people choose their, what kind of, they want to get
when they play. There’s two kinds. One’s got this red on that, the other one’s got that
blue, I guess, what you call it, black or blue. So these is—and then, this one here is what
they hide. They hide this, the ones on that other side will guess the white one. This white
�
GBIA
032;
Pete,
Sr.;
Page
4
ones they guess, this one’s the one they don’t guess [indicating the striped bones]. So if
they would go like this to it, and then… then they’ll hide it, and then they’ll put it away
someplace. And in their hand. And they playing and they’ll singing, and they, when they
guess, maybe he bet go, went wrong way. And maybe they get the white one, so they’ll
show it, and then they’ll throw one of the stick to you when they missed. Like, put it over
here like that. And then they go again. Sometime you get two, they miss two of them.
Two of them, and then they’ll give you two sticks. That’s the way it goes. Do that all
night long. They play, they sing along, and every few—sometimes they play longer,
sometime they get guess right, right at the first song they playing. They’ll guess both
sides same time, and then sometime they only guess one. One side. And then the, and
then they’ll throw this back to you, across to where them other guys are at. And then
they’ll, they going to try to match. Sometimes they’ll try to match you with this one here.
If you got it on this side, or this side, or whatever side they think it is. And then they’ll
match it with you. And then you’ll hide it again, and you keep it for a while. Pretty soon,
they’ll show it to you. Okay, tsa’i they want it, and then you show it to them. And if they
on this side, they’ll get you then. But if they’re on this side, then they’ll miss you. And
then they’ll give you some more stick back to you. Then you keep going. Maybe you
might be lucky, you get three times, you don’t get guessed. [Laughter] And then, finally,
they’ll guess you. Then you throw this back to them, all four of them. And then they
going to hide theirs, they going to hide their bones, they call it. And then, you play again
for a while, and then a lot of them get warmed up, and then you start guessing them.
Sometime you’ll guess them right away, and sometime you don’t either. And then they
just go back and forth, until all these [picks up the sticks] goes to one side. And then
�GBIA
032;
Pete,
Sr.;
Page
5
you’ll win. And the other side will, finally going to stop playing game. And then they’ll
bet again. Then they would start another one, another song. Then they’ll play until
whenever they get guessed, or quit playing, or whatever. Get tired. Or they’ve got to get a
rest for a while. Get—drink something, I don’t know. [Laughter] Drink something they
like to drink, I guess. So that’s the way I learned how to play, and then I still play right
today. Go to handgames here and there, sometime go to Elko. Play handgame over there.
But not really—sometime we don’t. Go to Fort Hall, up that way. And we don’t do too
much in Burns, Oregon, or Warm Springs. We just go to either—oh, family reunion,
what do you call that? That’s where we go, we’re going to go again next months. To go,
we’ll see them people over there again. So we’ll be going that way, I guess, sometime
next month. Ho’aishe [14:32].
C:
So, how many sticks do you have? Well, how many sticks does each team have to guess
with?
P:
Oh, they got five.
C:
Five sticks?
P:
Five sticks. Oh, and then, when they get—sometime they’ll, they’ll give all this to you
back, and then you give them three more. Three more stick to—the first round they play,
if they missed, if you missed, they’ll give you back to you a stick, but if you got them—
any one of these, both of them, and then you get your stick back. And then you start
singing again. And then they’ll try to take it again. If they miss both of them that time,
then they’ll lose their game. And the game’s overwith. So they’ll have to start a new
game again. Start betting whatever they want to bet, how much they want to bet.
�GBIA
032;
Pete,
Sr.;
Page
6
C:
So with those two bones, when you were explaining how they hide it, if you’re—like,
how many people are on your team?
P:
Oh, whatever. Well, on a, when they have a team, like maybe three guys to a team. That’s
the way they play it over there, in Fort Hall. They’ll, three guys playing. Maybe about
fifty teams, different ones.
C:
So that’s like in a tournament?
P:
Yeah. You have to go for maybe about 2000 or something.
C:
Oh. So how do the people bet, or how much do they bet, or how does that work?
P:
Mm, when they first started for the tournament like that, well, they pay about $30. One
person paid $30.
C:
Oh, for entry fee?
P:
Yeah. Just the $30 for three of them, what that will pay. Pay for first round. If they win,
they keep winning, they’ll keep going, but if two or three times they lose, then they’re
out. They don’t play anymore. They keep going all the way around. They all goes round
and round. And then for the finally, going to the end, towards the morning, I guess. And
then they’ll see who’s the winner, and then they’re the ones that will get all the money,
whatever. Whatever the bet went to.
C:
So those sticks that you have there, the bones and the guessing sticks. Did you make them
yourself, or did you buy them somewhere, or where did you get ‘em?
P:
Yeah, these I bought, I buy these from… Somebody sold me those that time. I think it
was the Kellys or somebody bought that one. Or was it my present, they give me present?
[Laughter]
C:
So in the old days, did they actually use bones? Is that why they call them bones?
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P:
I don’t know. These are bones. No, the ones they used to make was made out of willows,
I guess. They’re round, they’re kind of almost same size as these. They cut them up, and
then they trim them up like this, or they trim them like the half of it, like, cut and half of
it they stain. And these kind all made out of that willows, too. They don’t have this kind
on it, colors or whatever they got all nowadays. They just trim ‘em up, take all the white
stuff or whatever on there. When I seen them. I don’t really know too much about the old
peoples. But, yeah, they used to have, a lot of them, handgames. Them didn’t used to
have tournament, just the regular people playing games all night long. Singing and
whatever. So when I used to hear them, when I was young here. And then finally, I gave
it up, go to sleep. [Laughter] Children. In the morning, get up, see what’s happening.
Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I remember playing. Singing it.
Antelope [speaks mostly Shoshone from 19:58 to 20:04, I think]. I just want to sing a
round dance song first for, first song, I guess, few times.
[Begins singing at 20:27]
[Concludes singing at 21:12]
That’s a eagle flying up there. In the air, we sing with that. This other one just, just a
regular round dance song they sings around here. It’s about a willows and stuffs growing,
I guess.
[Begins singing at 21:38]
[Concludes singing at 22:24]
Tease? [More.]
C:
Tease handgame song [speaks Shoshone from 22:31 – 22:33]
P:
Oh.
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[Begins singing at 22:34]
[23:15]
Lost out. [Laughter]
[Resumes singing at 23:20; Sounds like mostly chanting, few lyrics]
[Concludes singing at 24:01]
To’weyoha [24:02]. [Mountain side.]
C:
Yeah. You, do you ever enter in those handgame contests?
P:
Handgame contest. No. Just that one where three to a team.
C:
Oh.
P
Tewe yekwite? [24:23]. During Fourth of July, we used to sing for them for little while.
Only two guys out on a team, though. [Laughter] Me and this, one of them Kelly boys,
[__inaudible at 24:41__] but he was busy doing something else, he didn’t show up over
there. There was only two of us that, playing that, sing and that. And let’s see…
C:
Yeah, you have a favorite song you like to sing?
P:
Mm, let’s see… Can’t think. [Begins humming out a tune to remember it.] No, not really,
as I think.
C:
[Shoshone from 25:28…
P:
C:
…to 25:37]
P:
[Begins singing at 25:40]
[Concludes singing at 26:29]
[Shoshone at 26:30]
C:
Mm. So that was a pinenut song?
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P:
Yeah! [Laughter] Pinenut song, [Shoshone from 26:36-26:38].
C:
So did you used to go to the Pinenut Festival?
P:
Yeah.
C:
What all did they do there?
P:
Oh, they just dancing, and dance, whatever. Just like they do during the Fourth July. Just
sing and dance. Pinenut dance. Well, different singers, different kind of songs. [Hums out
the beginning of another song.] [Shoshone from 27:15 – 27:17] I’ll try another one, I
guess. [Shoshone from 27:25 – 27:27].
[Begins singing at 27:29]
[Concludes singing at 28:10]
C:
So where did you get your drum? Or did you make your drum?
P:
No, the—these was made—my grandkids, I don’t know where they got it from.
Somebody must’ve made it. And then they, I did have another one, but I don’t know
where it—I lost that one. Bigger one. This the smaller one, the other one was a bigger
one, too. So, I’ll get me another drum sometime. This is too loud for singing, this is good
for a handgame! [Laughter] Thought was a crazy old thing, just like, to sing the
handgame song with the big loud ones. Make a lot of noise. Well… Might as well sing
one more round dance song. Owyhee song.
[Begins singing at 29:27]
[Concludes singing at 30:05]
That’s it. Well, I hope you people were learning how to play handgames for these days
kids, and the round dance songs I singed, and I could sing some more but I can’t think of
them. Lot of song there is, used to hear, but if I remember, it’ll probably come later.
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Think about it. They I would say, “I should have sing that when I was getting recorded!”
Well, that’s about it. All I can do today. Thank you, and God bless you. Goodbye.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
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Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
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2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dennis F. Pete, Sr.
Location
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Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID)
Original Format
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00:31:15
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/585
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Dennis F. Pete Sr. - Oral history (04/15/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Dennis F. Pete Sr., Western Shoshone from Duck Valley Reservation on 04/15/2014
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dennis F. Pete, Sr. was born at the Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID) to Bessie and Alec Cleveland. He went to school in Owyhee also at the Swayne School where he would play basketball and football. Later in life he got married and moved to Pyramid Lake where he lived for 39 years. He currently lives in Owyhee. Dennis then addresses the hand games and how hand games are played, moreover he talks about some of the places he has traveled to attend hand games. He then plays a few circle dance songs for his audience.</p>
<a class="opener" title="Dennis F. Pete, Sr." href="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/html5/html5lib/v2.42/mwEmbedFrame.php/p/670542/uiconf_id/20370692/entry_id/0_9elnov6o?wid=_670542&iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player_1464996609&entry_id=0_9elnov6o&flashvars[streamerType]=auto">Full Video</a> Video pending <br /> <a title="Dennis F. Pete Sr. Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/ab603700111f3061e9bfcca6ae7f8d09.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Dennis F. Pete Sr. Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 032
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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04/15/2014 [15 April 2014]; 2014 April 15
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
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Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
hand games
Owyhee
Pyramid Lake
Shoshone
Story
tradition
traditional songs
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/f7cab43263abdae392441f39c5fe66eb.jpg
d315528fd5818c17c3860f63d2ffdac1
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/ca1a4257b57d880c5417a17e2ae2455a.pdf
258eda95d8448bc53a964527ea5f4756
PDF Text
Text
Virginia
Jones
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
030B
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
Summer
2012
Owhyee,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 030B
Interviewee: Virginia Jones
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: Summer 2012
J:
My name is Virginia Jones. I’m a Shoshone-Paiute Tribe from Duck Valley Indian
Reservation. I am going to talk about my drums today. The big powwow drums, and the
hand drums that I have here. And I like to talk about how I first started singing with the
powwow trail. When I first started learning how to sing—that was 1976—I first started
learning how to sing with the big powwow drum. They were practicing at the Senior
Citizens’ Center with Wesley Hall, Jr., was teaching all the Shoshones how to sing on the
powwow drum here. And I went there, and my mother went there, and Lucille went there;
we all went there, just to see how it was going to turn out. So, I went there to learn how to
sing songs. So, Junebug—excuse me, Wesley Hall, Jr. was our instructor. He was
teaching us how to sing at that time. So, we did some singing there, and learned a lot of
songs from that. And I do appreciate Wesley for teaching a lot of us how to sing at the
powwow drum. So, the first thing that I learned on the powwow about learning how to
sing, is how to respect—that’s the number one thing we have to do, is respect others. We
always have to respect ourselves, our drums, the drums that we make. How we did the
drums was—how I learned how to make the drum, is—by scraping the hide. My mother
helped me a long time ago when she was still living. That was about after 1976. We all
started learning how to make drums. We all got interested in making the drums. So, when
it came about, how we learned was, we had to—this is how the drum was first. The drum
was just a case like this. And then, after that, then what we did was, we came about and
we used these kind of tools to scrape our hides. Deer hide we use on our drums, or we use
elk hide. That’s—oh, and cow hide. We use cow hide, too. This little drum here has deer
hide on it. We used to scrape this, the deer hide, first. We scrape the hides. Then, after we
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clean the hides really good, we clean the fat part inside the hide. All that stuff, the fat, we
clean that really clean. And then, after we get through cleaning that, then we go and turn
the hide over, and then we scrape the other side. That’s the hair part. So, we get all the
hair off. Every bit of the hair, we have to remove off of the drum—oh, excuse me, off of
the hide. Then, we remove that off, and then we put it—after we get all the hair off, then
we put the hide on the casing. On the casing here, on the drum casing. Then, after we do
that, then we turn around, and then we put the hide on it on each side. Then we tie it. We
do the tying. We do the drum tying then. And then, after that, after we do the drum tying,
then we let the drum kind of dry, the hide dry up a little bit. And then, the next day, I look
at it again, then I re-tie the drums again. I re-tie the strings back up to make it just so it’s
just right and tight. Then, you quit tying it. Tying the hide up. Then you let the drum sit
there and let it dry up for about a week. One week. And then, we do the same way with
the cow hide. This drum here is made out of cow hide. This one. This drum is a cow hide,
and that one is a deer hide. Deer hides made all that drum. And then, after I do that, and
then we go and use it after it’s all dried up real good. We try it out first, then we go up to
the river—that’s up to the waters up there, where the running water is. Then we stand up
there, and then we pray for the drum. The usage of the drum, we pray for the drum when
we’re at the running water. We see the running water there, and then we stand there. And
we pray up to the Creator, to ask the Creator to bless this drum that we made with our
own hands. That we’re going to use it, and we’re are going to take it out to the powwow
circles. So, after we do that, then we could use the drum. We can take the powwow drum
into the circle. Any powwow that we go to—the Four Corners, wherever—we can use
that drum. Any place we want to, we can take the drum out and use it. But we always got
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to remember to pray for our drum. Each time you sit your drum out there in that powwow
circle, you either smudge the drum with one of these sweetgrasses—which, this
sweetgrass is not made by our tribe. The Shoshone tribes, we don’t have sweetgrass here
on our reservation, on Duck Valley Indian reservation. These are what we get, whatever
powwows we go to, we buy these from the taipos. And that’s kind of sad, that we have to
buy something like this from the taipos, to smudge our drums off. We have to smudge the
drums off before we start singing. And we pray for it before we start singing. So, this is
the one that came from a different state.
C:
So, when you say “smudge,” Virginia, can you explain what “smudge”—what do you
mean by “smudge”?
J:
What we have to do is, we light the—see, we light the sweetgrass up. And then, what we
do is, we put—the drum is sitting in front of us, and what we do is light it up while
somebody is praying for the powwow out there. At the same time, an elder is standing out
there praying at a powwow. We have to burn the cedar the same time an elder or whoever
is praying to the Creator. So that way, we could have good powwow, and we don’t have
no droppings of an eagle feather out there on the powwow circle. So, what we do is, what
I mean by “smudge” is, we light the sweetgrass up, or we light the sage up. And this is,
this sage is from Duck Valley. This is our own sage. So, what we do is, we could light
either this sage up, or we light the sweetgrass up. And what we do is, while we light it up,
while the person there is praying, we go and light ours up, then we run it around the
drum. We light it and pray at the same time when that man is praying or lady is praying.
Then we light this up, and we do our praying for the safety of the powwow drum that’s
sitting in front of us. The powwow drum, it means a lot to us singers, because I was
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always told—long time ago, way back, I was always told this by my aunt: “If you are the
maker of a drum, whatever you make,” she said, “You’re the maker.” And my aunt used
to tell me that. That’s Edith Shaw. She was my aunt. And she taught me a lot of things
about things today. What all the things about, a lot about our living things, you know,
and—even about the drum. My aunt used to tell me, “You’re the maker. You take care of
it. Take care of it! Don’t leave your drum sitting anyplace! Take care of your stuff.
You’re the maker. Take care of it!” So, that’s how I learned by my aunt. And I’m
thankful today that I learned a lot of things from my aunt. Because she was the one that
taught me a lot of things. So, I want to thank my aunt for that. And I know she’s not here,
but I want to thank her wherever she’s at. Like I say, lot of times, us people always say—
we still pray, and we still say “Thank you, Appe.” Up there. Appe is same thing as Jesus.
We still pray like the taipo pray. And we pray in our own ways, and we pray for our
drum. And when we pray for our drum, then we feel better. We know we’re safe. We’re
protected by our grandfather up there. And we pray for our water at all times. We always
buy water. I know lot of times we don’t get it from the spring waters, but we get our
waters all the time, from the store or something like that. And then, we spill some water
on the drum to make the hide feel better. Because I was told long time ago that that drum
that you make—you’re the maker, take care of it—and lot of times, my aunt would used
to say to me, “Give thanks to the Appe up there. [Shoshone at 12:30] That’s what my
aunt used to say long time ago. So, that’s what I follow today. I pray to my Grandfather
up there every day. I pray to him. I give thanks to him. Just like, maybe, the taipos do.
But I still pray to him, and I thank the Creator for all the things that I’ve learned: how to
sing, become a singer today. And I sing with my powwow drums. And I thank the
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Creator how I learned how to do everything. And the sticks I made myself. When we
used to sing long time ago, that was about, we first started with Wesley Hall. Then we all
started getting bigger and bigger, and all the people started liking it. So, Winona
started—Winona Charles, Sylvania Charles, Carmen Jones started, Lucille Jones, and
myself. We all liked singing, so we all joined Wesley Hall. So, after that, then that’s
when I started. On 1976, I started singing. And then, still up to this day, now it’s 2009
and I’m still singing. And I enjoy singing songs. Sometime I make my own songs,
Shoshone songs. I make my own songs. And lot of times, we sing it at different
powwows when we go to different powwows. And when I used to be a singer with the
Four Winds group, that’s how we became—after Wesley Hall taught us, then we were the
Four Winds singers. So, that was Winona Charles, Sylvania Charles, Lucille Jones,
Carmen Jones, and myself. We were all a woman drum at one time. So, up to this day
now, I’m still a singer. I still sing at powwows. And I enjoy singing. And lot of times, I
go and sing with the hand drum songs. I’ve always get called to go and sing it, you know,
different places. So, I enjoy all that, too. So, all the things that I do, I enjoy, and I make
my own sticks. I know that was Wesley Hall, showed us how to make sticks. That was
1976. He said, “This is how you ladies are going to make the drum stick!” He said, “Go
over there somewhere, and find some fishing poles somewhere,” he said. See, this is like
a fishing pole. At the end of the fishing pole, he said, “Go over there and go get some!”
Some of these, he said. “And then we’ll start from there. I’ll bring—or either all of you
come the next class. All of you come to the class next time, and bring a sheep wool.
Bring something like that. And bring needles!” he said to us. So, we said, “Oh, okay! So
we’re going to make sticks, drum sticks, like this, so we can sing on our drums.” So
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that’s how Wesley taught us how to do the sticks, too. So, I want to thank Wesley again
for teaching us ladies how to do a lot of things, too. He taught us a lot of things. And I
want to thank him. And, this is one of our—our tobacco. We have a tobacco here, we can
get these up here, up in the mountains, up here in the Duck Valley mountains up here. We
go out there and get some of these. I don’t know what the white name is, but a lot of
times we just call it tobacco. But the Indian name is totsa. And we smoke this a lot. And
we use it a lot at powwows. We smoke this, we do our prayers with this. A lot of times,
we pray for our drums, we use our totsa, and we smoke this tobacco. A lot of times, we
use it for colds, too. And it’s really good. So, this is our Indian tobacco, the Shoshone
Indian tobacco here. We use it for lot of things. It can be used for a lot of things, if you
know how to use this totsa. And this is one of our Indian teas, too. We drink this lot of
times when we sing. Indian tea, here. It grows around here in Owyhee. Sometimes it
grows up here by the Cleveland Trail. I don’t know what the English name is, but they
call it antapittseh kwana. They call it an Indian name. But the only thing I know is the
Indian name. But I do not know the English name. Because my aunt was the one that
taught me how to go and get the Indian tea. So, I go up there in them hills and go get this.
And we can’t just go and get this, either; we have to wait and stand there. My aunt would
pick one first, down there on the ground. Then she stands there and hold it, and she stands
that way, the way the sun’s coming up. And she’ll tell me “We’ll wait until I do my
prayers.” So, my aunt Edith Shaw would do the prayers first, and then, after she gets
through praying for this, then we could pick as much as we want. And we drink this. This
is our Indian tea that we can drink every day. Some people use it for diabetes. Some
people just drink it just to be healthy. And it’s very good tea. It’s just like the tea that you
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buy in the store. But they’re very scarce. They’re very hard to come by. You can’t really
just go and go get it anyplace. You got to know where they’re growing at. They grow at
the spring. Spring water, somewhere, you know. You have to find it. We usually go up to
Cleveland Trail. Cleveland Trail up here.
C:
So is there a certain time of the year that you can harvest that?
J:
Yeah. We could only get this antapittseh kwana on July. July or August. Second week of
August is when we have to get them, is when they have a little flowers, yellow flowers.
When they have a little yellow flowers, they’re ready to pick. Then we could pick ‘em.
Then we could drink it.
C:
Virginia, you mentioned earlier that you should always watch or look after your drum,
and that you shouldn’t leave your drum unattended. Can you explain as to why that’s
important?
J:
The reason why I said it’s very important to watch and protect your drum is because
you’re the maker of the drum. And when you’re are the maker of the drum, you’re
supposed to stand up the drum—like this—all the time. You always have to stand this
drum up. This means when you stand this drum up like this, and here’s the casing on the
bottom. So this is what it sits on, and we made this one out of wood, and then the reason
why we have to stand this up is because the powwow is not started yet. So, when the
powwow is starting, then—and then, we go and then we put our drum on that casing. And
then, we put the drum on the casing, and then, you’re the maker. So, I’m the maker of the
drum. So what I do is, I do not leave my drum at the powwow circle by itself. I always
have to have one person sitting at the drum. That’s to watch the drum, because we have
like, maybe, fifteen, sixteen drums there at a powwow, or twenty. We have a lot of drums
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there. We have a lot of people from all over the country at the powwows. So the reason
why I’m saying, is that people, when we take our drums out, we have to protect our
drum. And we have to protect ourself. Because we’re the maker of the drum. Lot of
times, there’s a lot of bad medicine flying around. At each powwows. No matter where,
what powwow you go to, you can hear about it from other people. Talk about bad
medicine. So, when that is going around, what we usually do, is we go and put one of
these—for protection, we put one of our little cedar pouches on the drum. We hang it on
side of the drum for protection like that. That’s to protect our drum, and protect the maker
of the drum, and the rest of the singers. So, that’s why it’s very important that we do not
leave the drum at any time. If I’m going to leave it, I’ll leave one of the ladies in charge.
I’ll say, “You take care of the drum. I’ve got to go drink water,” or go drink pop, or got to
go do something. So. So that’s why I said I had to protect this drum in that way. Because
this drum here, what I’m talking about, is just like a grandfather to us. This drum is like a
grandfather to us because we pray to this drum. All over, powwows that we go to, you
can see other people smudging their drums, praying for their drums. And this drum is a
big thing at a powwow. Because we go and sing songs with it. We sing for the Flag Song,
we open the powwow with the Flag Song, Victory Song, Honor Song, for the men fancy,
men traditional, women traditional, all the childrens, clear down to Tiny Tots. So what
we do is, in that way, I said, we always, always have to take care of our drum, because
this is the circle of life that we live in today. This drum means a lot to a lot of us, because,
in—when I first started singing, the more I got into this drum, singing, and I’m still
singing ever since 1970, I still haven’t let it up, the songs—sometime I go and sing with
Martina Littleboy’s drum, her and her sister Linda. So I go up there and sing with them
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when they ask me, or call me, to go up there and sing with them at the Te-Moak Indian
Powwow. So I go up there and sing once in a while with them. But like I say: if you’re
the maker of the drum, you’re to protect it. And every time you go to the powwow, and
the powwow’s through—I don’t care wherever you go, you could go to Fallon, Reno,
McDermitt, Idaho, all around us, all different—Fort Duchesne, Utah, Cedar City—all
over the place. I’ve been all over the place with this drum. This drum has gone to Fort
Duchesne; Cedar City, Utah; McDermitt; and it has been to Idaho; it’s been to Fallon,
Stillwater. All over the place in state of Nevada, Utah, all over. This drum has been all
over the place. So, when I was singing, when we went all over, then I told my mom that,
well, I liked singing, so I just continued to sing with the powwow circle. Which I’m still
in the powwow circle, and I enjoy being in this powwow circle. So now, when I’m
talking about this drum, it means a lot to me. And this drum here is made out of a cow
hide. This one. This drum is made out of two calf hides. My cousin gave me the two
hides to do. That was my cousin Wilbur Shaw, he gave me these cow hides, and I scraped
the hides, two calf hides. Me and my mother did that here, right by the shed. We scraped
these out, we took the hair off and clean it real good, then we put it on our casing here.
And this casing is what I bought. I just got lucky and bought this. Somebody that was
going through with the powwow trail had sold the casing to Idaho, one of the pawn
shops. So I bought this casing there, and so it didn’t have a casing. It was just an open
drum like that blue drum there. So my mother said, “Well, let’s ask brother if he has a
calf hide, and we can fix it up.” So Wilbur—my cousin, Wilbur Shaw—gave us the hide.
So, we went and did that. And so, we fixed this, and this is made out of two calf hides.
And this drum also went to Cedar City. This drum. And I really do enjoy this drum, what
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my brother Wilbur Shaw gave us, and we fixed—me and my mother. So we, my mom
and Winona, and Sylvania Charles, and Lucille, we all took this up to Fort Duchesne
when we went up there to host the powwow in Cedar City. We took this one to Cedar
City. That was about, oh, after the [19]70s. After 1970, something like that. So, I enjoy
using this drum, this drum has gone a long ways, and I do enjoy it. I’ve already had
washed all my drums. I keep my drums clean, because I use it all the time. You’re the
maker, you have to take care of it. It’s my responsibility to take care of my drums.
C:
Virginia, can you maybe elaborate a little bit on, you mentioned if you leave your drum
unattended, bad things could happen. What did you mean?
J:
Bad things—like, what I’m saying, bad things could happen to you is, like, somebody
that—whoever’s in the powwow circle might not like you. They jealous you’re singing.
Because you might have sing a real pretty song at one powwow. And then, they’ve heard
you sing there a pretty song. And lot of times, people get jealous of your singing. And
that’s why they put bad medicine on you, with whatever medicine they have. We do not
know what kind of medicine other people, other tribes, carry. We do not know that. But
the Shoshones, as far as I can remember, I don’t think we had bad medicine here.
Because my aunt used to tell me that, “What is that, bad medicine?” They don’t know
what that is. But, so that’s why I’m saying, that’s where all that comes in, is when you go
to different bigger powwows, you know. There’s always people jealous. Jealous one
another because of their songs. So, that’s why I’m saying they put bad medicine on you.
C:
Okay.
J:
So, okay. Now I’m going to come over here, and talk about these drums. This hand drum
right here, this hand drum right here is made out of elk hide. This one, right here. This
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one is a elk hide drum. It has a different sound to it. Sound. You can hear the different
sounding of the drum. This is elk hide. Okay? Now, we could hear a different sound in
this one here. This is the one I made about a month ago. So, I fixed this whole drum up.
And I never really used this yet to any powwows or round dance. Oh, I think I did use
this—I take it back. I did use this in Great Basin College. That was about last month, I
took this drum in there. Up there to Great Basin. Which, I enjoyed myself at Great Basin.
I was asked to be up there. Victoria Jackson called me one day and asked me if I could
work there and teach the people how to sing round dance songs. So, I told her yes, so
that’s when I went up there to the Great Basin College. And that’s when I first used this
hand drum there. And I enjoyed it. So, this one probably has a different sounding, too.
[Plays drum at 33:20] See? You could tell the different soundings of all these drums. It
depends on what sticks you’re using, it makes a lot of difference on all these drums.
C:
So what type of hide is that one?
J:
This hide is deer hide. This one is deer hide. I made this one out of deer hide. This was a
part of a casing to that big round drum. I didn’t really finish it, so I took it apart, and then
I cedared it off and just left it. Let it stand in the back, in one of my rooms. I just left it
because I have to wait until I find a white, like an elk hide for that drum. So this one is
done last month. And I’m thinking about using it when I go up to Elko on August. That’s
when they going to have that handgame tournaments for the youth, up in Elko, Nevada.
So, this will probably be going to Elko. And then, this one here is my special drum. This
was given to me by Mr. Joe Caskey and Lucy Caskey. This was given to me when we
had that—we had a powwow in Owyhee, at the Fourth July grounds, that was honoring
the elders. Then, I signed up for a contest. They said they were going to have a Round
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Dance contest. So, I signed up in it, and this is on Labor Day. Labor Day, 9-7-[19]96.
And it was made by Joe and Lucy Caskey. And this is what I won in Owyhee, Nevada.
Round Dance, first place. And Joe and Lucy Caskey gave me five hundred dollars. And I
really appreciate this drum. This drum means a lot to me. It was freshly-made when it
was given to me. And I really do thank Joe and Lucy. I know they’re not here, they’re in
the spirit world, but God bless them wherever they’re at.
C:
What type of hide is that one made from?
J:
This is a regular deer hide. Because when it was freshly made, Lucy and Joe gave it to me
at the campgrounds when they were honoring the elders. So, this is what they made with
their own hands. So, I enjoy it. I’ve been using it a lot. I’m going to thank Joe and Lucy
for the drum making on that. [Begins drumming at 36:29]
C:
So Virginia, you’re going to be singing some songs. But, can you tell us the reason for
the song before you sing it, or what it’s going to be about?
J:
I’m going to sing a song about a woman traditional song. And it’s sung like this, like all
the womens dancing out there with the buckskin dress. That’s the song. [Sings from
37:04-40:50]
C:
Good job, Virginia!
J:
Thank you.
C:
So, are there other songs? Like, what’s the Flag Song all about?
J:
The Flag Song—I could sing one of the Flag Songs, but one of our ladies sing it from
Fallon. But I’ll just sing that one, because I’m still working on the one that we were
doing at Great Basin. So, I’m just going to go with the song that we sing with Gill
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Hansen. So I’ll sing that one for now, until we get the other one learned more. I have to
work on that one. [Sings in Shoshone from 41:40-44:10]
C:
Okay, Virginia. You’re going to be singing another song. Can you tell us about this next
song that you’re going to be singing about?
J:
Okay, I like to sing this one song that my brother long time ago, I asked him if I could
sing this song. And the brother I’m talking about is gone today to the spirit world, and
that’s the brother that I’m talking about, that I think a lot of, that goes a lot of places and
sing Round Dance songs, is Art Cavanaugh. I will never forget Art Cavanaugh. He’s a
relative of ours, and I’ve always thought a lot of Art Cavanaugh. All his singings that he
done everywhere, I hear his tapes everywhere from people. I just love his songs. And I
asked Art—I like this one song, that I always say—so I ask Art could I sing that song one
day, anytime. He said, “Go ahead and have it. You can have any of my songs. Whatever
songs that you want to sing on those tapes that I record, if you can pick them up, sing it.
I’ll be glad that you’re going to carry it on for me,” he said. So, I want to thank Art
Cavanaugh for this. And I’m going to sing this one song in memory of Art Cavanaugh.
[Sings in Shoshone from 45:44-48:36]
C:
Okay, Virginia. The next song that you’re going to be singing is a handgame song, I
understand. And can you explain a little bit about it before you sing it?
J:
The reason why I like to sing handgame is because long time ago, we used to do some
handgame songs here in Owyhee at the campgrounds. So, from there I started my
handgame, and I used to play with different people, handgames. And for the last, past
four years, I’ve been called to Elko for the—I think it’s September or sometime they have
their Fandango up in Elko. And it’s very interesting, that they have a lot of kids on their
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Fandango. They have handgame tournaments. They have card games. They have
horseshoe pitch for the men, and the younger boys and girls have horseshoe pitch. They
have—at nights, they have Round Dance songs. That’s when Tom Sole Sr. comes in, and
he sings there, and Keith Andren sings there, Round Dance song. And they do a lot of
good things up there during their Fandango days. So, maybe the other people would like
to go and check their Fandango Days out, and I’m pretty sure that was on September, and
I can’t remember what. It’s in the fall. Maybe October. But anyway, they do good things
up there. They play handgame with the children, and the childrens are learning from all
that, and doing that handgame. They start the kids off the first night. They have all the
children’s handgame tournament, first night. And the kids are playing for money. And
then, after the kids is done the first day, then the next day, then they come in and the
adults start their handgame tournament. Lot of them, too. So, I’ve been up, going up to
Elko the past four years. So I’ve been singing for the children, and teaching some of the
children how to sing handgame songs. There’s about four of us instructors down there
doing that. So one is Gertrude, and Judy Hoover, [__inaudible at 51:20__], just different
people that want to donate their time and help the youth, and help one another up there,
and to teach the kids a lot of things, you know? What they need to learn about our
history, our stuff that we have to do to teach them, so that they can learn. Learn all these
things. So, I’ll be glad to teach someone, whoever is interested in learning songs for the
powwow singing, or hand drum. If you want to sing Round Dance songs, if you want to
learn, I’m here. Just come here and ask me to teach you, or—adult and children. We can
pull the drum out, and you can sing and learn. Learn a lot of things together. And know
about our history, and keep our culture here upon the Mother Earth. What we do, and the
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Four Directions, what we do every day. So, I want to sing a little song for us before it
starts raining over here by my house. I’m going to sing a little handgame song that I was
teaching some of the kids in Elko. So, I’m going to sing one of those songs. It’s a
different beat. It’s a little different beat. Like, the Round Dance is just a stroke. But this
one is a faster hit for the hand drum. See, faster. [Sings from 53:12-56:34]
C:
Is there anything else you’d like to say in summary today, Virginia?
J:
Only thing I can think about is, I want to thank you, Norman, for coming today.
Interviewing me today. And I’ll be glad to teach anybody, if anybody want to sing at the
powwow drum. And like I say, it helps everybody in a good way. You know, when we go
and take time, go to the powwow, you feel good. Smudge yourself down with sweetgrass.
Everybody feels good. Pray to the Creator. And that way, we don’t lose our history. We
need to keep it up, and stay in the powwow circle.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Virginia Mae Jones
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB format
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:58:00
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/583
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Virginia Mae Jones - Oral history (06/2012)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Virginia Mae Jones, Shoshone-Paiute from Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV) on 06/2012
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Virginia Jones is a Shoshone-Paiute from the Duck Valley reservation. She begins her oral history by describing the different types of drums that she currently own and how they are used in powwows, hand games, or circle dancing. She also tells us about how she got interested in drumming along with those individuals which taught her drumming through the years. This also included how to take care of your drum when traveling to different events, and moreover how different materials can create different sounds with the drum.</p>
Video Pending <br /><br /> <a title="Read Virginia Mae Jones Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/ca1a4257b57d880c5417a17e2ae2455a.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Virginia Mae Jones Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 030B
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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06/2012 [June 2012]; 2012 June
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only):
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
drums
GBIA
heritage
Shoshone
Story
traditional medicines
traditional songs
traditions
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/be20f9b71b5da7717e04f45471457d54.jpg
d0d1007194bc1186eea436b4107e2604
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/7de314c500dc293145199bb81f225b70.pdf
769f537f9ac3dd88e5a75e5fed0fc696
PDF Text
Text
Virginia
Jones
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
030A
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
February
27,
2012
Elko,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 030A
Interviewee: Virginia Jones
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: February 27, 2012
[Drumming and laughter at 1:00]
J:
[Singing—some chanting, some in Shoshone—from 1:03-2:02]
Puyawan tutuantsi means “little ducks going into the water.” That’s what it means. And
if any of the little kids like to learn that, they can have that song. I told a lot of people in
Owyhee that they can have it. Everywhere I go, wherever I sing it, I told them they can
have it. It’s the best way for our Indian people to learn the feeling of Round Dance songs.
And there’s a lot of Round Dance songs that we sing; Linda knows quite a bit of Round
Dance songs. Long time ago, we used to gather at my mom’s. We used to have a good
time singing to this and that. So, maybe Linda could think of one of her songs, and, you
know, sing one of hers, too. So, that’s one of them, the songs that if you guys want that
little duck song, you guys can have it. And then the song that we sang before is what
Linda and I usually sing all the time, when we get together and we just sing that at the
Round Dance when we have it in Owyhee. We have powwows there, we sing Round
Dance songs over there in Owyhee. And then we sing at the HDC, sometimes we do little
doings down there. It’s fun. It’s fun to learn how to sing with your family. So, if there’s
any of you guys have any songs that you guys want to share with me or anything, or—
like, Raymond sitting up there says, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” [Laughter] Yeah, so that’s that
duck song. So you think any of you guys can tangle that? Huh? Yeah, if you guys can
sing that? It’s just like I was telling you guys. Like, “Way-ya-ay, ya-ya-ay, Ya-ay-ya / Yaay, Ya-ay.” All the Indians use that kind. “Yah-hey, Yah-ho, yah-ho.” You see, the “Yahho.” The “Yah-way.” “Ha.” And when people sing Indian style, you notice that. We
listen to it. “Yah-ho, yah-hey.” Just sing, the Indian songs that you sing. Do you like that?
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Like that one goes, “Ya—” See, when I first sing that, sing it out, “Ya-WAY-ya-ay-ya.”
See? “Ya-WAY-ya-ay-ha, ya-ya.” See? Like, when you’re in band, the band teacher go
like this to you. And you go like this, and you get higher with your notes. See? And when
he stands there, go like this, and look at you, you know? See, it’s all in the same rhythm.
The same thing: same, same, same. That’s when you were in band long time ago. That’s
what they go by. “Ah, Ya, Hey, Ya, Ho.” All those. “Ya-hey, ya-hey, ya-oh, hey, ya-oh-yaay, ya-oh. Hey-ya, way-ya, way-ya, hey-ha, way-ya, hey-ya.” See, that’s how it’s always
done. And if you want to learn any song you want to sing, like… I don’t know if you
guys want to learn the ducks. It might be a little too hard for you. Do you want to learn it?
It’s fine with me. Do we have anybody here that writes Shoshone? Anybody? That
writes.
U1:
That’s the—
J:
Yeah, like—
U1:
Like the Wick Miller?
J:
Right. Like, you write it down in Shoshone, like words.
U1:
I made a—I made a book that the elders in South Fork helped me do, but they’re not the
Wick Miller or Beverly Crum writings. They’re spelled the way they sound.
J:
Yeah. That’s the same. There’s like, like the way they spell on words on Shoshone. Like,
when you talk Shoshone, you know, that’s the same thing, almost the same thing. But
music is the same, it’s a little different. Like, all they’re, like, “Ai, aiwi, ai-ya, ai-way,”
you know? Long time ago, I remember, I was, when I went to this powwow thing in
Owhyee. Bill Liam used to be our teacher, too. I remember that. I was young then. Bill
Liam, way back. He taught us how to sing some songs, but I can’t remember them now
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at this time, you know. But I sing lot of other songs, and if I could help you guys in some
way of learning Indian songs, I’ll be glad to help you guys any time, whenever you guys
want to see me another time. I know that this is a short time that we have today. And we
are all ready to learn, I think. So we got one hour to start fixing up our songs, here. So,
Linda can look for one of her songs, and then after Linda, guy can think about his songs.
C:
Can you sing that one that you sang earlier?
J:
E neaite [7:44]?
C:
Yeah.
J:
Tenankwa [7:46]?
C:
Yeah.
J:
Oh. [Laughter] You want to pass the drum on? Y’all wish you had one again? You guys
want to sing again, or…?
X:
I’ll sing with motsi [8:01] on that.
C:
Okay.
J:
Oh, you want to sing with me? Well, okay then. Yeah.
[Commotion and laughter as X and J move about]
[Sings in Shoshone from 8:21- 9:51]
J:
Aisen pas [9:52]
[Applause]
X:
Thank you.
J:
You did it! [Laughter] Okay. Okay, I used to listen to Art long time ago, singing to Art
Cavanaugh, a cousin of mine. I used to listen to him. And I like the way Art used to sing.
How he used to hold himself out, how he used to come out to—convention center used to
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always ask for Art to come here and sing. And I used to tell Art, I said, “These people
sure like the way you sing, you know.” I really like the way Art Cavanaugh sang. I know
he was a relative of mine, and I just love the way he sings his Indian songs. And another
one was Judy. Judy Trejo. I just love the way she sings. We got called long time ago to
sing at her memorial. And that was sad. There was about forty-three hand drums in her
funeral. And that was a lot! We had a long line, waiting for people singing at Judy’s.
So… I know I used to sing, I remember this one song of Art’s, and so I’m going to sing it
to you guys today. I’m not saying you guys have to learn it or anything, but I asked Art if
I could sing this song before. He said it was okay. “Go ahead, sister, go ahead and sing it
whenever you want. If you can learn my songs, go ahead and sing them,” he used to tell
me. So, I’m going to sing one of Art’s songs, since I just love to hear his songs. Even
when he’s gone today, I still put on his tapes all the time. Because I love his singing. And
when you guys become singers, you guys going to really enjoy yourselves singing.
You’re going to be the one they sit here on the table and turn on the recorder, and say,
“I’m going to record this song, get yourself a drum and you’re going to sit there.” First
time you sing a song, like, “Blah.” [Laughter] Like, “Ho, ah!” [Out of key and off beat.]
Wait a minute, now! [Laughter] You wind it back. That’s what I do. When I start making
a song, I’ll be sitting there, saying, “I have the song right here. It’s right here in my head.
But the minute I’m going to pick up that drum and start drumming, it takes off. I lose it.
And I’m ready! This tape’s already going!” [Laughter] [Sings from 13:07-13:08] That’s
no good, so I’ll stop. Start again! I could do that about four or five times with a song,
before I start straightening up the song. So, don’t feel too bad if you go home and start
singing, and says, “Hey! That song don’t sound right!” First time, it doesn’t sound right.
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One day, you going to stand there and say, “Thank you, Creator. Thank you, Creator, for
putting that song in my heart. And I want to thank you for that, Creator.” And you’re
going to stand there, and you’re going to burn that cedar to the drum, now. You’re going
to cedar your drum off, and say, “Thank you, Creator. Thank you for helping me, putting
that song in my heart for me.” It’s going to come out to you. When you start singing a
song, it’s going to eventually come to you. You’re not going say, “Oh! What happened to
it? Where’d it go? Where did that song go?” You won’t think that. It’s just an automatic
thing. Be there for you, because it’s already in your heart, and in your mind, and you’re
the keeper of the song. So, it’s hard. I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard at first to start
learning how to sing. I was young long time ago, and when my aunt used to tell me
that—“Oh, let’s sing!” So I wound up right singing. She says, “Sit down right here
beside me.” And she used to call me Numittsi! And you know, with the grandmother,
says, “Oh, Numittsi, sit down!” [Laughter] And she’ll say, “E kate, e kate! E kate,
numittsi!” And then you say, “Oh, I’m Numittsi!” [Laughter] “I’m going to sit down,”
you know? And then you sit down. And then that’s where you’ve got to stay. Now, when
your aunt or an elder tell you to sit down, that’s where you’re going to stay. And you’re
going to listen. So, lot of things that I learned—I learned how to sing, and I’m glad I
learned how to sing. You guys are going to feel that way, too, when it comes to the time
when you guys have your own drum, your own sticks. You’re going to carry it, and
you’re going to sing the song. It’s going to be hard at first. First, when you start, it’s
going to be a hard thing. Everything’s like that. Everything that you learn on this Mother
Earth, it’s hard. Everything through life, if you know it, if you see it, it’s hard. It’s hard to
learn. Everything is hard to learn. But once you learn it, it’s there. So… So I’m going to
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sing one more song, then I’m going to pass the drum. So be thinking of a song, you guys!
Be thinking of a song that you guys are going to sing to me. And see, I want to hear what
you guys are going to sing. Eloy?
U2:
I have a question, yeah.
J:
Oh!
U2:
Sometimes, I hear a song, and I says, “You know what? That was my song! They stole it
from me!” Before you sing someone else’s song, is it proper to, I guess, to sing their song
before you even start? Is that the more traditional way?
J:
Yeah, well, that’s what they usually say: that—like, it’s better for you to ask. Ask the
person. You know, if you feel that there’s a maker of the song, the person that—see, I
made the ducks myself, see, okay? I made that song. I’m the maker, I’m the really maker
of that song. So, the ladies down there in Owyhee sang that that time, and they said they
were singing it wrong. And then, another lady come along and tell us, “Hey! You’re not
singing it like Virginia’s singing it! You’re singing it wrong! Why are you singing that,
then?” And then she kind of got upset with her. But, if the maker tells you, “Go ahead,
sing that song. You can have it, it’s yours. Be happy.” Sing it. And it’s better to ask, too,
a hand drum singer. “Could I sing that song? If I’m at another powwow someplace, could
I sing your song?” Always ask before just, you know, go off and sing somebody else’s
song. So, that’s what I do. And I know lot of songs from a long time ago. This elderly
guy used to be hanging around our place a lot. And that’s how I used to sing some of his
songs. Like one of them’s right now, like this elderly man that used to sing around our
place. I’ll sing one of his songs. [Singing in Shoshone from 18:08-18:43] See, this is what
this one older—Linda might remember him. Do you remember that song? Okay, Linda
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probably remember him. He used to hang around my mom and thems a lot, he goes all
over, just all-around guy. He sang a lot of these songs, and I was younger then, you
know? Probably Linda was younger, too. So, every year that old man come around
singing, there I am really singing along with him! [Laughter] I get my stick. I’d get two
sticks, and then I’d be following him. I’d be following him with my sticks and singing
with him! [Laughter] And he says, “Why do you keep following me and singing?” He’d
tell me, “Quit following and singing with me!” I said, “Go ahead, sing.” And then he’d be
singing—and there I am, singing again, following him! See, that’s how that song stuck in
my head. Because I was younger, you know, and I was singing right along with him. So,
what can any of you guys tell me about this hand drum? All you guys like to hand drum,
and you guys like to hand drum. You guys like to sing. You guys like to sing songs, you
guys like to play—I mean, sing hand drums. Once you start singing a songs, it’ll be hard
there for a while. I say about maybe two or three years, it’s kind of hard. But eventually,
it falls into place on its own. The more you pray for it, the more you talk to it, the more
you sing it, it’s there. There’s nothing hard.
U3:
How do you make the drums?
J:
What we do is, either we get elk hide, or we do deer hide. Or either cow hide. But the elk
hide is the number one hide to use. They’re the best. I learned that. Because the deer hide,
you have to warm it up. Like, for instance, you’re over there at a powwow, someplace
outside. And you’re going to sing Round Dance songs. The deer hide gets cold very fast.
I don’t know why. But that’s all I learned on the hides. That the deer hides get cold. And
I do not know what this one’s made of, I didn’t make this one. To be honest with you
guys, I didn’t make this one; this was given to me. I sang on the Round Dance, first place,
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during Labor Day. During Labor Day [19]96, on September. Made by Joe Caskey and
Lucy Caskey. They made this drum. And when I signed up for that hand drum contest—
there’s a lot of us signed up—I took first. So, they gave me five hundred dollars plus this
drum. This was given to me. And I was very, very thankful that this drum was given to
me by those two old people. That was before they passed on, they gave me this. This was
the last drum that Joe and Lucy made. And Joe Caskey was original Round Dance singer.
The maker was an original Round Dance singer. And he told me, he says, “Virginia,” he
said, “You can sing all my songs if you want to. You can have them all. I’ll pass it to
you,” he said to me. Because he said, “I’m not going to be around forever, so I’m going
to pass it to you.” They had the songs of the Round Dance. He say, “You can sing all my
songs if you want to. I don’t care. You can take it from here, and go ahead and sing it
wherever the powwow’s at.” But you know, it’s real hard! It’s real hard to—the more I
hear Joe’s songs… I can’t make out words, you know, the way the older people sing long
time ago. They’re kind of little faster at singing than we are today, or something like that.
You know, their songs? And there’s a lot of songs that I couldn’t make out what Joe was
saying in lot of his songs. But I’ll be glad to continue his songs that I could hear. I have
the tapes of his songs, and sometime I listen to them, but, you know, a lot of times, it kind
of makes you real lonesome for them, when you keep hearing these songs. They’re older
songs. When you sing the occasions, you kind of get lonesome for them. So I just put the
tapes away for a while, and thought, “Well, I’m just going to continue my own little
songs, or whatever I’m singing.” So I’ll just do it like that. So, this one is what I won
from Joe Caskey and Lucy, and then I think this was when they had the gathering of
the—I think it was the Senior Citizens. And the doings there they were having. The
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Senior Citizens’ powwow or something they were having. And that’s how I came to this
one, that’s how I won this one. So they’re the ones that made this. So, you can tell how
they made the drum. I’ll show it to him, so he can look at it, how it was made and all that.
That’s what Joe did. And this drum is what I made not too long ago, myself. I made this
drum. I redone it, I took it off and redone it. But, the casing here, the wood, you have to
get wood glue and work with it, and fix these up. You have to do them a little like trying
cutting in pieces, and putting wood glues, and stick them together and all that, and it dries
like that really hard. So, there’s a lot of work to this. And then, the hide-scraping; this
was a deer hide, so I went and put brains on it to help it. You know, so it won’t be
cracking up and all that. So, this one’s treated with brains. But that’s deer hide. That one
is deer hide. I wish I had a elk hide. And the elk hide ones have the more bass to them.
They sound real spiffy. I like the way they sound. They got more good sound to them.
U4:
It’s a lot of work, huh?
J:
Yeah, it’s a lot of work. And I have another hand drum at home. That one’s a little bigger
one. I need to bring them out now. I think that, together, I made about maybe six hand
drums. I already sold them. You got rid of them, and sold them to the other people! So,
it’s work. But if you like to go into hand drum making, and—those things that, like, if
you start working on hand drums and different things, you can sell them for, like, two
hundred and fifty dollars. That’s what they run. They run to maybe three hundred and
fifty dollars. But it’s off one of them.
U5:
Have you ever had one, like, break on you?
J:
No. Mm-mm. If I do have one break, I go to the river and let it go. I let the whole hide
go. Untie it, take it apart, pray for it, cedar it, let it go. I just let it go down the river. I
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don’t keep it because it already ripped. You know, you can’t keep a hide that’s ripped. So
I just pray for it and let it go down the river. That’s what I do. So I’ll do it. So, does
anybody have a song that someone’d like to sing, or…? Oh, you want to sing you like?
U6:
Rock and roll song, that’s all I know! [Laughter]
J:
Boogie-woogie? [Laughter] Well, they got some hoobie-hoobie-heggie! Like, “Ah—ooh,
ah, ooh…” Yeah, oogie-oogie. [Laughter] Yeah, so… It’s good to learn, though. It’s
good to learn the Round Dance.
U7:
How do you remember all these songs?
J:
Well, like I said, when you’re small, you kind of, they kind of just stuck up in here. Like I
say, I was just following this singing person, and I was listening to them sing. And Linda
probably did the same thing. She probably sees singers here and there in Owyhee, too.
We learned. We sing all different ones’ songs. We follow each other’s songs. That’s how
it is. Some of us make our own. Some of us pick up somebody else’s. It continues on and
on. It’s just like what Judy was telling me long time ago. Judy has a CD out. I don’t know
if anybody’s here heard her songs. Judy Trejo, she has a CD out? CD? She’s got thirtyfour songs on that little tape! Thirty-four Round Dance songs. And she told me that those
songs was originally not really her songs, either, because they were another guy’s songs
that sang with them all the time. And different ones, you know, that sing with them and
all that. They sing the songs, and they do this and that. So that’s how they learned.
Different people try their songs. Oh, everybody. If you could hear a lot of people,
sometime you record them. You record their songs, you hear them over and over,
rewinding them over, and so you get songs like that, too. Play, like, somebody’s song,
you sing that. Do you know this, if we start a song? Okay. Oh, no?
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U7:
No, I don’t have a song.
J:
Oh.
U8:
I seen lot of Indian drum songs, they put a lot of English words in it now.
J:
Oh! The reason why they do that nowadays is that they put these English words in them,
just like I keep telling you. Long time ago, the older people, the older ones from way
back, when they used to sing Indian songs, they—you don’t hear them talk English,
right? Lot of them talk in Shoshone, or their own language, or whatever tribe they are.
Some of them, the reason why they put these words in them—I, myself, noticed that this
is coming out into the powwow circle. I’ve been noticing that. It’s been coming out into
the powwow circle. So, what’s happening is, like I said, long time ago, the older
people—the ones that used to sing long time ago, back in those days—they did not put
words in there. They don’t have English words. They say it in their own languages,
different tribes. But nowadays, the ones that you’re talking about is when they have
English words in there. This is what they call “Forty-niners.” These are the forty-niner
songs that you’re hearing. When you go to powwows—I’ve went to powwows many long
years. I’ve been in the powwow circle. Ever since 1972, I’ve been in the powwow circle.
I went to powwows all over the country, all over. All over. Like Fort Duchesne, Cedar
City, Reno area, all that Reno area, different area, all over. Idaho. I’ve been all over to
different powwows. I’ve seen the circle of life. I went everywhere. That’s a reason why I
said when you go to the powwow circles, you go to powwows, you see all of that. All the
powwow circles that you see, people nowadays are singing songs at the powwows, and
they’re forty-nine at the regular powwow. Usually, forty-nine comes after the powwow.
You know what I mean? After powwow’s over, then they take their little group out there,
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outside, and say, “Hey, come on! Let’s go out there and have a forty-nine!” That’s what
you call singing in English words. Like, “I love you / Oh, how are you, my sweetheart?”
and stuff like that. That’s English words. Like, “Hey-ya-ha / hey-ya-ha / Oh, I love you,
honey dear / Oh, I’ll sing to you tonight / In my tipi.” [Laughter] That’s all the English
words. That’s all pertaining to after the powwow circle. We have powwow, Indian
powwow, right there, going on. People dancing, dancing. Nowadays, I been hearing
recently, seeing, the powwow that’s coming into the circle is now, we are having that
forty-nines coming into the powwow circle. So, I don’t know where it was welcomed to
come into the powwow circle. I don’t know who started that, where it started from. I
don’t know if it started from Arizona, or I don’t know where, if it started from Montana,
Oklahoma. Wherever it came from, it happened. So, nowdays, we got it with our
powwow here. See? But if you hear an older person sing, like one of our older elders—
I’m talking about our elder people, our older elders—stand there and grab this drum and
sing: they’re not going to sing words with English in it. They’re going to sing their own
old songs. Which, we can’t stop that, because it’s already welcomed into the circle of life.
It came into that circle of life like this. Where our drums are, our drums are sitting right
there. And we’re the ones sitting behind them, okay? We’re the ones sitting behind our
powwow. Okay, for instance, this is a big powwow drum right here. And for instance, I
brought my drum like this over here to the powwow, too. Okay, so I’ve got this powwow
drum here. This powwow drum sitting right here. Whoever brought that, that forty-nine
song, into the powwow, we can’t say, “Hey, don’t bring this song into this. Don’t bring
that into this powwow.” We can’t say that, because everything, everything we do—I’ve
said it already—the Creator gave us a reason to do everything upon this Mother Earth
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today. That’s why I’m saying that we had to welcome that into our powwow circle.
That’s why we got those English words today. So, did I answer your question?
U7:
Oh, yeah. Very much so.
J:
Okay! All right. Anybody else?
U9:
Having the powwows, there lot of—you hear it, when there’s a lot of them, you right. Lot
of the young singers, lot of them, going to [__inaudible at 36:33__] powwow.
J:
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
U9:
They go out here, and they use the English words and things in it.
J:
See, what you’re talking about is now that, what’s happening today is, we have a lot of
young kids coming back now, okay? We have a lot, a lot of kids coming out and singing
and all that. And nowadays, they hear that. See? They go, they get called, and say, “Hey,
you guys, we’re inviting you guys to come to this powwow someplace.” So, okay. Like,
our boys in Owyhee. They get in their cars, and then they off to the powwow. They go
maybe to the Fort Duschesne, Utah. Okay? Then they go to Oklahoma City, maybe. Or
they go wherever there is a powwow. Maybe they’re powwow followers. Maybe they go
to Yakima. They go all over. And these boys go to these powwows. They stand there, and
somebody else in the crowd that has this kind of drum says, “Hey, come on, you guys!
Come get you guys’s hand drums, and join us!” And you’re not going to say, “No, I
can’t,” because you love to sing with the powwow hand drum. You love to sing song.
You love to sing songs whether it’s in English or not. But I’m saying that it already came
into the powwow circle. We don’t know where it came in, from what state, we don’t
know who brought it back, or what happened. So, we just have to say, we’re going to
welcome that. Well, anything, as long as we sing, you know? Because we all are still
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praying to that same Creator right there, in everything that we do—even our songs.
Everything, you know? We do all that. So, I don’t know if you guys learn anything, or
you want to sing, or whatever. It’s up to you guys. I have the two drums here if you
guys—Linda’s got one over there—you guys want to sing Round Dance songs, and get
the feeling of the drum, and I’m fine, it’s alright with me. I can give you guys the drum,
you can practice, or you need help with song, just sit by me and I’ll help you. You know.
You like to learn. I know it’s hard. First time, it is hard. But as the years go by,
everything gets easier. I know lot of times, lot of these hand drum singers make it look
easy. We have all kinds of hand drum singers up through this way. They have number
one, our brother, the Flatlodge family. Mr. Scabby Road. Yeah. They sing a lot. And
they have lot of nice songs [__inaudible at 39:58__]. And with the forty-nine, lot of
people, like you say, they got words in them now. Now, they just got tapes coming out,
words, all of them. I don’t know, probably they’re in different states. They have all
different kind of songs. All different kinds. I have some tapes like they have. But you
know what? I try to sing their songs, and I can’t! I can’t even pick up their songs! And
then, some of the Owyhee boys saying that last time, they said, “Come on, Virginia, go
get your drum! Where’s your drum?” I have to run to the powwow and get my hand
drum. And then, you know what? We never did do this, to be honest with you. I don’t
know if Norman remembers. I don’t know if Linda remembers, or Allen, or any of you
guys out here remember that. Shoshones never really did that. It’s not the Shoshones’
tradition. Okay, how many of you guys went to this powwow they had in Elko here last
year? How many of you people? Okay, did you guys see how they gathered everybody?
The Round Dance singers all came in this big circle? Did you guys see that? Shoshone
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people don’t do those things. Never. Shoshone don’t do those things. It’s not our
tradition. Our tradition is to stand there in the middle and sing. Or either dancing with
whoever. That’s Round Dancing. That’s Shoshone. That’s your Shoshone way.
U10:
Do a drum contest up there. We went to drum contest up there.
J:
Did you guys?
U10:
Yeah.
J:
You guys get anything?
U10:
Win five hundred. First place.
J:
Win five hundred? See, that’s what I say. See, nowadays, all the boys are going into this,
see? The more you start singing, the more you’re a good whistle singer, you know? You
can sing out with your throat, sing all out, start hitting this drum. That’s when you can
start winning dollars. But lot of them guys said our Indians didn’t do that. So, nowadays,
our younger boys are going into that. Our kids. Our younger boys are going into hand
drum, just like what Raymond’s saying. Our younger boys are going into that. They’re
traveling to different—competing with other children. But it’s good to learn how to sing
hand drum songs. And if any of you want to learn songs, you can learn songs. And it isn’t
hard to learn. It’s not hard. It’s easy. Once you start a song, it’s easy. Dalvin probably
knows song. Yeah, Dalvin knows song. Lot of times, I hear him singing Native American
Church. They’re beautiful. They’re beautiful songs. I’ve heard that. I’ve went to the Sun
Dance in Owyhee. All the songs that was sang there. Whatever they do is different, too.
There’s all different ways. All of us Indians learn in different ways. We all learn this.
Some of the—like, some of your family. Like, I know Linda almost all my life, you
know? We grew up together, Linda and I. And Diane, too. Our sister Diane. And Linda, I
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grew up with Linda. All my life, I grew up around Linda. And I know Linda belongs to
the Native American Church. I know that. And my mom used to tell me that. She said,
“Respect your friend! Respect her! Have a lot of respect for your friend. She belongs to
the Native American Church.” And she said, “I know you don’t go to no church or no
nothing! But, respect her.” I said, “Yeah, I will, Mom. Don’t worry. Linda is my friend,
and I’m always going to respect her.” So that’s why I say that if you have a friend,
always respect your friend. I don’t care if they belong to the Native American Church, or
they belong to a taibo church, or whatever, you know, anything like that. We all pray to
the same Creator. We all pray to the same person out there. We all pray. Some of us pray
in Taibo, some of us pray in English, whatever you can speak in, we all speak in it. We
pray. I think everybody knows how to pray. And I’m thankful, up to this day, that I can
stand up and pray to my Creator, and say my thanks to Him every day. Pray to Him every
day. That we have another day here. And I’m thankful. So let me say now, that if you
guys want to learn the hand drum, you can sing. You guys can practice it now if you guys
want. We got, what, thirty more minutes? If you guys want to practice with the drum, it’s
fine. And if you want me to help you guys, I’ll be glad to help you guys. Linda: pass the
drum towards Ilola. And right here’s the drum stick, too. And if they want to practice or
something, or whatever, or some of those boys over there, or—to get the feeling of the
drum, or…
U11:
Virginia, can you sing some more?
J:
Okay. [Singing in Shoshone from 46:03-50:18]
[Applause]
U12:
What’s that song?
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J:
That song right there was passed to me by my brother. I may not be singing it the right
way, but maybe Norman does understand. Maybe he recognize the song.
U12:
That grasshopper?
J:
Yeah. Yeah. That was, he told me I could go ahead and sing that. I asked him if I could
sing the song. And I just love that song, and I always sing it all the time, so I asked him if
I could sing it. And he said, “You can have it, sister, if you want to. Any songs of mine,
you can sing.” That’s what he told me. But that’s one of the songs that I sure liked. When
Art Cavanaugh sang that song, I sure liked the way he sing. But me and my mom and
them used to go to McDermitt powwow. When I’d see Art over there with Ethel, I’d go
and talk to my brother, and ask him, “I could have that song? Are you sure?” “Oh, yeah,
sister. You can have it. Go ahead. Whatever you hear, you could carry it on for me.” So,
that’s one song I’ve already carried on for him. So, I’m thankful and I’m glad I can sing
that song for him.
U12:
When you sing the song, how many times you sing that same thing over and over? Four
times, ten times—?
J:
You can sing that, oh, about maybe four hour—you could sing that song all night if you
want to, you know! [Laughter] As long as the Round Dances keep on going. Then
sometime, they pass it to the second Round Dance song. Somebody with another drum
will be singing beside him. Then they’ll sing, and they’ll go on and on. So it continues
on, all night long. Different songs, or same songs for a while, then they switches to a
different song. So… Okay, I’ll sing one more song, and I want all of you guys to start
thinking about songs that you guys are going to do next.
U12:
What’s it going to be about? Tell us. [Laughter]
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J:
About anything you want to sing.
U12:
Okay.
J:
[Singing in Shoshone from 52:33-54:52]
[Applause]
Okay! I’m going to pass the drum, because—we’ll start from this side, and go around this
way. Okay, Walt’s singing! Oh! Okay, then pass it to Eloy. Pass this drum to Eloy. Give
that drum to Eloy, and then he’ll sing one little song. He’ll pass it to Helen. Helen will
sing something; if she doesn’t know, she can pass it to the next person, or continue it on
until it ends up here. Okay. We’ll see if anybody learned anything from this! [Laughter]
U13:
Helen, you’re going to do this, right? Yeah. Right?
ET:
[Singing in Shoshone from 55:42-56:08]
[Applause]
J:
Okay. You can sing whatever you want. Whatever you want. Whatever your heart
desires.
ET:
Don’t nobody mess around! [Laughter]
J:
Just so that you’re hitting on that drum like that.
U14:
[Singing from 56:35-57:30; lyrics in English are written below]
I saw you looking at me
I loved you, honey
You were my one and only
But you left me
It’s all good
I still love you, hey-hey, hey-hey-ho.
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[Applause]
U15:
[Singing at 57:44]
My daughter was a little girl
She came home from school one day
Then she says to me,
“Daddy, would you like to hear
What I learned in school today?
What I have learned in school today?”
[Continues singing as recording fades out at 58:49]
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
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2006-2015
misc
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:59:10
Event Type
Cultural Workshop focusing on the hand drum
Participants
Names of individuals or groups participating in the event
Great Basin College's Native American Club
Public
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hand Drum workshop by Virginia Mae Jones (02/27/2012)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Great Basin College's Native American Club cultural workshop presented by Virginia Mae Jones on 02/27/2012
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Virginia Mae Jones from Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV) goes over the hand drum at Great Basin College on February 27, 2012. She sings a few traditional songs to the audience while playing her hand drum. She also speaks about individuals who inspired her to begin hand drumming herself, as well as those individuals who passed her songs of their own. She also speaks about the difference between traditional versus contemporary practices that have surfaced recently within powwows and other gatherings or doings.</p>
<p>Video pending </p>
<p><a title="Virginia Mae Jones Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/7de314c500dc293145199bb81f225b70.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Read Virginia Mae Jones Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a></p>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 030A
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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02/27/2012 [27 February 2012]; 2012 February 27
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only):
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
hand drum
Native American Club
Owyhee
Shoshone
Story
traditional songs
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/5a94fa8995185e4806f0bba05ae0a8a8.jpg
05f9b13f4ae2504a613adb671e3092f7
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/13bbb9a8db3b30863b1dfbaf48a07316.pdf
b472565d2602004505a6f3af6545989d
PDF Text
Text
Katherine
Blossom
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
029
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
March
27,
2012
Elko,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 029
Interviewee: Katherine Blossom
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: March 27, 2012
B:
—and we’ve lost a lot of our Native American plants. Our herbs. But we still have a lot.
We truly do. And you know, if we don’t use our herbs, they’re going to disappear.
Because it’s our way, the Native Americans were placed here as caretakers for the land.
For the plant life, for the animal life, and all that’s here. Our job was to pray. And that’s
the foundation of our lives, was prayer. We prayed early in the morning. The old people
would get up early in the morning, and even the children, when they had the camps, they
would get up early in the morning and they would pray, and thank the Creator for the
good night’s sleep. But thank him also for all that’s here, from the morning star, to the
sun coming up, and the mountains, and the rocks on the mountains, the water that runs,
and all the trees, the plant life, animal life, the creepy crawlers, four-legged, and they
prayed also then for their family. And that’s how they took care of things. They were
completely dependent upon our Creator. Our Father, our God, however you call Him.
He’s known by many names today, but I feel we still have the One. And He is the
Almighty, He’s the one that takes care of us. But we have walked away from that type of
life, because we have—times have changed. Our people, our elders, our ancestors, would
be your grandparents, or maybe your great-grandparents, were forced to go to the
boarding schools, where they were not allowed to speak their language. And so that’s
why many that came from the boarding schools did not teach their children the language.
Because they went through hardships. It was broken. Their language was taken from
them. They were not allowed to speak it. If they spoke their language, they were punished
for it—severely. I mean, the stories are just stories of horror. And people don’t like to talk
about that because it’s so ugly. But that’s what our people went through. You think about
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the abuses; our people suffered all the abuses that ever was thought of. We have had our
Holocaust. But through that, and during that time, a lot of our ways, our old ways, were
taken from us. And I know many people say, “Well, it’s too bad your father and mother
didn’t teach you your language.” A lot of it was because they were ashamed. They
became ashamed of who they were. They walked with shame in their hearts. And yet,
they did nothing to deserve that. But it was so ingrained in them. The punishment was so
severe, they never forgot it. You think of all the horrible things that happen today,
happened to our people. And therefore, they quit. Many of them just quit going out and
gathering the precious herbs. And they started, because the prominent society said they
were the right ones, they had the right way, they had the answers for everything, and we
were savages, and you name it. You’ve heard all those names. I’m sure I don’t need to
repeat it. But, with that, then our people just kind of shunned away, because they were
taught it was wrong. They were taught it was wrong to pray in their own language. So
they had to learn to speak the—it was forced upon them to speak the English language.
They were forced to recite prayers. And many of the prayers didn’t mean anything to
them, because that was not our way of prayer. That’s not the native way of prayer. Our
prayer is different. Our prayer is—I don’t know how to say this, I never have been able
to, but it just seems like our prayers go deeper. Because we pray for everything. We pray
for our Mother Earth. Why do we call her our mother? Because she’s the one that gives
us everything. Without our Mother, the electricity would not be here. Without our
Mother, the glass would not be here, because it’s made with sand. And so, as you go on
to school, you’ll learn these things. But remember, where did it all come from? It came
from our Mother. The clothes you have on, the glasses we wear, our jewelry, whatever,
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all has come from our Mother. And our Father, our Creator, has touched man in such a
way that they have gone beyond. I mean, now we’re flying in the air in aircrafts. That
never was. Our grandparents never saw that. I mean, it would just—they would just be
startled and really scared, because they didn’t see this type of living. And you’d come in,
and you’d turn on the switch—how does the light come on? You know? But it’s here.
You go and you turn on a dial, and the heat comes on. I mean, and that’s how far
technology—and now we’re flying, and with the computers, and your iPods—all of this
has all been created by man. But it was the Creator who gave that. But, you know, that’s
going beyond. And our people’s lives was very simple. Like, the outdoors were our
pharmacy. All the plants that you see here, in whatever form, it came from our Mother.
She has given us everything. Even today, our water comes from Her. And how many of
us stop to think how precious the water is? How many of us stop to pray when we take
that drink of water first thing in the morning? Because our body is made up, good portion
of it—how many know how many percentage of water is our body? Does anyone
remember?
U1:
It’s like 70%.
U2:
I was going to say 70-73[%].
B:
Mmhm. It’s in the 70 percent. That’s how much of our body is made of water. We cannot
live without water. And therefore, we need, all of us, need to start praying for our water.
That it’ll be pure. It’ll be good. And that when we drink it, it won’t harm us—because
look at the chemicals that we have put in there. The atomic bomb was the first thing that
started that off. It went into the ground. Where is our water? It’s in our Mother Earth. It’s
in Her veins. And they have contaminated our water. Some places, people cannot drink
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the water. They have to have it shipped in. Or they have to boil it, or they have to put
something in it, to make it pure, that they can drink it. And so, man is literally destroying
what we have, what the Creator has given us. And so, I believe we need to go back to our
basics. Remember our prayers. We need to pick it up. And as we do that, and if you’re
really sincere in your heart, you’re going to learn. The Creator’s going to give you songs.
When you go out and you pick the pinenuts, the pinenut songs will come to you. It’s just,
we haven’t been doing it, and that’s why it’s gone from us. We’ve lost it. Because we
have not been doing it. And so with that, if you really want to live a better life for
yourself—this is for you, not for me—however you live your life is how you’re going to
be. Like if, now with the drugs that’s coming on, with the drinking, the alcohol, the
smoking all of the different things that’s homemade, and manmade, it’s not good for your
body. Our people did smoke, but they smoked in their ceremonies. But they use the
natural herb. They used the natural tobacco that they gathered. They harvested. They
would mix it with a medicine called totsa. They would grind it, and they would put it into
their, when they’re rolling their cigarettes. But then, they didn’t just smoke it just to be
smoking. They smoked it so that, maybe they had lung problems. It would clear that lung
out. Or they would chew it, and swallow it, and that would help clear the lungs out.
You’ll be surprised how much stuff you can start spitting up when you start using this in
a good way. Pray for it. Pray, and ask it. Because everything that’s on our earth, on our
Mother Earth, has a spirit. And this is something you don’t learn in school. They say the
rocks don’t have a spirit. The rocks have spirit. Because in our ceremonies, we pray to all
the elements, because that’s what the Creator has given us. And so, our basics is—and
I’m not trying to preach at you, but that’s just the way it is. That’s the way it is. So, when
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you go out—and we’re going out to go pick pinenuts. We’re getting ourselves ready,
we’ve gotten ourselves ready, we’re going out. And before you go and you pick the
pinenuts, you ask the Creator to bless the pinenuts, and that you will have a good harvest,
and you give it water. And you thank the pinenuts for being there for you, that you can
feed your family. And you can use it in a good way. You take what you need. You take
what you can use. And you take what maybe you’re going to give to your grandfather,
grandmother, or whoever. You take that much. You don’t take so much that you’re going
to throw it away and waste it. Because that’s not what the Creator have told us to do. He
told us, take care of everything. And so that’s why we walk—and you walk in your
prayer. You know. It isn’t a one-day thing like Sunday, you go to church and then you
forget about God and you forget to pray, and then next Sunday you go back to church
again. It’s not that. You walk your prayer, you walk in that, daily. You pray for the sun
that comes up, that it heats all of us, and it gives energy to us, to all of the plant life,
everything that’s on our Mother, and all that She gives us. And we should be thankful. Be
thankful that we still have clean air. Pray for the air, that it’ll be clean, and that when
you’re breathing, it’ll be clean for you. And for your family. And for your relatives. And
with that, so we’ll go to our medicines now. All of this was given to us. This is what is
called chaparral. Chaparral is good. It grows in southern Nevada and Arizona. And it
grows in a bush. And sometimes, if it’s really nice and healthy, then they grow up like
little trees. They don’t grow real tall, because it grows where it’s hot in the desert. And
the way you can tell—and this is, by knowing your plants, if you go out and you walk
among them—you pick your plants, there’s only a certain time of the year that you
harvest different plants. The chaparral is the best in the springtime, in April. You get up
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early in the morning, you look at it. The sun is coming up, let’s say, from the east. I’m
not sure of which way east is in the building, but let’s say this way. Then you look
through it, and you see the sun has come up, and your chaparral, the plant that glistens
and shines, has a lot of healing property in it. Because it’s healthy, because of the oil
that’s in it. Our plants are oily. And that’s when you pick it, you harvest it. Again, you
don’t go out and just pick. You prepare yourself. You think about the plant you’re going
to go and gather. You go, and before you touch the plant, just like the pinenuts, you pray
for it. You offer it water. And same with all the medicines. That’s the process. You do
that before you harvest. And, now this plant, and this is a crown that came from the
Sundance. I don’t know if all of you have heard about the Sundance, but this is another
way of prayer that has been given to our people. Now, this is mugwort. It’s a little bit
different than our sagebrush, but this grows along the riverbanks in Oregon. And they use
it for a crown, because they’re going to go out, and they’re going to dance for four days,
without water or food. And when they gather this, they pray for it. Same thing. You pray,
you give an offering. Maybe you could take tobacco. Because this grows along the river.
You don’t need to give it water. But then, you give it tobacco, for an offering, thanking it
for being there. And that, when you pick it, it will go with you and help you. And it does.
Because this is full of water, and they wrap it with a red cloth, and then they put it on
when they go out and dance. And it helps. It helps them. And this, a crown would be
more out, but because I’ve had to pull it back so I could carry it, when it was gifted to
me—when I say “gifted,” it was given to me—the crown was out like this, and then that
gave them shade. That helped the dancers in that way. And this is a mixture. It’s got
cedar, it’s got tobacco, it’s got sage in it, and you can mix different kind of herbs with it.
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And then you give this as an offering, when you go out, and you’re praying. Like, in the
morning. You go out, and you make a fire, and as you’re building the fire, you go
through the procedure with prayer. Thank the wood for being there. And thank it that it’s
going to take your prayer up. The smoke is going to take your prayer up, that our Creator
can hear you. And that you do stand in front of him in a pitiful way. But we’re asking for
help for ourselves, whatever the need is. And then you thank—also, never forget to be
thankful for all that Mother Earth has given us. And if you have time, you can name them
all. If you don’t have time, you can say, just, “Thank you for Mother Earth and all that
she has provided for us, and keep her strong.” Because we are literally destroying our
Mother. And it’s sad, when you stop to think about it. But all of this came from her. This
was given to me, and it’s like a wax. But people from the south use this, and when they
go in the sweat lodge, they put it on the rocks, on the hot rocks, and it gives a different
fragrance. It helps clear the mind. It helps you to clear out—like if you’re carrying a lot
of bad junk inside. You had bad feelings then. And now it’s getting overwhelming with
you. And this is what happens. You can get in that state of where you feel dark, and you
feel ugly, and you just have this heavy feeling, and you don’t want that. You want to be
able to walk upon our Mother in a good way. And so, you need to get rid of those, the
darkness, the heaviness. What else would we call it? Anything that keeps you from being
free. Rather it be our mind-thought. And sometimes, we have to watch what we think.
Because if we keep thinking bad thoughts, we’re going to start talking that way. It just
happens. And so, if you don’t want to be that way, and you want to be kind, you want to
be loving, you want to be helpful. You have to pray for that. Because we’re living in a
time when there’s a lot of ugliness around us. You take the drugs. That has a spirit in it.
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You have all kinds of spirits. The alcohol has a spirit. And the drugs, and the, what,
wacky tobaccy? Whatever they call it. [Laughter] I’m not up with the term these days. I
think that’s an old saying. But, those things are things that will hinder us, from being the
person, and the potentials you’ll have. It will dampen that. And it’s wonderful when you
don’t have those hangups, and you don’t have to rely on a drug in the morning to help
you through the day, and don’t have to have a drug to keep you awake or put you to
sleep, or whatever they use those things for. You don’t need that! You need the good
medicine to keep you well and healthy. And it’s all out there. This is what they call
sweetgrass. And it has, they’re kind of old. I’ve had them for a while. But it has—go
ahead, pass that around—it has a sweet smell to it, and when you burn it, it has a
wonderful fragrance when it’s fresh. And they use that to smudge with. And when I say
“smudge,” you take, and you can, you know, put it around you, and ask that all that bad
feelings, whatever it is that’s bothering you, to leave. Now, this is white…?
X:
Sage.
B:
It’s white sage. She said she has some. And this has a different kind of fragrance. But it’s
the same, it’ll do the same thing. Because, the Creator has given us, wherever you live,
has given the people different kind of herbs, that will grow in that area. And that’s what
they use. And it has a different smell to it. Very fragrant. And it just help clears the mind,
it helps you to feel better. It does lift up your spirit. It works. And then, this has a little bit
of, this is what we call a prayer tie. Now, our people don’t do this as much as the Sioux
people do. But they take—and, like, if I was going to make a prayer tie, maybe I would
put some, I’d put a little, maybe cedar in it. Maybe would take some sage. Or maybe
would take, if we were in Oregon, we’d take mugwort. We’d take whatever herbs there
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are, and mix it. And then, as we make our prayer ties—like, say you have a trauma in
your life, going on. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one, maybe someone has gotten terribly
sick. And you want help for them. This is another way our people have learned to help
themselves. They take and cut a piece of red material, and then they put tobacco and
whatever herbs that they have, and they wrap it, and they tie it. And while they do that,
they’re asking for help, for whoever, whatever’s going on, to give relief. Do a healing. To
maybe lead them to make a right decision. Maybe you’re at a point in your life you don’t
know what to do. You pray about it. And that helps clear your mind. And then you also
burn the different herbs, your cedar. This is a flat cedar, comes from Oregon. And then it
looks different than the cedar that we have here. But people use it the same way. They
use it in their ceremonies. And if you make a fire, and you put it in there, you’re going to
have a wonderful fragrance. And that is what will clear, and help you clear your mind.
And that’s what they do. And then, after they make this, maybe they can hang it in their
room, or however they feel like they need to do it—and then after so many days, then
they burn it. Or maybe it’d be the same day. I don’t know. It just depends on how you’re
led, however you’re taught. That’s what you do. And this is a protection. And it’s like a
chalk. You hear of people carrying bad medicine with them? That they can harm one
another? With our people, you have that. We don’t like to think of that. But you can rub
this on you, like that. And it’ll protect you. You can put it over your heart, you can put it
down on your breast, you can put it on top of your head, where your chakra is. And it
works like a protection. But also, then we have one, that can work that way, and also, this
is called—
X:
Aipin.
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B:
[Laughter] All of the sudden! Thank you! Aipin. And aipin1 is red, and you gather this
from the mountain. There’re spots of it. And it’s very, very fine. And when you look for
it—and if you go about it in the right frame of mind, you’re praying for it, that you will
find it, if you don’t know where it is—it’ll show itself to you. And you get down and you
pick it. And it’s just like a little, round, little tiny round ball. Red. And you pick that, and
then you can later on mash it and then put it on. But we Shoshones don’t put it on our
faces, because invariably you end up with an argument or a fight or whatever. We don’t
do that, because that’s not our way. Other tribes do that. But you know, all different tribes
have different way of doing things. And we don’t make fun of other people, however
they believe, however they pray, it’s your own personal thing. It’s how you’ve been
taught. And we’re careful not to make fun of other people’s religion, or their beliefs, their
spirituality. With our native people, we don’t call it religion, we call it sprituality. It’s
how you walk and live. You can put it, also you can put it on the top of your head, and
that is your protection. You can put it on your wrist, around your ankle, and you can
walk. Especially when you’re going among a people that you don’t know, you don’t want
to get harmed. With the girls, it’s very important that you protect yourself. And this is a
good way. Ask it to go before you and protect you. And it—like I said, everything has a
spirit. Everything understands. It’s we humans, sometimes don’t have a good
understanding. And we just have lost our way. The birds know what to do. Certain birds
know when to go south. How did they know that? It’s, the Creator has made them that
way. And how do the bears know when to hibernate? You know, that’s a gift to that
animal. And so, all animals have a spirit, too. And when our young people used to—well,
1
It is clearer in the video, but KB was holding aipin, which is white and chalky, before moving on to the reddish
substance, which is most likely pisappe.
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when our menfolk used to go hunting, they prayed. They cleaned their gun, and they took
care of their gun in a good way. And then they would pray. “Let the deer”—and they’d
pray to the deer—“give up your life, that my life can go on, and my family’s life can go
on.” And when they do that in a good way, they always came home with a kill. Because
the spirit heard them, and the animal gave up their life willingly, that we could go on.
And that’s the way it is. So be thankful for all that you have. And now, this is for the
head, and this is for the—this person’s hands are smaller than mine. [Laughter] I can’t get
it on. But they used to have, it used to have quite a bit of the mugwort sticking out. And
that’s how they danced. And then they had one on their ankle, on both ankle, and then
they would have a portion of it sticking out also. And that helped them through their
dance, and through their fasting and their prayer. Because dance was not for show, but to
help their people. They danced. Some maybe, someone in their family could have cancer,
and they would pray for that person while they’re dancing. Or maybe they’re just, maybe
there’s an, on a reservation, or a colony, maybe, say, there’s a lot of suicides coming
that’s happening. A man, or woman, whoever’s dancing, can take that, and pray that that
spirit would be lifted. And this is sweet sage. Got this down here by the college down—
well, where the—okay, help me out. The park down here.
X:
Peace Park.
B:
Peace Park, thank you. I’m having those moments. But that’s okay, I always have help—
thank you. This is what we call totsa. This you go out and you harvest it from under the
ground. And in the springtime, when they’re growing, they look like a celery. No, carrot.
They look just like a carrot. You know how they’re really, just plentiful little leaves?
Well, that’s what they look like. But then, in the fall, when we go gather them, then they
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change. Because then, on top, they’re like flat, but they have little flowers around the
outside. And sometimes, some of those stems are still standing, and you can see them.
You’ll recognize them. But if you go out, like, in September, you can smell them. From
the ground. It’s interesting. Because you use it, and you’re familiar with it, it’s a familiar
medicine for you. And you can smell it. And you can—and many people, like if they’re
out in the country a lot, and they’re attached in a special way to the land, and they’ve kept
their prayers up, and they walk in that way—they can also smell the deer. You can smell
the plant life, there’s just… Because you’re keen, you’re open to that. But that’s
something that is acquired over time. And it’s the way you walk, with prayer, and
kindness. It’s the way you are as a person. And totsa is one of the many, many wonderful
medicines. You can boil this and drink it—it’s strong. You don’t want to boil it too long!
But you can drink it, and it’ll open up your esophagus. It’ll open up your bronchial tubes.
It’ll open your lungs. And many, many people have survived because of totsa. Because
when it was harvest, it was gotten in prayer. Most important element. It was prayed for, it
was taken care of in a good way. And we dry it, and it’s really hard. But then you can
shave it, and then you make a fine—it just comes out real fine. And you can put that on a
pan, in a pan, if you have a wood stove you can put it on the wood stove, and then you
get the, it cleanses the air, it helps you to breathe better. You smoke it, it goes down into
your lungs, to purify your lungs. And also, people have drank this, and they mix it. They
boil it with chaparral. People that have had cancer have done that, and it has—this2 is real
good medicine for cancer. Very, very strong. But, there was a woman that lived on the
Reese River reservation, and she was the oldest woman that I knew of. But I’m not quite
2
KB
is indicating the chapparal again as she makes this statement and those that follow.
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sure how old she was. She was very, very old. But she would drink a cup of this every
day. And her nephew, her grand-nephew, would go down southern Nevada, and go and
pick it. And he went with a, he did what was expected of him to do. And he prayed that
that plant would go and help his grandmother. And she lived. And her, it helped with her
arthritis. Because she was still able to walk, and to get around. And she did
basketweaving. And her hands were nimble enough that she could continue to do her
basketweaving. Sagebrush is a very good medicine. Here again, you can make tea out of
it and drink it. It’s good for colds. I saw a woman one time that had fallen, and had
gashed her leg down to the bone. I could see it. And she was sitting in her little cabin, and
she was boiling the sage. And I said to her, “You’d better go see the doctor!” “Oh, no.”
And she said, “No, I’m not going. This is my doctor.” And she was boiling it up, and she
took it out of the pot—she didn’t wring it out or anything, but she just put the whole
thing, the plant and all the juice, and she put it right on top of that, and she wrapped it
with white material. And I saw her, I can’t remember now just how long. But I saw her a
while later. And she was up walking around. I never did ask to see—but I know she
didn’t go see the doctor, because she wasn’t going to go. But she just, when she wrapped
it, she just put the skin together, and then put this medicine right on top. And it healed.
And she could walk. I saw it with my own eyes. And I thought, “Whoa! That’s good
medicine!” So we do have good medicines out there. We have medicines that will help
you, to protect you. And that’s why I say, go to your grandparents, if you still have
grandparents. Go to them, talk to them. And they can tell you a whole lot more than what
I have here, because I just haven’t been out gathering the last year and a half. Well, it’ll
be a year and eight months now, because of, my son had cancer. But through prayer,
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through the herb, he is cancer-free today. And right now, we’re in the process of getting
him up off the bed and helping him walk. But he needs help to walk. But that’s what our
medicine can do. But you have to believe in it. You have to take care of it in a good way.
And you must, of all things, live a good life. Can’t go out and get drunk, or go out and get
high, or whatever else is out there, I don’t know what’s all out there. But remember, all of
those things do have spirit in them. I will give you this one testimony that I, that was
revealed to me. One Sunday morning—or no, it was on a Saturday, I believe it was—I
had gotten up, and it just, I could see this black blackness that had come, and it was
hovering over the camp. The native camp up here on the hill. Way up on the hill, and
down below to the old camp. There was this blackness, this darkness. And I thought,
“What is that?” Because it just looks so weird. And it didn’t feel good. And I started
praying about it. I started asking questions: you know, why? Why? What is this, that has
settled? I didn’t see it over the town. The town was not revealed to me. But where we
lived, it was revealed to me. And I kept asking, “Well, what is this?” Because I knew
there was an answer. And the next morning, it came to me that that blackness, that
darkness, was a suicide spirit. And during that time, before that time, I believe we had six
suicides up among my people. And that spirit had come. And evidently, no one had
prayed about it. But I felt—I can’t tell you how I felt. It was scary. And I remember, they
have the Indian chapel up on the hill. I think it’s still the same name. But anyhow, I went
to church that morning, and I just had to tell somebody, because that was pretty scary, to
see that blackness. And I told the minister’s wife. And I told her what I felt that was
revealed to me. And she said, then she said, “What we need to do is pray.” She said,
whoever all was in the church. We all prayed that that blackness would be lifted, and that
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spirit—this is the way she said, “it’s a spirit that has come to linger over your people.”
And so we prayed that that spirit be lifted. The whole congregation did. And do you
know, the suicides ceased. We did not have another suicide after that. So whatever you
want out of life, you can have. If you want to draw closer, and you want to walk in your
spirituality, you want to keep it strong, then you need to do the footwork. Which is, you
need to get up, and you need to pray. You need to be thankful for everything that you
have—good or bad, and who’s to say it’s bad? Through this cancer situation, I have
learned so much. Through my son. I’ve gone through experiences that I would have never
went through if it wasn’t for my son having cancer. How many times did I hear him say,
“I want to leave. Mom, I don’t want to be here no more. I want to go home.” And he
wasn’t talking about this home, because we were home at the time. And when we went to
Salt Lake, and we lived there for—well, a good year. I heard him say that again and
again. And he wasn’t. He was talking about the natural home. He was talking about going
home to his Father. And I told him—the first time he said that was, I was sitting across
the room from him on the couch. I was on one couch, he was on the other. All of the
sudden, I felt something shift in the room. And it was kind of weird. But I knew
something was going on. So I got up, and I went over, and I sat next to him. I said, “Ross,
what’s going on?” He says, “Mom, I want to leave. I don’t want to live here no more. I
want to go home.” And then he said, “Why do people pray for people to stay here when
they are suffering so bad? I don’t want to stay here. Why, mom, do people pray that
way?” And I looked at him, and it hit me that we are selfish. I’m selfish. I didn’t want
him to go. I wasn’t willing to share him. I wanted him, because he’s my only son. Any of
our children, we would feel the same. And, so through that, I’ve learned to pray
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differently. And I told him, “I will not pray that way anymore. My prayer from now on,
Ross, is that our Father’s will be done. His will, not mine.” And I just let it go. But that
was the first time of just completely yielding in oneself. But the experiences from that has
been absolutely wonderful. And, so now we’re working real hard, and he’s rallying. He’s
cancer-free, and it’s because we relied—Ross said, “You know, I don’t know about this
Western medicine.” And I had, that came to me. And so we talked about that. And he
said, “You know, I just don’t trust this Western medicine. It’s not doing for me what it
needs to do.” And I says, “So you want to go to the native medicine? You want to go to
the herb?” He says, “Mom, I think that’s where my help is. I truly do.” I said, “Okay.
Then let’s do it.” And so we, I called my grandson from Oregon, my adopted grandson
from Oregon, to come, and we all had prayer, and with the herb, it—he just looked so
much better the next day. I was amazed. But then, when we went back to the doctor, I
think it was about a week later—I think it was the next week—and the doctor looked at
the results in awe, and he said, “There’s no cancer.” And I looked at him—it was so hard
for me to take that in. But we have accepted that. No cancer. And he’s doing better. So,
our herbs are alive and well. We just need to start picking it up and taking care of it. Pick
up our prayers and be strong. And with that, I would like to close with a song, if that’s all
right. When I started walking the spiritual path, picking up my prayers, praying in the
way that I felt I needed to pray, I had a desire that I wanted to sing in my own native
tongue. I wanted to sing a song. And so I started praying for that. I didn’t have a drum. I
didn’t have the drum stick. But that’s what I felt I wanted to do. Well, the drum came
first, but I was surprised that I was gifted a drum. I’ve never played a drum before in my
life. And my girlfriend, and our friend, went down to the river, and they picked a willow,
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and made me a beater. So in that day, I got my drumstick and my beater, there’s no
reason now why I can’t go out and sing and do what I want. So I started praying. And it
was in the wintertime, because I remember sitting on the floor in the front room—may
sound really something, but that’s all right—I was sitting in the front room, and I burned
cedar in my smudge bowl, and I had it on the carpet, and I started praying and asking,
again, that I would be given a song in my native tongue. That was my heart’s desire. And
lo and behold, I was just beating the drum, and a song came. So I’m going to sing you the
song that was given to me. This is a healing song. I’m going to wrap it around each one
of you. Let your faith take hold. If you have something that’s bothering you, you have a
situation in your life, just feel this song coming to you. And there’s a healing in this song.
One day, one evening, I got a call, long-distance call from this young man. And he said,
“Auntie,” he said, “I just have a terrible craving. I want to go out and get drunk. But I
don’t want to do that. I put that behind me. I don’t want to go do that anymore.” And he
says, “Would you pray for me?” And I said, “Well, of course!” So I prayed for him. And
then I was reminded I had a drum, and I had been given a healing song. So I went, and I
said, “Do you mind if I sing for you?” He says, “That sounds wonderful.” So I went and
got the drum, and I started singing the healing song. And I wished him well. Next
morning at 8 o’clock, he called me, and he said, “Auntie, I could hear your song all night
long, and I didn’t go out. I am so glad. It really helped me.” And so, with that—and it has
helped others—I tell you that because I want you to let your faith go. Have faith that it
works. It works if you believe. But it’s up to you. It’ll happen if you want it.
[Sings from 47:33-49:05]
And with that, I thank you for listening, and I hope this all helps you. Thank you.
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[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Katherine Blossom
Location
The location of the interview
Elko, NV (Great Basin College Campus)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB format
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:49:40
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/578
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Katherine Blossom - Oral history (03/27/2012)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Katherine Blossom, Western Shoshone from Elko, NV on 03/27/2012
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Katherine Blossom is a Western Shoshone from Elko, NV. She begins her presentation speaking about how Native Americans have adapted to the land, and that it was the Native Americans duty to pray for all things that exist within this universe. She also speaks about the hardships and horrors that the Western Shoshone people went through in boarding school which included losing their native language – usually by forceful means. As she continues she speaks about the importance of prayer. She also educated her audience about the type of natural plants, herbs, and other items that were used by the indigenous groups in and around the Great Basin region. Katherine also recalls some personal experiences that she has gone through which she shares with her audience.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Katherine Blossom Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/13bbb9a8db3b30863b1dfbaf48a07316.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Katherine Blossom Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 029A
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
03/27/2012 [27 March 2012]; 2012 March 27
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/380
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
boarding school
Community
Crossroads
GBIA
language
Shoshone
Story
traditional ceremony
traditional medicines
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/bb20261d9b141cb3645e38c6a873c9b0.jpg
5ce52327dd378ec15d79ca870bc1cf11
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/ea429a097a90f70f17d16b9fbeb057a7.pdf
ef52635bb33478c1f45b3b3a87d86eda
PDF Text
Text
Edith
&
Adele
Fisk
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
028
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
March
27,
2012
BaFle
Mountain,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 028
Interviewee: Edith and Adele Fisk
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: March 27, 2012
EF:
My name is Edith Louise Revere Fisk. I was born in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and I was
raised in Battle Mountain, Nevada. And haven’t been back for a lot of years! [Laughter]
AF:
My name is Adele Ina Crum Jooste Fisk, and I was also born in Battle Mountain,
Nevada, in 1925. And I came a long way since then, I’m going on my eighty-seventh
year, and I spent until I was nineteen years old, I left Battle Mountain for good; I only
went back there to visit my mother in later years. And for some reason, the Battle
Mountain, after I once left, it was never home any more. After Grandma passed away,
and all my relation all left, it wasn’t like it was going home anymore. But I, the few trips
that I did go back, I enjoyed myself, and like I say, everyone is gone now.
EF:
Now, the only time we go back to Battle Mountain is Memorial Day. We still have all of
our old, old graves there. And we need to find the old, old cemetery, because we have
family buried there, and it’s over by the airport someplace, but I can’t remember where
it’s at, and Adele can’t either. We need to find someone who knows where that’s at,
because we do have family there, and we’re the only ones who goes to the graves in our
family, anymore. When—and I don’t know about Adele, but I was born in Grandma’s
house—our Grandma, Emma—at her house, and she delivered me. And Grandpa was
hoping for a boy, and I was a girl, and when she said—“Oh,” she said, “Oh, we’ve got a
girl!” And Grandma went, “Aw, heck!” [Laughter] She didn’t want a girl! But Grandma
was neat. And you know, there were a lot more Native people there when I was little.
And we—and Grandma was also a midwife, you know. She delivered quite a few babies
in Battle Mountain. And then in later years, the town expanded, and they moved her to
the Colony. When I was little, she lived at the edge of, let’s see—it would be the south
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edge of Battle Mountain. She had a little house, there. I guess that’s where the Indians
lived before. I’m not sure. Adele, do you know?
AF:
Mm-mm.
EF:
But then, when she moved to the Colony—bless her heart—she lived by Minnie Leach
and Minnie Tybo. And those three ladies would go shopping, walk to town—about a mile
from the Colony to town—and do their shopping. And they’d sit in front of the Lemaire
Store and rest before they took the long walk with their groceries back home. And I never
learned the language, because my father was a white man. However, he spoke better
Shoshone than I do. [Laughter] But you know, we didn’t talk it in our home. And Mother
used to tell me, “Now, Grandma and Minnie and Minnie are over there, sitting in front of
Lemaire’s store. Now, you be polite, and go over and say hello to them. And be sure and
say hello and talk to them in Shoshone!” Which I tried. And I did. [Laughter] You got
anything?
AF:
Yeah, it’s a little, talking about where Grandma lived. That belonged to the Altenbergs,
that was their property. And when Grandma went to work at the washhouse for them,
they told her she could live there as long as she lived. Which she had planned on living
there. Then when Mrs. Altenberg passed away, her heirs asked Grandma to move. They
told her she didn’t have a deed to the property, and she had to move. So that’s when she
moved to the Colony. And the old cemetery you’re talking about, I don’t know where it’s
at, either. Charles Lemaire was going to take me there, but we never got around to
finding it. He knew where it was at. But my great-grandpa is buried, my great-great
grandfather’s buried there, and also my father Jim’s brother. He was killed by a white
man when he was a young man, going across to the bridge at the river there. He was
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going on a horseback, apparently on a stolen horse, and he was shot there and killed.
Well, he’s buried at the old cemetery. And I attended the little one-room Indian school.
At the time I was growing up, we still had prejudice, and we weren’t allowed to go play
with the white children. We weren’t allowed to associate with them. And I had a white
stepfather, so that the Indian children ignored me, and then the white children wouldn’t
play with me on account of my Indian mother. So I was sort of in betwixt and between,
and I grew up more a loner. I learned how to read, and I spent all my time with my nose
in a book, which I still do today. I still read a lot. And, so we, I didn’t, I always was
alone. And yes, Grandma was a midwife, and she was the last child—Louise’s last child,
she delivered. And she said, “This is the last time I’m going to deliver. I’m not delivering
any more! From now on, you’ll have to go to the white hospital, have someone else
deliver your children.” And then, she never delivered any more children. Louise was the
last one. And they asked her to. [Laughter] Because Grandma, she could take care of her
animals, see if they need taking care of. Why, she used to doctor people’s animals, and
she doctored the people along with it. So she was quite learned in a lot of things. She
knew a lot. And I was always so fascinated with all the things, and I was a nosy kid. I
asked everything! Always want to know this and that. “Tell me this!” “Tell me that!”
And Grandma said to me, “When you come to my house, you speak Shoshone! You
don’t speak English!” I’d go home, my stepfather said, “Now, we’re you’re in the house,
you’re not going to be little Indian. You’re going to talk English!” So I’d have to sink or
swim. I’d have to learn how to speak both—and do it properly, too! [Laughter]
EF:
When I was in grammar school in the [19]40s, there was still prejudice. Even though we
were in the white school—the Indian school had been closed before. But the restrooms,
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they had one stall that was marked “Indian.” And that’s what the Indian kids had to use.
And so… But we were treated pretty good, by the white kids, by the time we were in
grade school. Not like when they were in the Indian school, you know. They were
isolated from the white people. But…
C:
How big was the school there?
EF:
Oh, gosh! We probably had, maybe, ten or twelve kids in each class, and it was first
grade through eighth. Uh-huh.
AF:
Yeah, Everett Buford was the only one in the eighth grade, and we started out in the first
grade. And Mrs. Estes taught all the grades. Everything. We learned everything.
EF:
She cooked, and—
AF:
She taught us to sing, she taught us our math, she really—and she could handle them, too,
where a lot of the substitute teachers come in, they couldn’t handle the Indian kids. But
Mrs. Estes made us study! Now, I mean, she had the ruler, too, and she used it!
[Laughter]
EF:
And she fixed lunch, too.
AF:
Yes, she also prepared our lunch. And Everett would be our teacher, he’s at the teacher’s
desk while she’s preparing lunch. And someone was chose to go and put paper towels on
the desks, and pour our drinks, and we all had to line up and wash up before we’re
allowed to eat. And she was, she taught us a lot of hygiene, too. We had to—and she did
everything for us. And then, when the doctor came to give us our shots, she made sure we
were held down so we wouldn’t move! [Laughter] That way, the doctor give us our shot
in our arms. And then, also, we had to go to Winnemucca, to the dentist. And all the
Indian children had to go there. I couldn’t remember who took us. I guess it was the
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health nurse, we had a county health nurse. And she would go out into the different
Indian homes and visit, and if they had new babies, she’d make sure they had a birth
certificate.
EF:
That was Miss Kelso. Was that Miss Kelso?
AF:
Yeah, that was Mrs. Kelso. And she made sure that the children had their birth
certificates, and she weighed them and took all the vitals down. And she was really,
really good. She was good with everyone. And she would tell the mothers how to carry
themselves after childbirth. I remember, like I said, I was a nosy little kid, and I’d hide
and listen to everything that was going on. [Laughter] And I’m not nosy like that
anymore, but I still like to know what’s going on. But Grandma, I’d say, “Grandma, tell
me this, tell me that! Oh, tell me what happened years ago!” But she’d get started
sometimes, and she’d get sidetracked and forget all about me. But she was good about
telling me things. And she never got impatient. Very seldom got impatient with me. But,
and Grandmom had given birth—Myrtle was her stepchild, when Myrtle’s mother died in
childbirth.
EF:
Now say, tell who Myrtle was. Say who was Myrtle. Norm’s—
AF:
Myrtle Dick Cavanaugh. She was Grandpa’s oldest daughter. He was married to a
Shoshone girl, and she was quite young, and she died in childbirth when she gave birth to
Myrtle. And Grandma was living with Grandpa’s two sisters, Suzie and Annie. I
remember them very well. And Annie married Kuttsaahwene [11:24]. They called him
Frying Pan Johnny, but his real name was Johnny Jones. And the other sister married
Piasappeh [11:31]. Bill Cheeney was his name. And neither sister had any children,
because as young girls they were raped by white men, which left them sterile. Well
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anyway, Grandma lived with them. She was an orphan. And after Myrtle’s mother died—
I don’t know her name, if she, whatever her name was, I don’t remember. If they did tell
her name, I don’t remember. But after, when she was still a baby, Grandpa married my
Grandma, and she took Myrtle and raised her as her own, and then she and Grandpa had
ten children. And of the ten children, only three survived to adulthood and had children.
Jimmy—I remember him, he was her youngest child, I think he was born in 1918. And he
died in Stewart of appendicitis attack. And he was her last child. I believe he was born in
1918 or 1916. I have a picture of your mother holding him in her arms when he was a
baby. And, all of her children died young. And all the names are written down, what they
died of. But they didn’t survive very long. But the oldest daughter next to Myrtle was
Lizzie. She was the one that married Charlie McKee. And that’s where the McKees and
the Charles came in, on that side. And then, Charlie and Lizzie had five daughters. All
they had was five daughters. And that’s where the daughters come, Virginia Jones, that’s
where all the descendants of them. And then, the other sister was Ina, she had four
children. She had three daughters and a son. And Mom had three sons and a daughter
with my father, and then Louise with her second husband. And then Louise was born ten
years after me. So there’s that much difference in our age, though. But she was a baby,
and I remember her real well and how spoiled she was as a child.
EF:
Who, me? [Laughter]
AF:
Just real spoiled. [Laughter]
EF:
Yeah, those were good years. I remember, like she said, Frying Pan Johnny, and Susie,
and Kuttsaahwene [13:58], and… Annie and Susie used to make baskets, and where we
lived in Battle Mountain, there was an artesian well, and lots of willows grew back there.
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So they didn’t have to go to the river to gather willows. And they used to stop by when
they were cutting willows for their baskets and stuff. And they were little, tiny women.
They were so tiny, really short. When I was just a child, I was as tall as they were. They
were really tiny. I remember that of them, that they were so short and small.
AF:
Yeah, they were. Uh-huh. And Susie was a laundress for what’s-her-name, the King is—
what’s her first name? Anyway, the Kings, she was doing laundry for them, and at that
time they had those old clotheslines that were twined, you know? Those old-time
clotheslines? And she was hanging clothes one day, and the clothesline broke and hit the
ground, hit her in the eye, and blinded her in one eye. And several years later, she became
blind in the other eye. So she remained blind until her death. And, after her husband
passed away—someone murdered him. He had a rope tied from her cabin to the
outhouse, so she could throw on the rope and find her way. And after her husband passed
away, one February, someone cut her rope and she couldn’t find her way. She got lost out
in the sagebrush, and they found her frozen to death the next day. That happened
probably in the [19]40s. And then, Annie, the other sister, she passed away at home, at
the home of her stepdaughter who was—what was her name, now? Alma Joaquin. Alma
Joaquin was her stepdaughter. Like I say, they never had children. And she, they found
her dead one morning. She had died in her sleep. And that’s how both sisters left. And
then, Grandpa—I think Grandma said he died of pneumonia. Grandma said he went out
to work, and he came home ill, and they couldn’t save him. That was Grandpa Dick. And
then she married John Hanks, who was from here. And he passed away sometime in the
[19]40s, the middle [19]40s.
EF:
He’s buried in Elko here.
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AF:
Yeah, he’s in Elko here. And Grandma lived on and on until they figured she was a
hundred and two. But I remember when she passed away in Elko, when we went to see
her, your grandma was sitting there at the head of her casket. She was rubbing her head.
And I said to Mother, I said, “Who’s that lady sitting there rubbing Grandma’s head?”
She said, “That’s my sister Myrt.” I said, “Oh!” Then it kind of all fell into place, and
then I realized how the relationship was at that time. And then, Lida, your mother used to
write to me all the time. I used to—I had whole pile of letters from her. I guess they got
lost somewhere. But she used to write me the most interesting letters! [Laughter] Yeah,
and we were quite close, because we used to play together as children when we were
small. She was younger than me. We used to play. We we came to Battle Mountain to
visit, but we always [17:18]—
EF:
They split our families up when they moved so many of them to Owyhee. So most of our
relation went to the reservation then. And so, I didn’t know a lot of them when I was real
little. And when I got older, my mother and I used to come to Elko and catch the stage.
That first stage was like an Army truck with the canvas on the back. And we’d drive that
to Mountain City. And then, there was another stage that took us from Mountain City to
Owyhee—or sometimes relatives would come and pick us up. Forrest Shaw would come
and pick us up. And, when Grandma got real old, and needed care, our mother was
working—she was alone then. She and my father were divorced, and she was supporting
herself and me, because I was little, still. And so, Edith Shaw and Forrest came and got
Grandma. And they took care of her in Owyhee for the rest of her life. Yeah. And see, I
never knew my brothers, because her dad took the boys, and they moved to Owyhee—
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AF:
I didn’t either! I didn’t know I had brothers! Anyway, they had grown up into young
men. And they went into the service. And Earl was the first one that Aunt Jessie, who
was my father’s sister, took him aside and says, “You have a mother. She lives in Battle
Mountain. She’s very much alive.” Because their father always told the boys their mother
was deceased. So anyway, “So you go and see her.” So, our mother said one day, she saw
this young Marine coming across, and she said, “I wonder who that young man is. He
must be lost.” He come knocking on her door, and she still didn’t know who he was. And
he said, “Are you my mother?” And she said, “Well, who are you?” “I’m Earl.” So I
guess there was an emotional reunion then. And then, Charles was the next one to come
and see her. And Charles was just a little bit upset with his father about not telling him
about Mom. And for a while there, he didn’t have much to do with his father. And he
spent all his time with Mother, learning all the things that he missed out on when he was
growing up. But I do remember Ray. Ray was the oldest one. I remember when I was
small, he used to come from the Colony. He’d come over and pick me up and carry me
home. I just, I must have been about—I was only about three years old. He’d carry me
home, and I’d play all day there at my Grandma Annie’s place. And then when it was
getting dark, toward evening, he’d carry me home. And that went on until they moved to
Owyhee, and then I never saw them again! And then, I never met my father until I was
already married and had a family. And so, I went to Owyhee to visit. And I thought, “I
wonder how things are going to be.” And it was just a wonderful reunion! He came right
over, and he shook hands with mother, and he was giving the kids presents, and giving
them arrowheads, and digging out things that he had, and he gave them. And he gave me
a diamond ring. And he was just digging out all kinds of treasures. [Laughter] And
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anyway, that was my first reunion. And before I got to know him, he passed away. Before
I really got to know him. So we were kind of split-up, mixed-up family. But I had a good
stepfather.
C:
So what was your father’s name?
AF:
He was good to me.
EF:
Tell him your father’s name.
AF:
Oh, Jim Crum. Jim Crum was my father’s name. And he had a brother by the name of
Jim Crum. They called him “Big Jim.” He was the one that was killed by the white man
when he was a young man.
EF:
I was kind of split between two worlds, because Mother was Native and my father was
white. And, it’s really funny, but the white kids treated me better than the Indian kids did.
Of course, I can see why. Because we lived in town, and we had, probably had more than
the kids on the Colony. And I never knew—Mother would say, “What happened to you at
school today?” And I’d say, “Well, So-and-so and I had a fight.” And she’d say, “You’re
not supposed to fight with her, she’s your relative!” And I’d say, “I didn’t know she was
my relative!” [Laughter] And, yeah. And I found out that we were related to a lot of
people. Nearly everybody on the Colony, there was some kind of tie. And then of course,
like I said, when I was about eight years old, that’s when I met a lot of relatives from
Owyhee. That’s when I found out that her father lived there, and he was a policeman
then. And that I had brothers, but I’d never seen them. And Edith and Forrest, that’s
usually where we stayed. Because they had more room. Then, I didn’t known Cinnabar
was my cousin, Raymond Cinnabar was my cousin, and then you guys are relatives, and
Dan—what’s his name?
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AF:
Blossom.
EF:
Dan Blossom was—because he and the McDades, one of their boys. He used to play with
their boys. And they just lived down the road from us, because they had a white father,
too. Gracie and Clarence and them. And anyway, Dan and Gracie’s oldest brother, they
were kind of close to my age. So we kind of played together when we were kids. Because
we all played out in the sagebrush in those days! [Laughter] And that’s about the extent
of it, I guess.
AF:
Now, I found out that my daughter-in-law, her grandma’s name was Rosie Winnop. And
they were Paiute. And there’s a relationship between the Cinnabars and the Winnops.
Which made my daughter-in-law and my son distant relation. [Laughter] So, that was
interesting! So, we were doing our genealogy, and she said, “Frank! Are you related to
me?” And we looked around and, “Oh, yeah! There’s a relationship.” And then, when
Vivian did the genealogy for me on her part, we found where the relationship came in.
And that was interesting. Yeah! And from that time on, she thought, “There’s no one like
Anita.” And Anita hasn’t written her lately, so she wanted to try to get down and see her.
But that was interesting. And then, her grandfather, they call him Indian Ike. He was
murdered by the whites for his gold. He found a gold mine out of Imlay. And as the white
people, the white men, they followed him, and they found where his gold was, and they
killed him. And so anyway, Louise and I, we looked up the newspapers and found out
about what happened to him. But they didn’t refer to him by name. They referred to him
as “the Indian.” “The Indian did this,” “the Indian did that.” “The Indian” was blamed.
But he was shot in the back, though! So anyway, it was really interesting to me, because I
was so interested in family history. And like on the other side, I did their family history
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clear back to where they started from in England. And I think possibly they went back to
Scandinavia. I think that was where they originated, was in a Scandinavian country. And
then, I did my Indian side, I found out through my husband, that his mother was almost
half Choctaw. And I have a picture of her, and she shows it very much. And then, this
writer of the Cherokee alphabet, there’s a relationship there through marriage. Through
the Fisk side. So, that was interesting. So, and I started with my Indian side, then I let
Alan take over because of his, that little bit—I didn’t have time for the research, or else I
was too lazy to do it anymore. But took me thirty years to do the other side! And all that’s
genealogy. All of that is genealogy. And there’s more that I’ve collected over the years.
C:
So, what do you remember about Raymond Cinnabar’s dad and his family?
AF:
I don’t remember much about Raymond except for what little bit he told me. Now, see,
like I say, I didn’t meet my family until years later. And when I went to Owyhee, then all
this relationship fell in. But I do have all that Vivian gave me on the relationship there. I
do have all that written down. I have it all in my little filing cabinet. I have the Indian
thing separate from the other. And I do have all that. There is relationship, and there is a
grave in Winnemucca under a tree. And that would be the relationship on Anita’s side,
and on Raymond’s side. I think he said that was—was that his mother, did he say? I can’t
remember. Well, anyway, and that was also related to Anita. And so, it was through the
Winnops. They were Winnops. And I do have all that written down, was when Vivian
was—oh, this has been twenty years ago or more that she wrote all this down for me.
And I still have it. And then we have the family group she’s made up where they all came
together on my side, and on their side. So, it’s really interesting. Then I have, starting out
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with the Dicks on down on that side, then I have the other side where the Winnops and
on down on their side; where they all meet together.
EF:
Where they connect, yeah.
AF:
Well, that’s quite interesting history.
C:
So did you both graduate from Battle Mountain, then, or was there a high school there,
or—?
EF:
Yeah, there was a high school there. I went to high school there. Uh-huh.
AF:
Did you grad—where’d you graduate?
EF:
Oh, I got a C.E.D.
AF:
Oh, you did, huh? Uh-huh.
EF:
Yeah, because I got married, and then—but they still, I’m still in that class, you know.
When they have reunions.
AF:
I completed the eleventh grade, but I never finished. I could have got a G.E.D., because
my daughter-in-law was a high school teacher. Kept saying, “Grandma, get your
G.E.D.!” “Oh, I will, I will!” She went and mailed the books, and I studied it for a while.
Said, “You can do it! You’ll graduate with your granddaughter.” I thought, “Well, I don’t
want to graduate with my”—hepitsoo up there on the stage with all those young kids! I
wouldn’t do it! [Laughter]
EF:
Everybody does it now.
AF:
Up there in a cap and a gown there in my old age! Because I was in my sixties then, I
went back to school. And she was my teacher. So I took up Spanish, and I took up
literature. I took up genealogy, and what else did I take? Nevada history. I took
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something else. And I enjoyed it, I had lots of fun! But I never went on. Oh, I took piano
lessons, too. [Laughter] I learned to read music, I never learned to play the piano!
EF:
Well, back what—
AF:
Oh, I can play a little bit, or on the organ, but I never—I lost interest. There’s just too
many things I wanted to do, and I couldn’t do them all!
EF:
See, back when we left school, back in the [19]50s, we could go to—like, I went to
business college. And we could go on even without a diploma, because it was different
then. But then, later on, when I went and got my…
C:
So, where did you go to business college?
EF:
I went to Henager’s, in Utah. In Ogden, Utah. Because we lived in Utah. I was married
before, and my first husband worked for the railroad. He worked in there, and his family
was in Utah. And so, I just went and signed up, and went to school! [Laughter]
AF:
It was so strange. I was getting ready to go to school. This old man came over to visit my
husband at the time. And he said, “Where are you barging off to?” I said, “I’m on my
way to school.” He said, “What are you learning?” I said, “I’m learning English.” He
said, “Well, you seem to speak English pretty well.” So I left it go at that, and went on to
school. [Laughter] It was fun. I enjoyed school second time around. It was too bad I
didn’t go ahead and go a little further. But then, I’m busy with the kids and grandkids and
everything, so I just didn’t. Yeah, I just thought that I didn’t lose interest. I enjoyed it.
Because like I say, I do a lot of reading, and lot of studying on books and stuff, and I’ve
always got my dictionary handy. And then, I still like to read, and I still like to play with
my dictionary. And I still like to do word games.
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EF:
Well, you know, I did a lot of other things, too. When we lived in Wendover, my
husband, Walt, was in the fire department. And at that time, the EMTs, they were starting
to get EMTs to go on the ambulance. Well, they had all these firemen signed up, and paid
them money, and two of them didn’t go on the day they were supposed to go. So, another
fireman’s wife and myself, we went and took that course. So, I was an EMT for, like, 18
years. I worked in Wendover and in Wells. And so, I got a lot of, you know—I’ve done a
lot of things without a good education!
AF:
I did too. I took a home nursing and care of the sick. I took that and got a certificate in
that. But I never took care of the sick unless I took anyone home or something, but I
never pursued that either. Oh, and I also worked in a shipyard. I went to welding school,
and did some welding. That was fun. And I enjoyed that. I worked in the marine
shipyards over in California. And I went to join the boilermakers’ union. Welding way is
cool, finally I got enough burns on my chest I got mad and quit! [Laughter]
EF:
Well, those things happen! Yep.
C:
So, when you guys were with your—is it Grandma Emma?
EF:
Yeah.
C:
What—did she share any of our Shoshone cultural stories, or anything along our customs
and ways of lifestyle, I guess?
EF:
Not really. She worked all the time when I was growing up. She did when you was little,
too.
AF:
Yeah, she did when I was growing up. But I used to ask her things, and she would tell
me. She’d sit down and tell me. And, it was mostly about her own family, and some of
the things that she did, and how she was afraid of the white people. And she was telling
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me one time, she was doing laundry for this person, or these people, rather, and she said
they put a tub of water on to heat for the wash water. And she said their child, who was
about two or three years old, ran and tripped and fell in that tub of boiling water.
Grandma said she just knew that she was going to go to jail. So she said she ran and hid.
So she hid for two days. And they searched for her, and searched for her, and they finally
found her. So the mother of the child said, “Emma, it was not your fault. It was an
accident. You didn’t do it.” So Grandma said she quit her job. And she had to—she said
she had nightmares over it that worried her. And I know she was always deathly afraid of
that, having her water boil outside, but she always did, because it was the only way she
had to heat water. She always made sure I didn’t go near that tub of water. Because,
being nosy, I had to go poke it with a stick to see how hot it was! [Laughter] And then, I
know she used to tell me, and we used to go getting ‘zips’ [tsippi], you know, and pour
the water in there, and Grandma would hit ‘em in the head. I never cared to eat them,
though. But I remember her cooking the rabbits. And making her bread. She used to
make the best bread in the ashes, without any pan she would make them! And it had to be
a certain kind of ash that she used. And that ash would burn down, and she’d take her
dough and throw it right on the ashes, cover it up. And when it was done, she’d take her
apron, she’d clean all the ashes off, and break it in pieces. Oh, it was delicious! And the
ashes didn’t penetrate the bread. It was just on the outside. But she said it had to be a
certain ash. I don’t know what. Then we used to dig yuteka. And they were little roots
about this long.
EF:
Yes, I remember that.
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AF:
And we had to dig and dig and dig, and they had a brown bark on them. They would peel
that bark off, they’d eat them. They had kind of a sweet taste to it. They were good. But
remember? We used to dig yuteka, too. What else we used to dig?
EF:
We don’t know where it grows, now. We’ve never found it for years.
AF:
No, we’ve never found it!
C:
Oh, man!
AF:
I knew it had a flat leaf, and it grew about this long. [Indicates 4-5 inches.] And I was
wondering if that’s what they call yampa, if that’s the same thing.
EF:
I don’t know!
AF:
I don’t either. But I do remember they called it yuteka, and we used to dig them all the
time. I remember we’d dig quite deep. And of course, the wild onions. And we used to go
fishing all the time. We used to gather all our gear.
EF:
Oh, Grandma was a great fisherman!
AF:
[Laughter] And we’d go a long way! Seemed like we were miaking and miaking for ages!
Then we’d finally get to the river. And Susie was blind at that time, but she always
filtered that river water. She always dug a little hole there just about so far from the river.
And the water would seep in there, and that was drinking water. And then she would boil
it until we had drinking water. But, I remember little blind Susie doing all those things.
She used to make bread and stuff like that. But if it wasn’t for Kuttsaahwene, she
wouldn’t have got by. Because he watched her, and took her to town, until he passed
away and there was no one to look after her. Grandma did. Grandma check on her every
day. And Minnie Leach, also. Until, like I say, someone cut her rope, and she froze to
death.
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C:
So, who were some of the families, the old families in Battle Mountain, besides the
Leach?
AF:
Let’s see. There was Kuttsaahwene, who was Jones. And that Leach was his sister.
Minnie Leach was his sister. And then there was—now, let’s see. I don’t know who.
Frying Pan Johnny was from, what’s this place out here? Palisade. He was from Palisade.
I don’t know how the two met, but he had family in Palisade, she said. But I’ve never met
them. And then, Grandma of course. She had her family, and her granddaughters married
men in Owyhee. That’s how they all settled in Owyhee. And Dad never married until he
was an old man, and he married this, I don’t know who she was. But I met her once. And
he married her in his old age. And to this day, I don’t know who she was. And Charles,
my brother, had married, but he never had a family. Of course, Earl married Beverly.
What’s her last name? Beverly, Beverly.
EF:
Premo.
AF:
Premo. And on the Shaws. And let’s see. Edith married Forrest Shaw. And her mother, of
course, was Grandma’s oldest daughter, Lizzie’s daughter. Like I say, they had the five
daughters. And they were all people in Owyhee. Of course, I have lots of relations there,
that I don’t know who they are. When we had our family reunion, I didn’t know any of
them!
EF:
I didn’t know half of them.
AF:
Gosh, there were a lot of people there! And I didn’t—I just knew those immediate ones,
like my brother’s family. But the rest of them—but there were, oh, a lot of people there.
And they were all related. And I’ve got pictures of mine, not too long ago, one of my—
let’s see, he would be my cousin’s son. He came over and identified a lot of them for me.
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I didn’t know who they were, so he wrote the names all down for me. And they were all
on—they were the Shaw side. And, but I had all the pictures taken at this reunion, and I
didn’t know them!
EF:
Yeah, we didn’t know a lot of people.
AF:
Just our immediate family, we knew. And in Battle Mountain, we really didn’t—
EF:
Ina was our only family.
AF:
We had a lot of relation there, but we didn’t really know how close they were. And then
after they were all gone, Mother said, “Well, that was So-and-so, that was my so-and-so,”
you know, and everybody had it written down because didn’t know who they were, you
know?
EF:
I think one reason why was because Mother married a white man. And a lot of them were
kind of afraid of him. They didn’t come around.
AF:
Uh-huh, yeah. And Grandmother’s always busy working, she didn’t have time. The only
time she had time to visit was when they came to the washhouse to visit with her. And I
do have a lot of pictures that my dad gave me. There’s a few I can’t identify, but most of
them have been identified. And then, there’s the Cerlene Mosh who lives across the
street. Now, she is related to me through my grandma Annie Crum. Her brother—
EF:
—there was a Paradise.
AF:
See, their daughter married a Paradise. That’s where all the Paradises come in. And I
have most of their names written down, but anything else, I don’t know them. And then, I
used to hear from the one that lived in McDermitt, what was his name? He was related to
you. He was… I guess he was, to you he would be your uncle?
C:
Art.
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EF:
Art.
AF:
And he wrote stories, and… What was his name?
C:
Art.
AF:
Yeah, Art. He used to write to me, too. Yeah. He wanted to know if I’d share some of
Mother’s tapes with him, but then we never did get together, and then he passed away
before we ever got the things together that we were wanting to get together. And we
never did that.
EF:
Yeah, Mother was the storyteller.
AF:
Yeah, she was a storyteller. And then we had, I had a shoebox full of tapes. I gave them
to Alan. That was when they were, a lot of them were so brittle because I had them for
years and years. And then Earl had a bunch made up. So anyway, Earl was the one to get
all these stories out of Mother. Like I say, sometimes she told us when she felt like. And
we were children when she told us the little story that we liked, our favorite stories. She
told us. And I, in turn, told them to my grandchildren. And then I wrote some down for
them, and they were delighted with them! [Laughter] And in fact, my grandson, not too
long ago, said, “Oh, Grandma! I want you to write me the story about the Porcupine and
the Coyote. Oh, that’s my most favorite story!” “Okay!” So I wrote him the story and
sent it to him. [Laughter] And the other one, her favorite was the Deer and the Bear, her
favorite story. And the Tsoappittseh.
EF:
Oh, of course Tsoappittseh. Itsappe. Yeah, my dad worked nights. And Mother used to
tell me—because I was the only one. She and I were alone when my dad was at work.
And she’d tell me stories at night, you know. Of course, a lot of them she had to tell in
English because I’m not very fluent in Shoshone. [Laughter]
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AF:
Well, I know when we listened to stories at Grandma’s house, they were always—we had
to repeat it. She’d tell us such-and-such thing happened, and then—and pretty soon,
there’d be no more repeating because we’d all be asleep! [Laughter] Oh, that was fun.
But Grandma was a good storyteller, Grandma was.
C:
Well, that shoebox that you talk about—you know, we were able to convert them over to
CDs. Yeah. So, now they’re preserved. And, is there anything you guys would like to—
have you had a chance to listen to some of those at this point?
AF:
Yeah, see, I’m hearing impaired. Both ears. So, I put those ear things in my ear. It’s the
only way I can hear them. So I listened to them, I listened to songs. And I just turned
them back to her. And those that Mother sent me—when I was living in Kansas, she’d
send me a tape instead of a letter. And then I’d send her a tape instead of a letter in
answer. So that’s how we kept in touch. So then, I had some of her tapes, and then I said,
“Oh no, Momma didn’t have something good to say about people! I don’t want So-andso to hear this!” [Laughter] And Mother’d get carried away on her tapes sometimes and
she’d tell me things. But the ones that I sent to her in Shoshone, I don’t know what
happened to them.
EF:
Hm. Maybe she threw them away.
AF:
Or maybe she, they accidentally got thrown away or something.
EF:
Yeah, I’m so grateful that we got those, and that you were able to help us get those on
CDs. Because they would have just been lost. And you know, out of all my
grandchildren, Wally and Alan especially I think, they’re the ones that really are
interested in it. Yeah. That’s one thing that I’ve said about Alan’s wife: she’s really good
about our—
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C:
Culture.
AF:
Mmhm.
EF:
Yeah.
C:
So, with those CDs that we’ve transferred over from cassette, are you guys okay with us
sharing those?
AF:
Oh, yeah!
EF:
The storage, that’s fine.
AF:
That’s fine, yeah. Except for the personal letters—those are, well, know—
EF:
No, he didn’t do those. He did, yeah—
AF:
Oh, those were two separate ones, yeah. Oh, those are fine. But I noticed there were a
couple of them, they were very dim. Of course, it could have been it’s my hearing, too,
but the rest of them came loud and clear. But there were a couple of them that were hard
for me to hear.
C:
Yeah, there were some of them that were hard to—
AF:
Yeah, they were pretty brittle, I would imagine.
C:
Yeah, they were very brittle. Yeah, we had to be very careful with them.
AF:
Oh, well, they were done in the early [19]80s, you know. And being in the sun, and…
EF:
Oh, yeah. And yeah, we do want to share them, because not everybody has these stories
now, probably.
C:
No, they don’t.
AF:
Yeah. Well, there’s a story goes that when your grandmother was born, like I say, her
mother died in childbirth. She was this new baby, and there’s nothing they could do with
her. And one of the sisters says, “We can’t raise this child, because we have no milk, we
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have nothng to feed her. She’s going to die.” So then, anyway, they said, “[Shoshone at
45:23].” So, they got the baby all prepared—this was your grandma—to put her in the
grave with her mother. And so, Grandpa Louis said no. So, he grabbed this child, and he
ran. And he ran over to his sister’s house, and he said, “I want you to take care of her and
save her.” So Annie, Annie fashioned a buckskin—made a nipple out of buckskin. And
she did with flour and water, and she fed the baby that for the first meal, to be able to find
milk for her. And the girls raised her. And then, when Grandma married him, then she
took over raising the baby. And then, that was a story about Myrt Cavanaugh.
C:
Huh.
AF:
Yeah. I remember there were times when Myrt and Grandma were really close, and Myrt
would hug her, and say, “Oh, my Momma!” And then there were times when they
weren’t as close.
EF:
Oh, that’s not—[Laughter] That’s normal!
AF:
But when Grandma died, I remember your Grandma sitting there rubbing her head. And I
didn’t know who she was, until Mother told me she was “my sister, Myrt.” Then it all fell
into place! And then I started asking more questions. And then I get all my answers there.
And then I did ask Momma how her brothers and sisters died, the little ones. And she told
me what happened to them. And one was kicked by a horse. And couple of them died that
had that flu epidemic. And one was stuck by pin, got an infection when he was just a tiny
baby. And all these things that happened over there happened to them. I have all that
written down. And Jim Beak, he was—I remember him real well. I was going to Stewart
at the time he went to Stewart. And he was already, I think it was his last year of school
when he died. He had appendicitis attack in Stewart, and it took his life there.
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EF:
A lot of our family died from appendicitis.
AF:
Yeah, that was one of our afflictions, it seem like.
EF:
Yeah. Our mother nearly died, too, from that.
AF:
Yeah, we almost lost her.
EF:
But they were able to bring her to Elko and operate and save her.
AF:
Yeah, that happened when you were about two years old, I think, when she had that bad
bed.
EF:
A lot of her brothers and sisters, she said, died from appendicitis.
C:
So in closing—we have about five minutes left—what would you guys like to say, or
would you like to, I guess—in closing, what would you like to say to anybody that’s
going to be watching this recording? Some things that you may recommend, or some
things that you want to leave people with. What’s important in our culture, and so forth.
AF:
My grandmother always said when I was a child, she said, “Always respect your elders.
Always talk nice to them, because you’re going to go down that same path some day.”
How true! I’m walking down that same path that she walked down.
EF:
Well, I’m so grateful that Mother made these tapes, and that we can share them with
other people of our culture, you know. Because we’re a dying breed. Because of the
white people, we’re just being watered down every generation, you might say, and we
need this to hang onto to keep our heritage, so that we know where we came from, and
what it was like, and what kind of stories they told. Just like the white people wrote
books. And ours went from mouth to mouth. Now, if we put them on tapes, then we’ll be
able to preserve those old stories, too.
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AF:
Well, I have written down where some of these atrocities that were committed against our
people by the white soldiers. And that’s why Tono Jake, our great-great-grandfather,
that’s why he hid his family up in Lewis Canyon. Because he was told that the Indians
were being slaughtered, and he said, “Hide your family, because they’re going to kill
them.” So he hid. Grandma said he would not come down off the mountain until almost
the 1920s. He stayed up there hidden. And he hid his family really well, and they only
would come down to where Argenta is, and Dunphy and that area, and they would fish
and get their willows, and go back to the mountains and hide. And she used to tell us
about what they did to the Indians. The mean things—they were mean! And you just
can’t believe the things that they did! You know? Grandma said that they would rape
babies, little girls! And that just doesn’t seem like a thing that a person would do that. But
I guess they did. They were trying to wipe us out!
EF:
That’s right!
AF:
They didn’t succeed. But I mean, all of this horrible thing that she told me, I wrote them
all down, and I hate to have anybody read them. It’s too awful to print, and to have
people read those. But then, they’re true! And then, I have a couple that Carrie Dann had
written down, what happened to her people. And I thought, “Oh, gosh! I guess we
weren’t alone. They did that to all of us!” You know, things that were atrocities.
EF:
From the time they came over here, they did to all of the Tribes. All of us.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Edith and Adele Fisk
Location
The location of the interview
Elko, NV (Adele Fisk residence)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB format
Duration
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00:51:30
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/574
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Edith & Adele Fisk - Oral history (03/27/2012)
Subject
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Oral history interview with Edith & Adele Fisk, Western Shoshone from Battle Mountain, NV, on 03/27/2012
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Edith and Adele Fisk are Western Shoshone from Battle Mountain, NV and are currently residing in Elko, NV. Edith and Adele speak about the history of Battle Mountain while they were growing up. They speak about their families and what it was like growing up in a segregated town. For instance, they spoke about how trivial it was speaking a different language at home versus at school. Although, they do speak about how their teacher watched over them like a parent. They also recall their parents’ and grandparents’ stories which referred to contact between the Western Shoshone, emigrants, and U.S. Calvary soldiers as well as the traditional Shoshone tales. They also speak about their genealogy as well as how contact has contributed to the degradation of the Western Shoshonean culture and how doing oral histories and recording stories will help younger generations keep up the Shoshonean culture.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Edith and Adele Fisk Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/ea429a097a90f70f17d16b9fbeb057a7.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Edith and Adele Fisk Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 028
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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03/27/2012 [27 March 2012]; 2012 March 27
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/378
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Battle Mountain
Community
contact
Crossroads
GBIA
heritage
language
school
Shoshone
Story
U.S. Cavalry
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/f2f3134d7c0000b4abe0ecae69bbe40d.jpg
94dc7a2f4f0cde8d355fa7c1267330d1
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/8c894abc984f242d04cc980bd9b50207.pdf
d28de104ce87e2e2d48060a7131ddeee
PDF Text
Text
Lois
Whitney
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
026
Oral
History
Interview
by
Lois
Whitney
May
2011
Elko,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hDp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 026
Interviewee: Lois Whitney
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: May, 2011
W:
Okay. My name is Lois Whitney. I was born and raised right here in Elko, as were my
children, my mother—who was born up on the hill, next to the smoke shop. So we have
strong ties to Elko. But, my dad is from Owyhee. His name was Dale Dick. And there’s a
large family of Dicks in Owyhee. We’re related to many people, including the
Whiterocks. And the family is big. But anyway, on my grandfather’s side—he’s from
Austin, the Austin area, and he’s a tekkotekka [1:31], and we’re also, I’m part of the
Tosawihi, too, because of my dad, moving from the Paradise Valley, Owyhee, the
Golconda, that area there, as they were pushed into Owyhee. So… And then, I’m also
indirectly related to the Marshs, and the Caskeys. My grandmother is a Caskey. Or, she
was a Marsh, actually, Ollie Marsh. So, I come from a big, big family. And I’m just
really glad today to hear each and every one of you tell a little bit about yourself, which is
a lot. We don’t do that anymore. And as a way of introduction, if you came into a room
where there were other Shoshone people, generally you would have to say, “I am So-andSo, this is my grandfather, this is my grandmother,” and you give them this long list of—
and then they finally say, “Oh, I guess we can sit down and listen to this person talk.”
Otherwise, if they can’t validate who you are, they look at you with a little suspicion.
And anyway… I am doing a small presentation, and I am picking up for Katherine
Blossom. I am not a prayer person, or a healing person, but I do know some about the
medicines that we do have. And so—and I know that that’s what Katherine does. She
does prayers. But that’s not to say that prayer wasn’t always something that was a part of
our lives, because every morning, my grandmother, Judy Jackson—[Judy] Johnson
Jackson, who was from the Beowawe area—she would not be carrying one of these
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bottles, but she would have a cup of water. Water was very critical to our way of life as
Native people. And I wish more and more people would recognize the importance of
water. And I’m just going to go off and tell you a little bit about water. Grandfather said a
long time ago, one day we’re going to be paying for our water. And that’s before he
understood about airplanes, and cars that ran by themselves, or windows that went up and
down by themselves, and everything else that’s going around. But he also said that one
day, our water would be on fire. We would not be able to see it. We would not be able to
taste it. But our water would be on fire. And I believe what he was talking about was the
nuclear fallout that we’re getting really close to being subjected to, especially after what
has happened in Japan. So value your water. My presentation today is to talk a little about
the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual healing of our Native people. Water was
critical for that. If a child fell, or if somebody fell, and they were knocked out or
whatever, feeling bad, water was used to bless them. It was taken and their, the area
where they fell was usually, water would be sprinkled on them, or their head. Water was
sprinkled on them, and prayers were made, and prayers always went up in that direction.
But yeah—and for little children, they always says, [Shoshone at 4:55] “Ma
mappuisinneh.” [“Bless him/her.”] And that means if a child fell, and wasn’t coherent,
then they would put the water on the child and bless the child until the child was feeling
good again. So water is very important to your physical, your emotional, and your
spiritual health. Don’t forget that. So we have to take care of water. Okay. I’m going to
start at the physical part. We did water. Sagebrush. Sagebrush was taken internally by our
people almost daily. Maybe two or three times a day. It was either chewed on—if you
had a cold or were coughing, you would take a leaf and chew on the leaf—or it was
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boiled into a type of a tea, and many of our people would drink this tea throughout the
day. Maybe at morning and in the evening. And those people, according to some medical
information we’ve gotten, have verified that, apparently the properties in the sagebrush
have helped them in their cleansing and their healing, and it was very useful to them. If
you got a bee bite, what’d you do? Go take the sagebrush and rub it on the area that you
were bitten. That helped soothe. So we had all of our medicine at hand, we didn’t have to
go out looking. And sagebrush—I consider sagebrush in this area to be our rainforest.
And they cut my rainforest down pretty quick. So I might throw a little bit of activism
here, but that’s kind of how I feel. So the sagebrush was used to—was ingested, and it
was also used in part of the offering that they made when they made the little bit of
tobacco. And they drank it, they chewed on it. The other item we have here is what we
call totsa. The totsa grows usually in areas where it’s higher, rocky—kind of hard to get
to. And it grows like a big tube, tubular. It can probably can get as—I’ve seen it get that
big. [Indicates roughly six inches or more.] And it looks like, probably, a great big
sugarbeet. But it grows into the ground. It’s related a little bit to the parsley family,
because it grows tall. It’ll grow tall, and then the tops have like a little poofy spiral type
of flower. It’s not really a flower, but when it’s dry, and usually you can smell the totsa
when you’re out in the mountains, you know you’re nearby. But you really have to dig
for the totsa. The totsa is in—per our family, and I see Norman has done the same
thing—the totsa is cut in circles, very much like Norm has done here. And then it’s
strung, he strung it through wire to hang it up to dry. It also is good for colds. You can
smoke this, you can drink it, you can chew on it. You can put it on the stove—for those
of us who have wood stoves, or even if you’re out, you’ve got a campfire going. I
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wouldn’t put it on your gas burner, but I would put it in a pan maybe on your gas burner.
But this has the properties of healing for our colds, allergies probably. A lot of our people
have allergies nowadays. And I know Leah, my sister, drinks totsa almost daily because
she has tons of allergies; she’s always got a cough, something going on with her. But the
totsa is then shaved, and I see Norm has done that right here. This is your totsa, and he’s
shaved it to where it’s really fine. And this is really nice. This is really nice. And that can
be rolled along with other—tobaccos, or whatever else you might have—and it can be
smoked. And when we smoke, it’s not the same as when a person—I mean, I’m not a
smoker, but I will smoke for my own cleansing. Giving up a prayer, and the smoke
carrying my prayer up into the sky, up to where it needs to go. That’s generally what our
people do. Most native people are smoking, too, for that physical, for that emotional, for
that spiritual release and healing. If I go too fast, stop me. Headaches. I’m a willowweaver, and these are willows. These are natural, the willows from this area. These are
native. We have a lot of invasive species right now, so they, you can’t use as much of the
invasive species as we can of our traditional willow, because of the bitter taste, and it
leaves a funny film in your mouth. But we split the willows with our teeth, and with our
fingers. And this has the properties of getting rid of headaches. And as a matter of fact,
that’s what aspirin is made of, is the willow. So this is natural. Let’s see here… And then
we have over here—you said you thought this was antapittseh kwana. Actually,
papohovi. It’s this one here. That one there? This is antapittseh kwana—oh! Am I not
supposed to move around too much? Well, this is—maybe I’ll get Norm to help me. Then
I won’t run around so much. This is antapittseh kwana. This antapittseh kwana came
from the Owyhee area just above the rodeo grounds, up on—there’s couple, oh—you
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know where they have, the water comes naturally, this kind of marshy place there?
Virginia Jones’ dad did that for me. And then, it also grows in Lee, Nevada. Usually, it’s
ready by June, I believe. And it’s a plant that grows about that high, and it’s pretty
delicate, because apparently, whoever collected this just rolled it into a little braid here,
and that’s what it’ll look like. But the leaves, the property of the antapittseh kwana is
great for taking out infection. If you have a sore, infection, and it needs to be cleaned out,
you take that antapittseh kwana, and it’s put between cloth—it’s wet—you make a
compress out of it, and it has to be wet, and you put that on top of the infection, and it
helps draw out the infection. And it has this sweet smell. Too bad we didn’t get any seeds
with it, because I would have tried to plant it to see if I can get some growing. But most
of our plants, they’re used to a certain area. They don’t just grow everywhere. It’s just
like the different zones of the growing season. You can’t plant something delicate in the
real cold area. I mean, these, they all have their own properties, the way they survive, and
many of our plants were very delicate. I am certain that there—and so have our people
felt—that there was more of the plants here at one time. And that disappeared when we
had that rush of people coming through the Humboldt River and exhausting all of the
plants that were in that area. So there were very few plants that survived. These are just
some of the plants that we have now that we’re still able to collect. And so, we didn’t
have the doctors that we’re used to. But we did have doctors. We had prayers, people that
did prayers, and we had people that did hands-on healing. There are very few that are left
now. I think the last doctor that I was fortunate to get prayed for and doctored was when
Alec Cleveland—he was from Owyhee—when he did the doctoring for me when I lost
my two girls. And that was quite an experience. It’s just too bad we don’t have that kind
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of strong people anymore that are taken care of from the time they’re real small to the
time they’re starting to practice. And I don’t recall him ever using anything more than
just water and prayer, when I was doctored. But it was an incredible experience for us—
for me at that time, because I was at that point where the outside world looked really
attractive to me, all that glitter and glamour of the new society, the things that were
happening, you know. So I was already married, and had children probably in the
[19]50s—no, it was in [19]68, was when Alec Cleveland doctored me. And I still, it was
an incredible experience. You have to be—for somebody that had to learn the doctoring
from the time he was real small to the time he became an adult, that was his life. And it
was a very humble life. So, not very many people will brag about being a doctor. As a
matter of fact, these people never say anything. They are always just sought out because
it is known by the communities that these people with special gifts are the ones that you
go to when you need the special healing, the hands-on. Or even the physical. And also,
these doctors—which I’ve come to realize, too—spoke a language that was different
from our language. Because they always had a helper that they spoke to, and then the
helper was the one that interpreted to the patient what they were supposed to do, to go
about this healing process. So it was an incredible experience. I’m hoping that at some
point, we’ll get some young people who have that gift, and those people will be nurtured
and brought forth so that they can share what they do know. Okay. They ingested—and
this, too. This is called papohovi. Most often, this grows in the area where there’s water.
It’s a sweeter type of a sage—it’s a sage. And it can be boiled into a tea. It can be used as
a compress as well, as can the sage. That can be used as a compress. Let’s see. Now,
we’ve been—oh, and now we’ve come to this. You’ve seen this plant a lot. And this red,
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and when it’s ripe it’s just real, just real deep red, almost this color right now. I had to
collect this, because I didn’t have any. But right now, it’s growing, because the leaves are
starting to, they’re just starting to come up. They’re starting to, they’ll grow probably
about three, four feet high, and they’ll be in tight clusters. Now, if I’m not mistaken, this
is for diarrhea, and also for—it’s boiled to help combat diarrhea, and there’s the other,
and I can’t think of the other condition that the person had to boil to drink this. But if I
think of it, I’ll try to come back to it. Okay. Now, we’ve talked about all the ones that can
be ingested—the totsa, the sagebrush—oh. Oh! Yes. And then, we have this root, which
is—I’m not really certain the name of this root, but what you do is when you have a cold,
you’re not feeling good, you just chew on it. And it’s like just keeping a toothpick in your
mouth, you just suck on the item, and… Now, I believe this came from Pyramid Lake,
this came from some of my husband’s family from the Pyramid Lake area, and I wasn’t
quite sure what he called this plant.
C:
Bear root. They call it bear root.
W:
Bear root. Okay, this is what they chewed on. So. And I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen the
bear root in this area that I could pick it. It has to be probably in the California area,
Pyramid Lake, Alturas and that area there. And I’m only speaking of plants that are from
this area here. And most of these can be, you can pick this up here. Also, to be ingested.
This white rock is called pisappin. Pisappin is used by scraping it into water. And it can
be drank. It goes along with prayers. Pisappin is used for, also going into—when you’re
going to be doctored, it’s basically ground up, either to use as a powder, or with a little
bit of water. And it’s the face, or the areas of the body are marked. This is called
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pisappin1. Also, I was surprised that I found the pisappin in—these were given to me by
Robert Burton from the Battle Mountain area. And when I scraped it, it was, the rock
seemed a little bit pink. But most often, it’s white. It’s like a chalk—it looks like a chalk.
But, my understanding, it’s good for stomach ailments as well. And again, for drinking it.
Usually when you’re going into a sweat, sometimes when you’re doing a ceremony. Even
a gathering of people. It’s mixed with the water that you’re going to drink, and everybody
drinks it. Everybody drinks part of this water, and that’s part of the healing. If I’m going
too fast, slow me down. Okay? Now… Those are the medicines that can be used for the
physical. Now, for the emotional, would be—again, the sagebrush, for prayers. The
sagebrush here, you see I picked it up from the root. For those people that do prayers,
that’s how you collect this sagebrush, for praying with, and to use in some of the
ceremonies. And also, then, we use—the cedar is very, very important, too, in the
spiritual and the emotional. It’s, again, mixed with other tobaccos or similar native plants
that can be smoked, put on the hot rock, or the fire. Mixed smoke. And usually, the cedar,
the sage, the rabbitbrush, they’re all used to ward off bad energy. And generally, when
our people talk about the emotional, that’s that bad energy. The spiritual, they’re having
trouble with the spirit side of them. They would bless themself with the smoke from the
cedar. This is rabbitbrush. This is also for the emotional and the spiritual. In our family, if
a child had, or family member was being bothered by bad spirits, or just felt really bad—
nightmares, whatever—towards the evening, just before the sun goes down, this bunch of
rabbitbrush would be lit until it creates like a smoke. And the person that was going to be
blessed would be placed in the immediate area of a room where they’re going to be
1
Actually
aippin;
LW
corrects
herself
further
on
(see
p.
17,
or
42:50
in
the
audio).
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9
sleeping, and they were covered with a cloth of some sort, just to keep the burning
embers from getting on them. But this was burnt, and then they were blessed. Prayers
were given, said, throughout their whole body. And I remember Grandma doing this.
Grandma just prayed, she was not a healer. But this is the things you did for your
immediate family, when there were no doctors around. So, this is the emotional and the
spiritual use of this rabbitbrush. And also, when the rabbitbrush’s flower turns bright
yellow, that’s when it’s time to go pick your pinenuts. That’s when you knew that
pinenuts were ready. I brought with me, as well, for the—this should have been the
physical part. And this is also spiritual. This is the wild rose bush, native to our area.
Some of the prayer people, as part of the—they each have their own use of particular
items. So not one [skip in audio at 24:03] always use the same one, they had their own
choices. But I understand that this here, the wild rose bush, was boiled, and it was given
to the person that was having problems, the ailing party. And usually, at least our custom
in our family, is that when we have a family member that is deceased, this rose bush was
put into the coffin, or the burial garment, or whatever they were wearing, so as to protect
the family so that the one that was deceased would not come back and bother the family.
That was what was used for the wild rose bush. But I think that the wild rose bush flower
is much more fragrant than what they have in the market today, because I make potpourri
out of the little pink flower that I gather. And I mix the potpourri with the cedar, with the
sage, with the grandfather sage, with the sagebrush, and with some of the willow. Now,
that takes care of the physical and the emotional. And now we’re going to come back
over here to the spiritual. Again, water was very critical to the spiritual. Always cleansing
yourself, blessing yourself. I understand—this here is actually the shavings, it’s the inner
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membrane that I’ve scraped away from the willow. I take the bark off first, and then
between the bark and the actual rod itself is a membrane, and that’s what this is, where
I’ve scraped it. And I’ve kept this because there is a gentleman that uses this for his
sweats. He smokes this with his mixture. So, and I didn’t know of that. And I’m not
sure—I think the man was from the Pyramid Lake area. Also, the sweetgrass. You can
pass it around. I think a lot of you have smelled the sweetgrass. You can take some of
this, here, too. Smell that, and… Sweetgrass is burned for the emotional and the spiritual,
again with prayers. It also helps when you’re having a bad time in warding off that bad
energy, to smoke your house. I say “smoke your house,” other people say “smudge.” But
that’s what it’s used for. And then, this here is grandfather sage, or white sage. This does
come from California, from the California area. Bishop, Lone Pine area. And it’s a
bundle, and it burns really well, and it smells so nice. It’s all different. And again, that’s
for part of the prayers. And then, I just have a mixture of tobacco, and this is papohovi. I
haven’t put any of the willow on it. Or the totsa, that could use a bunch of totsa with it,
too. Does anybody have any questions? Because this is just a little bit of what we have. I
wanted to talk a little bit about, not only do we use the white rock, but there’s also a red
rock, and that’s called aippin2, and it’s for women that wear rouge, it sort of has that
property. It’s powdery, and it’s really red. But that was also to ward off bad energy. If
you were going into a gathering of people that you weren’t familiar with, the individual
would put the red on the forehead, behind the head, wherever they felt that if anybody
struck them with bad energy, that it would protect them. And it was a powder, too, very
2
Actually pisappin; LW corrects herself further on (see p. 17, or 42:50 in the audio).
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much like this. Let me just kind of pass this around, so you can see what this is here.
Does anybody have any questions?
U1:
Well, I do, I guess. So, all of these are native to Nevada, pretty much?
W:
All of them are native to Nevada, yes.
U1:
Would there have been any other things used that might have been traded, or prized,
or…?
W:
Well, I think probably, if anything would have been traded, it might have been this root
here. Also, the stick with the grandfather white sage. I had some camas seeds, too, that I
intended to plant; this gentleman said that his last name was Camas, but camas was
eaten, the camas bulb was eaten in the Idaho area. And that was part of trading. Our
people used to make jerky out of deer meat, and also antelope. And I’ve seen that, we
don’t go on antelope drives anymore, so antelope has not been used as much in our area.
But from the Fort Washakie area, they traded some antelope jerky with us. And it was
really quite good.
U1:
[__inaudible at 29:43__].
W:
Yeah. It’s really quite good. Yes. Well, actually, when you’re going to smudge a room,
you’ve got to open all your windows, and all your doors. Because the smudging is to get
rid of that negative energy that—so, what you would do is, either you would burn that
smudge stick there, or you would make a smudge stick out of your sage. And you would
smoke the whole house, go through the whole house, filling it with smoke. Your fire
alarms will go off, but that’s what needs to happen, because it has to be really thick. And
then, when you open up your windows and stuff, all of that is just blown out. The bad
energy goes out. And some of our people today still have problems with the houses on
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12
the top, because they’ve been visited by—not our people. I think they’ve been visited by,
probably, there were Chinese people that came through and had little encampments in
different parts of this area here, and I believe that the top Colony, from the information
that I’ve gathered, the top Colony has several places where they might have disturbed the
resting place of an oriental person. I know in my daughter’s house, they see this little tiny
man. They see him often. He’s in the house. So, every once in a while, when they start
feeling really bad, or when they’re at a bad point in there lives that that’s when it bothers
them, then they go and have the house smoked and prayed for. And my uncle passed
away in my house. And my house was a new—I consider it a new house, they were built
in the [19]70s. Or, [19]68 and [19]70s. And I’ve never had him bother me, but my
children see him there. And sometimes it’s the little guys that see things, not the older
people. The little ones are more in tune as to what’s going on. And when you see, when
that starts happening, you know, get somebody to come pray for you. And we have
several people in our community do the prayers, do the smudging. I think among those
people are Chet Stevens, Katherine Blossom, Sean Marsh… These are some people that
can help. But generally, your elders know how to smudge, and they can come and take
care of that for you. And I’m real fortunate to know that [audio cuts out at 32:22] Gerry is
a prayer person. And she did a lot of prayers for my mom when my mom was sick, and
we lost mom last year. But she’s always been great about standing up and giving the
prayers for us, and putting us in a good place before we start our meetings. That’s always
really, really important. And think, when your uncle—her husband—was really sick, he
had cancer of the throat, I believe it was her prayers that really helped him. And he’s
giving me a bad time all the time, he gives me a lot of grief! [Laughter] But, does
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anybody have any other questions, or something that, you know, you would like to share
that your family does? Because not everybody does the same thing. There’s a general
thing we do, and then there’s the things that are reserved for families. So, even though we
are all Native American, we’re all as different as we are similar, in the way we believe
and the way we do things, the way we present ourselves, and so forth. And so—and I am
Shoshone, from this area. And my grandparents are Shoshone, from this area. And even
though there’s paperwork that says that my grandfather, the Dicks that came from the
Paradise Valley area, are—the papers say they’re Shoshone, but I believe that they’re
Paiute. So, I’m a mixture, too. And Whitney is a Navajo name. [Laughter] My exhusband was Navajo. Navajo and Paiute. And so, Whitney would not have been a
common name among the Shoshone people. But, and Norm is right, you know; we all
had, many women had Indian names, Native names, and they might’ve been given a
nickname that was built on, or they might’ve been named after a rancher. But these are
basically the same medicines our people would have used then, that I’m hoping our
people will use today. Continue to use it. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
U2:
You lose it, yeah.
W:
You lose it. Because, as, even though we think there’s an abundance of sage, it’s not the
abundance of sage as it used to be. And if you don’t pray for your medicines, your
plants—I don’t think we do a lot of planning, but if anything is going to be passed on, it
should be done in the family, you know, the same way with the language. If you’re going
to speak your language, it should start in the family. And that’s where we keep things
going. Oh! Chokecherry!
C:
Explain how [Shoshone at 35:24].
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W:
Oh, okay. I can do it. This is a chokecherry patty. This is chokecherries that have been
mashed—because they’re, the seeds are not broken—and made into a patty, like a
hamburger patty, and dried for storing for later use. So, if you were going to use it, you
take what you need, you boiled it, and you mixed it with other things. I just like it plain,
just plain chokecherry pudding. And I’m going to be providing chokecherry pudding,
buckberry pudding, and tepakwini [36:05]—pinenut gravy—during the reception on the
11th of July, for visitors. As a matter of fact, we’re going to get a lot of stuff. We’re
getting three elk, seven deer, groundhog from Owyhee, deer from Owyhee, deer from
South Fork, and we’re trying to get more groundhog from the Yomba Tribe. And we
have squirrels running around here, but nobody wants to eat the squirrels in this
neighborhood because we don’t know what they’re eating! [Laughter] But, the
groundhogs, yeah. I was raised on groundhog. And my birthday always fell on Memorial
Day. And that was always a sad time, but I always looked forward to having groundhog
during Memorial Day! [Laughter] And our groundhog, just like the—there was a tribe, a
group of people that came here, the ones that live in yurts. What are they called?
U3:
Mongolians.
W:
Mongolians. They eat groundhog too. And they prepared their groundhog here, we
prepared our groundhog, and we shared.
U3:
Was it similar? Or was it different?
W:
Theirs was different. Our groundhog was, after you’ve gutted the groundhog, you singe
the hair, you’ve pretty much laced up the area that you took the intestines from, laced it
up. And some people might have packed it with some type of an herb or whatever. But
we just laced it up, and burnt the hair off. And then you’re left with this sort of crust,
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nice, thick crust. Black, burnt crust, which is like foil, and then the groundhog is cooked
underground. And it’s cooked until it’s done, and it’s pretty rich. You can’t eat too much.
It—
U3:
It’s kind of a dark, darkish meat, isn’t it?
W:
No, it’s not. Well… Well, it is darker—well, I would say, it is darker than chicken.
U3:
Tastes just like chicken! [Laughter]
W:
It’s different! [Laughter] You’re going to have to try some. It’s a little bit different. It’s
like with anything that you never had before, you have to acquire a taste for it. Just like a
lot of people don’t like pinenut pudding, and all it is is ground-up pinenuts that have been
roasted and charred and dried and ground into a thick paste, just with water. And a lot of
people don’t like that taste, and I just love it! [Laughter] It’s good for you! Very, very
healthy. But you know, you can only eat a little bit. Too much of a good thing is not
good, as we’ve come to find out as a people. And two, because of the food that we had
was sparse, our people were not big. Our people were thin, they were strong, they had
endurance, they could run a long ways, they traveled for long distances, and they ate just
a little bit of whatever they could put in their hand, you know? That’s, and now we’ve
become excessive with everything that’s good, and I think we show it. You know? Okay.
Norman says I can go ahead and touch this. He says this is not eagle, but this is—this is
just a dreamcatcher? The dreamcatcher didn’t come from the Shoshone people, it came
from the—is it from the Sioux tribe, or other tribes? Their thoughts were that if you hung
up this dreamcatcher, that your bad dreams would be caught, and the good dreams would
come through the hole. And there’s usually a hole in the center. But, and then it’s
adorned with the plumes, and the feathers. The feathers are earned. When you earn your
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feather, then you can wear your feather. And that’s talking about an eagle feather. And
it’s very respected. The eagle takes our prayers. It is the mightiest bird. And I wanted to
say, too, about prayers—when the person that’s giving a prayer gives a prayer, it covers
everything. Yourself, your family, all the little children, all the relatives, those that are
getting old, those whose hearts feel heavy, those who feel good, those who are traveling
that they get to their destination in a safe way, but their families are going to be fine, the
four-legged ones, the ones that crawl, the ones that live under the water, that live under
the ground, the ones that walk upon the land, that fly upon the land, the mountains, the
water, the food. That’s what you give thanks to. You name everything, and sometimes
our prayers do go on and on and on. But, that’s the spiritual part. Well, I want to thank
you for letting me do this, and I also would like to invite each and every one of you to the
reunion. Even share. I mean, this is part of the healing, we’re having a difficult time,
many of our people right now. We’re losing a lot of our culture, we’re losing our ties to
our families, when that’s what it used to be about, is that if our family was together, we
were all together. We were happy. But different occupations, experiences, take us
different places. But we never forget who we are. We’re still here, and we’re still using
some of our plants and our animals in a good way. Okay. I think I can. This one was
papohovi. This one is totsa. This one here is tontsiah, which is—tontsiah is like, the
blooming, there’s girls that are named tontsiah. But this is tontsiah. I’m not sure what
they call the rabbitbrush again—
C:
Sippapin.
W:
Sippapin? Okay. And… help me.
U4:
What is that, cedar?
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W:
Cedar.
U4:
I don’t know. In Paiute, we just call it waap.
W:
Waap3? Okay. This sehepin is willow. Pardon?
U4:
Saawaapi? In Paiute, sagebrush. Saawaapi.
W:
Mmhm. And that’s it. I’m not sure what they call this. And this was called pisappin. Or
no, this epi. Epi is the white one, pisappin is the red one. And pah is water. We all know
water. Yeah.
U5:
Real quick question: do you say dotsa with a “d” or totsa with a “t”?
W:
I say with a “d,” dotsa. Even—other people will put “t” in front of it, but I say “d,” dotsa.
And, but, we’re all mixed, now, too. So it’s okay. And what’s really interesting about our
language is the different dialects. You can tell when somebody’s talking—I know when
somebody’s talking that came from Duckwater, because they speak different than Ely.
And what’s really different is to hear the Timbisha Shoshone speak. They—but they
speak in Shoshone. But here, the Comanche speak Shoshone. Or the Eastern Shoshones.
We’re all the numic-speaking people. And the Utes! I couldn’t believe it! I could hear the
conversation of the two Ute people that were talking in Ute, and I thought we weren’t
related! You know? But Shoshone and Paiute are so close, closely related. And that’s all I
have.
[End of recording]
3
Waappin
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Lois Whitney
Location
The location of the interview
Great Basin College Campus (Elko, NV)
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
DVD and VOB format
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:44:00
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/572
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lois Whitney - Oral history (05/2011)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Lois Whitney, Western Shoshone from Elko, NV, on 05/2011
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lois Whitney was born in Elko, Nevada along with her children and mother “Liz” Brady. Her family hails from all over the Western Shoshone territory. Her presentation goes over the different types of plants that are indigenous to the Great Basin area, and how they were used by the native people in the area. As Lois says, her presentation was to “talk a little about the physical, the emotional, and spiritual healing” characteristics of the plants as well as how they were used by the Native peoples. She also speaks a little about other items within her presentation as well.</p>
Video Pending <br /> <a title="Lois Whitney Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/8c894abc984f242d04cc980bd9b50207.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Lois Whitney Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 026
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
05/2011 [May 2011]; 2011 May
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/items/show/352
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Elko
GBIA
Great Basin
medicinal plants
Shoshone
Story
traditional medicines
traditions