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Lloyd
Hanks
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
033
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
April
16,
2014
Owyhee,
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 033
Interviewee: Lloyd Hanks
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: April 16, 2014
H:
My name is Lloyd Hanks. And I’m a member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe here on the
Duck Valley Reservation that’s located on the Nevada-Idaho border, about a hundred
fifty miles south of Boise, Idaho. And I understand this project is for the SYLAP
program, and my feeling is that all our youth need to know where they come from, who
their ancestors are, and where our languages are from. Your language, the Uto-Aztecan
Shoshonean language is a very big language group. Our group—our languages are related
all the way from Central America to the California coast, to the Great Basin, into
Wyoming, and into Oklahoma. So, it’s important that you know what your language
bases are. And if you don’t know it, you can study it. Look it up on the internet, and
you’ll find all kinds of information on the languages. So, what I’m going to be talking
about is, our Indian veterans here on the Duck Valley Reservation. And also, when I get
done with that, I’ll be talking about Native American veterans, and those in the military
from the time our country was founded to the present time. So, I’ll start by saying that my
mother came from the Paradise Valley area, which is about fifty miles west of here. And
my father, some of his people came from the Bruneau area, and my grandmother on my
dad’s side, I believe she came from around the Reese River area. But because my dad
passed away when I was very young, that—I don’t know a lot of the history on my
father’s side. But, being here—when I came back from the military— [Laughter] Oh,
well, I better back up a little bit, tell you that I’m retired from the Air Force. I served
about 34 years on active duty in the Air Guard and the Retired Reserve. And I was in for
34 years, and I retired as a master sergeant. And my military family side is my father,
Clarence Hanks, who our American Legion Post is named after. Our Legion Post is
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named Jack Hanks, and it’s named after two individuals from our community who were
killed in action in World War II in Europe. And one was my father, Clarence Hanks,
Private First Class serving with the 29th Infantry Division, and he was killed somewhere
around the Sigfried Line, in Germany. The other individual was Sidney Jack. He was
with the first infantry division, and he participated in the Normandy landing. And that’s
where he was wounded, and died from his wounds. And he was also awarded the Bronze
Star for his valor. So, that’s where our name, Jack Hanks, comes from for our post. And
we’ve had other military people from here who were killed in action. There was Gerald
Whiterock, who was killed in action in Korea. David Pursley, also killed in action in
Korea. In Vietnam, we lost two people from our community. Larry Parker, with the 173rd
Airborne Brigade, on his, probably second or third tour to Vietnam, he was killed in
action. Captain Eddie Molino. He was a green beret the first time he went to Vietnam. He
came back and went to helicopter school, and then he went back to Vietnam, and he was
lost in a crash, or he was shot down in Cambodia. But as a small community, we have a
very large number of veterans from all services, all eras of the service. We have probably
over 300 veterans on this reservation now. My own side of the family, my brother was in
the Navy, he served on the U.S.S. Cole, which was a Destroyer. My brother Roland, he
served in Fort Myer, Virginia, with a unit that’s called USASCAF. It’s a unit that
performs services to all the Congressional people and stuff. Big wheels in the
Washington, D.C. area. One of the high side of his tour over there in Fort Myer was he
got to drive in one of the inaugural parades. And my nephew, Garland Deppler, was in
the Navy, serving on the U.S.S. Ranger as an aircraft mechanic, the same as I was. So we
had a lot of good talks with him. My cousin, Bernard Rose, served in the Army. I have a
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grandson, Kendrick Owyhee. He’s been in the Army since 2000, May of 2000. And he
volunteered to be a cavalry scout. And what they do is, they operate Humvees and
Bradleys, and they go out and scout in front of the troops before they move in. And he
took his training at Fort Knox. Kentucky. And then after his training, he was assigned to
the Third Armored Cavalry in Fort Carson, Colorado. And then, after the 9/11, he went to
Iraq with the Third Armored Cavalry. And then he came back for a short break, and then
went back again. Back to Iraq with the same unit. And then he was selected to be an
instructor at the U.S. Army armor school at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. And after he finished
there, he went to the Thirteenth Armored Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Bliss, Texas. And he
went back to Iraq again. And then, after he got back from Iraq, he got assigned to the 4th
Infantry Division in Fort Carson, Colorado. And with the 61st Cavalry. And then he went
back to, went to Afghanistan. And then he came back, he was back about a year. And just
this past March, he went back to Afghanistan with the 61st Cavalry, 4th Infantry. So he’s
over there now in Afghanistan. So he had five tours, so that’s equivalent to five years in a
combat zone. But I’m proud of what he did, and also proud of all our young men and
women who are serving on active duty now. A lot of them are staying in and not coming
back because of the way our economy is presently. But we had a lot of people during
World War II. Almost all our male people were in the military. And this was a real
hardship to the families that were left behind. Because back then, everything was
rationed. And if your family member was in the military, you were issued ration cards.
And you used these cards to buy sugar, leather goods, tires if you owned a car, gasoline,
things like that. Because during the war years, everything was restricted. You couldn’t
just go out and buy them. And so, our people were all over in Europe, and the
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China/Burma area, in the Pacific, in all branches of service. And after they all came back,
some of them went on to school, and learned some trades. Others came back and started
ranching, and doing other things. And raising families. And a lot of them chose to be our
tribal leaders with our tribal government. And then Korea came about, and a lot of our
young men, some volunteered to go into the military. Others were drafted. And about,
probably 40-50 people from our little reservation here ended up in Korea. And Korea was
a bad place to be because of the real cold weathers they had there, where people couldn’t
fight good because everything was freezing. Their guns would freeze up. And plasma that
they tried to give to wounded troops would freeze. And things like that. But lot of them
came back, and like I said, we lost two people over there. And then, during Vietnam, a lot
of our young men also went to Vietnam. And some were wounded pretty bad. Two were
killed. And lot of them ran into each other at the different hospitals, like in Washington,
and in California. So, they all got together, and enjoyed their company. And then, after
that, Desert Storm, the first Gulf War came about, and some of our young men ended up
over there, also. And then, after 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq came about, and a
lot of our young men and women volunteered for the services, and ended up in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and other areas in the Middle East. And like I said, some of them are
choosing to remain in the military, and others came back, used their military training to
get jobs, like with the Border Patrol, working with the military, and teaching other
military personnel from the skills they learned in the military. So that’s pretty much what
our people have done with their service. And myself, I joined right out of high school,
because at that time, jobs were scarce if you didn’t have training. And back in them days,
there weren’t scholarships like there are now. So, the only option for me was to join the
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Air Force. So I joined the Air Force in 1957 when I was 18. I took my basic training at
Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and then they give you all kinds of qualification tests
in the military. And I qualified to get into aircraft maintenance. So, they sent me to
Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas, and I didn’t know yet what I was going to get into.
Until I got there. And then after I got there, they found out what squadron I was going to,
and they said, “That’s where you go for jet engine training.” So I started my technical
training as a jet engine mechanic. After I completed there, I got assigned to Whiteman
Air Force Base in Missouri as a jet engine mechanic, working on jet engines on B-47
bombers. So I did that for about 2 years, and then I cross-trained over into jet aircraft
maintenance, where I worked on J-33 single engine jet trainers. And I was responsible for
everything on the plane, the engines, landing gears, and everything. And wherever that
plane went, I went. [Laughter] If it went into inspection docks where we had to tear it all
down and everything, and inspect everything, I had to be there and take care of all the
writeups, clear them. Some of the items we had to send to specialty shops like the jet
engine shops, electrical shops. And then when they all come back, we had to put them all
back together, and then get the plane back on the line, and the pilots would do a test hop
on it. And if everything worked, then I ended up back on the flight line with my plane. So
one of the highlights of my tour as an aircraft mechanic was, I was selected to be a crew
chief. Crew chief is the name of the person that’s responsible for the whole airplane. And
I was selected to be a crew chief for the general’s plane. So, the first general I worked for
was a one-star general, a brigadier general. And he left, and the other general that came
in was a two-star general. And then, while I was there, I was up at personnel one day—
well, let me back up just a little bit. No, that’s all right. I went up to personnel to do
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something, and I heard people talking that were saying that, “We need three volunteers
from the aircraft field to go into Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program.” So, I went
back to the flight line and told two of my friends. So, we went back and we volunteered.
And my unit were saying, “We can’t afford to let you go, because we’re going to be short
of people, because people are getting out and they’re getting transferred to different
places in the Air Force.” And finally, we got orders that came down by name, rank, serial
number, and Air Force project. So then, we knew they couldn’t keep us from going. So
then I was reassigned to Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas. I didn’t know what kind of
missile I was going to be assigned to until I got there. After I got there, we found out that
we were going to be on the Atlas E [SM-65E] missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles.
That’s all we knew, we didn’t know what our jobs were going to be. So then, after we
were there for a couple of months, they sent us back to Sheppard Air Force Base in
Texas. And then put us in school, and I found out that I was going to be a missile
maintenance technician. And my job was going to be all the ground support equipment
that supports that intercontinental ballistic missile to be launched. And also, I had to
know everything about the missile itself. So it was a tough school, and I had to struggle
in some areas to make it. But I made it. And then we went back to our base in Kansas. I
knew I was a missile maintenance technician, but yet I didn’t know exactly what I was
going to do. Well, after I got back, they started picking missile launch crews—or, they
called them, “Missile Combat Crews.” They had, there was going to be: two officers; a
missiles combat crew commander; a deputy missile combat crew commander, which is
probably a captain or a first lieutenant; a ballistic missile analyst technician, who is an
expert in electronics, and he was responsible for all the electronics, ground support
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equipment, and electronics aboard the missile; and the missile maintenance technician,
which was me, and I was responsible for all the mechanical portions of the site and the
missile; and an engine power production specialist. Our missile sites were self-contained.
We produced our own electric power. Our own heating and cooling, air conditioning.
Everything that was on the site was produced right there. And the site was built so that
we were 25 feet underground, and then our missile was located about a hundred feet
away from us through a long tunnel. And the missile laid horizontally, and then, when we
got ready to launch, it would raise up, and then we would fill it up with rocket propellant
and liquid oxygen, helium, liquid nitrogen, and everything, ‘til it got to the launch point.
So we all had to be at our assigned positions during launch. And do whatever we were
assigned to do. And a lot of those things, we had to know right off of the top of our
heads, because if something went wrong, we didn’t have the luxury of calling in people
from the base. If we were in a launch condition, we had to correct the problem and get the
missile off the ground and on its way. And this is one thing a lot of people didn’t know:
that in 1962, we came very close to a nuclear war with Russia. This was what was called
the “Cuban Missile Crisis,” where the Russians were building missiles on the island of
Cuba, and these missiles were capable of hitting every major city in the United States,
with the exception of a very small portion, probably, up on the northeast part of the state
of Washington. And these were all nuclear weapons, which would have just wiped out
everything they hit. And our missiles carried nuclear weapons also. We didn’t know
where our targets were. That’s one thing that they never told us, we had a selection of
Target A or B. We didn’t know where they were. We didn’t know if they were
groundburst or airburst. So we didn’t know if they were going to, the warheads were
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going to burst before they hit the ground, or burst when they hit the ground. You know,
you’ve all seen what atomic bombs did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs, atomic
bombs, that were dropped there were seven kilotons. This means they were about seven
thousand tons of TNT, or equivalent to that. And the one that was dropped on Nagasaki
was about 12 kilotons, or 12,000 tons, of TNT. Our warheads were rated at about 8
megatons. This is 8 million tons of TNT. And when they exploded on the ground from
point zero, which is the center of where the bomb hit, probably 25 miles out from that
point is going to be nothing. And from there on out, the destruction will be less and less.
But once the bomb explodes, then all that air that the bomb pushes out is going to go out.
Then it’s going to cause a vacuum. And then, that vacuum, all that air that got pushed
out’s got to go somewhere. So all that air’s going to come back in, causing more
destruction, and go on up. So. So it’s, it was very destructive. But we didn’t know exactly
how close we came to a nuclear war. Normally, on the site, we have one crew per site, of
five people on the launch crew and four security guards. During the Cuban crisis, they
doubled that. We had two crews, which is ten people, and eight security people, and they
doubled our length of tours, so we were on the site for 48 hours at a time. Both the
missile crews and the security guards. So, it got pretty crowded down in the missile sites.
But, if our President Kennedy wasn’t as strong as he was, there is no telling where we
would have ended. So, be proud of your relatives who served in the military. Thank them.
Because they, all of them, we owe our gratitude, our freedom, our way of life. To be here,
to practice our native ways, to practice our languages. So. And that’s, I want you guys to
be sure that you respect your people. Have respect for your elders. Respect your
language. Respect your Tribe. Know who you are, know where you came from. Know
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your language. You may not know it fluently, but learn it from elders. Be curious. Always
be willing to learn. So that’s some of what I’ve encountered. And the main thing I want
to emphasize on you is, stay in school. Because if you do plan to go in the military, there
are a lot of very good careers now. But you need a lot of schooling to get into them. Like,
there’s a lot of computer fields that are open to you, that, if you go through it, finish it in
the military, there’s lot of jobs on the civilian side that’ll be open to you, that you can
qualify for. There’s a lot of jobs in the military that you can qualify for. Good jobs in the
civilian world. Or they’ll prepare you to be, be ahead when you do come back and decide
to go to, go on to college or whatever you want to do. But the main thing is, develop your
interests now, and look at what courses are going to help you through your high school
years. And take those courses. And if I didn’t take Physics—I think that helped me the
most—I wouldn’t have got in to all the technical skills that I was able to get into. So
think about it. Think about it, about what you want to do. Now, and while you’re in
school. And think ahead, five or ten years down the road. So, let’s kind of move on to
what our Native Americans contributed to our country. And our Native Americans have
always been active in our military. For over 200 years, when our country was first being
developed, they sided with our frontiersmen against the British, and the French. And the
frontiersmen learned a lot of skills from our native people. How to fight. And lot of those
skills were passed on to the non-Indians, like the Rogers’ Rangers from the wars, early
wars. They used those skills of the Rogers’ Rangers, they handed them down to what’s
now our Special Forces, our Green Berets, our Marine Recon, our SEALs. Those skills
they learned were skills that were taught to them by the Native Americans. So, our Native
Americans played a big part in what our military is now. And our Native Americans have
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the highest enlistment rate of any ethnic group in our country. We have more Indians per
capita in the military than all the other ethnic groups, like the Hispanics, the blacks, the
whites. And our leaders appreciate that. And that’s because of our, the warrior traditions,
from all of our elders, and our different tribes, that were passed down to us. And what
that tradition said was that the warriors are to protect our people, our homelands, our
property, our way of life, our religion, and our game, and everything that Native
Americans survived on before the Europeans came. So those were things that they
learned, and those were passed down by our ancestors, down to us. And out of those
warrior traditions, to qualify to be in the military, you had to be brave, you had to be
dedicated, you had to have strength. You had to have pride—pride in yourself, pride in
your country. And that’s what our native people bring to us. The other thing that, other
thing that’s different with the Native Americans in the military is that, before they go in,
they go through ceremonies to bless them. And a lot of times, they are given things to
take with them to go to war. Little medicine bags to carry with them that may have
different things in them, or eagle feathers that has been blessed and given to them. Like
my grandson, he carried an eagle feather all the way through his deployments, that was
blessed by two combat veterans. And one time, he was telling me that him and another
guy, that they were on this Bradley, which is like a small tank, and an enemy fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at them. And there was just a small opening, there was no way
that two of them could get through that small opening, so they just stood there and
watched that rocket-propelled grenade coming at them. And before it got there, the
grenade disintegrated. And another time, his Bradley ran over a mine, a big mine, and it
didn’t detonate. So, he said that was probably because of what he carried with him. The
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eagle feather. That was to protect him. So, that’s how we are different from the nonIndians. Some of the other things that you have probably seen, is like the flag raising on
Iwo Jima. The marines raising the flag. And this was, the picture that was taken shows
the marines raising the flag. And that picture was taken by Joseph Rosenthal. That picture
was the second flag-raising. There was a first flag-raising of a smaller flag. And there
was a Native American marine that took part in that. And his name was Louis Charlo. He
was from the Salish tribe, of the Flathead Reservation in Montana. The second flagraising also had a Native American. And this was Corporal Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona. Of the five people that raised the second
flag, only three of them survived. Ira Hayes survived, John Bradley, a pharmacist from
the Navy—he was a corpsman—and René Gagnon, a Marine private. And after that flagraising, they were ordered to return to the United States, and they were put on a tour to
help sell war bonds. And that’s what they did. And Ira Hayes told the people wherever he
went, he said, “I’m not a hero. My heroes didn’t come home.” And that was his thought,
and that was the way he thought about his military. And that’s the way a lot of our people
who come back are. They don’t claim to be anything, they keep it within themselves. So,
I thought that was interesting that there was two Native Americans with the flag-raising.
The other contribution that came about was our code-talkers. In World War II, the
Choctaw were code-talkers, and they served in Europe. There was 12,000 American
Indians that served in World War I, although they were not citizens yet. Yet they served.
And one of those, you’ve probably seen the movie about—oh, what’s his name, he’s—
anyway, a guy from World War I who was a conscientious objector. He was from the
Southern states, a white guy. They made a movie about him, and he won the
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Congressional Medal of Honor, for capturing Germans. But one thing that was never
brought about or made known was, one of the Choctaw code-talkers, by the name of Joe
Oklahombi, also captured 171 German prisoners, and killed 79 Germans. But he wasn’t
awarded the Medal of Honor, he was given the Silver Star. And that was a fallacy of a lot
of not only Indians, but the Japanese, the blacks, and the Hispanics that did great deeds of
bravery, lot of them weren’t recognized like the non-Indians. ‘Til recently. But the codetalkers, the best-known was the Navajos. They—let me back up to the code-talkers in
World War I. There were code-talkers from the Cherokee tribes, the Cheyenne tribes, the
Choctaw, the Comanche, Osage, and the Yankton Sioux. Then I mentioned about one of
them who did a great deed. In World War II, there were Assiniboines, Cherokee,
Chippewa, Oneida, Choctaw, Comanche, Hopi, Kiowa, Menominee, Muskogee Creek
and Seminole, Navajo, Pawnee, Sac and Fox, Meskwaki, Sioux—Lakota and Dakota
dialect. And the most well-known was the Navajo code-talkers who served in the Marine
Corps. They originally recruited twenty-nine Navajos to develop a code to be used,
because the other codes that the U.S. used were being broken by the Japanese. So, these
29 original code-talkers developed codes, and they taught these to the other code-talkers
that came after them, in their own language. And they used their own language, alphabet,
different things that they talked to. Like for an ant, letter for ant was A, or for the Navajo
was wol-la-chee, and different things like that. And they had to develop words for things
that weren’t common to the Navajo language, like fighter planes. So they had to develop
something for them, so they called a fighter planes “hummingbirds.” And different things
like that, that they didn’t have words for. And they were assigned to every unit that went
to war in the Pacific. And not only that, they assigned Marines to watch out for them, to
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protect them. And not mainly to protect them from being captured; to protect them so that
there was no way that they could, to give out the code that they had developed. So if they
ever got captured, these people that were there to protect them, they had orders to shoot
and kill these Navajo code-talkers. My son went to a conference when he was going to
SIPI in Socorro, New Mexico. And a code-talker came in and talked to them. And he told
them, “We weren’t code-talkers by choice.” The marines told them that, “If you don’t
volunteer to be a code-talker, we know where your families live.” So a lot of them who
didn’t volunteer were made to be code-talkers. The other code-talkers that served in
Europe was the Comanches. They served with the 4th Infantry Division in Europe. And
they did the same thing. They used their own language, Comanche language, which is
related to the language that you guys are going to be studying while you guys are over
there. And they used the same languages to talk to each other. And they also developed
words that they could use in their own language. Like, for Hitler, they called him a “crazy
white man” in the Comanche language. It was, “Posa Taibo.” That’s what they called
him. Crazy White Man. But they had to develop words for things that weren’t common to
the Comanche language. And other tribes served in different places all over the world.
The Hopi people served in Europe with the Army Air Force, and they also did that, used
their language to talk about the missions and things like that. So, it’s been said that the
war would have lasted longer had it not been for the code-talkers. So, by shortening the
war, many lives were lost. Because if the Japanese didn’t surrender, the U.S. was going to
attack Japan itself, with great losses. So… So our people saved a lot of lives. And other
things that happened is that many Indians were decorated for their bravery during the
war. And the United States has a medal that’s called a Congressional Medal of Honor.
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This medal was established by George Washington, when he was the first president. And
awarded for bravery in all conflicts since then. And the criteria for winning this award is
very strict. Only 36,000 medals have been awarded, from all the conflicts from when
George Washington fought to our present conflicts. Prior to World War I, like during the
Indian campaigns, nine Indian scouts were awarded the Medal of Honor. In World War
II, seven American Indians were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In Korea,
three were awarded the Medal of Honor. And three were awarded Medal of Honor in
Vietnam. And there again, some of these were late in coming. Like the award to a Sioux
warrior from the community of Sisseton, South Dakota. He fought in Korea and World
War II. And he was awarded, his actions for his valor in Korea. But there was no followthrough on the recommendations, or the recommendations were lost, and different things
like that, until some Congressional people and tribal people pushed it. And so, just
recently, they awarded him his Medal of Honor, but he had already died, so he didn’t live
to see that. In our little community here, we have veterans from all branches of service,
all eras. And when I came back from the service, I thought about, how can we honor our
people? They deserve some kind of recognition. So, I started working on a database, to
try to list all our people from here that served in the military in all branches of service.
And later on, after I developed it and other people saw it, I got more help, and we
developed more, and we even included people who have relatives that live here but
served in the military from different reservations. And we added them to our database,
and we keep track of all our people who are currently on active duty, where they’re on
active duty. And if new people join, the families let us know, and we add them. And we
also include employees from our organizations that serve our tribe, like the Bureau of
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Indian Affairs, Law Department, our schools, and all our different people that come here
to work with our tribe. So we add them to our database also. So, right now it’s pretty
complete. So we have a total of about 312 veterans living here in Duck Valley, and I
think I already covered how we got to name the Legion Post, and our casualties from
here. Every November, we have a Veteran’s Day Powwow. And the Veterans lead the
Grand Entry. And we have a eagle staff that we carry. And on that eagle staff, we have,
on the medicine wheel, two eagle feathers for the two people killed in World War II, and
two eagle feathers on the medicine wheel for the two that were killed in Korea. On the
staff itself are seven eagle feathers for the seven Native Americans from the state of
Nevada who were killed in action in Vietnam. And those are, those names on the staff are
read off as the Grand Entry comes in. So that is one thing that we make sure that we do,
every year. And another thing that we make sure that we do is that, we honor our veterans
who are deceased, while they are being buried. We always have a veterans’ group there
with firing squad, play the taps, and present the flag to the next of kin. We also plant
flags on all our graves on our five cemeteries. And that is an ongoing things that we
always want to carry on. So, that’s pretty much my presentation on how we honor our
veterans, both from here and all over America and other tribes. And I appreciate the
opportunity to talk to you people. And should you ever be in our area, or have questions,
don’t be afraid to ask me. And if you see a veteran or somebody in uniform, go shake
their hands and thank them. And they’ll appreciate it. In closing, I would like to say I
appreciate Norman Cavanaugh’s interest in working with the SYLAP program in
developing things to be presented to all the participants there at SYLAP, and I want to
thank him for his efforts in promoting culture here with our tribe. And while he was
�GBIA
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Hanks;
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working for the Great Basin College. And I had the pleasure of working with Norman
Cavanaugh when I was working with the Indian Health Service, so I have known Norman
for quite a while, and I always appreciate talking to him. And I learn a lot of things by
talking to him. So he’s always pleasant to be around. And if you see him, you know what
I mean. So if you see him, if he happens to be there, just tell him thank you, and tell him
you appreciate his efforts. Thanks.
[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
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
Loyd Hanks
Location
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Duck Valley reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID)
Original Format
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AVI and MP4 format
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00:58:27
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/624
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Loyd Hanks - Oral history (04/16/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Loyd Hanks, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley reservation, NV-ID, on 04/16/2017
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Loyd Hanks is a Western Shoshone from the Duck Valley reservation his family came from both Paradise Valley, NV and Reese River, NV. Loyd talks about how he became a crew chief in the U.S. Air Force as part of a jet engine mechanic crew, and how he also worked on a missile crew during the Cuban missile crisis involving Russia. He also speaks and honors previous Native American military men, and also pays tribute towards the different Native American code-talkers during the various wars involving the U.S. He also speaks about how the culture helped these individuals survive the turmoil of the wars, and moreover gives advice to the younger audience relaying that learning and preserving the culture is vital and worthwhile.</p>
<p>Video pending</p>
<p><a title="Read Loyd Hanks oral history transcript" href="/omeka/admin/files/show/624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Loyd Hanks oral history transcript</a> [pdf file]</p>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 033
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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04/16/2014 [16 April 2014]; 2014 April 16
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/410
Language
A language of the resource
English
code talkers
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
history
military
Shoshone
Story
U.S Force
veteran
-
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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00:23:21
Dublin Core
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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
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/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/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
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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?
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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
�
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Sr.;
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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
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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
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Pete,
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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.
�GBIA
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Pete,
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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?
�GBIA
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Pete,
Sr.;
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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
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
Dennis F. Pete, Sr.
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID)
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
DVD, MP4, and AVI Format
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:31:15
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
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
A name given to the resource
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>
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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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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
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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
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
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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
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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
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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/5e64c22b88f2fcac52434cb9bc226d3f.jpg
1e540825c65c6b1597eef2edc8c94975
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/2724bb8dd97a439c6a5eee48fec1ee16.pdf
f093c304e150c2964e83a9ea77165f01
PDF Text
Text
Lyle
Nu(ng
&
Eloy
Thacker
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
025
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
June
2,
2010
Owyhee,
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 025
Interviewee: Lyle Nutting and Eloy Thacker
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: June 2, 2010
N:
Hi, I’m Lyle Nutting. Born and reared out here in Owyhee, started in 1938.
T:
Eloy Cy Thacker. I was born here on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. Went to
grammar school and high school here.
C:
Today we’re going to talk to these two gentlemen about the Owyhee School, and Lyle’s
dad used to be the principal here years ago, so we’re going to recap a little bit of history
here for the audience today. So, Lyle, and Cy, feel free to chime in and tell us about
Owyhee School, and what you remember, and what you recall, as your childhood
growing up here.
N:
Okay, I’ll start with my dad. My dad came in 1930, and out of Albion Normal College in
Idaho. And there was a job offer down here in Owyhee for a principal/teacher, and my
dad came down, and from Mountain Home to Owyhee took him three days in a 1929
pickup. And the second night, he stayed with Jesse Little, and Jesse Little lined him out
the next morning on the right road to take, which ones was going to end up in a creek and
et cetera. He came, and there were five schools in Owyhee at the time. And Cy’s dad,
Harry, was one of the school board members that interviewed my dad. And they
discussed the five schools, and whether it would ever be a good school system or a bad.
In those days, kids went to school when they weren’t branding, they weren’t haying, they
weren’t pushing cows out or bringing them back in, they weren’t getting wood, they
weren’t catching salmon down in the river—fish, and things like that. So school lasted
about three months, maybe at the very, very most four. And after a period of time of
looking, my dad told the guys that they would never have a school system if they didn’t
go to just one school. And make it a consolidated school for the whole tribe. And at that
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time, there was kind of a division line on the reservation. The Paiutes were basically
towards the Idaho side, the Shoshones were basically on the south side. And according to
my dad and many people I’ve talked to, they didn’t really care much for each other.
There was not any love lost over the years. And to make one school, they hired my dad,
gave him a hundred bucks a month, and he was the highest-paid graduate of Albion
School as a teacher from 1930 to 1939—nobody ever got a better salary than he did
coming out to Owyhee. And after he took the job, he raced back to Emmett, Idaho, and
my mom had accepted a contract to teach at Emmett, and my dad proposed to her, and
she broke a contract. And in those days, for a woman to break a contract, you might as
well go shoot yourself, because you were a done duck. [Laughter] He brought her out
here—of course, she got to teach out here, he gave her a job out here teaching, and so it
worked out that way—but as far as going back to Idaho, she was done for her days. And
now, we’ll let Cy go.
T:
I went to grammar school here. Lyle was my classmate in the grammar school. And I
remember the old high school. Used to sit right across, south from here, past the fence
there. And we ate—the kitchen was downstairs, classroom was upstairs, and Mr.
Nutting’s office was up in there, there were upstairs. And I never did get the chance to
get sent to the principal’s office, but I know a lot of my classmates, they didn’t behave,
and they were sent up there to visit the principal. And I understand he had a couple
garden hose strapped together, and one of my classmates, Lloyd Hanks, would put a
notebook behind in his pants when he go up there for to see the principal. [Laughter] He
knew what was going to happen. And we were, my class were the seniors, we were the
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last ones to move out of the old Swayne School here, and move over to the new high
school. We were the first ones here, we were seniors then.
C:
About what year was that, Cy, would you say?
T:
Well, I graduated—we graduated in 1957. So. [Counts the years over.] So [19]57, I was
in high school, and then the other times, I was in grammar school. I failed the third grade,
and got put one grade behind. I was kind of sad, but I had to accept it. And Lyle went one
grade ahead, along with Jim Pyburn, Rosanna Jones, and all the others.
N:
Karen Shaw, yep, yep. We had a good class. We had a real good class. But he didn’t fail
classwork. He had some injuries to his arm and his elbow, and he wasn’t in school. He
was laying up in a hospital. So they didn’t let him go. And that’s why he had to leave us
for a little while. [Laughter] Yeah. This building behind me here is the, we call it the old
Rock Gym. And before they had the Rock Gym, my dad had games played with the girls
and the boys, and out there where that baskets is, standing where that yellow, where kids
climb up on that yellow deal, that’s about where the basketball court was in those days.
And they used to draw lines in the sand, in the dirt, and the first game played against
competition was played against Bruneau. And the Bruneau people brought their kids up
here, and they had a girls’ game and they had a boys’ game. And the out-of-bounds line
was dirt, and the referees were my dad, Raymond Thacker, and a coach from Bruneau,
took turns, and they had some fun afterwards. They had a real big feed for everybody.
Bruneau kids stayed overnight. They stayed out and slept in—I guess in the basement of
the old school, and then the next morning, they got fed, and then they went home. This
building was designed by the CCC and the WPA to be built in late [19]36, and they
started, and it was during the Depression, and they got the building built where it is, looks
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as it is today, and inside the gym, there’s a stage. And the gym floor was actually
supposed to go clear underneath where the stage is. They ran out of money, they didn’t
have any roof, and the walls were, couldn’t go any higher, because they didn’t have any
money for more rocks, so they decided that what they’d better do is, one of my dad’s
friends was the band teacher. He says, “I’ll put a stage up there. I’ll teach band, music,
and we’ll have some programs.” So that’s why the stage is there. And then they put a roof
on it. The roof was supposedly, originally was going to be flat with the drains on it for the
water to run off, and that’s why it’s pitched like it is. And it opened in [19]37, and the
first games they played were teams like from Montello, Carlin, Bruneau, Grand View,
Castleford, et cetera. And the first games they had out of here in this gym, was, the
people would not come inside the gym, because they were not used to and they were
leery about the lights. They were afraid when they got in there, the lights would go off,
and what were they going to do? And then, the toilets were the first time that they’d ever
been out here in Owyhee, and with the water and et cetera, and there was comments made
about, “Well, where does it go?” And, “If you fall in, what happens to you?” And so, the
two things scared people, so they wouldn’t come to the games. Now, Dad, Raymond
Thacker, Charlie Paradise the policeman, and the visiting teams—and the kids—were the
only ones that would go in the gym. So Dad and Charlie decided, that’s not going to
work. So they boarded up all these windows, so nobody could see. And played the
games. Well, people would be outside with their knife, and they’d be trying to carve a
little hole in so they could peep through and see what was going on. And Charlie Paradise
would parole the place and not let them do it. Finally, they slowly, eventually, got people
to going in to watch the games. And my dad said by 1938 or [193]9, he said that you
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couldn’t find enough seats. The gym was full, and people were jammed in there, and they
didn’t care about water, they didn’t care about lights or anything else. And everybody had
a really good time. Back to Cy.
T:
As I was growing up, we, at home, we didn’t have any electricity in our home. No
refrigerator, no running water, we had outside toilet. And me and my younger brother
would bathe in a tub. Heat water outside, mom would wash clothes, my hands. And when
I got into high school, I wasn’t a very big guy, but I wanted to go out for sports so I could
take a hot shower after each football game, or basketball game. That is, it was nice to
shower in a nice, good, hot shower room, you know? And I participated in basketball—
football, basketball, and track. And I recall during basketball, when we were seniors, we
were the known champs in the B-zone. We went to State, and we played in Elko in the
state tournament, and we beat Eureka and Lund, first two games. And for the
championship, we played Fernley. And Fernley beat us in the championship game. And it
was right there in Elko. A lot of Owyhee people were at the Elko gym, and that’s the
most had ever watched the high school games at that time. And then, springtime came. I
went out for track, and the four of us made it to state. I was a miler, I was a B-zone
champion, miler, went to State as a miler; and Cuban was a pole vault; David Jones was
a 440 man; and Red Chambers was a 100-yard dash man. And we all placed. And we
was at, the state track meet was in Reno. And Coach Olsson was our football and
basketball coach, and he took me to the side one day, and said, “Cy, you can be anybody
or anything that you want to. It’s all up to you. You got to—after you graduate, you got
to start your own life here sometime.” And that really stuck in my mind. And I couldn’t
go to any college or university, because my grade point average was below—I think it
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was a C-minus. And a lot of universities and colleges wouldn’t accept me. But Brigham
Young University catered to Indian students, and they accepted me. And I went there for
three years. And didn’t finish. Met my girlfriend which became my wife, and we got
married and moved to Cherokee, North Carolina, where I lived there for almost two
years. And that was my intentions to go to school. You know? My aunt, Irene Thacker,
was a teacher here in our school. And then at the school there, she went to the teacher’s
lounge. Before she got to the door, she heard Kenneth say—Kenneth Crawford—telling
them, the other teachers, “You know that Eloy Thacker? You know, I would never
recommend him to any school that’s running, because he’ll never make it.” So, Irene told
me, “Come over the weekend, and we’ll talk.” So that’s what she told me. What. Well,
that put a drive in me so I can find a place to go to school. Just to prove to Kenneth
Crawford that Cy Thacker can make it, and I done pretty good in the first two quarters,
three quarters at the school. And another goal I set was, that I meet a girlfriend there, and
then she became my sweetheart, and then she became—we got married in Elko, and
moved to North Carolina. So. And I didn’t set the goal to finish. That should have been
one of my goals, too! To finish school. And I tried to take correspondence courses, but I
spent 300 dollars on couple classes, and when you’re out of tune, messing with school—
it was tough. I just throw away 300 dollars. Owyhee was, high school was pretty good to
me, you know? I would say. Fred Howard was our band teacher in high school. He was
a teacher. He made you learn. And we had a top band that competed with Elko,
Winnemucca, all these schools around northern Nevada here. And we had a very
excellent band. And we had, in our high school band, maybe 65 members in our band.
And we marched in different formation. And Fred Howard was really good instructor,
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you know? He made you learn. And when I came back from Carson City to Owyhee, I
was at the Seniors Center, and I heard the band playing. I went outside, I want to see
what the band looked like. And you know, they wasn’t like our high school band. They
walked however they want, out of step, and it wasn’t Fred Howard’s band that we had.
And…
C:
So you’re still an athlete today, I understand. You still compete in Senior Olympics?
T:
Oh yeah. I still compete in a Senior Olympics in 2000—2000 was the qualifying seed.
Boise, Idaho, was the qualifying city for Seniors. And then, the next year—you qualify,
and then the next year, you, I went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I participated. You
either have to get first or second to qualify for the Nationals. And I qualified in seven,
seven events I went back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and competed. Didn’t win any
medal or ribbon, but I competed. I wore—the humidity was high, rubberized track, and I
wore blood blisters on my left and right foot which hampered me. But it was good to
meet other athletes, there were real athletes there. And I don’t run anymore. I compete in
other Senior games in Elko, and I’m looking forward to that. So it keeps me in shape, and
hanging with the young. [Laughter]
N:
After they decided to consolidate, bring the five schools in and make one school system
in the valley, they decided that, “Well, we’re going to have to have some buildings.” So,
this land that we’re on right here was what was given for a school district. And the first
schools they decided they’d better build was for the little kids. Because most of the
people, when they got in older, they would go to Stewart, or Sherman, or Riverside, or
someplace like that to go to school. So they built a building that is over, across from the
front door of the high school now was a building, and that’s where the first, second, third,
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and fourth grade went, and that’s where Cy and I went, all the way around the building.
Then, later on, they came and they built, for the older kids, they called it, it wasn’t a high
school at that time, because the first high school didn’t even start until [19]53, I think, or
[195]4. [19]53 or [19]54 was the first class—well, [19]49 was the first class of freshmen.
So, the first graduating class would have been [19]53.
T:
Yeah.
N:
And, so they built that building, and then there was a building on the other side of the
gym here, that was the shop. And they had wood shop in there, and they did have some
art, some art, different kinds of art classes. The next thing they built was the, a lot of the
teachers, when they came here, there was no place to live. So they built one set of
buildings that it might be still there, I’m not sure, that was for all the single teachers. And
there was four apartments above, and four apartments in the basement. So it could house
eight single teachers. And then, there was, they built a couple more homes for the, our
place, the principal had his own house, and et cetera. All this ground out here where the
football field is now, that was all willows. There was nothing more but willows and
swamps, and eighteen billion mosquitoes. And as soon as the sun went down, they could
pick you up and fly you out of here. I mean, it was horrible!
T:
[Laughter]
N:
And after they got that done, then, my dad said that he was writing all his correspondence
for the school. He always had to write “Swayne Indian School.” And people would
abbreviate it and then send it back “SIS.” And my dad said he got so tired of being a SIS.
And he said, “There’s no sisses here. There’s no girl sisses, there’s no boy sisses! This is
a school!” So he said, “Let’s change the name of this thing and call it Owyhee Combined
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Schools, because we took the five schools and we made the one.” And everybody thought
that it was a good idea, so that’s why they got the Owyhee Combined School. Then, in
1956, the—well, actually, it was [19]55 legislature—passed a law that all school systems
had to go into the county. And Owyhee at that time joined the Elko County School
District, and to this day it’s still one of the Elko County schools. The sports has probably
brought Owyhee lots of recognition over the years. They’ve had some great teams,
starting with Cy’s guys. They came through state champs, state track meets. They really
brought the—Owyhee’s recognized for that. The band that he’s talking about, taught by
Mr. Hallett, used to march in parades all over this part of the country, and won many,
many awards. Kids really liked band, and they went out, they really stuck to it, and I was
really sad to see that go away. When I came back in [19]60, I came back to teach and
coach, and there was—the band was playing. And there was about 15 or 20 kids in there.
That was the total band. They were playing a song, and I asked the band teacher, “What
is that? What’s that song there?” And unbelievably, it was supposed to be the National
Anthem. And I couldn’t even identify it! And I thought, “Man, from what they had before
to what they’ve got now, is just really, really sad!” And I understand now it’s coming
back, and the music’s coming back, which is really good. And I came back and coached,
and had some really good athletes, some really good teams, had some fun. Did lots of
refereeing. And that’s just when the Indian ball tournaments first started. They weren’t
even—I never had heard of one before this. And Cy and these guys would come out of
retirement, out of Carson City, and they’d bring teams in here, and there might be teams
from Utah, Idaho, Oregon, sometimes Wyoming. Come in there, and they’d play, and go
heads-up at it for three days. And play basketball all day, dance all night, start the next
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day, do the same thing. And so, myself, and Norm Cavanaugh when he wasn’t playing,
and guys like that, would come back and referee, like, maybe ten, thirteen games a day.
And now I’ve told Norm—he’s asked me a couple times to referee—and I said, “Well, I
don’t think I’ll ref anymore because the women have to be at least eighty before I’ll—I
can’t keep up with them,” I said. [Laughter] And that’s how far I’ve gone downhill.
Anyway, the school has really made recognition. Had some tremendous administrators in
here—especially the last bunch, which were actually local people that really did well.
Gwen Anne Thacker, Antonette Cavanaugh, Tiola Manning, Clara Manning, all of
these kids that have come back and really turned Owyhee around and made it a school
kids can be proud of. These kids, when they leave here, they can—I think I was the first
kid to graduate college out of here. I didn’t go to high school here, but I graduated to
Boise. And since then, there’s probably been 25-30 kids that graduated from Boise State
alone. And they just keep rolling up that way. They get accepted anywhere in the United
States that they want to go. They’re, scholastically they’re sharp. The reason Cy and I had
trouble when we were kids is, we thought books were to put on a chair so you could sit
higher. And try to get it through osmosis. Nobody—“Study? Study what?” [Laughter]
You know? “We got basketball plays to remember. We don’t have time to read this
stuff.” It’s been a great change over the years, and really done well. So, I’m proud to be
from here, and I’m really proud to be back.
Okay, my dad used to—when the school was sitting here, and they had the older kids,
and there was no playground, this was all willows and no place to go, during the recesses
and noon hours, Dad came up with the idea that if you wanted some candy bars, or if you
wanted ice cream, or whatever out of the cafeteria, extra, that he’d line them up at the
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start of the front of the school there, and they’d run all the way up to that rocky cliff
that’s clear up on top of that volcanic vent up there on top the hill. And they would time
them. And every day, the winner got the prize, and then at the end of the year, whoever
had the fastest time for that year would get a real big prize. Dad used to give them like a
basketball, or a baseball glove, or something like that. So, the record for all-time going
from right here to the top of that was 15 minutes, set by Leslie “Tiny” Jones, and I don’t
think I could make it up there in 15 hours right now. But that is a long haul, and Cy will
tell you about in his day, when they used to race to the O. Go ahead, Cy. Tell them about
that.
T:
After lunch, four of us guys would run all the way up, as far as we can, up to the O,
which used to be painted white. We’d run up there, and then run back down before the
bell ring. And it was quite a run up there. It feel good when you’re young. I used to love
to run, you know? I like to run. And Jim Thorpe was my idol. And I wanted to be a
champ, you know? Not just a high school champ, but be recognized in the nationals—
maybe, I thought. And so I was growing up, too many parties, and not enough good
instructors, teachers, or example set for me, and I was a zone miles champ, and I took
third in the state… But I wanted to be a champ, like Jim Thorpe. But, anyhow… As I was
going to school—I’ll talk little bit about grammar school—at the start of school, the
teacher who comes in and instruct us students not to speak the Shoshone or the Paiute
language anywhere on the school grounds, “Or you will be punished.” And you’d better
be careful. Because if you get in a fight with someone, you make them cry, then they go
rat on the teacher and tell them, “He done fight me because they were talking Indian!”
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Then we had to be punished for it. Every recess, you had to go stand against the wall.
And it was something, you know. All that time.
N:
Had to stand like this. [Laughter]
T:
Yep. That’s the way we had to stand. Face the wall, stand at attention.
N:
The whole time!
T:
All through recess time. And you know, sometime during, a few years back, they
changed that, because they were, Yolanda Manning was teaching the Paiute class in high
school. Was accredited class. And the rule, the laws has changed. And it’s different now.
You can speak the Paiute or the Shoshone language right in the classroom. So it was a big
change here. Somewhere along the line, they made this change. And it was good, you
know? But it was part of a hard times learning in the grammar school. Because, at home,
we all spoke—I’m almost half Paiute, half Shoshone. But we all spoke the Paiute
language, and not much English was spoken until we started a school. And it was a long,
hard process of learning a lot of the English words.
C:
So can you guys converse in Paiute or Shoshone? Maybe greeting exchanges, just to give
an example, or list what the audience that’s going to be viewing this showing as to
Shoshone or Paiute language sounds like?
[Paiute language 34:40-34:49]
C:
Can you tell us what that meant, now?
T:
I says, “Brother.”
N:
“We are brothers.”
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T:
Yep. Lyle, during the summer time, out at Raymond Thacker’s ranch, we all go—
Charlie, and Billy, and Lyle, we all camped out and spoke a lot of Paiute word, language,
and yeah, had a good time in the summer during the hay season.
N:
Had to bring on a guitar.
T:
Yep.
N:
We used to, when I’d go over to Cy’s place, I’d always get one of Ray Thacker’s horses
and we’d ride over there. And we’d take off and go over there, and when I’d get in to his
mom’s place, she’d talk to me in Paiute. And if I said anything in English, she [Paiute at
35:47]. She made me talk Paiute. [Laughter] That was, I loved that! That was good. And
we used to come to this building right here for shows. In the middle of the—this is in the
very early [19]50s. And there were shows here. And us kids would get on our horseback
seven miles from here, and we knew all the back trails. And we would race for coming in
here to the show, on horseback. And then at night, when it was dark, we had to go home.
So we would race back. And one night, there was, about four of us were racing from his
house over to Raymond’s house, and we were coming across the river. And my horse was
a little bit slower, so I was kind of in the back, and I hear this horrible, “Hiiiyaaaiiii!!!”
screaming guys. And I thought, “What in the—“? Next thing I knew, I was screaming,
because we’d taken those horses and we run them off about a seven foot bank, right
straight. And we all landed in the river going full blast! Kids were going one way, horses
were going the other way. We had a, couple of us had to ride double because we couldn’t
find our horse to get back to the house. [Laughter] So, that’s that story.
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T:
During the summertime, a lot of ground squirrels were moving into the valley. And—
tsippis—we used to set traps out in the field, and Lyle would eat the squirrels just like the
rest of us guys, you know? [Laughter]
N:
Drown ‘em.
T:
And then, we didn’t use a trap, we used buckets. And we’ll get some water along the
ditch bank, and pour it in a hole, and one guy would be there, ready to catch the squirrel.
Soon as the squirrel comes out, he grab the squirrel by the neck, and then we would take
them, kill several of them, and take them in the ditch bank where it’s dry, and we’d dry
the squirrel, rub the squirrel in the dirt, get ‘em all dried up. And I think then, they gutted
them out.
N:
[Paiute at 38:30]
T:
They gutted them out, and then, Fourth July time, they cook it and take it over to the
Fourth July ground, and they sell them to the people. How much would they sell them
for?
N:
1949, [19]50, [19]51, a squirrel was going for one dollar. That’s a lot of money! They’d
be selling it probably now for a hundred. I mean, shoot, you know? And groundhog was
going for, like, ten and fifteen. And when his cousin got tired—like, Chuck got tired of
selling—he sold our last groundhog for five dollars. We almost killed him! [Laughter]
T:
Yeah. Lyle would eat squirrels, and groundhogs, sagehen, deer, you know? He was just
like us, you know? He was a real brother, you know? We had a good time. And he wasn’t
ashamed to eat the squirrel.
N:
[Paiute at 39:36]! [Laughter]
T:
People’d be watching him! [Laughter]
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N:
[Paiute at 39:38]
T:
Yeah! You know. Even during the branding season, they’d castrate the bull, the steer, and
he’d even eat some of that mountain oysters! [Laughter] [Paiute at 40:00]
N:
We were kind of funny, because in those days we’d—as soon as they castrate, throw
them right in the fire. And you’d watch them, and you’d wait until they cooked. And
then, when they got ready to eat, they would pop open, and you knew they were done.
And the kids pushing each other, throwing each other on the ground, grabbing each other,
to get there first. They’d burn your hand! [Laughter] We used to—remember that?
T:
Yeah. [Laughter] Yeah, yeah. You didn’t have to cook ‘em in a fry pan. Just right in an
open fire. Yep.
N:
There’s two trees over yonder, those two big willow trees. I guess you can still see them.
Yeah, you can see those ones that are right there, just turning green now, Norm. My dad
planted those in, probably, I don’t know, in the [19]40s. Probably [19]40, [19]41,
somewhere in there. When he planted them, they were about a foot tall, and they were
just a little stick, about as big around as my little finger. And now, they’re getting as old
as I am. [Laughter] Yep. That’s—growing up in Owyhee, I’ll tell you what, is probably
the best thing that could happen to a kid. Supposedly, I guess we thought that—they say
now that we were in poverty, but I don’t think we were.
T:
No, I don’t think so. I don’t.
N:
No, I think we were a lot better than these kids that have to sit now, watch TV, and play
games on the computer. We had fun. We had a lot of fun.
C:
Lyle, can you reflect on the years you coached football and basketball here in Owyhee?
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N:
1960 through [19]68. And our football field was—in those days, we played six-man
football, and the field was over there where that ground is all plowed up and everything.
It was still—at that time, belonged to the church, and it was all just trees and willows and
et cetera. They’ve really opened all that nicely. And then, one of my goals in life was to
put the track around. And you can still see the remnants of it. And we had track meets
here for about five years. And then, after I left, they told me that there’s never been a
track meet since. But road shop came over and surveyed, and we put in a road base, and
put in the best track we could put in, put in a railroad tie curb all the way around, and had
some, made some, we had a lot of fun. I notice in here on the track record board, David
Pursley, who was killed in Korea, still holds the school record in the long jump. And he
was only a freshman when he set that record, in 1949.
T:
Wow.
N:
So… He was a heck of an athlete. Great athlete. Yep. Used to have the games in here in
the old gym. I’d go during halftime, put baskets on the sides, and I’d have like, Norm
Cavanaugh’s class would play somebody else, and I’d split them up. Little guys were
playing two games at the same time that the crowd could watch, while everybody else
was at halftime. Remember that, Norm?
C:
Yes, I do.
N:
Yeah. That was a lot of fun. That was more fun than watching the big guys! [Laughter]
Yep. Yep. I don’t know anything else to say, Norm. I think…
C:
Okay, you guys pretty much wound up this life history of what you recall in Owyhee,
going to school here in Owyhee. We got about five minutes. Is there anything else that
you can think of, or want to close with as a summary for today?
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N:
Yes. When we had to go through the cafeteria, and they said that the people on—like, us
in the outlying area on the reservations, we didn’t have enough vitamins. We weren’t
getting the right proper vitamins and stuff. So every day that we went through the chow
line, the cook, Vivian Pye, they—and those guys, and Vivian Paradise, and Esther Pye,
and those guys, they would take a spoon—remember that?—and give us castor oil. And
you had to take a full spoonful of castor oil, which—horrible-tasting! Because that was
supposed to give us our Vitamin C, and B, and D, and all of that good stuff. [Laughter]
I’m glad they don’t do that anymore! Yeah, that was quite a deal. The first—
C:
You ate lunch here at school?
N:
Yeah, it was the basement of the—
T:
Swayne School.
N:
Yep, Swayne School.
T:
Yep.
N:
Yep. Sure was.
C:
Is there a reason why they call it “Swayne School?”
N:
It was named after—when they had the five schools, the one that, the gentleman that was
a superintendent for the agency was named Swayne, and they had originally named the
school in town “Swayne.” So when they voted to what they were going to call the school,
they just said, “Swayne.” Because it was the one that was in town already. So they just
went with Swayne. That’s what I know, from what I was told. And on top of the building,
it used to have “Swayne” written on both sides, so that airplanes flying over—they’d
come and buzz town, and when they put the airport in during the war, they’d buzz town
here to let people know that planes were coming in, and then if they caught somebody
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from here, they’d race out to the airport, pick them up, bring them in. Because that’s the
only way we could keep track of it. So… Yep. That’s about it, huh?
T:
That’s about it, yep.
C:
How about you, Cy? Any parting comments?
T:
Lyle and I been friends since we were in grammar school, and to this day, we’re still
good close friends, you know? I had a Model A pickup that sit out in the field, at Mom
and Dad’s ranch, for maybe over ten years. One day, Lyle went—we went together—and
he said, “What are you going to do with your Model A pickup?” “Why, you want to buy
it?” He goes, “Yeah.” There no wheels, no hood, no—broken windows, no doors. The
motor was there, no battery. “How much you offering?” He says, “How about three
hundred dollars?” So I sold that Model A pickup for three hundred dollars. Was that 1930
Model A?
N:
1929.
T:
1929 pickup. And Lyle—
N:
Completely restored it.
T:
Restored it. I see it down in, over here at Lyle’s home, it’s south of Elko, and all
completed. It really looks nice. He did an excellent job. Took him, like, maybe ten years
or more to complete it.
N:
Painted it silver and blue for the state of Nevada. The best part about it was it still had the
sign in the back, and what sign, Cy had put it in there, and it said—you could read it if
you were behind it—it says, “Don’t laugh: your daughter may be in here.” [Laughter]
T:
Yeah, on the tailgate. Lyle showed me, somebody shot a—looked like a .22. And the
bullet is still embedded in that tailgate.
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N:
A true reservation rig! [Laughter]
T:
Yep. [Laughter]
[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
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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
Lyle Nutting & Eloy Thacker
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation [Owyhee, NV-ID]
Original Format
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DVD and VOB
Duration
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00:48:40
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/569
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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Lyle Nutting & Eloy Thacker - Oral history (06/02/2010)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Lyle Nutting & Eloy Thacker from Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID), on 06/02/2010
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lyle Nutting and Eloy Thacker were both born and grew up in Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID) and attended school there as well. In fact, Nutting’s dad was the first principal in Owyhee, at a time when there were five separate schools there. Lyle also speaks about how the school had evolved from being those five schools to Swayne Indian School and eventually Owyhee Combined School. Comparatively, Eloy Thacker speaks about his time in grammar school up until high school. He speaks about his time involved in different sports, which helped him to eventually attend Brigham Young University. Both presenters speak to the unique history of the Owyhee school system, and how it eventually became what is known as today.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Read Lyle Nutting and Eloy Thacker Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/2724bb8dd97a439c6a5eee48fec1ee16.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Lyle Nutting and Eloy Thacker Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 025
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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06/02/2010 [02 June 2010]; 2010 June 02
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/375
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Paiute
athletics
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
Elko County School District
GBIA
Owyhee
Owyhee Combined School
Paiute
Shoshone
Story
Swayne school
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/fbdde5d06106bed95680c6201ee2ee30.jpg
0c32fa88d3ad86cb236ab25e06e69845
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/42e8cfd518657ccafcf2585ac27ed966.pdf
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PDF Text
Text
Illaine
Premo
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
024
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
November
30,
2009
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 024
Interviewee: Illaine Premo
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: November 30, 2009
P:
My name is Ilaine Tybo Premo. My mother’s name was Ada Cortez Johnson, and her
mother’s name was Ida Cortez. And Ida’s dad’s name was Cortez Charlie. They’re from
the Cortez area, and then they moved down to Beowawe, and then from Beowawe, they
moved down to Battle Mountain. And from Battle Mountain, they moved to Elko, and
from Elko to South Fork, to Lee. And that’s my mother’s side. My huttsi, my grandma,
she was born and raised in Austin area. Austin area, and from there she moved on to
Battle Mountain, where she lived. And my grandpa Jim Tybo is from around Big
Smoky—I guess that’s what it’s called, Big Smoky. That Smoky Valley, I guess, where
Felix is from. That’s where my grandpa is from. And my dad’s from Austin area, also.
C:
What kind of work, or what did your family do, prior to moving? Or did they move to
find jobs?
P:
I think they just migrated from Austin down to Beowawe, probably looking for work on
the ranches. Because my dad was a, worked as a sheepherder, I heard, as a young man.
He herded sheeps for some big sheep ranchers. And my grandma, my huttsi, she went and
worked in the same ranch families raising their children. Raising their children, I guess,
the owners’ children. Raising the Marvos from Battle Mountain, Tom Marvo and his
family. She raised those boys, all of them. And they looked up to my grandma as their
mother, that she raised them. And my mom, she worked in Battle Mountain in the
restaurants. I don’t know, probably washing dishes and so on. Grandmas just stayed
home. And that’s just about all I know. That’s from, in Battle Mountain. Then from
Battle Mountain, we migrated. From Battle Mountain—now, we were real little—no, I’m
getting ahead of myself. [Laughter] That’s before we were born. And then my mom and
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dad met each other, and then they got married in Battle Mountain, I believe. And then,
they were—then four of us girls were born. We were still little when we were in Battle
Mountain. We hardly remember the story. But then, after that, my dad got a ranch in
Lee—Lee, Nevada—and he moved up there. Moved my mother and us guys up there. We
were little tiny girls then. And then, left my grandmas behind in Battle Mountain. And
then, along the way, my mom and dad divorced when we were still little. He was in the
army. He came out and found somebody else, and he divorced my mom at a young age.
And then, we moved back to Elko with my grandma, Lucy Cortez. We lived with her.
And my mom. We lived there for a while. We were still little then, and then my mom
died from sickness, and then a year after that, my grandma Lucy died from loneliness
because my mom died. She, it was loneliness that killed her. So, we went back to Lee
with my dad. We were little yet. And then back and forth, we went to my huttsi’s place in
Battle Mountain on the Greyhound. When we’re little, we get shipped back to Battle
Mountain, back to Lee, back to Lee. And that’s where I knew about my grandma Minnie.
She was a medicine lady. And she delivered most all the kids around the Colony. She had
delivered them, and then she was—every night was her ritual. Every night, she would
bless us with her eagle feather, because she was a medicine lady and all. She blessed us
with her eagle feather so we will not get sick, all four of us girls. We never got sick. And
then she had sagebrushes in a little glass of water that she has by her bed day and night,
day and night. And she dipped the sagebrush, and, “Mei mapuisi,” [5:08] she blessed us
with it every morning, early in the morning and at night. And she prays all the time,
morning and night, morning and night. And we never got sick as little girls. Hakapi e ha
napan’ni [Shoshone at 5:20] I don’t want to forget.
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C:
So you guys used to ride back and forth on a Greyhound, from Lee to Battle Mountain.
P:
Uh-huh, yeah. We were little then. We were just put on the Greyhound, and we would
travel all by ourself over there. And Huttsi would meet us over there in Battle Mountain,
and that’s how we traveled, back and forth. I guess we were—I don’t know why. Well
anyway, Huttsi was very interesting, because she was real traditional. Very traditional
Indian. And we drank all those Indian medicines—sagebrush, really. Antapittseh kwana. I
don’t know what the taipo name is for antapittseh kwana. But we’d, we grew up on that,
and sagebrush. Drinking sagebrush liquid, all the time. And we hardly ever got sick—
especially me. I never got sick. Huttsi said I was tough like her! [Laughter] Ah, but,
um—and then, we lived on jackrabbits a lot. Because everybody’s poor in the Colony,
and not everybody had jobs. And there was a lot of jackrabbits around in the desert, I
guess, behind Battle Mountain. They hunted a lot, and then occasionally deer. But
mostly, we were raised on weyempi [wi’ompi], you know, that buckberries. That
Grandma used to go down on the Marvo ranch and get. We’d have buckberries, and
that’s what I grew up, and I really love it, buckberries. She’d make pudding, and put—
make Indian bread, and just break the Indian crumbs into that, that would, sometimes
we’d have it three times a day, because there was nothing to eat. And, Usen kia [7:02],
let me see, my huttsi… So in Austin area, my dad’s side, and my mom’s Cortez,
nemmesen Tosawihi, now, White Band. White Band Shoshones. White Knife, White
Knife band. [Shoshone at 7:16] Cortez [Shoshone at 7:18] Beowawe, and Battle
Mountain’s also considered White Knife nemiya. Carlin, that area. [7:27] Nemme setai
kimmate. So, then we go back to Lee. Back to where I grew up, were going to school
over there in Lee, from first grade to eighth grade, and then I was shipped off to Stewart,
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where I stayed for four years. But in Lee, it was—oh, it was a good life over there, too.
My dad ranched back there, and we lived the furthest from the school, a real long ways.
Way down there. Just mananku. And we’d go to school on horseback all the time. Winter,
we’d have a barn back there where we’d tie a horse. And we’d run, and race up the hill.
Race up the hill [8:12] nemna’ punkukate tea. You know, all three of us, that’s Lilly and
me, and Joanne–but mostly me and Joanne, because Lillian’s older than us. Irene Diggs,
she, my huttsi raised her in Battle Mountain. And so, I remember the incident, you know,
when we used to come down the hill toward where Raymond Yowell lives now. That’s,
his grandparents used to live over there, Muumpittseh and his wife, Muumpittseh
Hepittso. Muumpittseh Hepittso [Shoshone at 8:39]. We’d come down that hill, and
there’s a gate right by her house. [Shoshone at 8:46], the bareback through her house.
And then, and I guess we leave her gate open, I don’t know! We get [Shoshone at 8:55]
with her apron. I always remember her. She’d come on her porch, waving her fist at us.
She said, “[Shoshone at 9:02]!” “I’m going to tell Burt on you!” But we laugh and just
race through there without shutting her gate! That is awful! [Laughter] But we grew up
like that on horseback. And then, at Lee, we had good teachers. One of them was Norman
Thompson, and his wife—hate nanihante? Norman’s—Ellen. Ellen Bea Roth. And they
were teaching us over there, for quite a while. And then, we all talked Shoshone over
there. Hardly any English. Mostly Shoshone over there. And those taipo kids that went to
school with us, like the Kanes, Marilyn Kane, Bob and Bill Kane, the brothers, two
twins. Twins. And Charles and Linda Dran were our neighbors back there. And Elbert
Berrenega, he’s a Basque from under the mountains. [Shoshone at 9:52], they know
how to talk Shoshone. Because we all talked Shoshone, and then Marilyn Kane and them
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rode horseback with us going home. [Shoshone at 10:01] every night, we race, you
know, up the road. Race real fast, and we leave her behind, Marilyn-ha. Then she’d cry,
said, “Don’t nukki! Don’t nukki! Don’t nukki!” [Laughter] “Don’t run! Don’t run!”
[Shoshone at 10:12]! [Laughter] It was—oh, we had fun up there! [Shoshone at 10:20].
C:
So who were your sisters?
P:
Oh, my sisters. My oldest sister is Lillian Garcia now, still lives in Lee where we used to
live. And Joanne Manning, and Irene Cota. And my half-brother’s Milton Tybo. And
that’s us.
C:
So at one time, did your Grandma Minnie tell you stories of what she recalled, or
anything about what her childhood was like?
P:
Yeah. Well, she told us real stories, because my huttsi was a real good storyteller. Every
night, we hear stories. But I’ll probably just tell you one of them. But we heard a lot
about tsoo’apittseh in the hills, and of course Itsappe—Ish. And the water babies,
pa’ohaane. And—because they lived around that river in Battle Mountain. Paohaane.
And then, she told a story about Toya Tuineppe, the Mountain Boy. That’s where I come
from, the Mountain Boy, I was one of the descendants. Mountain Boy. Himpa—Huttsi
used to tell us that when they used to go from pinenut hills to pinenut hills long time ago,
because they didn’t have anyplace to live, they just migrate from hill to hill, and they live
in camps. Probably, I don’t think it was tipi, it was just those willow huts, I guess, or
something. She never really went into it. But they moved from area to area, pinenut hill
to pinenut hill. And she said that Toya Tuineppe was always around, tepitsi atsatsi
[11:53], he was a real naughty boy, she says, a real mischievious, very naughty. And he’d
come down the hill, akka toyama [12:02], but he’d slide down the hill, down the hill, and
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he’d holler and laugh. You can’t see him. They never see him, but they know that he’s a
little boy because it’s got the voice of a little one. They’d see him coming down the hill,
making dust down the hill, and they’d say, “Oh, there’s Toya Tuineppe again!” Toya
Tuineppe, Little Mountain Boy. Then, when they’d camp and go to the pinenut hills to
get pinenuts, they’d come back, their camp would be all destroyed. That Toya Tuineppe,
Little Mountain Boy would kick all their food all around, ashes all over from the
campfire. They know it was him, because he’s mischievious. And they hear him laughing
in the trees, Huttsi said. You know, he’s always doing some kind of tricks to them. And
sometimes, he’s good, too. You know, he blesses people. He blesses people, even though
he’s kind of bad. And that’s what I remember about Mountain Boy, because he’s my
descendant. One time, after I married Willis and moved to Duck Valley, I got really,
really sick. And Judy Jackson, my aunt, was still living here, so she said, “Alec
Cleveland’s going to be here tonight.” [Shoshone at 13:09], because I was sick. I don’t
know the for—probably stress, or, I don’t know. And then, I went over the [Shoshone at
13:18] Alex, [Shoshone at 13:22]. And I’m one of those persons who grew up kind of
funny, [Shoshone at 13:27]. That’s what got me sick. You know? I’m always scared at
nights, I don’t know why. Even though I was little and grew up and got married, I was
still scared, because my husband used to wake me up, Willis used to wake me up, and I
was talking, talking, and crying, and wake me up from that. But I always knew it was my
mother. Somehow, I knew it was my mother, doing that to me. [Shoshone at 13:52]
Neweh nohimpai. Then it got me sick, because I was always worried in my house, you
know, looking for her, looking for—over here, at my house. And so I got sick, and Judy
said, [14:03] “Attik tai puhane to come on over tonight,” so I went over there, and Attik
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said, [14:08] “Tsatta em pii. Your mother’s bothering you all the time.” Because you
know—I probably was her favorite, because she used to take me to Starr Valley or Ruby
Valley for work, you know, on ranches? And she’d take me all the time, I don’t know
why. But I was little, she always took me with her. And Attik said, “She wants you,
that’s why she’s bothering you. [Shohone at 14:29],” he said, “You have to get after
her!” In the olden days, old people cuss them out, you know, spirits. [Shoshone at
14:37]. Tell them to go away and leave you alone. Said “That’s the only way you can get
rid of her, is just tell her to leave you alone! Cuss her out! Be mean to her! She’s trying to
get you. She’s going to get you if you don’t get after her! [Shoshone at 14:58]. That’s
why you’re sick,” he told me. And I always remember, because Attik doesn’t know me.
You know, he’s from here, I’m from the other area. And he said,
“Always remember that [Shoshone at 15:10],” you know, “You’re a descendant of Toya
Tuineppe. So every morning when you get up, drink a glass of water three times, face the
mountain, and pray”—[Shoshone at 15:24]. Pray and bless yourself, every
morning.[Shoshone at 15:29], and you’ll get over that sickness, over your mother. And
so I said, “Oh, that was all that was wrong with me, I guess! Her haunting me all the
time.” And I was really sick. So I came back, and she was still haunting me. [Laughter]
And the latest was, she was haunting me, and I heard her downstairs in my basement, and
I got up, and I done what Alec told me. I went down there, and I cussed her out in
Shoshone, and told her not to bother me, and told her leave my kids alone, because my
kids were down there. My girls were down there. And not to bother them, because some
are bothered by her, too, some of them. And so, I said, “Don’t bother me anymore!” in
Shoshone, and I threw down whatever I can get. Shoes, clothes, I just threw it down there
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real mean like that, where I couldn’t see her, but I knew it was her. After that, she went
away for good. Never bothered me up to this day. She never bother me again. But that
was one, I guess you can call “superstition” or something, I don’t know what it is, that
happened to me. So that’s how I grew up. Was in Lee. I don’t know what—hinna tease?
C:
When you guys lived in Battle Mountain, was there a lot of pinenuts?
P:
Up in Austin area. From Battle Mountain, we go up to Austin on wagons. We go up there
and get pinenuts. Or else some other relative will bring it down to us, because it’s too far.
But when my huttsi was growing up, they lived up there in the Austin—on the pinenut
hills. So that’s where they got their pinenuts, they lived on pinenuts, all the time. And so
did my mom and them in that Cortez area. They live on pinenuts, too. And they walked.
They never used cars or wagons, because they’d—before, when my mother was growing
up, they didn’t have any horses or wagons. They usually walked long ways for food and
roots, hunting, and getting pinenuts. That’s what they done. You know, when we went to
Cortez last week—whole bunch of us from Duck Valley went. Gerry Brady and us guys
went, and she said, “Just think, our old people used to walk these hills for many miles—
and look at us getting tired already!” [Laughter] You know, we’re climbing the hill,
we’re real tired and breathing real hard. We got to sit down every once in a while! And
they used to roam these hills walking. [Shoshone at 17:59]. But that’s what they done, I
think, that Old People.
C:
So is there still pinenuts left there in Cortez?
P:
Lots. That’s a pinenut hills. Pinenut hills. But the mine, the new mine’s going up. That’s
how come they invited us, because they said most of the descendants from Cortez is
Duck Valley White Knifes. So that’s why we were invited over there. And there’s lot of
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pinenuts. But there’s a new mine going up there in that Cortez mine. Great, big giant one.
We went to visit that one. Plus, there are old mines. And the new mine’s going to be so
huge. I don’t know. And that pinenuts, some of the pinenut hills they’re going to destroy.
They’re going to cut them down. But they’re going to save some of the young ones, I
think, that’s what they were saying. The younger pinenut trees. So, the mine is really
expanding.
C:
So what kind of mineral are they mining for?
P:
Gold.
C:
Gold?
P:
Mmhm. I don’t know, but that’s where my mom is from. And they said that used to be a
real big Shoshone settlement at one time. Rehabi Whitney was telling us that, at one
time—or was it Felix Ike? That was the biggest Shoshone settlement in that valley, Grass
Valley—over the hill is Grass Valley. That’s another valley Huttsi used to talk about
[Shoshone at 19:32]. She used to say “Grass Valley”—but you know, in Shoshone—
“Grass Valley,” “Grass Valley.” And we never paid attention to her. It’s over the hill
from Cortez. Big Shoshone area. From there, they migrated different areas, like Duck
Valley, Fort Hall, Ruby Valley, other areas. But I really grew up in reservation, in
reservation life. And a little bit in Elko, not too long. Because we were just little girls
when we moved to Lee. So we grew up on a ranch.
C:
So, do you remember any of the stories that your Grandma told you, many about the
Tso’apittseh?
P:
Oh yeah, Tso’apittseh. [Laughter] Tso’apittseh. Yeah, she told lot of stories of what her
mother and them told. I don’t think it was when she was young, I don’t think, because I
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think tso’apittseh was way back there. And she said they didn’t—they were still
wandering around the pinenut hills, living here and there in the hills, and they used to sit
in the, by the campfire, and tell stories that, you know, Newene, the Indians would sit
around the campfire telling stories. All they do every night is tell stories. And then they
hear from way back, Huttsi said—because she was going to scare us, now, because we
were little girls, they always thought we were naughty, and she tells us scary stories so
we can go to sleep and be quiet, I guess! [Laughter] And then, she said, well, they were
sitting, talking, they would hear Tso’apittseh away just miles and miles away. [Shoshone
at 21:05], he’d be crying a lot, coming to the camp, and everybody’s getting scared now,
trying to hide their kids. And—[Shoshone at 21:13]—he was singing that song,
“[Shoshone at 21:17],” was getting closer and closer. Finally, he just squatted down that
campfire. And every time he leaves—I don’t know whether this is true, or it’s just to
scare us—she said he takes off with a kid in his [Shoshone at 21:31]. You know, that
little—a little basket behind his back. He’s supposed to be a rock man. Rock, I think,
made out of rocks. But he’s got a basket in the back that was coated with pinenut sap.
[Shoshone at 21:47]. Big enough for an adult to go into, [Shoshone at 21:51], he’d take
one of the kid and take off with it. And he’d go crying away, [Shoshone at 21:59]. After
he steal that kid, and everybody was so scared of him because he’ll always find them
wherever they’re at. Even if they move or run away, he’ll find them. So they just stay put,
because that Tso’apittseh was around. And then, one time, she said he came again. They
were sitting down, they heard him crying, and he was coming again, and this time he sat
down and talk Shoshone to them, and asked how they were doing and all that stuff.
Talking and eating with them, whatever. And finally, he kept looking at this one young
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man, she said. A young man, not a baby or a little boy. He was a young man, I don’t
know how old he is. He kept looking at that young man. Finally, he got up and grabbed
that young man, and threw it behind his big basket and took off. Took off, and that young
man was old enough to know what was happening. So when the Tso’apittseh was running
along under the pine trees, he thought real fast, and then he—when he was running along,
crying along, that Tso’apittseh, he grab a limb up there, and he climb up on that limb and
Tso’apittseh didn’t know it. Kept on crying down the hill until he got where he was
going, probably to his den. And he found out that young man was missing. So he turn
around crying real loud, coming back again to the camp, looking for that young man.
Young man was up there waiting for him, she said, with—he made fire out of rocks or
something, I don’t know. He made a little fire. When Tso’apittseh was right underneath
him, he threw that fire into that basket, that sap, and that burnt real bad, and Tso’apittseh
ran away crying. [Shoshone at 23:42] down that hill, he was just crying and panicked,
you know? And it burned him up. It burned him up, because he never bothered the
Indians again. That’s her story about Tso’apittseh. He never bothered them again. I guess
he burnt to death, or something happened. His big basket burned up. [Laughter]
C:
So what did he do with those kids? Did he eat them, or what did he do with them?
P:
That’s—according to her, [Shoshone at 24:08]. He tears the head off, I guess he eats the
head. That’s what she said. But maybe different people have different stories about
Tso’apittseh. But he does kill them, the kids. So… There was another story about—
Huttsi, she told us so many stories about the Cottontail. Of course, that’s simple
Cottontail. There was another story about a big bird, and I believe she called it Ish. Ish,
that bird. But Ise was supposed to be the Itsappe, Ish. But she called this big bird Ish, too.
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[Shoshone at 24:44] Pia ______ kwina. Like an eagle, but it wasn’t an eagle. It was a
real big bird. On the island, ka nakkan, some island, middle of the water. He live over
there, and he come every now and then, fly to the Indian camp again, take people and
take it over there to eat, I guess to the island. Back where he live in a great, big nest.
[Shoshone at 25:05]. And, I guess long time ago, he stole a lady. And that lady grew up
to be a old lady. And she slaved for him. Cooked for him. He demanded this and that,
demanded she cook his food. Whatever he brought home, she cook it for him. Mostly
humans. She cooked that food for him, and over the many many years, just getting real
old, just getting tired of that big bird doing that to her. And there’s no way to get to that
place except—wasn’t no way to get there. It’s the middle of a big river, open ocean, or
something. And so the old lady was getting tired, and was getting mad at the big bird. So
she finally thought, “Well, I am going to get rid of him.” In Shoshone said she’s going to
get rid of him. “[Shoshone at 25:55].” And so, she got some kind of flint. Uten obsidian?
That black flint? She chipped it real fine, chipped it real fine, and so he came back with
whatever he had. And—oh no, it was a young man he brought back again, a young man.
So she got really upset, the old lady. She wasn’t going to have him kill the young man.
So she got some flint, and chipped it, and put it in a bowl for him with soup [26:23],
before he killed that young man. She made him some kind of soup because he was so
demanding. And then soup, she put it in front of him. And he started drinking the soup.
But every time he was drinking the soup, he would put his big [Shoshone intermittently
after 26:38] in the air like [26:39]. And he’d kind of like gurgling sound in his throat,
kind of choking because that thing was already working on him, that flint. Gurgling,
gurgling. And she watched, she sat there and watch him. The bird wasn’t saying
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anything, he was just eating and doing that gurgling and choking and so on. Her and that
young man watched that bird. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He got up, and he
flew away. He yetseko [27:04]. And he flew away up the middle of the water, and
[27:08] behind, say they never saw him again. That was another story she told.
[Laughter] I believe she called him Ish. And I always say, “Why did she call him Ise
when Ise is supposed to be Itsappe’s brother?” So, that’s one story she told.
C:
What about the water babies?
P:
Oh, water babies! Yeah, Battle Mountain [Shoshone at 27:30] water babies. Everybody’s
scared of them, because they hear them crying, you know? Babiesne. [Shoshone at
27:36] used to always tell that all the time. My uncle Willie Johnson, he used to tell about
water babies all the time. And he also took babies away from mothers that was fishing on
the banks—you know, with their baby, and their—[Shoshone at 27:53]. And he just
snatch them off of them and take the baby underwater [Shoshone at 27:58]. The baby’s
lost for good. But one time, he done that to another young man—[Shoshone at 28:05],
and that somehow, that young man—I don’t know this story too good. But somehow, the
young man killed that water baby, and came back again. But all the Indians know about
water babies. They say they’re still alive—I mean, you can still hear them. And you know
what that—I forgot to tell you about this. Mountain Boy, Toya Tuineppe, they say you
hear him in any mountain. He lives in any mountain, high mountain. And sometimes, you
can hear him whistling at you, whistling. Sometimes, you think it’s a bird, you know. But
it’s Toya Tuineppe. And a lot of times, I go hunting with Willis way up in the mountains,
way back there [Shoshone at 28:48]. And I’d be sitting there waiting, because he walked
a long ways. I’d sit there, wait for him. [Shoshone at 28:53], whistling, [Shoshone at
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28:55]. Then, I thought it was, you know, a bird. And then I remembered what Attik said
to me: “If you go in the mountains and hear some whistling, that’s Toya Tuineppe. He’s
whistling at you.” So that’s—he said it happens with anybody. Any Shoshone. You go up
to the mountains and hear him whistling at you. So if you ever go hunting and hear
somebody whistling? It might be him and not a bird. [Laughter] Huttsi was telling me
some, another good story… Oh, I forgot! What was it about, now? Wait, ask me another
question.
C:
Do you know anything about [29:41] Toyanatsi’ that live out there in Ruby Valley? That
you could talk about?
P:
Osen kwai, yes. [29:46] Suteen Toya Tuineppe naa. What did they say about Toya
nukutsi?
C:
They take care of the wild horses there, and the wild sheep?
P:
Oh.
C:
Yeah. [__inaudible at 29:57__]
P:
Oh, that’s probably their story from that area. Oh! Hm. That’s interesting.
[Break in recording]
P:
When he died [Shoshone at 30:08], we go up to [Shoshone at 30:11]. And we’d, we
meet our ancestors up there. [30:16] Tammen naa supai akka nupuwiiha. Milky Way
[Shoshone at 30:19] you know, Shoshones souls have the dance in the Milky Way.
That’s why when you see the Milky Way, it’s all dusty-looking? That dust, when they’re
kicking up their heels, kicking up their feet, and all that dust, dancing, because that’s
what they do. That was their routine up long time ago, to the Shoshones, was Round
Dance. They sing in their old language, and so they’d sing a Shoshone song, telling
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stories and their music. And the Milky Way is where we go to to dance when we die.
That was a Shoshone belief. So when my daughter died, I always look at the Milky Way.
[Shoshone at 30:55], she’s dancing up in the Milky Way now, with her grandmas, and
her aunts and uncles, her dad. Because I believe they came after her when she died that
night. They all came, picked her up, and took her away, and now she’s up in the Milky
Way. Osen tammen belief, you know, we’re dancing up there. That’s one of the Shoshone
belief that I grew up on. So, hinna tease?
C:
So, in the dancing of the Milky Way, are they going someplace? Is there a belief that the
people are going—are they traveling, or are they just dancing?
P:
No, I think they just dancing. They go up there to be happy up there. You know, they’re
free. Free of all kinds of worries and stuff. And so, they just go up there to Heaven to
dance. Dance up there. So when we look at them, we see them up there, we’re supposed
to see them up there dancing. Sometimes it’s so pretty, you know, up there. The Milky
Way. Another belief that I was told long time ago is, take a star for your loved one that
died. A star. And I always look at the star and pray to God for that star to take care of
your loved ones. So I picked a star for my daughter Francine. The Evening Star. [32:13]
Sokka nabuite, and then I always nanisuntehai, I pray. Because, you know, I really miss
her. And so, that’s one of the beliefs. So everybody’s dancing up there. And I believe—
that’s my belief, I don’t know whether anybody else believe like that, but I believe we all
go to Heaven. Everybody, good or bad. Everybody goes to Heaven! [Laughter]
C:
Well, that’s a Shoshone belief. There’s—everybody goes to the Spirit World.
P:
Mmhm. Yeah. So, that’s one of the stories.
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C:
Were there very many medicine—or healers in your family? You mentioned your
Grandma was a healer.
P:
Yeah, her stepfather was a real powerful medicine man. [33:00] Himpaise ma nanihante
Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson, nekka. Is it Sam? I believe from the Austin area. A old man
that was like a hermit. And he was married to my huttsi’s mother, Katie. Katie Wilson. I
don’t know what their maiden names were—because a long time ago, they only had
Indian names, and when they worked with a white man, they change all their names. So,
Katie Wilson and so on. Indian names. Like, my [Shoshone at 33:30]’s name was
Paampokompi. Like, “water currant.” Paampokompi. And from there, they were changed
to Lucy Cortez. And so, anyhow, [33:45] himpai nani_____?
C:
Oh, healers.
P:
Oh, that Sam Wilson! He’s a powerful healer, Shoshone healer, up in Austin area. Was so
powerful that he had, that Katie Wilson, his wife, had two daughters: my huttsi, and
Davis Gonzalez and their grandma. Their grandmother, Nellie Woods. Nellie Woods. So
Katie had two daughters. Katie Wilson’s really Sam Wilson’s daughter. Sam and Katie’s
daughter. My huttsi is a half-breed; her dad’s half white. But somehow, Sam Wilson
chose her—my huttsi’s more Indian because she’s got more Indian belief, even though
she’s half white. She’s real traditional. But keep her with him as assistant. You know,
assisting him with preparing things when he’s going to doctor somebody? [34:44]
[Shoshone at 34:44], it was for a young girl, that was just job for the girls—that’s
what my huttsi told me, that I used to [Shoshone at 34:51] kumaitte mia. I go with them
to help them prepare their roots and the medicine. And she listened to him. All the songs
and stuff, she listened to him, and it got into her. So she became a medicine lady. Not as
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great as Sam, but she still know what she was doing. And then Huttsi used to tell me,
when she used to come visit me at my house when I had all my kids, she’d say—well,
nowadays, nobody took after Sam, you know, that powerful medicine man. But some day
[35:24] there’s going to im himpa, emerge a medicine man from one of your family.
Our family—you know, the Tybos, I guess—our family’s going to emerge some day. A
powerful medicine man. It might be your kids. If not your kids, your grandkids or your
great-grandchild. “Some day,” he said, “himpa tipitsi Newe wepekanai [35:46]. It’s going
to come.” I don’t know when that’s going to be! [Laughter] But that’s what she always
tells me. Because of Sam Wilson. That’s the only one I know. The other medicine lady
that I know is Satii Nap from Ruby Valley. Her name’s Sally Brigham, I think. She’s the
one that raised Anna Premo. Sally Brigham, and I knew—we call her Satii Nap.
Nowadays, she’s dead. Satii, she used to come down to our Colony in Elko, to our
little—and doctor my mother, because my mother’s really sick. Doctor her all the time.
Was a very powerful medicine lady. I remember her. She’s real tall and skinny, had long
gray hair. [Shoshone (?) at 36:29] and every night at midnight, she opened the door, and
then she’d pray to God, I guess. [Shoshone (?) at 36:34] up to the Heavens. Then she’d
come around and doctor my mother again. But my mother didn’t get healed, because it
was tuberculosis that killed her. It wasn’t other kind of disease, sickness. And so, those
two I remember really good. Satii Nap and Sam Wilson. And of course, Atikko here in
Duck Valley. That’s all I know.
C:
So these people that were healers, they were blessed with the power? Or, I mean, they
didn’t go to school for it.
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P:
No, it was blessed by power. They had it from the ancestors, from way back. I guess it
just came to them from way back. And—no, they didn’t. They weren’t taught. It was just
in them to heal people. And they really did heal people, you know, in the old days.
Nowadays, we have this young modern medicine—claim to be medicine men. I think
they’re just out here for the money! [Laughter] Money, you know, they’re not really
healing people like the old people. They’re all dead now.
C:
What kind of medicine did they use? Were they all different, or—?
P:
They’re all different. Like, sagebrush was the main one from that area, Battle Mountain,
Cortez, [37:56] kwaiya. It was pohovi. Pohovi and totsa—totsa’s a lot, too. Antapittseh
kwana. Those three I know.
C:
Is there anybody that still uses those kind of—
P:
Medicine? I do. We do. I taught all my kids that, you know, my girls and my son? We
harvest totsa up in Scott Creek back in the mountains every fall. And that heals anything.
You drink it—but it’s real greasy. Like, greasy? I really don’t like it. But some other lady
told me to make it kind of mild, put more water in it, and strain it, and then you can drink
it. But it’s supposed to heal your insides. Any sickness that’s inside of you. Stomach
problems. Some people even says cancer and other kind of dreadful sickness. It cures that
if you’re very faithful to drink it every day. Like, Huttsi used to drink, like, a half a cup a
day. So I guess… But I don’t do that. I use mine for sores, when you get cut. Like, for
animals too. Like my dogs get run over and cut or something, like, I boil that totsa and
make it real mushy—you know, that real mushy—and then I mash it with my hands. And
I cool it, and I take that pulp, and I just put it in the dog’s wound, and it heals it
immediately. Or anything. Horses, anything. And humans also. And you can smoke it,
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too. You can smoke the totsa. Just pound it up to a little tobacco, and roll it up, and
smoke it. My huttsi—again, Grandma Minnie over at Battle Mountain—she used to roll
up totsa, and she’d smoke it every wintertime. She’s sitting by her stove, smoking totsa.
And she’d always make me wrap her totsa—you know, her tobacco, in the little paper. So
I wrap it for her, and then she would give me one, just for so I won’t get sick. Because
it’s totsa. And that’s where I started smoking little bit, because of her! [Laughter] And I
used to remember that. I was the only one that smoke among my sisters. I had fun with
my huttsi, although she was really strict, too. Really strict with us. So… We were taught
how to get up early in the morning to do our chores. Every morning, my dad done that to
us when we were growing up. We got up, she made five in the morning. I still now, to
this day I get up at that time. And that was good teaching. We done all our chores early in
the morning. And we didn’t have no electricity. We had to haul our water from a well, or
from the river. And a lot of hardships, you know, when we grew up, and nothing—
outside toilets, no water. Had to wash your clothes out by the river. Or in a tub with
washboards. That’s how I grew up. Nowadays, we have it easy.
C:
What about the antapittseh kwana? What’s that used for?
P:
Antapittseh kwana is a real powerful healer, too. More powerful than all of the other
medicine, according to Huttsi. And it grows up here around Cleveland Trail, back here.
Cleveland Trail? Because she used to tell George Blackett to get it for her every fall. He
goes over there, [Shoshone at 41:34], he’s still walking way off from where the plants
are growing, and he’d be singing. [Shoshone at 41:40]. In order to get it, he has to sing
and pray to it. So he’d go over there and get whole bunch of it for Huttsi. Some long, tall
plants. And then she’d boil it, I guess, and then drink it. Again, drink it. And then it’s also
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good for healing, like the totsa. You know, you’ll get it pulpy, boil and get it pulpy, and
put it on sores or whatever. Cuts. And that’s supposed to be real powerful. But it’s hardly
any totsa around. I mean, hardly any antapittseh kwana around. I’ve heard that they’re
gone, now. And they don’t grow anywhere, just rare places. But I rely on the totsa now.
And mostly pohovi, I love pohovi yet. And I walk along, and I break a piece of pohovi,
young pohovi, young one along outside my house. I just have it, smell it, and feel it, and
inhale all the good medicine inside of you. I love pohovi. And [__inaudible at 42:47__],
that’s, I was raised with pohovi and totsa.
C:
How about cedar? Did you use cedar much?
P:
Not the Battle Mountain area. I never heard of them burning cedar. Did you?
C:
Well, I hear people talk about it.
P:
Yeah, some, I guess. But I never heard my Grandma talk about cedar. Only when I got
over here. So I burn the cedar now all the time. It’s good to bless your house with.
C:
Uh-huh. Okay, we’ve got about ten minutes now. Is there anything you want to wind up
with, or tell at the end here, about things that maybe your grandchildren, or if you were to
tell them what’s important in life, and what’s important in terms of tradition, what would
you think of would be the best thing it is to say to them?
P:
My grandchildren. Well, I would tell them to get up early in the morning, because
nowadays, those young people stay in bed, stay in bed ‘til ten, eleven. And that’s not
good. Because I notice some of my grandkids are like that. And I try to make them get up
early, but they’re spoiled, I guess, in the modern world. Because I didn’t raise them, their
mother raised them. Their mothers raised them. If I raised them, it would be different. It
would be different. Because I raised one granddaughter—that’s Nammi up at the
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hospital—I raised her. I made her get up early in the morning, do chores. So she works all
the time. She gets up early. She does her work. But the other grandchildren, I don’t know.
Well anyway, so I tell them to get up early in the morning, work, and make a living, and
be honest and giving to people. Talk to all the elders. Respect elders, and respect all
people, animals, everything. And to—and not get involved in alcohol and drugs, because
that’s killing people nowadays. And that’s what I want to pass on to them. That tradition
is—keep up the medicine. Keep up the medicine, the totsa and the sagebrush. And just
pray. Mostly pray. Pray, in the Indian way. Most of my grandkids and my kids doesn’t
talk Shoshone. They understand it, my kids understand, but they don’t talk it. And
grandkids are even worse. So—but they hear me talk all the time. So I just tell them what
I know about living a good life. That’s what I want them to do is live a good life, free of
drugs and alcohol. And that’s what I want to pass on to them.
[End of recording]
�
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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
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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
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Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
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Illaine Premo
Location
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Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB format
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00:45:58
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/566
Dublin Core
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Title
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Illaine Premo - Oral history (11/30/2009)
Subject
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Oral history interview with Illaine Premo, Western Shoshone from Battle Mountain, NV on 11/30/2009
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Illain Tybo Premo was born to Ada Cortez Johnson and Cortez Charlie who were from the Beowawe/Cortez area. Her ancestors came from Smoky Valley and the Austin area. During her childhood she speaks about moving all around Western Shoshone territory to places such as Elko, Battle Mountain, and South Fork. She speaks about living in both Battle Mountain and South Fork reservation. She also speaks about her grandmother Minnie, who was a medicine woman, who lived in Battle Mountain and taught Illain traditional lifeways of the Shoshone. She was taught traditions such as picking nuts and berries, hunting deer and rabbit, using traditional medicines, and getting up early and doing chores. She also speaks about attending Stewart Indian School after 8th grade. She also tells us a few Shoshone stories including the Toya Deanapa (Mountain boy), Tso’ovich (stone man), and ba’a wa’a (water-babies). She ends her narrative by cautioning the younger generations about using alcohol and drugs.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Illaine Premo Oral History Transcription" href="/omeka/files/original/42e8cfd518657ccafcf2585ac27ed966.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Illaine Premo Oral History Transcription [pdf file]</a>
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 024
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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11/30/2009 [30 November 2009]; 2009 November 30
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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/373
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Battle Mountain
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
folktale
GBIA
medicine woman
Shoshone
Stewart Indian School
Story
traditional foods
traditional medicines
traditions
-
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04de61d9668de5a83279898614a59079
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/cc71cefaafddeea7b0dfcb83d2bc679c.pdf
4ebe28c5ce483e86445e14bba041709c
PDF Text
Text
Alvin
&
Lorraine
Sims
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
023
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
November
30,
2009
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 023
Interviewee: Alvin and Lorraine Sims
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: November 30, 2009
C:
Today we have Alvin and Lorraine Sims. And Alvin, can you give us your full name and
tell us about where your family came from?
AS:
Yeah. My family came from in Paradise Valley. Came this way from there. And then, my
dad and my mom, they all came—no, my mom came in from Ruby Valley. And then, my
dad came from Paradise. My grandfather came this way, saikkih [1:16] Owyhee. And
then they stayed in Owyhee, and that’s where I grow up. Pu’unkh’a [1:21] But I grow
over here. That’s where I’m living right now. Hok’ patanke [1:26]. Right there, on this
side of my house, in the sagebrush, that’s where I was born. I was born the Indian way,
not in the hospital, huh? Sokkuh nemmen tsoo’pa naha nap’an [1:40]. Yeah. [Shoshone
from 1:44-1:48] Yeah. [Shoshone from 1:50-1:51] my parents. Yeah.
C:
Who was your parents? Hagan nanihande?
AS:
Edna Charles and Jack Sims. They’re my parents, my dad and my mom.
C:
Uh-huh. What tribe were they from?
AS:
My mother’s from Shoshone. From Te-Moak side. And then, my dad came in from
Paradise. Paiute. Yeah. Soteweh newene [2:25], I’m kind of half and half. Put me half and
half. [Shoshone at 2:31] Sikkih mia ______ kimmake. They came this way. And then,
found a place where to build their home. And that’s where I was raised from.
C:
So what kind of house did they—did they build a house, or did they live in a tent, or…?
AS:
Well, they live in a tent from the beginning. Tent huup’a. Then, later on, they build a
house. And then, that’s when my dad was working with the CC. CC crew, they call them
that. I’d come and I’d put up the boundary fence. All the way around the reservation.
That’s who we worked with. Down from us. That’s our place. And then we stayed in
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Owyhee. Yeah. [Shoshone at 3:20] Yeah. All my grandparents [__inaudible at 3:26__].
And then on Te-Moak side, [Shoshone at 3:30], they came in from that side.
C:
So, are you related to Frank Temoke?
AS:
No, not really. I’m related to Captain Sam. The main guy. That was my great-great-greatgrandfather, tsoo. He was there with ones [Shoshone at 3:55]. Came down here, and
checked this over [Shoshone at 3:59]. Checked this land to see which one you like. You
want this one? Or you want Wild Horse? [Shoshone at 4:07]. My old man didn’t go for
that! So, he don’t like that. They’re too small. So, [Shoshone at 4:18] sopai wahatte,
taibo na sembe niikwen, “Go ahead and check this one out. [Shoshone? at 4:22]
Owyhee. See how you like it.” So he checked everything. Went up in the mountain, up
there. They got deer up there. They got groundhog up there. Then he checked all the
river. And then, it’s got squirrels, it’s got fish, it’s got everything here. So that old man,
he’s choose this one, so that’s why the people came in. Later on, a bunch of them came
in. The first five families that came down was, that Captain Sam, and then Captain
George, Big Dick family, and then Washington. That’s the only four I know. But there
was five, they said. I don’t know who was the other one. So they came down and they
stayed over here. And that, on the place they chose is right there by Sam Curtis’s place.
Down here? There’s a rock building that was sitting there, that was sitting down toward
the west. It’s all fallen down now. That’s where Washington used to live. And then that
Big Dick, he used to go way down, down below. [Shoshone at 5:46]. First one that came
down. Yeah. That’s how the old man checked it. He said, it’s got everything here. And
that’s the reservation he had. [Shoshone at 6:05]. And put him over here. Yeah. That’s
how it went.
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C:
So are there any relatives of Washington left on the reservation?
S:
Uh, no, I don’t really know them. But that’s what my grandfather—and he used to tell me
about that. But I don’t really know. The only one I really know was that Big Dick.
Taskey. That’s only one I know. But the rest… I know where they live, he showed me
the places where they live. But… That’s just about all I know on that.
C:
So, was there like a Indian agent that lived here with them, or…?
S:
Huh?
C:
[Shoshone at 6:54]?
AS:
I think so. I think that something like that way. [Shoshone at 7:00]. Because that—he
was the superintendant, we had that long time ago. He goes around in through here. Visit
them places on horseback. And then, that’s when them—I guess, he went down, he was
looking for Dick Caskey. So he went down out [Shoshone at 7:23], and he went down to
my grandmother’s place over there. Asked her—he asked her, “Where does Mr. Big Dick
live?” And then the old lady, right, she can’t hardly talk English too good. So, she said,
“Way down there,” her pointing that way. And he lives way down there. [Laughter] So
you can understand [Shoshone at 7:55] semme yekwite. Yeah, that’s only thing. That’s
the only thing she said! She says, “He lives way down there.” [Laughter] Yeah.
[Shoshone at 8:07]
C:
So, did the other Shoshones move up here later, then?
AS:
Yeah, lately. [Shoshone at 8:18] Then them coming in, keep coming in. That’s when the
Captain Sam was here already. So he invited them in. And then, later on, Captain Sam,
well, he said that—he was talking about Paddy Cap. He’s fighting, fighting the soldiers
all the time. That’s Paddy Cap bunch. And then, Captain Sam, well, he told them two
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runners of his, he said, “I want to really talk with that Captain Paddy.” So, he sent a
couple guys down that way. I don’t know where they got ahold of that moonshine, long
time ago, but I guess they had all kind of liquor long time ago, it sound like. So, he gave
them some. “Take this along. And then, give him two drinks. And when you get done,
you bring him this way.” So, they went down, looking for him. They finally found him,
where he’s at. They talked with him, and then they keep pouring him the drink. And the
old man, he liked that drink, boy! [Laughter] Keep on drinking and drinking, and then
pretty soon he got so drunk where he can’t hardly stand up there. Really, he about ready
to pass out. So, he really got drunk, and then them guys said, “Let’s go for a ride.” They
put him on horse some way, and brought him up. And then they had brought him right to
Captain Sam, over to his house. So—and then Captain, in next morning, I guess Captain
talk with him, with Paddy Cap. And then told him that he better quit this fighting. “I
don’t want you be doing that” [Shoshone? at 10:29] “I don’t want you to fight no more.
Your people going to be gone pretty soon, you keep on fighting.” I guess he understood
what he meant. “I want you to bring—go down back home, and bring the whole tribe,
your tribe. Bring ‘em up. And then we’ll give you a place over here to stay.” [Shoshone
at 10:58]. Right up here by Meadow Creek. You know, from Eleanor’s house. That fence
line that goes west. He’ll give you that piece right there. Six mile this way, and then 22
mile this way. “You could raise your people, your kids, right there on [__inaudible at
11:23__].” So, he settled down. He settled down right there, raised his families. There
used to be lot of people right there in Meadow Creek. There was families clear from—
you know where Lena Black used to live? Yeah, from on all over this way, clear up in
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here, and then, on the side hill, on this side. And then down here, there’s some more.
There’s, I don’t know how many families. There were quite a few families there.
LS:
Yakama-ne.
AS:
Yeah, Yakamas…
LS:
Damons.
AS:
Damon, Littles. Yeah, there was bunch of them. Yeah, finally, they all went. They’re all
gone.
LS:
[Shoshone at 12:11]
AS:
Huh?
LS:
Oh, shoot, now I can’t remember.
C:
So where did Paddy Cap’s, where was he before? Where did he roam?
AS:
Well, he was right in Umatilla there someplace. That way.
LS:
Thataway.
AS:
Yeah, Oregon. Oregon. Yeah. So anyway, that’s where he was raising problems. So, they
finally got him over here. They had a picture of him over there at the tribal office.
Captain Paddy Cap. He had a big war bonnet on. He was sitting this way. Yeah, this way.
Picture up on the wall of him facing this way. That’s where he was from. He just want to
fight all the time. Yeah, that’s the story about that one, there.
C:
So, how did—was the Boneys, was there a family here named Boneys at one time?
LS:
Yeah, Boney.
AS:
Yeah.
C:
Were they Paddy Cap’s band, or were they Shoshone, or…?
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AS:
No, they Shoshone. Bonny, Boney, Barney… They call themselves “Barney” now. They
used to call him “Boney.”
LS:
[Shoshone at 13:36]
AS:
Yeah, right there, you know, where that bridge—
LS:
Boney Bridge.
AS:
—by this side of the Rock Gym, the house over there? Right there. Right in that corner
there. This side the bridge right there. They used to live right there. The only one that’s
left out of them, the Barney—no, not—what’s his name? Kenneth. Kenneth Boney. He’s
only one that’s around. That’s left, probably. The only one. I don’t know if there’s any
girls or anything. That’s only one I know.
C:
How about the Priddy? Was there a family named—
AS:
Priddy?
LS:
Priddy, yeah.
AS:
Yeah, they used to live way down there by Pleasant Valley. Up that way.
C:
Where did his family come from?
AS:
From the Paddy Cap side.
C:
Oh, he was a Paddy Cap.
AS:
Yeah. Must have moved to them up there in Pleasant Valley, that came in from Paddy
Cap side.
LS:
The Dodges, too. The Thomas.
AS:
Yeah, Dodge, Thomas.
LS:
Roy Thomas. And then… What was Tupa and them’s name?
AS:
Adam.
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LS:
Adam. Tom Adams.
AS:
Tom Adams.
LS:
And his wife.
AS:
Yeah, all them people that used to live down there. Pleasant Valley.
LS:
But I don’t know that lady’s taibo name. Just Tupa. [Shoshone? at 15:05]
C:
[Shoshone at 15:07]? What ever happened to them?
AS:
They all died.
LS:
They all passed on, yeah.
AS:
They all passed away.
LS:
Had a lot of people here, no’himpaishen [15:16].
AS:
Mmhm. Lot of people over there. There’s not very much left. Nobody in Pleasant Valley
now.
LS:
Not good, but, you know, if it wasn’t for the liquors, there’d be lot of people. Lot of
elders would be still here.
AS:
Yeah, that Priddy—
LS:
Alcohol got them all.
AS:
That, what’s his name, that… Priddy, what their dad’s name?
LS:
Willie? Willie Priddy?
AS:
Yeah, Willie. He used to be a big family, that one. Lot of boys. No girls, innit?
LS:
No, mm-mm. No.
AS:
Nothing but boys. They used to get drunk, get sick, and then most of them got died with
alcohol.
LS:
Everyone.
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AS:
Drinking too much.
LS:
We’d have lots of elders. Now, right today, but…
AS:
Yeah.
C:
How about tuberculosis? Was tuberculosis, did people die from that, too?
AS:
Well, long time ago, people don’t know about the disease. They don’t know what they
have.
LS:
Because they never go to hospital, never.
AS:
Never have no hospital.
LS:
[Shoshone at 16:24]. I don’t know how they treats theirself. They cured with herbs.
AS:
Yeah, tuberculosis—well, all this sickness that they, they don’t know what they have.
LS:
[Shoshone at 16:40]
AS:
Yeah, the taibo forgot.
C:
So what did they use for medicine? [Shoshone at 16:48] Hawaki newe nattahsua’na?
AS:
I don’t know what kind. I don’t know what kind of Indian medicine—they used nothing
but Indian medicine then. The only one I know is sagebrush. I don’t know what’s that
others.
LS:
Uteweh daha newe tea, Indian tea, that antapittseh kwana. You probably—
C:
Yeah.
AS:
Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know what the name of that one. [Shoshone at 17:15]
LS:
And then they used to have a lot of—
C:
[Shoshone at 17:17] Yeah. Osen kwa’i sembanai newe nanihan. Yeah.
LS:
Lot of cabbage, and then wild carrots they eat. [Shoshone at 17:24] Not really that much,
though, huh?
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AS:
No, unh-uh.
LS:
No. Not like today.
C:
So, when did the Native American Church—[Shoshone at 17:39] sick?
AS:
In the [19]50s, I think.
LS:
No. Then, they just [Shoshone at 17:48] ondat newe nanishundahai. Himpaishe.
AS:
I know. That’s when Raymond Warren came down. He’s the one that brought them down
this way.
LS:
Long time ago, though. Not in the [19]50s. Before. [Shoshone at 18:02]
C:
So who was Raymond Warren? Was he—
AS:
He’s from Fort Hall. Yeah, he came down there, and then they started with that. Start
healing people with that. That’s one thing, only thing I know about that, Indian American
Church.
LS:
And then the sagebrush, I still sagebrush for cough.
AS:
I don’t know—I know antapittseh kwana, but I don’t know the name of it.
LS:
The taibo name.
AS:
Yeah. That’s a white name for it, someplace. [Laughter] Because I don’t know.
LS:
Totsa.
AS:
Yeah. [Shoshone at 18:57] Sekke nanihante, I don’t know how you would pronounce it.
[Laughter]
LS:
[Shoshone at 19:00] taibo nanihade. But there is lots—herbs. Mmhm.
C:
So, when did the—when was the old hospital built? Or, do you guys remember when that
was built?
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AS:
[Shoshone at 19:17]. When I was going to school, it was already up. See, when I was in
school. I was, I don’t know, about seventeen?
LS:
Before.
AS:
Yeah. And it was up already. So, it must be around about, when I was around about
thirteen, fourteen? That’s when the hospital—this old hospital down here.
C:
Yeah.
LS:
[Shoshone at 19:48]
AS:
Yeah, long time ago.
C:
So was this the first hospital that was built, or was there one before?
AS:
Yeah, that was the first one.
C:
First one.
AS:
Yeah. And then this one here, not too long ago.
LS:
There was a, [Shoshone at 20:09], a church over here on this side.
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
No, [Shoshone at 20:16]. I know there was a—the Pursleys used to live over here, too.
Himbaishe.
C:
Uh-huh. So, when you guys were growing up, [Shoshone at 20:29], your grandparents,
[Shoshone at 20:32] hakainuhi teniwaa? What did they teach you, or what did they say
to—what were some of their teachings?
AS:
Yeah. [Shoshone 20:38] She’d been taught a lot, about Indian ways and what.
C:
Can you share some of that with us today?
LS:
[Shoshone(?) at 20:49]
C:
Yeah.
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LS:
Okay. [Shoshone at 20:52] Himbaishen ______ newe napuiten ne. Tsoon newe teniwate,
you know? [Shoshone at 20:58]. You know, the bad things, all the bad things. Itsappe
[Shoshone at 21:08]. The scary! Mmhm.
C:
So they taught you to watch out for things, and not to do certain things. Did they give you
a reason as to why not to do those things?
LS:
But, you know, when you [Shoshone at 21:30] Itsanai, like, you go to jail for that. And
then, [Shoshone at 21:34]. That’s some ones, there’s lot of things. Good things, but I
can’t remember them. Tsaante newe teniwaken.
C:
So, it was the facts of life.
LS:
Mmhm. [Shoshone at 21:54] Don’t be laughing at people. Don’t be laughing when
you—they might put a curse on you with this. [Shoshone at 22:05] Mmhm. There’s lot
of things, lot of—go the good way. That’s how come I don’t really care about this booze
business. This liquor? I don’t really care for it. [Shoshone at 22:20].
C:
Oh, you had a house above the hospital up there?
LS:
Mmhm. Yeah.
C:
What kind of house did you have?
LS:
I think there was a log cabin.
C:
Oh, log cabin house?
LS:
Yeah, and then [Shoshone at 22:32]. It’s a building. That’s how I, you know, [Shoshone
at 22:36]. We used to eat in cans of whatever, you know? No spoons, we have to use our
fingers. Mmhm. Then, in the springtime, when they real itto—you know this little ditch
right here? The water [Shoshone at 22:55]. Then we carry water, run over there, and
rinse our, you know, whatever we eat in. Yeah. It’s a hard, hard life, yeah, what I came
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through. [Shoshone at 23:11], you know, the people drink tease [more]. And then you
see a lot of it, and you don’t want to do that. Himpaishe.
C:
Osen suwain hakate hinna hipi [23:21], what did they drink?
LS:
I don’t know! That’s what I used to think, you know? Where did they get their liquor to
get—because I know I used to hear them say that, you know, somebody gets it for them.
Then I used to hear them—
AS:
Bootlegger ko’i.
LS:
Bootleggers like Boocher Jess, hagan tease? And Tiptoe George.
AS:
Tiptoe George. [Laughter]
LS:
Charlie the Barber. [Shoshone at 23:48]. But anyhow, a long time ago, [Shoshone
23:50].
AS:
Yeah. [Laughter] They’re the Mountain City bootleggers.
LS:
I guess so, I don’t know.
AS:
That’s where they get their drinks.
LS:
That’s what I always wonder about: where did they get their liquor—like, them folk?
[Shoshone at 23:59]. Yeah. [Shoshone at 24:05]
C:
So, when did Mountain City—do you guys remember how Mountain City came to be?
AS:
That’s long time ago. That was before my day. It was built before my day. It was long
time ago.
LS:
Did they used to have carnival, huh, way up there?
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
Or whatevers. Rodeos.
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AS:
I must been around about, maybe 14, 15 years old? But it was already up, Mountain City.
So, I…
LS:
We never go anywhere, you know. We don’t go anyplace. In 1971 was the first time I
was ever been on the highway.
AS:
And that’s when, your, the grandparents—Old man Cavanaugh? That’s when they were
kids, were riding them ponies up there to Mountain City, for that carnival. [Laughter] Old
man was drunk, he got on one of them ponies and riding around with them kids, ride!
[Laughter]
LS:
They were silly, though, them old people.
AS:
So many people laughing! [Laughter] Only big guy in a bunch of them little kids!
LS:
They were funny, though. Silly guys, himbaishe, older people. They make you laugh. It
wasn’t like this, you know. They don’t fight or anything. Not that I know of, you know?
But now when, there’s just, when they drink, there’s fighting. Long time ago, I never see
those things. Yeah.
C:
So, what did everybody do? Were they all ranchers then, or how did they survive?
Hakane [Shoshone at 26:07] or what kind of work did they do?
AS:
Well, they used to work with the CC. They call them “CC.” They built this whole
reservation. The fence line, up through north, east, south, west. That’s their job to do.
Took them quite a while to do that, finish that fencing. This, real big. Go a long ways. I
don’t know how many miles, it go from big dam on over, clear back there. And from
there, across. This way, and this way. That’s how they—they used to work for only a
dollar and a half a day. Yeah, that’s how my dad used to work, for the CC. Dollar and a
half a day.
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LS:
And some people have a wheat farm. Yeah, himpaishe. They trade with the—well, we
had to couple trade over here at Williams’ store. William [Shoshone at 27:18].
Maybe—who had it first time?
AS:
Sherman’s.
LS:
Sherman.
AS:
That old lady.
LS:
They trade with her wheat—you know, their flour. They had flour mill here, too. Yeah. I
know my grandpa and my grandma used to bring their flour here and trade for food.
Mmhm. [Shoshone at 27:36]. Yeah. And they kept garden. Now, we don’t even have
gardens. Because we have canned food. [Laughter] Yeah, that’s how I remember. They
get along real good, too. They help one another. Now come they don’t. It’s real strange.
Yeah. Sometimes, when I wake up in the nighttime, I always say, “I wonder why people
don’t get along,” you know? They should all get along. Then we used to have horse—you
know, wagon, [Shoshone at 28:14]. Then we’ll, somebody’s walking, and we’ll pick
them up. [Shoshone at 28:22] Some people have cattle. Not real lots, though, huh?
AS:
Mm-mm.
LS:
They used to have returned heifers, tsu ha. Remember?
AS:
Mmhm.
LS:
[Shoshone at 28:34] They sell their thing, and then they pay that back. [Shoshone? at
28:40]. And then they used to have a sheep in here, long time ago. [Shoshone at 28:47],
they use that money for something, I don’t know what. Mmhm, yeah. [Shoshone at
28:54] I don’t know. Everything’s really changed. And then I always think that, you
know, our elders, when they were in the council, [Shoshone at 29:07]. And then they,
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[Shoshone at 29:12]. They all get along. And so, pass it on. [Shoshone at 29:18]. They
ask the tribe. And then they used to gather over here at the resource center. Sukkuna
gather, and then they tell the people what they went for—to Washington, D.C., or
whatever. Wherever they go. And they tell the people. [Shoshone at 29:34]
AS:
Well, they had them—they had maybe two, maybe three guys go for them outside. And
then, when they come back, that one guy will get up and tell the people what they went
for. [Shoshone at 29:49]. “That’s what we went for.” And then he’ll talk English, taibo
taikwanna. Tell them in English. Pretty soon, he’ll want to tell you in Shoshone.
[Shoshone at 30:05] Tell them in Shoshone. “I’m going to tell you guys in Paiute
[Paiute? at 30:11].” So, and then he’d tell them where they’d been to in Paiute, there.
And explain everything to them—to the people, to the tribe. They used to do that, long
time ago. But now, you can’t hear nothing about that. [Laughter] They won’t tell, no
matter where they’ve been to, they wouldn’t tell you. Nobody want tell you.
LS:
[Shoshone at 30:40]
AS:
Yeah, they tell you.
LS:
[Shoshone at 30:44]
C:
So, that’s when they had their moon houses?
LS:
Yeah. [Shoshone at 31:15].
C:
The women stayed away from the family when they were—during their period?
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
Mmhm. Then, they have to take a bath in a tub before they come to the house. That’s—
had to starve. [Laughter] They wash you. Then you feel clean when you come in the
house. But I never get to do that, but when I had my baby, [Shoshone 31:39]. I had to
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stay out. For whole month. Mmhm. That’s what they’re supposed to do. [Shoshone at
31:50] They live in the houses. That’s a good way, though, you know? To keep that up.
Then you don’t [Shoshone at 32:01].
AS:
[Shoshone at 32:09], like people, they [Shoshone at 32:12]. Some of them are strong.
They can take what’s coming, and they can take it. But some others don’t. They get sick
with it, [Shoshone at 32:23].
LS:
[Shoshone at 32:25]
AS:
Yeah. [Shoshone at 32:26]. Yeah, and hurt them so bad that—
LS:
[Shoshone at 32:32]
C:
So, who were the spiritual healers? [Shoshone 32:51]?
AS:
There was, that [Shoshone at 32:56]. John Damon.
LS:
John Damon.
AS:
John Damon… What’s the other guy?
LS:
Willie Dorsey.
AS:
Willie Dorsey. Yeah, Willie Dorsey.
LS:
Hugh Thomas.
AS:
Hugh Thomas.
LS:
And Alex Cleveland.
AS:
Alex Cleveland. And then that, Nat Paddy.
LS:
Yeah, Nat. [Shoshone at 33:18]
AS:
Yeah, and those were five of them. There used to be five Indian healers here.
LS:
Mmhm. Spiritual healers.
AS:
Yeah.
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LS:
Not going, there’s nobody.
AS:
Nobody. Nobody here.
LS:
Mmhm.
AS:
Well, there—
LS:
We went to [Shoshone at 33:34].
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
[Shoshone at 33:43], nothing.
AS:
Yeah, no place. I don’t think there’s any Indian doctors. Something, maybe in the Navajo
tribes, there might be some there. But not over here. That guy from, there’s one over
there in Fort Hall that I know. But he comes down through here. And then, every time he
comes down through here, he says—it don’t look too good up this way, he said. One
time, he came around this way, he said. He came through Elko—to Wells, Elko, down
this other way. Soon as he came up here by Wild Horse, he said, been getting darker and
darker this way. The way he looked at it. Coming along by the canyon, got over here.
This whole thing was dark, he said. This whole valley. Real dark. “Don’t look to good to
me,” he said. He’s a faith healer, sort of. He’s called Indian doctor. But he try to get rid of
it some way, he said. Also, he doctored a lot of people over here [Shoshone at 34:54].
Comes around. He’s a Shoshone. Talks Shoshone with you. [Laughter] Yeah. Talk real
good.
C:
Hagan nanihante? What’s his name?
AS:
[Shoshone at 35:08] that guy that came down on the pickup?
LS:
I don’t know. Can’t remember.
AS:
Hii no naniha—I used to know his name. Can’t remember now.
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LS:
Some kind of Sweeney.
AS:
Sweeney. Yeah, Sweeney something. Yeah, he comes down. He’s got his own truck
when he comes down this way. Said, “Every time I come here, everything don’t look to
good up this way.”
LS:
[Shoshone at 35:36]?
AS:
Yeah.
C:
Did he say why it didn’t look good, or how—
LS:
Black clouds going on.
AS:
Yeah, black clouds, he said, covering this valley.
C:
What’s it from? Did he ever say?
AS:
No. I don’t know, I don’t know.
LS:
He just didn’t say. He should have at least cleared it up for us. [Shoshone at 35:56]
AS:
That other one, too, that other Indian doctor that was here before, before him. They used
to—stays over there with us guys here. [Shoshone at 36:16], you know, the one that runs
that—that [Shoshone at 36:21].
LS:
Eagleheart, huh?
AS:
Eagleheart! Yeah. He said, he was telling me the same thing. He said it’s, don’t look
right.
LS:
I always wondered why they couldn’t do anything about it.
AS:
“I don’t know why it’s like that,” he said, “but it don’t look right to me.”
LS:
[Shoshone at 36:40]
AS:
Yeah, everything dark. He said everything’s not running right, he was telling me.
LS:
[Shoshone at 36:49]
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AS:
He could see a person.
C:
[Shoshone at 36:53]
AS:
He had a black handkerchief about, like that. Just like a x-ray machine. He’ll just hold it
loosely, like that. Look at you, and he’ll tell you. See what’s wrong with you. [Laughter]
That’s how good he was! His handkerchief was x-ray! [Laughter] Yep. And then after,
when he get done there, he’ll run a sweat bath. ‘Course, he gets it real hot. I was in there
with him, once, in that sweat bath? He put too much water on that rock. I can’t hardly
breathe! [Laughter] I let him a holler, “I can’t stand this heat, so I’m going to stick my
head out!” He let me out then. Then them other guys, they took it. “Yeah. I don’t know
how you guys could stand that heat,” I said. It’s real tough in there! [Laughter]
LS:
[Shoshone at 37:57]
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
But now, go in and they’re mixed, I think. [Shoshone at 38:05].
AS:
Yeah, you’re not supposed to mix it with ladies. Just nothing but men. And if the ladies
want to do it, they can do it on their own, they said. Nothing but ladies.
LS:
But everything’s changed. Those’ll change it, yeah. It’s hard nowadays.
AS:
They’re still doing it with ladies, now. These young generation, they’re still doing it with
them girls and that. But they’re not supposed to do. But… I guess never been taught or
something.
C:
So when they did the sweats long time ago, it was just one for women and one for men,
huh?
AS:
Yeah.
C:
And was there a leader? Somebody that was in charge?
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AS:
Yeah. This one person in there prays for you in there. He’s a main man. And the ladies
do the same thing. They get one lady to be praying, do the praying for them in there. But
no man is in there with them, just ladies.
C:
So they don’t—now, they do them both together, huh?
AS:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s this young generation. They—no matter what you tell them, they won’t
believe you. [Laughter] That’s the way we view the young kids, now.
LS:
[Shoshone at 39:37] No matter how you tell, you know, them not to be doing this and
that? They won’t listen to you. This long time ago, [Shoshone at 39:48]. I said, “It isn’t.
You’re supposed to carry it on to your kids” [Shoshone? at 39:55]. But, they don’t listen.
So I tell them, don’t be, don’t go out drinking, you know/ There’s a bad disease out there
nowadays, I told them. Better watch out. Be careful. Take care of your life. Mmhm. I
said, “I’m trying my best to take care of my life. I’m an older person now. I’m still
talking!” But they don’t listen to me. Mmhm. I don’t know about my grandson, I don’t
know if he’s listening to me or what. And I will tell him, “Don’t abuse girls. That’s not
nice.” Don’t abuse one another. [Shoshone 40:41] It’s hard, nowadays. Very hard. The
kids don’t listen to you. It’s upsetting.
AS:
Now, if you do tell them something, they said, “This is 1909!” That’s what—
LS:
[19]90?
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
[Shoshone at 41:04]
AS:
Yeah, that’s what they going to say. When you talking about it, it’s past already.
[Laughter]
LS:
They will say, “This isn’t the [19]50s, or”—
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AS:
This is [20]09, they say! Not in the [19]50s, they going to say. I heard three, a few, kids
say that to me. Try to tell them something, yeah. “Well, you know, it’s [20]09, now. The
one you talking about is way past,” he said. [Laughter]
LS:
You know, if the parents, they have to stand together to raise kids. If one says no, the
other one let them have the cars. And if I say no, he’ll let them use the car. And that’s not
right at all. I told them, “You got to be together to raise kids nowadays.” Right? Mmhm.
That’s what I been saying, but they don’t listen to me at all. Of course, some of these
days, they’ll—they’ll learn I hope. Because I told my boy before he passed on, I said,
“You’re the leader. And the kids are going to follow your footsteps someday.” See, now,
doing—they’re drinking now.
C:
Okay, in summary, Alvin and Lorraine, if you were to give your words of wisdom—I
guess is, that’s what we could call it—to the young people of today, what would you like
to say to them?
AS:
[Shoshone at 42:40] like I was saying, about that drinking. First thing I would say, about
drinking. Them kids, don’t want them—I want them kids not to be doing that. And then
mixing it up with that dope. Smoking. Want them kids to stay away from that. I mean,
there’s lot of it going on around here now. Main thing—that’s the main thing I would say.
Stay away from it. Try to stay away from it. Because they might not live long doing that,
too. But they got to think about their life—ahead. If they don’t think about their life, they
might just pass on. That’s what I would say, is quit that stuff. They could quit, in their
own willpower, they’ll quit. That’s what I would say. Just like in smoking. See, if you
want to quit, you could quit. Like I did, I just quit. Been lot of offers, lot of drinks offered
to me, but I just, I told them no. I quit this stuff already. That’s passed on. Smoking, too. I
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don’t smoke. That’s what them kids got to learn. Yeah, they got to quit that on their own.
Lot of that stuff. I don’t know what kind of pills they take, too. That’s another thing.
They mix it some way. Smoke that, and they they still gets into drugs. So that’s what I
would say to the kids. They’ll be all right. If they quit, they’ll be okay. The best thing is
to quit. Might be, some of it might be going in the school, too, I don’t know. Lot of them
kids there.
C:
Is there anything you’d like to add to that, Lorraine?
LS:
[Shoshone at 44:55] Aishen kwa’i, himpa’ha ______ some of these days, they might be
sitting in the leader place. That’s the way I look at it. [Shoshone at 45:07].
C:
So they should learn to work together as a team.
LS:
Yeah, mmhm. [Shoshone at 45:13] and don’t abuse one another. [Shoshone at 45:19].
But there’s more. [Shoshone at 45:26].
C:
And then how about education?
LS:
Yeah, [Shoshone at 45:32]. They need to [Shoshone at 45:34], I had to quit for my
younger ones, when I [Shoshone at 45:40]. And then I, in seventh grade, I went to school
in seventh grade, because I had to quit school for my younger kid, younger sisters.
[Shoshone at 45:56]. Yeah, Leah Manning used to tell me to come back to school.
[Shoshone at 46:03] Because, you know, [Shoshone at 46:10]. That’s the way I grew
up. Drinking. And I sure don’t care for that. [Shoshone at 46:17] You know? Come
home, and [Shoshone at 46:24]. I lived in fear the rest of my years. Yeah. [Shoshone at
46:34]. And then Ray Allen and Dawena over there were small, [Shoshone at 46:41]. I
was just afraid, [Shoshone at 46:46], for him to come in. You know, “Come in!” [46:51]
And I was real happy. [Shoshone at 47:15]
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C:
So cedar is used for, a medicine, and praying, huh?
LS:
Mmhm.
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
[Shoshone at 47:28] That’s what I did, on my own. Yeah. [Shoshone at 47:33]. You
know? When life is, when you have no kids, it’s real lonesome. [Shoshone at 47:53].
That’s the way I got my girl. Cutting school [Shoshone at 47:59].
C:
So you guys adopted a girl, huh?
LS:
Yeah. We adopted a girl. [Shoshone at 48:24] Just kept on working and working.
[Shoshone at 48:28]. You know, go hay. Cut hay and whatever with him. [Shoshone at
48:40]. It’s just, you know—[Shoshone at 48:44] so you have to be careful. [Shoshone
at 48:49]. You got to be careful, take care of your life. Their lives. [Shoshone at 48:55]
You got to trust one another, when you’re married. You trust your woman, right? Mmhm.
[Shoshone at 49:08]. You supposed to trust one another. Don’t say you want to go see
this one, [Shoshone at 49:15]. Life was tough for us, himpaishe. [Shoshone at 49:36]
ration clothes hannikai. Ration shoes, ration, everything’s rationed. Your sugar,
whatever. You know? When it comes here, it got the [Shoshone at 49:47]. Long time
ago. Yeah.
AS:
Now, over here at Sherman’s store, there. [__inaudible at 49:57__]
LS:
You know where the courthouse is? [Shoshone at 50:01]
C:
So who was, who gave up the rations?
LS:
I don’t know. [Shoshone at 50:14] from somewhere.
AS:
Yeah, brought them in [Shoshone(?) at 50:18]. They brought it in a truck sometime.
They give us so much sugar, coffee, all of that stuff.
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LS:
You get stamps for sugar, and you get pound, maybe a pound of it.
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
Pound of sugar. Have little cards for that. Mmhm. [Shoshone at 50:39]. It was for his
shoes, he had little stamp, and then, [Shoshone at 50:47]. [Laughter] Yeah. So he’d have
to wear boots.
AS:
What you’re not supposed to do, [Shoshone at 50:53]. [Laughter]
LS:
[Shoshone at 50:55]. Then later on, I’ll tell him, “[Shoshone at 50:59].” Mmhm, yeah.
Them grandparents so nice. You just [Shoshone at 51:07].
C:
So your grandparents were nice people, then.
LS:
Mmhm. Yeah, they were kind people. Then they always say, “You feed people, whoever
come visit you. Then, if you don’t have no food, if you have coffee, give them a coffee!”
[Shoshone at 51:38]. So I’m still like that, mmhm. [Shoshone at 51:43] Yeah.
[Laughter] [Shoshone at 51:50]. [Laughter] Yeah. [Shoshone at 52:01]. Mmhm, yep.
C:
Okay, well, I guess this concludes our interview for today, and I want to thank you, and
Lorraine, thank you, and Alvin, I want to thank you, for taking the time to share these
stories and your words of wisdom with us. So…
AS:
Yeah.
LS:
That’s what I really want, is the kids to, you know, be nice to one another, don’t abuse
one another. Leave this alcohol and leave the drugs out! Yeah. Just keep it out!
[Shoshone at 52:40]. Don’t let the enne’tsi [ghost; dangerous spirit] get ‘em, let the
Devil get ‘em. [Shoshone at 52:48].
C:
Yeah, aishen tsaa. [Shoshone at 52:55]
AS:
[Shoshone at 53:00] Told about everything.
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LS:
[Shoshone at 53:08] I just know the Itsappe. No, the Bear and the Deer [Shoshone at
53:18].
C:
Oh. Okay, [Shoshone at 53:23].
AS:
Yeah. [Laughter]
LS:
[Shoshone at 53:25]
AS:
Yeah, that’s what they say.
LS:
[Shoshone at 53:29]
C:
[Shoshone at 53:33]
AS:
[Laughter]
[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
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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
Lorraine and Alvin Sims
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB format
Duration
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00:55:48
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/563
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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Lorraine & Alvin Sims - Oral history (11/30/2009)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Lorraine and Alvin Sims, members of the Duck Valley (Sho-Pai) tribe on 11/30/2009
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lorrain and Alvin Sims are both members of the Duck Valley Sho-Pai tribe. Alvin speaks first about his parents Edna Charles and Jack Sims and where they came from before moving to the Duck Valley reservation. He also spoke about how his father worked for the Conservation Corps. Moreover he speaks about his relative Captain Sam and how Duck Valley became a reservation. Both Alvin and Lorrain talk about the usage of traditional medicines, and the medicine/spiritual leaders who were traditional doctors within the tribe. Lorrain also speaks about the traditions surrounding right-of-passage and pregnancy. They both recall the traditional way that sweat lodges were also used. They also tell us about how items such as sugar, clothes, and food were rationed when they were younger. They end by cautioning the youth to keep away from drugs and alcohol.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Lorraine and Alvin Sims Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/cc71cefaafddeea7b0dfcb83d2bc679c.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Lorrain and Alvin Sims Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 023
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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11/30/2009 [11 November 2009]; 2009 November 11
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/id/371
Language
A language of the resource
English; Shoshoni
CCC
Community
Conservation Corps
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
medicine man
ranching
Shoshone
Story
traditional ceremony
traditional medicines
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/abc00dd3e903f4af26aaba83177a1d8f.jpg
0ae5414661b35f12e9f8d2469538bd7c
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/bd247cf121495632c0ea8fa76c2674cb.pdf
05234f9df98be25a0109ec99fe2e9c2f
PDF Text
Text
Vivian
Cinnabar
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
022
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
November
24,
2009
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 022
Interviewee: Vivian Cinnabar
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: November 24, 2009
VC:
That’s how they were. They were enemies. All of them enemies with Paiutes, and all the
different tribes. They were enemies. And so, but these Shoshones around this area
worked together, and then so, they—
NC:
So do you remember what band of Shoshones your family came from?
VC:
In this area, we were Western Shoshones. Uh-huh. And then, but my dad was part
Bannock. It must have been a big pokkombe [1:35] when they got together. What was the
question you asked me? I don’t know where they came from. Knew it was from that
people around there. They just roamed around down in this area. Because those other
people were the enemy, you know. And then, so, so most of them, they were settled in
Ruby Valley. And all the people out here didn’t mind Shoshones. And so when the
government made the treaty, and then they talked to the people, the head mans, you
know? Do you know that that was, that was the same thing that’s going on. They was,
they were fighting with the white people—like ranchers that had lands, and everything.
They used to have all kinds of businesses. They were fighting with them, and stealing
their cattle, and killing the cattle and horses, and families. So that’s the reason why—it
wasn’t only that way here. It was all over. And then so they negotiate. They say they
came, and decided to make a treaty, and talk to the people, so that won’t be going on.
And then, so they had this meeting at Ruby Valley. And some people felt, well, it’s good.
Government was going to help them. Because lot of people were poor, and they were
having hard time. They’re just roaming, living off of the land. This is what I’m saying.
And they were having hard time, so government told them that they were going to help
them if they signed that treaty, and made reservations for them. And some people didn’t
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like it. They didn’t want to go under the government. And some people want it. They
said, “Well, good. They’re going to help us,” live someplace where the government will
give them reservation. And so lot of people didn’t want to go under government. But my,
it would be my great-great-grandpa, Buck. His name was Buck. He was there. And then
some of the other men, too, they talked it over. They said, well, it’s good idea to make
that treaty, this agreement. So that way we won’t be killing each other, and stuff like that.
And so, so then, Buck… So then, Buck, my dad’s—it would be his uncle, I guess. He
agreed about the reservation, because his people were just roaming here, and they were
going to die at the time. So Buck made—and the others, uncle he agreed to sign on it.
And they saw the other man come in the area, you know, Shoshones. And then they
decided they wanted help, too. Some of the people didn’t want to go under the
government, so. The people that want to go, they had joined with Buck. With the Western
Shoshones. And this was the, they want to go that way. Go under the government. Lot of
people in this area didn’t want to go under government, so they stayed here. Stayed in the
towns, and, like, lived along the tracks, here. So the government gave them land over
there, west of Carlin. Over here at Carlin, down here? On the other side of the tunnels,
that’s where. On, that would be east of the tunnels there. Someplace in the mountains
back there. Kind of desert country they said, they went. They couldn’t make any living
off of that land. What they want the mens to do? And so the men got together, and they
say, “No, we didn’t, we want a place where we could live off of the land.” And you
know. “This place is poor. No water, no green grasses,” stuff like that for their cattle and
horses. And so they talked. They talked at length. When they roamed, they know the
area. So they sent to that, like where they—it wasn’t called Duck Valley at that time. But
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anyway, they knew that place, one of the places where they roamed. And they went back
and talked to the government. So the government agreed, because they were having hard
time out here in Carlin, trying to make a living. So then they got together, so the
government agreed to give them that place there, which is Duck Valley now. Because it
had all wild animals, and all kinds of game to eat, and fowl, sage hens, and all them kind
of… And Owyhee River had lot of fish in it. Salmon, fish coming up from the Snake
River. And the mountains. They had lot of trouts and stuff like that. And so they went up
to that place, if they could have it. So the government agreed with them. So then, they—
that’s when they moved to Duck Valley, the people.
NC:
So did they move—how many Shoshones were there?
VC:
I don’t know. Quite a few. Because there are all different kind of Shoshones here. But the
whole thing was they called themselves Western Shoshones—but with Buck.
NC:
So did they round up all the Shoshone bands in this area and move them up to Owyhee?
VC:
Lot of the people didn’t want to go with Buck. So that’s how it got started in Owyhee.
That’s how it got, then they moved. Lot of people moved to go to Owyhee and have a
good living there. But the others stayed around here. What else?
NC:
So is that, is Buck, is he the same person they used to call Captain Buck?
VC:
At that time they signed the treaty, they went there, but just headmen in the tribe. But his
name wasn’t Buck. But later on, when they went under the government, they had to work
with the government. And so, different men worked under the government as scouts.
Scouts. Found them all over there in Owyhee. Yeah, the scouts that went with the
government. And that’s when they changed his name to Captain Buck. If you go to the
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cemetery, you’ll find lot of the mens there, lot of the men’s names, “Captain.” Like
Captain Charles and all those guys. So he was one of those headmen over there.
NC:
Did you want to go ahead and read what you have written down?
VC:
That’s about all I have it wrote down… Oh, yes! Another thing that these people around
here, when we used to go to the Shoshone meetings, they kept blaming—it says now,
“Why did they get these men to sign on the treaty, when they don’t even know how to
write?” [Laughter] Nobody was educated at that time, they didn’t like that, these people
around here. Because nobody knew how to do it. And the people, the men that sign the,
name, Indian names, they were long Indian names. [__inaudible at 12:54__]. So they
thumb print, they had to make thumb prints, that’s how they sign on it. These are on
somebody, fixed it. But Earl Crum and Beverly, they have those names. They know how
to pronounce a lot of them. I don’t even know how to pronounce it, put that name. That’s
long Indian names and stuff. I thought they wrote down what their names, was thumb
prints. And the man, the government mans in Washington, they signed on the treaty, too.
Because they’re all there.
NC:
Do you remember what the treaty said, or what the agreements were?
VC:
I don’t know. I can’t remember. But it says, what do they call that…? Peace—what’s the
other one?
NC:
Peace and Friendship Treaty?
VC:
Yeah. Peace and Friendship, because they get together now. Then they won’t be fighting
anymore. So the Indians agreed with the white guys that they could go ahead and be free
to do whatever they want, like mining, and live in towns and whatever. So, and then
there’s—they don’t make happen. They having trouble. They agreed on that one. So
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they call it “Friendship.” It made peace. Peace among each other. And then, so later on,
yeah, the government did help them with their food, and living too. Yeah. Yeah, they, I
don’t know why they brought the supplies in, but the supplies come out, to come here,
and different men from Owyhee, they had army wagons. They gave them army wagons to
come on, and they come after the supplies. Pick up the supplies, food supplies, and took it
back to Owyhee to distribute among the Indians. It took three days. Three days to get
here from there. My dad was one of them, with some other guys. I think the men took
turns going after supplies here. And out to Mountain Home too. But I don’t know where
the supplies come from. But that’s what they used to do. And then, different men,
different people said how their grandparent tell them that if they were going to go off the
reservation, they had to get permission. At that time, if they want to go to Mountain
Home, they had to get permission from the agency, or wherever they want to go—go off
the reservation, they had to get permission. Because they were under government. That’s
when they got those scouts. They called them “scouts.”
NC:
So the scouts worked with the Indian people there in Duck Valley? The scouts worked
with them in helping them get permission if they wanted to go someplace?
VC:
Yes. That’s what the scout does. Scouts, you know, they were kind of protecting the
people from enemies, too. Mmhm.
NC:
So, do you remember what year that was, when Duck Valley or the Owyhee reservation
was set up?
VC:
No. No, no. I don’t remember then. Mm-mm.
NC:
So was the reservation first set up for just the Western Shoshone?
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VC:
Mmhm. There were a lot of Shoshones, but that’s what the Western Shoshones… Long
time ago, they used to go to Shoshone meetings here and there. And the people,
committee, or whatever they are, they decided to call our area “Western Shoshone.” But
later on, it spread to here. So when people in this area, they have different dialects,
Shoshones, they’re all Shoshones, but that changed. Some of the words, different
pronunciation, some of the people that don’t hear it don’t understand that. Different
words that they don’t use. Yeah.
NC:
So did your family just speak Shoshone in your household when you were small, growing
up?
VC:
Yeah. We used Shoshone. Well, they had a Presbyterian church there in Owyhee for a
long time. And that’s only one church, the Presbyterian church, which is still there. And
they helped the people. Just, like, going to school, teaching, teaching them people who go
to church. There’s quite a few people there from Owyhee that go to church, and they
taught them, taught the children, how to talk English and all that stuff. Educate them.
Then, that’s long time ago, they had schools. They call it boarding schools, where the
kids, children went to school, up there where the Mormon church is sitting now. That was
where the children went to boarding school, there. They’d go home summertime, you
know just like the regular schools. Had vacations. My mother was the cook up there.
[Laughter] Yeah, and the children, that’s where they went. That’s where they learned
their school. They didn’t have the, like, Beginners, Head Start, and all that stuff. You just
went to school. First grader. You know, went to first grade. Because they had teachers,
teachers coming and teaching them. Some of these children that live in Owyhee, they go
home. They get to go home weekends, too. Vacation times.
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NC:
But they stayed at the school? Is that why they called it a boarding school?
VC:
Yes. And that’s where they stay…
NC:
Did you stay at the school?
VC:
Long time ago. [Laughter]
NC:
So did you learn English at the school, or did you already know how to speak English?
VC:
Yeah, I did. You know, like I said, Presbyterian church. That’s where we went. We
almost lived there! [Laughter] Almost living there.
NC:
So did a lot of Indian children go to school, at the boarding school? Or, just some of
them?
VC:
No, they’re all there.
NC:
And how far up did they go to school there? How long did they go to school? Was there,
like, a high school?
VC:
Just like, no, they went, there was no high school. I think they went to sixth grade. They
had day schools, they called it. After there was no more boarding schools, they go to,
they called it day school. They had schools in different areas. Like, in our area, they went
to school, our school was Number 2. We went, we had to walk to school. Rain or shine,
wintertime. We had to go and walk to school. Go around the school, like this. And then
the people around the Boney Lane now, they call it, that area, they went to, theirs was
Number 1 school. And they walked to school, too, right there. That school was where
Nathan Bacon’s house is. In that area. And where the Thomases live. The Toms, they
call it Thomases now. And Number 1 was built down there at Miller Creek. That’s where
they went, the Paiutes. Yeah. That’s how they did it after they closed the other thing. But
it only went to fifth grade there. First to fifth grade. You had to walk, walk to school. And
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then later on, I don’t know, maybe 19—early 1920s, I think—somewhere in there, they
build a public school, they called it, and it was built over there where the main office is. I
mean, it used to be, because they built that tribal building down there. That’s where the
public school. Then some of the employees’ children went to the school there. And then
some of the other people, like Elaine Ethan—I know where it is, it was way down where
George Rocher’s house is. Down in there, it’s close to the—that’s where she came to
school. Sometimes she walked to school, sometimes she rode on horse to school. And
then, on our side is, I guess the Premos was the ones last. Like Laura, and all her family.
Tom Premo’s children. They went just to public schools. Because I guess maybe their
parents thought that that was a better school than the day schools. And then they used to
walk to school—they walked to town. That’s where the, where is that, now? That big
building across the road from—it used to be the courthouse. That big building there.
That’s where they go to public school. That’s where they went. Some of them.
NC:
So did the public school have a high school?
VC:
I think, I don’t know, maybe to the eighth grade. Yes. Because several of the children
were sent to Stewart Indian School in Carson City, and some to Sherman Institute in
Riverside, California. And some went to—what did they call it?—[the] Indian school in
Phoenix, Arizona. That’s where they went. And so, I guess maybe the day school went as
far as the sixth grade. But when they took the day schools away, and people were going
into town where the old school was, right there by that tribal gym—by the old tribal gym,
in that building. Right in there is where the school was. That’s where we got transferred
to, after they closed the day schools. And first, when it started, when we went over there,
we went to the eighth grade. And we didn’t have any transportation to go over there to go
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to school. And we rode on trucks. [Laughter] We rode, went to school on trucks! Until
they finally got us buses. And then, we went with them. So we all went there. It was like
a T, that building. From first to eighth grade, it went. And then in eighth grade,
[__inaudible at 29:08__] school. Lot of us, lot of the children went. Most of them went to
Stewart, at Carson City. But I went to Sherman Institute, in Riverside, California. Few of
us did. Me, and Marie, and Pietra. We finished eighth grade, and so we went to Sherman
Institute to go to school. Until we graduated in twelfth grade down there.
NC:
What was that experience like going to Riverside or to Sherman Institute, moving from
the reservation to a larger place?
VC:
[__inaudible at 30:03__] the government. That was in California, and most of the
children went there from California. And others, other people, other tribes. Not too many.
Like Navajo, and Hopi, and lot of northern tribes went there. Few Paiutes, some
Shoshones from Owyhee and Fort Hall. We went there. And then, and there was a college
in Riverside, in the town. City of Riverside. A lot of them people that got through and
graduated from 12th, they went there to go to college. Yeah, lot of the Indians. Most were
California children, went there to college.
NC:
Can you describe what the school was like at Riverside? At the school? What was it like?
I mean, can you tell us of your personal experience?
VC:
Well, it was good. I liked it. Went there four years.
NC:
Did you have to wear uniforms, or…?
VC:
No. They used to, at first they did. They used wear uniforms. But later on, they quit that.
They didn’t put them in the uniforms anymore. But, this was Sherman Institute. After the
second World War, the Navajo veterans got together and they wanted good things to be
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done for their children. So they asked for Sherman Institute. They want that school for
Navajos only. So that’s what happened, later. And then they tried—that’s what they used
that, instead of using Sherman Institute, they call it “Indian School” now. Some people
go there yet, but mostly they’re Navajos and Hopis, those people from the south, down
south, go there now. Not like what it used to be. Lot of the people from other places, they
have to find someplace else to go to school. When the veterans did that, they took the
school only for the Navajos.
NC:
So what did you do after you graduated from Riverside?
VC:
We just stayed home, mostly. Once in a while, I got some kind of a day work job, like
washing, and helping them in the kitchen, where they feed the kids. And other things later
on. Then, I got a job at Portland, Oregon. [Laughter] I went to work there as a
housekeeper. That’s what they had employees doing, was that kind of working. Yeah, I
spent few years in Portland, and then came back to Owyhee. Owyhee was the best!
[Laughter] Then, later on, I didn’t do too much in Owyhee. I done little. Then, when they
built the hospital—which is closed down now—during second World War, it’s where I
worked. Down in the basement as engineer. Because they were taking the boys out, and
they couldn’t find any more boys to work down there. Taking care of boilers; they didn’t
have electricity then. They had that under the hospital, they had boiler room, running the
boilers, and all that stuff. And, it was a man’s job. We had to go out, mow the lawn every
day, shovel snow, and all that stuff. [Laughter] That’s when I worked there for five years.
Until I got sick. I got sick, and had to go to sanitarium to get well. I had tuberculosis. And
they had to break somebody else in, and there was a man, two men come out of Salt Lake
City to check on us that were working down there in the basement, in the boiler room.
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And they said that I was doing a good job. So they said, they want to move me up. They
want me to get higher pay, and they want me to go to Salt Lake to work. [Laughter] And
I told them, “No, I don’t want to go, because I live here and I have a little girl to take care
of.” So I didn’t want to go away from there. [Laughter] So, I turned their job down.
That’s before I got sick, this is. Yeah, I liked that. During the Second World War, they
were strict on payments. We couldn’t go on annual leave, just like they did before. We
just had twenty-day leave. And that’s including sick leave and all that stuff. And so, we
just had twenty days. And then we had to buy war bonds every month. That taken out of
our checks during Second World War. And other things that, whatever the president
requested, that we had to do that because we were under the government. And then, when
I got sick, all these vacation things going, and no raise, and stuff like that. They
considered all that, and paid me for my vacation time that I missed, and sick leave, and
all that stuff. They counted all that, too. Five months after I got sick, after I was in the
sanatarium, they paid me for what I missed out on.
NC:
So after you got well, did you return back to work, or…?
VC:
No. No, I didn’t. Not steady job like one I had at the hospital. And we had to, there was
no electricity. No telephone. Just only two telephones there in Owyhee when I was
working at the hospital. And there was the one at the—that would be three—at the
agency. And at the one at the hospital. Sometimes, we had to answer the telephone, if a
nurse wasn’t there. And then one, there was one down at Miller Creek. At Jessie Little’s
house. That’s in case of emergencies, that they could have you telephone. At Jessie
Little’s, Eleanor Little’s mother. At her house, they had that. And they just had this one
sedan to use, and we deliver messages, or go up and pick up sick people, and stuff. That’s
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when they build the airport out there. And sometimes at nighttime, we had to go deliver
messages out there, when they were building that airport. You couldn’t see anything. Just
dust, real thick. When they—they even worked nighttime. Oh, the dirt! And groundwork
that they were doing disturbed lot of dust. So we went out together, deliver messages to
their boss down there. I don’t know where their people were from who were building that
airport. Sometimes we was kind of scared to go out during the nighttime, so we asked,
let’s pick this place around his—what’s his name? Earl Crum’s dad.
NC:
Jim Crum?
VC:
Yeah, Jim Crum! We got him to take us out when we had to deliver messages or
something like that. And those were the men’s jobs back then.
NC:
What kind of lighting did they use in the hospital at that time? Was it kerosene lamps?
Gas lamps? What type of lighting did they have?
VC:
Oh, you mean like office work?
NC:
No, for lamps. Like, at night. What type of light did they have? Or was it just completely
dark?
VC:
I guess just doctor and the nurses, and did their usual work.
NC:
Uh-huh. But no, what kind of lighting did they have? Did they have candles, or did they
have lamps?
VC:
Oh, lighting? No, they had electricity then. That’s when the power plant came in. Plant
was right across from the old tribal office there. Right next to where they have a, I think
maybe—I haven’t been there for quite a bit of a while. But, that’s where the men were
working until they were under the government, too. We had to run them electricity. And
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that’s why we, we had to [__inaudible at 43:41__] we mow the lawn. I went there to get
my gas, and the oil, and all that stuff. And lawnmower. [Laughter]
NC:
So in terms of doctors, where were the doctors from? Were they government doctors, or
where did they come in from?
VC:
I don’t know where they’re from. I don’t know. But all that area in there is where the
doctors lived. Doctors and their families, and nurses. Nurses’ quarters. Some lived over
there, where they tore that building down, back out there. That’s a gymnasium now,
where some of them lived. And a few of the Indian men. Nurses lived at home. But,
maybe they was under the government, too. I don’t know.
NC:
So what were you saying—?
VC:
And they called it the Western Shoshone Indian Reservation, when they opened that
reservation for the Shoshones. And then, I don’t know how many years after that—I
wasn’t here then, I was in school in Sherman—but, they had councilmen. They had three
councilmen. My brother Roger was one of the councilmen, and Evan Harney, and
[__inaudible at 45:40__], was other councilman. And then, the one worker from up
north… I couldn’t remember the name of the reservation up there… Wasson. His name’s
Tommy Wasson. He was their secretary that worked at the agency there. He was their
secretary. And they decided that, somebody brought it up that they should include the
Paiutes someplace in there, because everything was Western Shoshone. And they didn’t
like that they wanted to be included, I guess, those Paiutes. So when those people were
councilmen—I don’t know if they were elected, or how they were, but anyway, that’s
what happened. And everyone, well, they said, “Well, there’s so many Paiutes here on
the reservation, being born here, and coming here, and getting enrolled, and we should
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change the name from “Western Shoshone” to “Shoshone-Paiute Reservation.” And then,
and so, that’s how it was. But later on, they were coming from someplace in Idaho,
coming into Mountain Home, Raymond and I, and on the, you know, those signs on the
sides of the roads—about the towns, different towns? And had “Duck Valley Indian
Reservation” on there. That’s the first time I saw that change. They changed it from
Western Shoshone. So now—and then some people call that Duck Valley Indian
Reservation, some people call it—hardly anybody uses the Western Shoshone Indian
Reservation anymore. But at the beginning, when they had the reservation going already,
some of the Paiutes were coming in from Pyramid Lake, all over, from over there, they
coming in. Because they had the relatives and friends here in Owyhee. And the
Shoshones tried tell them, “No, you can’t stay here. You’re a Paiute. This reservation is
for the Shoshones. That’s the Paiutes coming in!” [Laughter] Because they said, “There’s
lot of intermarriages.” Of intermarriages. And other tribes, too. Like some Bannocks
from Fort Hall come. But there not as many Bannocks. There’s definitely a few of them,
but it’s mostly Paiutes. And so… That’s how many times it changed its name. So now, I
see on lot of the papers, say “Duck Valley Indian Reservation.” It was only for Western
Shoshone. Got rid of that, gone. I guess those [__inaudible at 49:30__] women at that
time, were Shoshones, I guess they like the Paiute woman! [Laughter] They like ‘em
better, mmhm. Yeah, that’s how come the tribes are all mixed up now.
NC:
So, can you tell us a little more about your brothers and your family up in Owyhee? Who
your brothers were, and—you mentioned one of your brothers.
VC:
Yeah, he was a councilman. He went to school in Riverside, too. Sherman Institute.
There is—how many of us are there, Don? Twelve? Eleven or twelve, but most of them
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died when they were young. The tuberculosis. Lot of people had tuberculosis. That’s
what—I don’t know why, I get to thinking about it sometime. Why did they get
tuberculosis? And I read in different places where cows had tuberculosis. And we always
had milk cow. We drank milk and everything. My dad always had big garden. I still
would like that, too. I don’t know. I guess that, when I went to school down in Sherman
Institute, I got the tuberculosis there. That’s what I think. And my mother and dad were,
were both, had their turns as tribal judges for several years. I don’t know how many years
my dad was a tribal judge. And then he lost his hearing, and then he got the phone—it
runs with battery—hearing aid. He used to hear with it, and he couldn’t hear good in
certain buildings. Something in the building, his battery wouldn’t work good. He was a
judge there for several years. And when he lost his hearing, then my mother took over.
And she was a tribal judge there for, I don’t know how many years, too. Yeah, so finally,
my dad retired. Later on, my mother did too. Other man took over.
NC:
But you didn’t take over, huh?
VC:
[Laughter] No! I’m too dumb! They asked me. They asked me, the council at that time. I
said, “No. I’m forgetful! I will forget things.” So, I didn’t try it.
NC:
Well, I think you would have done pretty good.
VC:
[Laughter]
NC:
So, you mentioned your dad was Bannock, or from Fort Hall. Do you remember what his
name was, your grandpa? You mentioned one of your family members was from Fort
Hall, or a Bannock?
VC:
Oh, that was, would have been my grandpa. Great-grandpa. Yeah. My greatgrandfather’d be, um… His name was, first name was… Papitsi Sambo. Papatsi means
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“older brother.” I didn’t know how to spell it, so… The way I spell it was B-A-B-A-S-CH. That means older brother. That’s among his own people in [__inaudible at 54:23__], I
guess they called him that. That’s what his Indian name was. Papatsi Sambo. But, later
on, these younger people, but I don’t know why, they changed it—they call it, I can’t say
it, Pavittsi. Instead of Papatsi. “Pavitsi.” They spell it with a “p” now. I think that’s what
they use now. Yeah older brother, that meant then. They changed that. And Buck was his
brother. Yeah. That’s who, Captain Buck was his brother. But Captain Buck didn’t go
back to Fort Hall. He stayed in Owyhee. But that was what they named—they use Duck
Valley quite a bit, because there was, on the—they had lots of ducks long time ago.
That’s why they knew that there was food there, and all the edibles, that they could get at
all. So that was what I think it—that’s why they call it Duck Valley.
NC:
So, do you have family in Fort Hall, then? Relatives living in Fort Hall?
VC:
What?
NC:
Do you have relatives in Fort Hall?
VC:
Yes. Now there’s a few of us living.
NC:
What’s their names? Do you know their family names?
VC:
Most of them are cousins, or… My cousin, she went to Sherman Institute. She was in my
same grade. She used to use Papitsi Sambo for her dad’s name. But later on, when the
other people changed it to pavitsi, that’s what they there for the pronunciation. I don’t
know why they changed it, like that. She had several children. Some of them are still
living. And her daughter and her brother, I knew them personally, but those other people,
I don’t know them too well. But they’re still living. And she told me, she told me that
they used to go up there for the festivals. And she told me that, when they were younger,
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and the children were small, her and her husband, they used to drink quite a bit. She said,
“We used to drink all the time and get drunk.” Of course, get their children, everything.
And see, that’s when they took their children away from the welfare. Took her children
away from her. So it’s just that some of them hold that against her, for leaving them. Or
separating. Whatever. But several of them came to her brother’s funeral, and they were
up there. Yeah. But younger people, I don’t know.
[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
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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
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
Vivian Cinnabar
Location
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Elko, NV (Highland Village)
Original Format
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DVD and VOB
Duration
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00:58:42
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/556
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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Vivian Cinnabar - Oral history (11/24/2009)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Vivian Cinnabar, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV), on 11/24/2009
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Vivian Cinnabar is a Western Shoshone who resided at Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV) the majority of her life. She starts her narrative by speaking about contact and conflict between the Western Shoshone and the emigrants who were coming into the area who started up ranches. She also tells about the formation of the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863, the Duck Valley reservation and how it was originally set up to be completely Western Shoshone, and Carlin Farms. She also gives an account of her relative Captain Buck. The conversation then turns towards her time attending school. She first started at Owyhee and eventually ended up in Sherman Institute in Riverside, CA. She also describes how many of the people in Owyhee ended up attending Stewart Indian School. Vivian describes her time working as an engineer at the old hospital in Owyhee, and how she contract Tuberculosis (TB).</p>
Video Pending <br /> <a title="Vivian Cinnabar Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/bd247cf121495632c0ea8fa76c2674cb.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Vivian Cinnabar Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
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Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 022
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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11/24/2009 [24 November 2009]; 2009 November 24
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/369
Language
A language of the resource
English
Captain Buck
Carlin Farms
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
Owyhee
Ruby Valley Treaty 1863
Sherman Institute
Shoshone
Stewart Indian School
Story
TB
Tuberculosis
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/5110c9fe3971b3f008f130ad7567c204.jpg
af11c06791cd63ee5d31e32dfa345bbf
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/da58f56540b1b641d9cf9e5db2c5275e.pdf
db6dbfe382adb7ddcf200741635d434c
PDF Text
Text
Dave
McKinney
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
014
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
November
30,
2006
Owyhee,
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 014
Interviewee: Dave McKinney
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: November 30, 2006
C:
And today our guest is Dave McKinney. He presently resides in Duck Valley, which is
called Owyhee, Nevada. And Dave is going to be sharing with us his childhood, and what
he recollects of the years he has been living and residing in Nevada and northeastern
Nevada. Dave is a member of the Western Shoshone, and he will share that with you, and
other stories that he feels are important to preserve and to share with the students. And
the stories that he shares here will be recorded and shared with his grandchildren and
family members in the future. So, good morning, Dave! To our recording this morning,
and you may go ahead and begin. [1:42] E naniha nanike’here ne taikwatse. [Your
name, tell about yourself.]
M:
I’m Dave McKinney.
C:
Where were you born, Dave?
M:
At Gold Creek.
C:
And what year was that?
M:
1907.
C:
Who was your mother and father?
M:
My father was Bill McKinney, and my mother was Sadie. Sadie, I guess in Owyhee, you
know, don’t quite remember that. [2:15]
C:
What tribe were they from?
M:
The Shoshones.
C:
They’re both Shoshones?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Was there a colony or a reservation there in Gold Creek, or…?
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M:
No, they were just working over there.
C:
Oh.
M:
You know, mining, I guess. Jobs. Lots of mining over there.
C:
What kind of mineral did they mine?
M:
Gold.
C:
Gold? In Gold Creek, huh?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Was it, the mine, by the stream, or were they digging, or what were they doing?
M:
It, what do you call that?
C:
Panning?
M:
Yeah. With the Chinese. Were Chinamen over there.
C:
They were the miners, huh?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Was it a big operation?
M:
Yeah, I think so. [__Phone rings; inaudible at 3:20__] Some of them went back, some of
them died over there.
C:
Was there many Indians there that mined?
M:
Yeah. I didn’t quite remember that well, I was about four years old, I guess. Anyway. We
moved out, out of there. To Mountain City.
C:
Oh. How big of a place was Mountain City then?
M:
Well it was, kind of… Little, little more than it is now, I think.
C:
Was there any stores there in Mountain City at that time?
M:
Yeah. One of them stores. I can remember that one. Two of them, I guess.
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C:
Uh-huh. About what year was that?
M:
Well, that’s when I was about six years old, or four years, I don’t know.
C:
And so, was there a school there in Mountain City?
M:
Yeah. One. One year. Didn’t learn nothing. [Laughter]
C:
Oh. What was the name of the school?
M:
It was up that gulch. Well, what they call way up that mountain at Mountain City, east.
C:
How many students were there?
M:
I don’t know. There was me, and my sister, and Frank Keefe, someone else. About…
maybe about eight of them or so.
C:
What was the school like? Was it a big, just a big room?
M:
Yeah. Not a very big room, I guess.
C:
But it was one room?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So it was like a one-room schoolhouse?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Oh. And do you remember who the teacher was?
M:
I think it whats her name. Majorie Sherman. That his sister, what’s name? Jalbert’s
wife. One of them.
C:
Oh. What did she teach?
M:
[Laughter] Oh I don’t—couldn’t quite remember that!
C:
So how long were you there?
M:
One year. Went to school one year, then we moved to, down to Devil’s Gates Ranch. We
stayed there about three years.
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C:
Where’s Devil’s Gate?
M:
It’s on the Humboldt River. This side of Fort Halleck. There’s a ranch over there.
C:
Was it a big ranch?
M:
No. Well, it’s cattle ranch, you know. Yeah.
C:
Who owned the ranch, then, at that time?
M:
That time, I guess… I think the Clayton brothers. We stayed over there three years. Same
ranch there. Rancho Grande, that’s where we moved. We stayed in a white man’s house
first year. We stayed over there about ten years.
C:
So was that you and your family? How many brothers and sisters did you have?
M:
About four, I think.
C:
Four brothers?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Were they older than you, or younger, or…?
M:
Yeah, younger. They’re younger than me.
C:
They were younger than you?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Oh. You were the oldest.
M:
Yeah.
C:
How about, did you have any sisters?
M:
Yeah, one of them. The oldest one. Her name’s Bessie.
C:
So what’d they do?
M:
They don’t do anything, just… Just stayed over there. It was wartime, I think. What’s
the—World War I?
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C:
Oh, World War I.
M:
My mother and my grandmother working in the fields. There’s no man in that ranch.
C:
So all the men were at war.
M:
Yeah, uh-huh.
C:
How about your dad? Did he go to war?
M:
Yeah, he did go to war. No man over there. That’s because all of them went to war.
C:
So how long were you guys there? Was this that Rancho Grande?
M:
Yeah. Ten years, we were over there.
C:
Ten years. Then did the war end after that?
M:
Yeah.
C:
And did the men return?
M:
Yeah.
C:
And then what’d you guys do from there? What’d you do from there?
M:
When I grew up?
C:
Yeah, after you grew up and left Rancho Grande.
M:
I was quit school, and start trapping. Coyote. Coyote furs, worth about thirty dollars.
C:
Was there a school there in Rancho Grande?
M:
That’s the one place I ever went to school.
C:
What was that like? Was that a one-room schoolhouse, too?
M:
Yeah. One building.
C:
Who all went to school there?
M:
I guess Frank Keefe, and Joe Yates, and Ed Hammond… I guess that’s… and we, we
schooled there.
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C:
How many grades did they have?
M:
Up to eight, it went to.
C:
Up to eighth grade? Oh. Who was the teacher there at Rancho Grande?
M:
First one’s name was Jerrilene… Jerrilene Clayton, I guess.
C:
That was the first one? And then there was another teacher after that?
M:
After that, yeah.
C:
Do you remember who that was?
M:
That was one of them. Uh, let’s think… Laura Hammond was another one. That’s the
last one I went through.
C:
So after that, you started trapping, and begin to work and do your…
M:
Yeah.
C:
Were you still with your family, or—
M:
Yeah. Had me start working when I was fifteen years old. Hay field. Rake. After that, I
would work in the summertime, you know. There’s no jobs for kids, you know, at that
time.
C:
So where did you work at that time? Rancho Grande, or…?
M:
Yeah.
C:
How long did you work there?
M:
Oh, I don’t know, let’s… Worked there about three or four years, I guess. Then work at
another ranch over there. Hibben’s [11:31] Ranch. I work over there, and Chester
Lang’s. Work over there, too. Stacking hay.
C:
Did they stack the hay loose then?
M:
Yeah. You have to cut them. With a team. Mule team. Mule always run.
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C:
So did you run, did you work with horses? Was it horse rake? Was it horses that were
used?
M:
Yeah.
C:
There was no tractors then, huh?
M:
No.
C:
It was all horse?
M:
Yeah, mule. And horses too.
C:
How were the mules to work with? Were they ornery?
M:
[Laughter] Heyyah, they were mean! About noontime, they want to come home. Every
time I turn around, one come home… You can’t let them go ahead; run away. [Laughter]
They were smart! I stack hay over there, too. With the Jenkins stack, it went over there
like [pantomimes motion].
C:
What was the Jenkins like, how did that work?
M:
They got a buck rake put on top of it. She goes like that, pull them over, then pull them
up like this, and dump it. Pretty hard to stack with.
C:
Huh. How many stackers were there?
M:
About two. Two man up from that.
C:
Two stackers?
M:
How it works, two. One team just keep running around, fast. Didn’t give you a time,
sometimes.
C:
How high was the hay stacked?
M:
Oh, about, put out about sixty ton or seventy ton.
C:
Uh-huh, but how high did you stack the hay?
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M:
Oh… I don’t know, about, what, fourteen feet. Eighteen feet, sometimes.
C:
Did anybody ever fall off?
M:
Some of them get hurt. Yeah.
C:
So, do you remember… So what did, then what’d you do after that? How long did you
work there after, uh…?
M:
I think that we… Before we went there, though, we were—there was a bunch of sheep
that died over there between Deeth and that ranch. They died over there, and then whole
bunch of Indians from Deeth pulled the skins, put them in a sack, sell them. They got lots
of money, doing that.
C:
So was there a lot of sheep, over—
M:
Yeah. I don’t know why, but they had all died. We went clear back to, way up on, close
to Charleston, from Deeth. That way.
C:
So was that all open range? There was no fences, and…
M:
No, no fence.
C:
How many sheep did they run in that country?
M:
I don’t know. There was a lot of them. We look for them in a sagebrush, or the musk or
whatever you call it.
C:
Did you ever shear sheep? Were you a sheepshearer at any time?
M:
What do you mean?
C:
Cut the sheeps’ hair?
M:
Sheepshear?
C:
Sheepshear, yeah.
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M:
Yeah, one year I sheepshear for what, Fernando Bruishi, in North Fork. I sheared about
forty-five or fifty. That’s first time I shear sheep. Never tried it after that.
C:
So what was the pay, back then? Did you get paid on a daily basis, or by the hour, or how
did you get paid?
M:
By the head.
C:
Oh, by the head.
M:
Twenty cents, or fifty cents, a head.
C:
For shearing the sheep.
M:
Yeah.
C:
How about with ranch work? How much did you get paid per day for ranch work?
M:
When you worked on the ranch, you get $45. That’s the wintertime when you’re feeding.
But in the summertime, you’re haying. You get about two and a half, day.
C:
Two dollars and fifty cents a day?
M:
Yeah. Stacker get three dollars. Fifty cents more.
C:
So you worked on the ranches almost all your earlier years when you was a young man?
M:
Yeah. Then we come here to the reservation. 1927 or [19]28.
C:
You came to the Duck Valley reservation? So it was already a reservation then.
M:
Nice reservation then.
C:
How many Indian people were here then?
M:
I’d own that’s quite a few.
C:
Was there any work here at that time?
M:
Not that I know of. Only in 1932, or ’31, lot of time I worked wranglers. Then CC
[Conservation Corps], they’d pay dollar and half a day.
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C:
Dollar and a half a day?
M:
Forty-five a month.
C:
What kind of work did you do?
M:
[Laughter] We were building this road here. With pick and shovel, whole bunch of ‘em.
We get all this road cleared to Mountain City.
C:
Oh, you mean the highway that’s between Mountain City and here today.
M:
When they get machinery, then they [audio cuts out at 18:36]
C:
Uh-huh. So when you guys first built the road, what did you use besides pick and shovel?
Was it horse-drawn equipment?
M:
No, they had a Cat. Little Cat. Pull that grader. But I didn’t run that grader. But some of
them, had some white guys running it.
C:
This was part of that, the Conservation Corps?
M:
Yeah.
C:
How much did they pay then? Did you say they paid $45 a month?
M:
Yeah.
C:
How long was that available, the Conservation Corps?
M:
I don’t know! Can’t quite remember that. Then they start clearing roads. I help, all this
road here, on pick and shovel work.
C:
There was a lot of people working on that, huh?
M:
Yeah. That’s only job they got. Yeah, they was tough.
C:
How long did it take to build these roads?
M:
Part of them CC, they build it then after that. And road departments start milling with
machines.
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C:
But it was all dirt road?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So, about how old were you then?
M:
Well, not… Maybe about 25.
C:
Were you still single, or...
M:
Yeah.
C:
You were still single at that time.
M:
Yeah.
C:
So what was life like here on the reservation? Did people have houses they live in, or
they build their houses, what did they live in?
M:
You got to build your own house. Anything they could find.
C:
And that’s how they built it?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Where did they get their water?
M:
They drink out of this river.
C:
The river water?
M:
Yeah. Big well. Some of them was was drinking the canal water, any water.
C:
Where did the water come from? Was it just from the river, or was the dam built then?
M:
No, 19… when’d they build that dam? I didn’t quite remember. I work over there, but I
didn’t quite remember.
C:
What was there before the dam? Was there anything there before the dam?
M:
Yeah. There’s ranch up there.
C:
Ah. Where the dam is now.
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M:
Yeah
C:
Oh. Who owned the ranch?
M:
Forget their name now… Geez, what’s their name? Johntree’s their last name. Then…
Cuvery bought that ranch. That time, they build that.
C:
But that was all a ranch before they built the dam?
M:
Yeah. Yeah, I help on them, that surveying too.
C:
With the—
M:
Rod, mounting, chain.
C:
So you worked as a surveyor?
M:
Yeah, with a surveyor.
C:
Oh, you worked with him. So about when did you get married? Do you remember?
M:
[Laughter] You know, I don’t quite remember that! No, I don’t remember that.
C:
So what did you do after working with the roads and so forth? When did you get into
ranching?
M:
Yeah, I been working for when this road goes, when [__inaudible at 23:24__] comes in.
When road department was active, I work for that.
C:
Oh, is that the state highway?
M:
Yeah, that’s what it is now. First time they was [__inaudible at 23:41__].
C:
Oh. How long was the Conservation Corps? How long did they exist, or how long were
they here?
M:
Oh, I don’t know. About maybe ten years or fifteen years?
C:
When they phased out, was there another program that replaced them, or…?
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M:
Yeah, when they put up that dam up there, there’s lot of work here. Digging them boxes
for the turnouts. Yeah it worked like, I dunno, same model mind you.
C:
So what was that dam—what was the intent of the dam? Was that dam to provide
irrigation for the valley here, or what…?
M:
Supposedly for that, was Shoshone Dam.
C:
Were people farming then, or were they…
M:
Yeah, they start farming.
C:
What did they grow when they first started?
M:
Well, they raise hay.
C:
Raise hay?
M:
Yeah. Bundle it. That’s the way I worked in them days. Would carry them. All
throughout here. Stop at the [__inaudible at 25:06__] ranch.
C:
So was it all sagebrush and willows, or what was—
M:
Yeah, it was all willows. Has to work always, running. [__inaudible at 25:21__]. We
was going to rake them in. Jim… What’s his name? Now I forgot the name. [Laughter]
Wait until they dry, burn ‘em up. Then, see that’s the Newes. Then the contractor,
contractors, all worked all this, all this tribal land.
C:
What kind of machinery or equipment did you run?
M:
They had the Carryo. Carryo, and bulldozers.
C:
So you learned to operate the bulldozer, huh?
M:
Yeah. I learned the Carryo. I helped them spray all this canal, back to that high land.
C:
So, all this land was level then? About what year was that?
M:
Somewhere around 1960, I guess.
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C:
Did you go to the World War II, in the [19]40s?
M:
No, they didn’t take me. I’ve got a bum arm here, a broken arm. All broke. That’s why
they didn’t take me. I want to go that time. I tried it once. After that, they told me, “give
you six months.” They gave me [__inaudible at 27:26__] over six months. Because the
war keep on going, then they’ll take me. But I sure like to go over there. Can’t make it.
C:
Did many of your friends go? Or people you knew?
M:
Yeah. Two of my brothers went. Yep. A lot of them boys here.
C:
Did they make it back safely?
M:
Yeah. Most of them. Only two of them here that are killed over there. Yep, they come
back. In that war, the World War II. I don’t know about this other war. Lot of young
guys, they go in that.
C:
Where’d you meet your first wife?
M:
I don’t remember!
C:
Was she a Shoshone, too? Same tribe? Or…
M:
Yeah.
C:
Was she from this area, Duck Valley? Or where was she from?
M:
From Austin, I guess.
C:
She was from Austin?
M:
Austin somewhere. What they call that, on the other side? On the other side. What they
call that ranch? They’re from over there.
C:
Where did you meet her? Did they have gatherings like Fandangos, or get-togethers for
Indian people back then?
M:
Yeah. They had Fandango. Sometimes, they had a white dance, too.
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C:
Where was that at? Where did you meet her?
M:
Down here, down where the celebration go on.
C:
Oh, here in Duck Valley?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So what did they do during the celebrations?
M:
They play a hand game, card game, race, foot race, rodeo…
C:
Can you share with us about the hand game? How the hand game works? Or how’s that
game played?
M:
You got to have a bone, what they call it, one of them white, one of them black.
C:
Were they real bones, or what did they use?
M:
They used a willows, or them deer bone, some kind of bone. Had about twelve sticks, I
guess. When you take all them sticks, then you win.
C:
So they had, did you have two teams? Or how many teams played?
M:
Two.
C:
Two teams.
M:
So you got to get somebody over there.
C:
How did you pick your teams?
M:
You just speak it up, “Anybody want to play?” And they would stand up.
C:
And how many sets of bones did you have?
M:
That’s two and four.
C:
So there was four bones all together?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Two sets. Were they marked? The bones?
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M:
Yeah. One of them’s white one. The other one’s, with the tape, I guess. Black ones. You
got to guess them with that white one.
C:
So you guess for the white one.
M:
Yeah. That’s the way they play.
C:
So the person hides the bones?
M:
Yeah. You got to hide them bones.
C:
How do you pick who’s going to hide it?
M:
Well you’ve got to get, well, anybody wanted to.
C:
So how many people do you usually have on a team?
M:
In a match, there are about six or so. I guess, they got to give me them bones, which one
he holds. Get the right one, get sticks.
C:
How many sticks do you have, when you start out?
M:
Twelve altogether.
C:
Oh, is that twelve? So do you divide the twelve sticks between the two teams?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So does each team have six?
M:
Yeah. That’s what they used first. Now they’re using only ten. Change that.
C:
So it used to be twelve sticks altogether, guessing sticks. And each team had six.
M:
Yeah.
C:
So how did you determine who started with the bones? Who started with hiding them?
M:
Well, anybody. And the money, bet money.
C:
So what did you bet back then? Was it money, or was it other things?
M:
Yeah. Money.
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C:
How much was the pot? Did you match each side, or how did that work?
M:
Yeah. The other guys, and maybe put out fifty dollars at least, you guys call it. And that
inni mase [33:14].
C:
But it’s always even?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Each side puts up a even amount of money?
M:
Yeah, even [__inaudible at 33:22__].
C:
And then they, where did they put it?
M:
Right in that center.
C:
Right in the center, where everybody can see it?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Uh-huh. So how did you determine who was going to begin with the bones? Did you flip
a coin to decide who’s going to start with hiding or guessing first?
M:
There’s a way that they start, I think. Whoever bet first money, some them other guys
could take the bones and start.
C:
What type of songs did they sing?
M:
They had a stick, log up front, and they hit on it. Handgame song. Not the dance song.
C:
Uh-huh. So what was the reason for hitting on the stick?
M:
Make your team go, I guess. [Laughter]
C:
Do you know any of those songs?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Do you? What did they sing about? Was it about anything? Did the songs have words,
or…
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M:
Yeah, some of them have got words, some of them don’t.
C:
Did you have a favorite one?
M:
Yeah.
C:
That’s a favorite song you sung?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Is it a favorite because it helped you win, or how did it become your favorite?
M:
Yeah. Hide it, try and fool the other guys that play with you.
C:
How long did those games usually last?
M:
Sometimes, they go all day long and night. Depends on how much money you got. Yeah.
C:
So the team that starts playing and hiding the bones, they have the other team betting—or
guessing—with their sticks?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Who usually does the guessing for the other team?
M:
One of them’s special man.
C:
Do they have like a team leader?
M:
Yeah. Yep.
C:
So, do they guess one stick at a time, or two sticks at a time, or how does that work?
M:
Well, depends on how many you guess right. Maybe you guess both of them. Maybe you
lose. Maybe you never guess both of them. Then, throw, two sticks.
C:
So each time you guess, you have to give up a stick.
M:
Yeah.
C:
So these songs that you talk about, do you need a drum? Do you sing with a drum, or do
you just beat on the stick?
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M:
Nowadays, they usually got drum now. Most of them never did. Long time ago, they
never did.
C:
They just sung without a drum.
M:
Yeah. Now they use that drum. Because they’re playing that outside way, of that way in
Washington. They use drum. That’s why these people use it now.
C:
So these, so the favorite song that you have; what’s it about, your song?
M:
Not anything, it’s just, that’s the song.
C:
Can you sing part of it for us?
M:
Now, you mean?
C:
Sure.
M:
Don’t remember! [Laughter]
C:
Okay! [Laughter]
M:
[Sings; sounds like a chant. No discernible words.]
C:
Okay. So that was your favorite song when you’re doing handgame.
M:
Yeah. Yeah.
C:
Did you win a lot of money in those games over the years, when you played?
M:
Sure. And then lose sometimes. It depends—I don’t know. You know. It’s the same like
any game. Sometime you’re lucky, you win.
C:
Uh-huh. But it was fun, though, huh?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Do you remember how that game came about, or where it first began?
M:
No. They already had it when I was born. Long time ago, I guess, they use that when
they—that’s only game they played, I guess.
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C:
When people got together at gatherings?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So what else? Was there any other games besides the handgame?
M:
Card game [__inaudible at 39:15__].
C:
Card games?
M:
Yeah. I don’t know what they use before. Before they used card game.
C:
With the hand game, was it both for men and women, or did they—
M:
When they first started, the ladies one side, ladies on the other side. Just the ladies. Now
they don’t. They just mix with the womans.
C:
So when it first started, it was just women and men?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Oh. Why was that?
M:
I don’t know. Just the ladies against one another. They don’t go with mens. That’s they
way they had it when first I seen. Now us Indians mix with ladies and men.
C:
Were kids allowed to play, or was it just for adults?
M:
Nowadays, they’re using kids. Yeah.
C:
But in the old days, it was just for adults?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So when these Fandangos, when people got together, what other kind of activities did
they do? Did they dance, and—
M:
Yeah, that’s what they doing. Dance, play handgame, any kind of race, I guess, footrace.
C:
How long did they run, or how far was the footraces?
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M:
Well, some of them were here in Owyhee. There’s one man, name Race Harney, he run
long ways. Run over there at Cornwall [Pass? 41:17], what they call. He run with a
horses, saddle horse. That butte over there? You make one round. Them horsemen, you
got make two rounds.
C:
He raced a horse?
M:
Yeah.
C:
His name was Race Harney?
M:
Yeah.
C:
How did he become…?
M:
He was just born that way.
C:
He was a good runner?
M:
Good runner, yeah. Horses [__inaudible at 41:46__]. My old man was with him, and he
told us that always had it galloping fast. Because it gets slowed down, doesn’t go fast.
That’s why there’s no fence over there.
C:
So he had a race here in the valley?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Where did they start?
[Phone rings]
M:
They’d start from over there, when they had a Fourth July going over there.
C:
The Fourth July run was over…
M:
Yeah, over there in, uh, where the—what they call Honopah.
C:
Oh, over there.
M:
You know that David?
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C:
By David Premo’s house?
M:
Yeah. Right from there, out to that butte.
C:
Is that by Sheep Creek?
M:
Yeah, this side of it.
C:
This side of that.
M:
Tisi Goei. [42:33] [“Just a bare mountain,” south of Owyhee on the Sheep Creek Road]
C:
Tisi Goei, uh-huh. And so they raced to there and back?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Oh. How many times did they race? Or was that just a one time?
M:
They race on the road. Here, I guess.
C:
So who won that race?
M:
Race Harney was the best runner here.
C:
He beat the horse?
M:
Well, I don’t know. He just doggone try to beat ‘em, I guess, want to show them what he
can do.
C:
So he raced the horse.
M:
Yeah.
C:
Who was the rider? Do you remember who was the rider?
M:
Yeah, my old man was one of them. There was whole bunch of ‘em.
C:
Oh, your old man—
M:
My dad was.
C:
Uh-huh. What was his name?
M:
Bill.
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C:
Bill McKinney?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Oh. He was riding the horse?
M:
Yeah.
C:
So he raced the horse, huh? This Race Harney?
M:
Yeah, that’s what Race was doing.
C:
How old was he?
M:
I guess he was young back then.
C:
Race Harney was young?
M:
Yeah.
C:
How did he get his name Race?
M:
I don’t know.
C:
But that’s what people called him?
M:
Yep. Race Harney.
C:
Okay, Dave. To finish up on Race Harney, did you know him, or did you meet him? Or
what was he like?
M:
Yeah, I met him when he was old.
C:
Oh, when he was really old.
M:
Yeah.
C:
When he was young, in that race against the horse, was there people betting on him, or
what was…?
M:
No, I guess it was just run.
C:
It was just—
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M:
Just he want to show them what he can do.
C:
But he was a runner, huh? Did he go to other reservations and race?
M:
I don’t know. He did race with one of them over there, one of them Paiutes. They bet
money on it.
C:
Oh, they raced for money?
M:
Yeah, bet money. And that man race with him. They started from here, I guess. Where
the hospital is. The road was different then. Went to race down to the salvation yard.
They put out money, least that Paiute put out money. Shoshone. They run race. Then
Race hadn’t beat him. [__inaudible at 45:22__] Before he get down through the base, to
the salvation, he said he hurt his leg. And he sat down, halfway over there. Then the
people know he don’t win. They just, they lost money.
C:
Who was it he raced? Do you remember?
M:
They called him, Washikanpiku [45:54]. That’s his Indian name. I guess he was runner,
too.
C:
How far was that? How many miles, would you say?
M:
I don’t know how many miles from here to that. About a mile. More than a mile, I guess.
C:
Yeah. About four miles.
M:
Yeah. And he says he hurt his leg. His leg here.
C:
Who said that?
M:
That guy.
C:
Oh, the Paiute guy?
M:
Yeah. That’s what I heard. But I never did see it.
C:
Oh. So, but Race was a good runner, then.
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M:
Yeah.
C:
What are some of the other things you did in your life?
M:
Yeah, I worked for a Bureau’s first. When they come here. Cutting brush, when Tom
Premo was my boss. Canal over there. Cutting willows over there, for two and a half a
day. Then I work for road department here. Drive a truck first. First time, I was helping
surveyors. Rod, and them chains.
C:
Was that with the BIA, or who was that with?
M:
Yeah. Then, later on, I catch on and grader, run grader, blade this road here. That was a
dirt road, all this. That’s what I do.
C:
How did you learn how to run the grader?
M:
Well, on the cement grader. See, and even the BIA doesn’t let you run it, try it.
C:
Oh. So you learned on your own.
M:
[Laughter] Yeah. I just try on my own. Let you work that. And work on that dam, too. I
don’t know what year.
C:
The Wild Horse Dam?
M:
Yeah.
C:
Were you a grader operator then, or…
M:
No, with a pick and shovel. They shoot ‘em with a dynamite. You got a shovel with a
short handle, round handle. But they didn’t fit over there, they got [__inaudible at
48:38__]. Boss watching you whole time. Sixty-two and a half cents an hour, that’s what
he give you over there.
C:
That was hard work, huh?
M:
Yeah. Then I work on this diversion dam, too. That was hard work, too. Nine hours.
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C:
A day?
M:
Yeah. Run the wheelbarrow. Going with big rocks about that large. And down the engine
with that mixer. Yeah, that was hard work.
C:
So you hand-mixed the cement?
M:
No, with machine. Big one. Different sizes. Have four different size, I think. I don’t know
where they put it. Small ones. Sand. Yeah, that was hard.
C:
How many of you worked on that? Was there other people that you know of? Your
brothers, or…? Family, or…?
M:
Yeah, me and my dad, and… Allie Gilbert. Jimmy Leach, Junior. We’re the one that
finished that one. Other of ‘em couldn’t stand it, they quit. Shelly tried to get on there, he
went only half a day. He come home time for dinner. Never go back.
C:
So it was hard work.
M:
Yeah, that is. He told me his hands hurt. Yeah, that, it was hard work.
C:
Oh. So when did you get into ranching? Did you start your ranching business?
M:
Yeah, I was still working then, over here at road. Trying to run my cattle, make the
loan. Couldn’t make it. The cattle price was way low!
C:
How many cattle did you run?
M:
Well, we started out with about sixty head. Cattle price went way down then. Couldn’t
make your loan, you had to pay it. They finally settled me. Sell me out.
C:
Sell your cows out.
M:
Yeah. When I get home, try and tell me. Raymond Thacker? He got money, he say, “I
know how it is when one man trying to run ranch.” He says, “I help you.” I told him,
“Oh, I give up.” So I quit. Sell all my cattle.
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C:
Do you remember what year that was?
M:
No! [Laughter] I don’t even think about that!
C:
So how old are you today?
M:
I was younger then.
C:
No, I mean today. How old are you today?
M:
I’m 98.
C:
You’re 98 years old. Oh! When was your birthday?
M:
My birthday July 28th.
C:
Oh, so you just had a birthday this, not too long ago.
M:
Yeah.
C:
Well, you do well for 98. Okay, well, I know it’s time for you to eat, so we’d better let
you go. And I want to thank you for today.
M:
Okay.
C:
Okay.
[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
Dave McKinney
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID: Senior Center)
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.)
00:53:20
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/539
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
Dave McKinney - Oral history (11/30/2006)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Dave McKinney, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee, NV-ID), on 11/30/2006
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Dave McKinney is a Western Shoshone and was born in Gold Creek, NV in 1907, and currently resides at the Duck Valley Reservation (Owyhee). His parents were Bill and Sadie McKinney. He was one of six children: 1 older sister and 4 younger brothers. He begins his oral presentation by describing how the Chinese emigrants living in Gold Creek use to pan mine gold. He also speaks about how he used to trap coyotes and sell their fur, stack hay for 2 dollars and fifty cents a day, and then how he worked for the Conservation Corps building roads. Dave also tells us about how he worked on many community projects around Duck Valley Reservation such as the Wild Horse Dam and the canal within the reservation as well as becoming a cattle rancher. He also speaks about the Fandango and the accompanying hand games and foot races – particularly about Race Harney.</p>
<a title="Video of Dave McKinney" href="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/670542/sp/67054200/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/20370692/partner_id/670542?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player_1464993962&entry_id=0_d7f7cxa2&flashvars[streamerType]=auto">Video link [opens in separate window]</a> <br /> <a title="Dave McKinney Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/da58f56540b1b641d9cf9e5db2c5275e.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Dave McKinney 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 014
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
11/30/2016 [30 November 2006]; 2006 November 30
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/358
Language
A language of the resource
English; some Shoshoni
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
Fandango
GBIA
handgames
mining
Owyhee
ranching
Shoshone
Story
traditions
Wild Horse Reservoir
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/9c1caaf71c811a358d9861027e140347.jpg
3f9f0f637f243d6fb1352e76fcb2f34c
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/9543623c8550bc4198e22a5adaf9565b.pdf
b472f6f1a24ac7c96b2e674482f2148d
PDF Text
Text
Lester Shaw
Great Basin Indian Archive
GBIA 052
Oral History Interview by
Norm Cavanaugh
June 1, 2016
Owyhee, NV
Great Basin College • Great Basin Indian Archives
1500 College Parkway
Elko, Nevada 89801
http://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced in partnership with
Barrick Gold of North America
�GBIA 052
Interviewee: Lester Shaw
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: June 1, 2016
S:
My name’s Lester Shaw Jr. I was born in Boise, Idaho, from my mom—Lester Shaw and
Lillian Thomas Shaw. We are enrolled Paiute, Shoshone-Paiutes, here on Duck Valley
reservation. I have two sisters, Karen Temoke and Adrianne Whiterock. And one brother,
Virgil Shaw, and one deceased brother, Irwin D. Ridley. They are all enrolled here on the
Shoshone-Paiute reservation. I remember I went to school here in Owyhee all my life,
when I was—from first grade, to twelfth grade. I finished my school in 1961. Younger
days, when I was growing up here on the reservation, my dad and mom had hay fields
down here. Had to put up all summer! [Laughter] And we learned, had to learn how to
run equipment, like the mower and the rake. And we had a buckrake. Because in them
days, we had to use horse-drawn mowers, and horse-drawn rake, and buckrake, and stack
hay—loose hay—stack it up there. And all of us had to get out there for help, anyway,
even when you’re little, all the way up to, until I got into—almost got to high school by
then, before we switched over to tractors, and stuff like that. But it’s something that we
had to do. And I enjoyed doing it, but it was hard work. We all got together: my mom—I
worked with my mom, she even went up there to be our cook and stuff, to get on the
fields. And we had to move from one field way down to another, and clear down to
Pleasant Valley, that’s where we put up hay last. But then, in the springtime, everybody
has to get out for branding, ride horses, and gather up the cattle, push them out on the
range. Branding, and then, yeah, pushing cows, then up on the mountains again. It was
just regular ranch work, but it was just pretty tough, hard work. Enjoyed that. During my
high school years, I played in the band, high school band. And I was the president of the
FFA. I played basketball, football, track, and I was in the rodeo club. We did pretty good
�GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 2
in the basketball, because we were undefeated my senior year, but we got beat out in the
zone tournament by the lowest team. It just happened that way, I guess. I’d like to talk
about my younger days when I was playing in the Indian basketball leagues. We had a
team here in Owyhee that, we’d travel all over to a different reservation to play in a
tournaments. Lot of our guys are all, they’re getting pretty old now, they don’t play
anymore, but I like to remember that, when we win that championship, or I used to like to
go to Fort Hall because it always has good tournaments up there. Or sometimes, just to go
up there and play, you know just the regular games. And participate in tournaments down
Schurz, and Reno, and Elko. We’d play all over. And up here. At here, at home, we used
to have about five tournaments a year, basketball tournaments. We’d have young men’s,
and old men’s. Now, we have—one of the older, we got a older league, thirty and over,
and now it’s forty and over. Fort Hall, I used to go up there and play in the thirty and
forty and over. Now, it goes clear up to sixty and over! That’s guys still playing ball!
[Laughter] It’s lot of fun, but now I can’t do it. Most of us are injured. All injured. But
we had lot of fond memories, it was lot of fun. After I graduate from here, I worked out at
Spanish Arts to make money to go to school. I went, the fall I went to Haskell Institute
in Lawrence, Kansas. That was through study of masonry and construction. And I was
there for, got out of there in 1963. I worked in Raytown, Missouri as a apprentice
bricklayer for six months. And then, I moved back to—I moved to California, I moved to
San Jose. And I couldn’t find any work for my trade, so I moved back to Reno, then I
found a—I got a job as apprentice bricklayer for L.A. Dunson Masonry contractor out of
Sparks, Nevada. And I enjoyed working there with older guys that would teach us. I’d
learn. Learning, I did all the—you start doing the dirty jobs first. So like, helping to carry
�GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 3
mud, and pack bricks and blocks. Yeah. Then I, they taught me quite a bit, lot of those
older bricklayers. Got to work with them, and I enjoyed working with them, because I got
to know them and got friendly with them, and then I was kind of scared first time. Like,
kind of, because of my race I guess. But they kept—encouraged me, and that’s what I
enjoyed: working as a bricklayer.
That was the love of my life, that masonry and construction, because you finish the job,
you look at it, and you could see, “Hey, I built that! Helped build that building!” And lot
of buildings in Boise that we completed, and I look back and when I go up there
sometimes, I look and, “Hey, look at that old building we built long time ago.” Like the
university, Boise State University, we worked lots on there: the student union, the
dormitories.
[Break in recording]
When I was young, I started out with three sixty-five an hour. [Laughter] It’s not even
nothing now. It’s probably up about—it’s about twenty-five, twenty-six dollars an hour
now, as far as I know. I don’t know, I haven’t been—what, real long time, since 1972,
since I done any kind of brick work, or block work, or stuff like that. It’s good, though. I
got drafted in 1964. July. And I went into the Army. I went to Fort Ord, California. I
finished my Basic Training in Fort Ord, and then I came home on leave, and then went to
my AIT training in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. And I was there for another eight weeks, and then
I got my orders to go to Germany. And there, I spent eighteen months over there on
artillery, as artilleryman. We were on eight-inch howitzers. And when I was about ready
to get out, I re-enlisted and got sent back to the States. When I was about done, then I
spent five months at Fort Hood, Texas. And then, I got orders to go to Vietnam, Republic
�GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 4
of Vietnam, and that’s when I went to the Vietnam War. I was assigned to the First
Cavalry Division, Airmobile. And I was—our base camp was An Khe, Vietnam. From
there, I was out in the field most of the time on different landing zones. And then, I lasted
out there for five months, until I got wounded in January 3rd, 1968. We come under
hostile mortar attack and rocket attack, and we were about almost ready to get overrun. I
got wounded. I knocked out a rocket position with my squad, and then I received a
Bronze Star from that, for heroism. It was pretty tough over there. I don’t remember
getting loaded up in the medevac chopper, and next thing I know I was in Qui Nohn,
that’s a hospital there. Then there for short time, and then I was sent to Japan to see what
they could do to fix up my wounds. They couldn’t do anything for my jaw right there.
My jaw was disappeared, and knocked out all my teeth, and my left mandible was gone.
[Laughter] So, they sent me back to the States, to Letterman General Hospital in San
Fransisco. There I spent the rest of my tour, at the Letterman’s. I finally got out, and I
was home on convalescent leave about three times when I was in there. Until I had to go
back for more surgery, and then I finally got my honorable discharge. And then, I came
back here, home, here in Owyhee. I spent about a year just kicking back. I couldn’t do
much. I finally, after I got on as a bricklayer, apprentice bricklayer, in Boise Idaho, and I
worked there for the Local #2 Bricklayers’ Union, until I got my journeyman card for
bricklaying. Then I worked there until I decided to go on to school a little bit more, and I
went to Idaho State University vo-tech, and I got a certificate for furniture maintenance.
Trying to rebuild furniture, and upholstery and stuff. But I used it for about maybe five
months or so, but I decided I couldn’t do that, because the pay wasn’t too much, but it
was worth something—something I had to fall back on if I needed to. And then, from
�GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 5
there, I came back here to Owyhee, and worked for the BIA maintenance department.
Worked down there for, let’s see—I have ten years there, service, as a maintenance
worker. As a laborer first, then I moved up to a maintenance worker, and that I worked
for a while, then I finally worked for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe as an instructor for the
AIT program. I worked there until I got hired at the Human Development Center as a
coordinator of events and building superintendent. Then I worked there for a short while,
and then I also worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a forestry technician, in Boise
National Forest in Idaho. And then, I transferred to Ruby Mountain Ranger District with
the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. After that, I finished there, then I decided to look
for something else, and I found work at the Owyhee Community Health Facility as a
maintenance mechanic helper. And that’s all my work I did so far. Plus, I worked on
various ranches. But I didn’t count that too much. [Laughter] That was lot of interesting
fun, though. The last job, that’s when I was injured on the job and I had to take a medical
retirement. So now, I’ve been laid up for—can’t do much for, oh, sixteen years now. I
was injured in year 2000. I’ve enjoyed going to powwows, watching kids play basketball,
and just staying home with my family. My wife is deceased. So I live here, but I have my
nephews and whoever come over and visit. I am a member of the American Legion, Post
48—Jack Hanks 48. And I’m Adjutant for them, and I belong to the Military Order of
Purple Heart. And Disabled American Veterans. And I enjoy working with the veterans,
keep it going here at home. And I like to go to their meetings, and we keep everything up
with our old post. We started after World War II, with Art Manning as our commander
and stuff. We’re down to about very many—oh, we had about seventeen when I first
joined. Now we’re down to about ten. [Laughter]
�[Break in recording]
GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 6
I was a teacher for, to teach these young guys around here how to lay blocks. So then
they started on a building, a shop down here that they built. Went up with my teaching.
They built it, they laid the blocks, all these younger guys here that learned that trade. I
enjoyed teaching them. Yeah, it’s something they can fall back—if they want to continue,
they have to go further up, though, to get their journeyman’s card and stuff for that.
There’s not too many, very many brick layers left around here I don’t think. Most of them
are either passed on or moved away. And they have to go to town, move to the city
mostly, to find good work. But you get in that apprenticeship program, you can start off
as a apprentice, bricklayer’s apprentice, or cement finish. Or then they—you have to get
indentured into, with a contractor. And most of them recommend to get into the union so
you can go to work, unless you know somebody that does that kind of work. You can
work for him, then work your way on up. It’s good. Good trade.
[Break in recording]
I like to see these younger people stay with their powwows and their, the Indian, Native
American language. They have to try to keep that up, because it’s going, we’re going to
lose it pretty soon if we don’t. There’s lot of—here at home, they have classes for the
Shoshone language, and Paiute, and to keep it up. You got to listen to the elders and try
not to—because it’s kind of getting lost now because of, they don’t listen. Nobody tells
you, the younger ones, what’s going on with our culture and stuff. It’s good to keep that
up. And I sure enjoy it, to watch these younger little ones out there, the peewees, clear up
to the golden age, that are still dancing. It’s good to see. And I believe in that eagle staff,
you got to watch our eagle feathers and stuff, we got to keep that sacred, and not to abuse
�GBIA 052; Shaw; Page 7
it in any way. Yeah, the eagle feathers are the main things I like that the—to me, that’s
what we respect. To our Mother Earth here, and our water, and our wild game, and the
fish in the water. And that’s what we survived on when we were little, and we ate rabbits,
and deer, and antelope, and elk, and—just keep up the language, that’s what I say. But I
want the younger generation to know that, just continue learning your language and
listening to the elders up here.
[Break in recording]
What I recommend to the kids of the younger generation now is to continue your
education, because it’s getting pretty hard to get any kind of employment. You got to
have education to find any kind of work, you know? If you go off the reservations, hard
to find work, a job or something—a decent job, anyway. Even here at home, it’s hard to
get on something like a—get trainings or something anyway, so you can have something
to fall back on to support your family. That’s what I recommend. I’ve been through a lot,
and I enjoyed every bit of what I did. Went through hard times and good times, and lot of
fun times. So, just think about that. Thank you.
[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
Lester Shaw, Jr.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:20:40
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Valley Reservation - Owyhee (Shaw residence)
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/528
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
DVD, MP4, and AVI format
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
Lester Shaw Jr. - Oral history (06/01/2016)
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lester Shaw Jr. was born in Boise, ID and was son to Lester Shaw and Lillian Thomas Shaw. Lester currently resides on the Duck Valley Reservation where he attended school until 1961 and became president of the FFA and participated in various sports. During this period he helped out at his dad’s mom’s ranch pushing cattle, branding horses, and putting-up hay. After he finished High School he worked at Spanish Ranch to save up to attend Haskell Institute in Kansas until he was drafted into the military in 1964. While serving in the military he was sent to Germany and Vietnam during the war, at which time he received the Bronze star and was inducted into the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He also spent much of his life learning masonry which he taught to the youth which he advises to keep up their traditions and Native language.</p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MgUniui0jCQ" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>Interviewed by Norm Cavanaugh</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 052
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
06/02/2016 [02 June 2016]; 2016 June 02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; Scott A. Gavorsky [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/id/172
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Lester Shaw Jr., Western Shoshone from Duck Valley Reservation (Owhyee) on 06/01/2016
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP4
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley Reservation
GBIA
language
masonry
ranching
Shoshone
Story
traditions
veteran
Vietnam war