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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
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
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
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
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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/578f16876d932993ba17a1f4dd471ae3.jpg
f0f26c8ac8c10c032a05c5852c4cb04b
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/7fd3c0dc61c03af54cc104e7396bb57b.pdf
c14ce2184285b42832c13710067765bd
PDF Text
Text
Earl
and
Beverly
Crum
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
004
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
February
1,
2006
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 004
Interviewee: Earl and Beverly Crum
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: February 1, 2006
BC:
The songs, the Newe hupia, that Earl and I share with people, are those songs that have
been handed down through the oral tradition. It means you learn it from somebody older
than yourself. The somebody who is older than yourself has learned it from somebody
older than themselves. And so that’s the way it makes its way down, that’s the way oral
tradition continues. But then, one day, if you stop doing that—
EC:
What I learned for my own personal self is that, I learned it from my—my mother
recorded some songs for me. And she put it on tape. That’s how I learned most of them.
But the ones we have, we are singing, were something that I had heard at different round
dances. We call it Fandango. And possibly from older people that I’ve contacted in my
lifetime, you know, as a child, or otherwise as I was growing up. I grew up with this
stuff. So round dances is an old tradition with the Shoshone people. It goes way, way,
way back. It’s—it has to do with the closeness of the people. And the main thing is, the
songs that goes with the dance. If you listen to the words, you interpret it. Lot of them,
many songs can be interpreted in different ways. So if the people are dancing, one might
interpret it one way, and another one might interpret it in a different way. But, I mean,
generally, you had one central, main meaning. There are many, many round dance songs.
Many more than handgame or bear dance. And I’m talking about with the few handgame
songs, especially those that have words in it. And I kind of have a leaning toward that.
But, most all round dances have words. And there’s a story to tell. Where in hand game,
it’s just fun on it. And the bear dance has lots of words, but it’s something that has been
going on for years and years. They don’t do that anymore, I don’t think. When they talk
about the Ute bear dance, well, that’s different altogether. That’s their culture. But we
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have that culture, too. And all of our bear dance song have words. And then, all bear
dances don’t have—they’re not singing about a bear. Some of them has to do with
people, or other animals, like birds, or… That’s what those are about. So, like I say, both
kinds, but...
BC:
Well, we try to pick songs that are—like you told us last fall, for example. You said,
“This is going to be about water. The issue of water.” [Shoshone at 4:41] You told us
already what the topic was. So, we just looked down into our songs, and those things that,
songs that were about water in particular. Some things that had to do with the issue of
water. No matter our closeness to it or whatever. And we picked those out. So that, you
know, it would be, go along with you, what you needed.
Poetry songs was not used—the poetry itself, the words, was not used in isolation. It was
a unified whole. The music, and the poetry, and the singing, they were a unified whole.
You never pulled them apart and, you know. And so, this is what we’re attempting by
doing an oral presentation where we’re reading just the poetry. See what I mean?
Because you’ll keep repeating the same thing. That same thing over and over. And it’s,
one of the, some linguist who was looking, reviewed some paper I was having published.
He says, “Why do the Shoshones keep repeating certain things? Why do they have that
need?” I says, “You dummy! That’s because they were dancing to the stuff.” And they
were dancing to it, and they were singing it. It wasn’t just poetry. It wasn’t just—you
know, “Tiger, tiger, burning bright / In the forest of the night.” You know, like taibo
poetry. It was more like, like this one song— [Begins singing]
Tamme yampa sateettsii
Okwai manti puiwennekkinna
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Yampa taai, yampa taai, yampa taai
Yampa taai, yampa taai, yampa taai1
See, you’re singing it and you’re dancing. And the poetry is all at once. But in the, but
when you come to, when you get to isolating the oral presentation, the poetry part all by
itself, you can say “Carries them away, carries them away, carries them away.”
[Laughter] You see what I mean? That it has this—like, Earl, one of his songs will be that
[Shoshone at 7:00] It starts out by a—
EC:
I’ll sing it. [Begins drumming at 7:05, singing in Shoshone from 7:08-7:50]
BC:
Okay, thank you, Earl. Thank you.
EC:
See, you can put it in poetry now.
BC:
So, like, if I had to—when we translate it, it goes, “Hunter, hunter, hunter”—that’s three.
“Hunter, hunter, hunter. Hunter, hunter, hunter.” So, you know, that makes it awkward
reading. If it was just going to be, just the oral presentation. So, what I had to do was just
say, pick out only, use that word “hunter” only once, after, you know, for the English
translation. Then it made it a nice reading for just the oral presentation, understandable to
the group. You’re kind of lost in your hunter, hunter—how many “hunters” are go there?
Is there one hunter? One, two, three, you know? You get to sing—but it’s the same
hunter, but it’s… You understand? So that part, is the ones that we have diff[iculty] going
from one culture to the other. That is kind of a neat little understandable problem once
you get it under control. [Laughter] How about the one we just got through with? How
about Pia Isam Peentsi?
EC:
Oh, okay.
1
See
Beverly
Crum,
Earl
Crum,
and
Jon
P.
Dayley,
2001,
Newe
Hupia:
Shoshone
Poetry
Songs,
pp.
152-‐53.
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BC:
Go ahead with that one, you can sing it.
EC:
[Begins drumming and singing at 9:10]
Pia Isam peentsi
Pennan kwasin katsunka
U piyaatehki
Piyaatehki,
Piyaatehki,
Piyaattua noote.
Pia Isam peentsi
Pennan kwasin katsunka
U piyaatehki
Piyaatehki,
Piyaatehki,
Piyaattua noote,
Pia Isam peentsi
Pennan kwasin katsunka
U piyaatehki
Piyaatehki,
Piyaatehki,
Piyaattua noote.2
[Concludes at 9:52]
Haiyawainna.
2
See
Crum,
Crum,
and
Dayley,
Newe
Hupia,
pp.
86-‐87.
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BC:
Okay, thank you, Earl. There, I could see—the writing system, I think the writing system
is going to change the speaking part of it. Because, noote. Piyaattua noote. But, there
would be, the sound, the “noo-teN,” the “nnn,” wouldn’t show up until there was
something following it. Remember? One of the rules? One of the rules! [Laughter] Well,
it’s the silent “n.” The silent “n.” So that, you really do need to have, like yourself,
teaching a class, who is a Shoshone speaker. And the [Shoshone at 10:44] newe
taikwaken, the newe taikwa, tamme _________________. That’s language. Not the
written part. That’s just symbols representing language. So that, you know, I’m really
happy that you’re teaching. That’s all I could say for that. But that was about, Pia isan
peentsi, furry wolf. Pia isan peentsi. Furry wolf, [sings the song back to herself quietly]
he carries him away, carries him away, carries him away—there’s one of those
repetitions again. Carries him away, on his tail he carries the child away. [Shoshone at
11:26] Upi naah kwasipi ____. When the—now, I’m 79, and back then a lot of the
parents were still telling their kids that “Ukka kai”—if you don’t mind, a misbehaving
kid, [11:43] “Ukka kai en tenankanku, Itsappe en kwasi pinnookkwanto’i!” “If you don’t
behave yourself, Coyote’s going to carry you off on his tail.” So, it’s just more—the song
has to do with more of that part of our culture, not so much talking about Wolf. Not—or,
Itsappe, either one. It’s not talking about either of them. It’s talking about that short
saying. Every language in the world has sayings. Well, Shoshone’s no different.
To children, how to keep them in line. [Laughter]
NC:
So the stories had a way of, having a moral to the story, of letting children—
BC:
Yeah! Yeah, without being preachy. A song is one of the good, really nice ways, yeah.
Well, the saying, though, is hitting it pretty well over the head: if you don’t behave
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yourself, Coyote’s going to carry—who wants to be carried off by Coyote? I don’t know
whether the kids would still be afraid of Coyote this day and age, I don’t. Or anything
else, for that matter. Anymore, what is their bogeyman? [Shoshone at 12:54] You don’t
know? It’d be a nice research. [Laughter]
EC:
But, first I’m going to start with a handgame song. It’s about snow coming down. Well,
[__inaudible at 13:15__].
[Begins singing in Shoshone at 13:16]
[Concludes at 13:44]
That’s Doc Blossom’s handgame song. [Laughter] Anyway, maybe it’s not his, but that’s
what he learned from somebody else.
NC:
Okay, can you tell—or Beverly, can you elaborate, on the handgame? And maybe tell a
little bit about what is a handgame song. How is it played?
BC:
It’s changed, over time. Remember how they do it in Fort Hall? Do you remember? How
did they do? Do they use sticks anymore?
NC:
Not hardly.
BC:
Really? It’s more the drum?
NC:
The drum…
BC:
Remember when it was all stick? They used the stick, completely. [Shoshone at 14:27]
Oh, that was exciting to me, it was exciting! [In the background, tapping of a drum stick
on the side of a drum, imitating the sound of two sticks clicking.] Like that. Oh, yeah! It’s
changed. I remember, as a child, the women had their own group, and the men had their
own. And the women had a nice, slower—I was too young to really know what they were
saying, but to me, the guys were really into it, pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum,
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they were much more, what do you call them? Not pum-pum, but, the stick. It was much
more peppy than, whatever.
EC:
They put a log in the front, long one, front of the players. And they beat on that log. Like
if they sit the log, then you’d hear [taps on object in room]. You’d hear it like that. And in
unison. And they sure sound good!
BC:
Yeah. They lost something by stopping that, I think.
EC:
They got four—two sets of bones, who hands them out. They say, well, this is the white
bone. The one’s got a black marker on it. And you supposed to guess that unmarked one.
But the players put it in their hand, the marked one and the unmarked one. The unmarked
one is the main one. And so, they psych the other people out. They sing, and it goes:
[Sings a handgame song at 16:05] See, it’s got no words, they just sing that. Anyway,
then you’re going to have to try to guess me, which one’s got the unmarked bones. And if
you guess wrong, well, you know. They got ten sticks over there. Well, yours, and ten
sticks on this side. Then if you can’t guess it, you’ve got to give up one stick for the
people on this side. And if you can’t get guess at all, it’s ten times wrong, you lose all
your sticks. You lose that game. And you start all over again. And—
NC:
Can you tell about what they played for? What’s at stake?
EC:
Well, nowadays they play for money. They bet any amount of money they want. Twenty
dollars, 10 dollars. One dollar. Even the audience can get into it, offer money, you know.
Then they put the money in a pot, in the middle, you know. And there’s a judge over here
that’s, they’re keeping track of everything that’s going on. And that’s what they’re, what
they bet on. They bet on, whoever wins get that pot. Then they divide it among each
other. You bet all your money that way. You bet 100 dollars, you win 200 dollars.
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[Laughter] So, you win your own back and, you know. That’s the way it’s played. One
dollar, you get, you double it. [Laughter] That’s gambling! Anything else?
NC:
So, prior to the way they play it now, what did they used to play for? What did they used
to bet?
EC:
Oh, a long time ago?
NC:
A long time ago.
EC:
They bet, they said they bet, you know, something of value. Maybe a deer hide, a badger
hide, or… any kind of a skin. If it has value, then they bet that. But when [__inaudible at
18:28__] come, then it goes back [__inaudible at 18:34__]. Coyote was gambling,
playing handgame, and he lost everything that he had. The only thing he had left was his
mukua. You know what mukua is? That’s your soul. And he bet that soul, and if he lost
his soul, they say there would be no more Shoshone people.
BC:
[Laughter] [Shoshone at 19:08]. He’s sitting there crying for fear that—
EC:
He got lucky; you know, they get luck come in. He got lucky, they said that he won back
his soul. But not only that, won that soul back, but he won all the stuff he lost. He had it,
he won all that back, and then some from other people, the opposing players. He won
their tradition, too. [Laughter]
BC:
There’s the bad luck—the one story he has, he not only won his soul back, his mukua
back, but he won, they mention all the illnesses. All the human illnesses. He won all that
besides! [Laughter] So, you know, the stories are really unbelievable, you know. Well
made. They’re second to none, in storytelling. Oh, just so good!
EC:
That’s where the handgame come in. You know, they were talking about.
BC:
The earlier handgaming.
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EC:
The earlier, yeah. But see how it’s changed. And now it’s all money, you know.
NC:
Okay, Earl. If you could talk about the Bear Dance. And maybe have you sing a song for
us, and then I’ll have one of you explain what the Bear Dance is. About it, and how
people danced the Bear Dance, and why it was called the Bear Dance.
EC:
Well, long time ago, when I was a boy growing up in Battle Mountain, the Indians used
to do the Bear Dance. They took a washtub, an old-fashioned washtub, and they turn it
upside-down. And they get the stick, they get the stick, and then they rasp it. They call it
“rasping” that, so [uses drum stick to make rasping noise on drum]. It makes that kind of
sound. And then, they have the men and women, they’re standing in a row here. Like, the
men on this side, and then over there, the women will stand over there. They face each
other. Then, they get to singing. At first, they choose partners. So women choose. The
women would pick out any man they would choose, she’s interested in dancing with. So
she pick that man out. And the men are, there’s a circle of people here, like in this area
here. Then there’s an outer circle. Those people are spectators. But the inner circle are the
people who’s going to perform the dance. And the women, it’s their choice, they could
pick a man out, and the man can’t refuse. If he refuse, he’s got give her money. So, she
has, then she’ll go pick out someone else. But, if it’s okay with her man, then those two
pair off, and then other women will go and do the same thing. And they pick their
partners. Now, for this dance you have a whole bunch of dancers. Say there’s a partner in
a row, and the other partner over there. And the singers will start to, they warm up, you
know. [Rasps with the stick.] Start singing their songs then. Then when they dance, they
stand facing each other. Like we’re facing each other now. When the music start, they
come toward each other. And they intertwine hands, like this. Then they go around like
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this, and then go back around, their original position. They go together. This is one, that’s
one way. Other, they start dancing. They dance with each other, and they go back and
forth, back and forth, like this. And that’s the way it was done.
BC:
I’ve heard it referred to as [Shoshone at 23:52], you know, the Hugging Dance? Or else
[Shoshone at 23:55]. The rasping dance. It wasn’t called “Bear Dance.” Don’t know
where that came from.
EC:
Anyway, I’ll sing that song for you. This is, not all Bear Dances is about Bear. There’s
lot of them, but this one’s about the bird. This is what I learned from our old folks.
[Sings in Shoshone from 24:33-25:31]
They say that the song is about a bird. The flicker. You know what a flicker is? It’s like a
kind of woodpecker? Anyway, the bird, it’s real—it’s got a certain style of flying, like
this. [Makes rhythmic motions with arms.] If you ever observe it, that’s the way he flies.
And [__inaudible at 25:55__], that’s the name of the bird, some people call it that.
[__inaudible at 26:00__]. Because of the sound that it’s making, the noise from the
throat. It’s got its own special cry. And then their [__inaudible at 26:15__] are red, you
know. Like this. [Taps.] That’s a rope. They write it in that song, [Shoshone at 26:22], it
needs to [Shoshone at 26:29]. We use that word now, but, [Shoshone at 26:33], the old
people use that word. He’s pecking at the wood. [Taps to imitate pecking sound.]
[Shoshone at 26:42]. Because that’s, that mean. [Sings in Shoshone from 26:50-26:55].
That’s, that’s the flying motion that it makes. That’s what that song is about.
NC:
So the Bear Dance was like the mating dance for native songs? Where people got
together at the—
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BC:
Not mating, but more… social. Not so much—mating songs are more, animals.
[Laughter]
EC:
It might. It might lead to marriage, but you know, it’s fun. Supposed to be, anyway.
Anyways, there’s something about Bear.
[Sings in Shoshone from 27:39-28:41]
[Sings second song in Shoshone from 28:44-29:50]
BC:
Haiyowainna. [Laughter]
NC:
And what was that song about, there?
EC:
[Repeats lyrics in Shoshone at 29:57]. It’s, over there, other side of us, there’s a
mountain that’s covered with evergreen forest. The bear is over there, scratching on trees.
He’s marking his territory. [Laughter] That’s what that song is about.
NC:
Well, in the time we’ve got left, could you both share just a little bit about yourselves and
your childhood? Where you grew up, and how things were when you were growing up?
Maybe Earl, you could go ahead and start it, and then we’ll finish with Beverly.
EC:
Okay. When I was growing up, lived in Battle Mountain, during that time of the Great
Depression, what they call the Great Depression. Hundreds of men used to ride the
freight cars. They’d go back and forth on the Union Pacific, probably between
Sacramento and Ogden, Utah, or wherever, you know. It was a time of unemployment.
People were looking for jobs, and they can’t find any. So all these men were idle. They
go back and forth, back and forth. And we used to listen to them—when we were kids,
we used to listen to them. And they talk about Ogden or Reno, you know. And they
always warn each other about the bull. Back then I couldn’t understand, I thought it was
real bull, you know. [Laughter] They’re referring to cops. You know, the railroad
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policemen? They’re talking about it. They taught each other how to avoid ‘the bull.’
[Laughter] Anyway, that’s some of my experience then. Occasionally, one or a few of
them used to come to our house. Used to live at the west end of Battle Mountain. That’s
where all Indians live, in one place. And occasionally, couple of them have come over,
and they would beg for food. And we had bunch of old dried-out bread. So, they say
ranching life was hard, you know. So, Gram make a big pot of coffee. Probably can’t sip
it that high. And when they come over, she’d give them coffee and the hard bread. Then
they dip that hard bread in the coffee, and they eat it.
BC:
Sounds good.
EC:
And then, in appreciation, you know what they did? In appreciation, they steal a sack of
coal from the coal trains. And they bring it over to the house. That’s what we used to
burn. That’s the only one thing I remember, when [__inaudible at 33:24__].
NC:
How big was the Indian Colony there in Battle Mountain at that time?
EC:
I imagine there was about, anywhere from 150 to 200 people. Counting everybody, men
and children. And women. You know. My grandfather, he was the shaman, the Indian
doctor. And different old men would come over, and they did bloodletting. They made a,
go out there and make a little [__inaudible at 34:03__], with a sharp, pointed end. And
they would place that on the side of the podium, maybe on this side, and then take a
large, like a weight, and hit it like that. And a pool of blood would pour out down there.
That’s what they call bloodletting. I don’t know whether it’s, that was to prevent stroke,
or… But anyways, it was for my doctoring people. That I remember as I was growing up.
NC:
What was his name? What was your grandpa’s name?
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EC:
They call him Shoshone, [34:48] Natapaibui. “The one who sees the sun.” Or, some of
them call him “sharp arrow.” Mutsipaka [34:58]. Others would call him, [35:04]
Puyapekken, “duck down.” He had all the names. Those are two main ones that he used.
But his English name was Dick Crum. And he got that name from, he’s a Shoshone, he’s
a white associates. Somewhere, he got along good with the white people. Mainly, his
peer group, his own age group. So one of the ranchers close by—my grandfather had a
land there, and when the homesteading came in, the white rancher came and claimed that
land and homesteaded there. Telling my grandfather, he said, “Dick,” he told him, “you
were here before we were. This land is really your land.” So, the old man believed him.
And he lived on that ranch where they claimed, and they claimed that was the—actually,
it was a part of the Homesteading Act. And the old man, that old Crum died. That’s why
he has the name Crum. From the white man. And he died, and his son took the ranch.
And one day, he had a confrontation with my grandfather. And that young Crum told my
grandfather, “Get off my land!” You know. So, Grandfather moved to the town of Battle
Mountain, just on the west side of that—which later became the Indian colony. Then dad
had a—in them days, he used to live like a white man. So he bought two lots in town.
And he built three little houses, made it with two-room houses. And Grandpa and
Grandma living alone. He live in the other one. Us and the kids live in one. Third one
was for my mother’s moon house. And I guess Frances was up in the house. That’s how
we lived. Anyway, about early part of 1930, an Indian activist came through Battle
Mountain—I’ll never say the name. I know who it is, though. He even told my dad. He
said, “You know, Jim”—my dad’s name was Jim—“You know, Jim, Indians aren’t
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supposed to pay taxes.” My dad was paying taxes on our land. My dad quit paying taxes.
And the county foreclosed his land.
BC:
So much for doing it like a white man, huh?
EC:
That’s when he moved to Owyhee. [Laughter] That’s the way—yeah, so that’s a true
story.
NC:
So that’s how you guys, that’s how you ended up in Owyhee?
EC:
Yeah.
BC:
Had no more land. [Laughter] I think one of the joys of my childhood was when my dad
and mom would go up to the mountains in the falltime of the year, because, you know,
you had to have burning wood? Everybody went after wood, up to the mountains. So
we’d do that. While we were up there, it was the time of the year we could pick
chokecherries, see, because mom and dad had a lot of us kids where we was spending a
lot of time picking chokecherries. And so when my mom gets home, she could make
patties out of them and dry them for the winter. That I remember really well. The times
when I’d be there at home.
NC:
So most of your childhood, you grew up in Owyhee?
BC:
Not most of my—some of our childhood. Because of my health, I had to be sent off to a
TB sanatorium in Idaho.
NC:
In regards to your family, that’s where you learned a lot of your stories, as well? The
Indian stories and the legends?
BC:
Yeah. My mom was a storyteller. But my dad worked with Julian Steward and those
early anthropologists. Then he’d come home at night, and he’d tell us about what those
old people told Julian Steward. That was in the 1930s. Some of the really old people were
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still living, who were probably… I doubt it’s when the reservation started, was the 1930s.
They were very old already. And so he just said, “You could spend days with one
particular old people, because [Shoshone at 40:33(?)].” They were just full of stories to
share, and were fun to work with. And others, he said, really had—they were not able to
do that well. I tend to the conclusion some people must be storytellers, and so are maybe
able to retain more or something. So…
NC:
Okay. Is there anything else you want to add, Earl, or Beverly, before we complete the
program?
BC:
Well, I would say that the passing out—the reason we wrote the Newe [Hupia]—the
songs, Shoshone Poetry songs, is that we could pass it on to other people. Because the
language is quickly—if we’re not careful, we don’t have too many more years for it to
continue, right? Less and less children are speaking it. And a lot of the old people, either
aren’t willing, or whatever the reason, is not passing it on. I keep telling them, “When
you die, it’s going to go with you. When you die, it’s going to go with you.” So for that
reason, it was important for Earl and I to do something like this. It took us a lot of soulsearching. Honestly, it’s like we’re giving something away to taibo—but that’s not the
purpose. We had no choice. We had the opportunity to do something, to save something.
Desperate measures, as it were. You really do.
NC:
Okay, well, that’s hitting hard, there, Beverly, what you two have done in regards to
putting the songs—
BC:
And the grammar. The grammar, all this was a spirit of love. But we never got any grants
to do either that, no money, no grants, zero. The same way with the grammar. I’d already
gotten a lot of it translated before Jon Dayley, the linguist, joined me. I had really done it
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for four years, working, and—the thing he did was expertise. Realistic expertise about the
sound system. But Wick had already put the grammar together, so we already had
something to work with. The orthography was already done. It was not never intended for
Owyhee, it was intended for Goshute. But it’s applicable to all of Shoshone—because
we’re the same sound system. Little tiny of changes, like someone would say, [43:16]
tso’o. Tso’o, with a distinct “ts.” Others say tho’o. Tho’o. But then you could still spell it
the same way. And still know that they could still say it that way: [Shoshone at 43:30].
So there’s stuff like that. And I’m saying, no big deal if we have such a big stake at hand,
us losing it completely, with nothing left. And it could happen to little small tribes like
the Shoshone—because we are a tiny little tribe when you think in terms of the world
globe. It’s really small.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Earl Crum and Beverly Crum
Location
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Elko - GBC (Campus Studio)
Transcription
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Transcript is available: http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/426
Original Format
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DVD, VOB format
Duration
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00:46:00
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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Earl and Beverly Crum - Oral History (02/01/2006)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Earl and Beverly Crum, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley Reservation, Owyhee, NV on 02/01/2006.
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Earl and Beverly Crum speak about the different types of traditional Shoshone songs sung during different ceremonies and events. They speak about how songs are more than just a melody but include a story and sometimes a moral. They also talk about how the language is put together and how it is culturally significant. Earl and Beverly also tell about the customs of the Shoshone Bear dance and hand games as well as provide a tale explaining the hand game: Coyote and the hand game. They play an array of traditional Shoshone songs. Earl describes his childhood in Battle Mountain, Nevada during the Great Depression.</p>
Video pending <br /> <a title="Read Earl and Beverly Crum Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/7fd3c0dc61c03af54cc104e7396bb57b.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Earl and Beverly Crum 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 004
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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02/01/2006 [01 February 2006]; 2006-02-01
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 © 2016.
(Administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/427
Format
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streaming video
Language
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English; Shoshoni
Battle Mountain
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley
folktale
GBIA
language
Shoshone
Story
Swayne school
traditional songs
-
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/fd7baa05cb485ca2d5342732b29185fb.jpg
d97f150f64ddc116641f32441a7f2ba7
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/ca19c29d24318e8927a3aa630ba1e8a3.pdf
4c14242d807552a120af88ca0201d502
PDF Text
Text
Ellison
Jackson
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
003
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
and
Joe
Duce>e
January
27,
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 003
Interviewee: Ellison Jackson
Interviewers: Norm Cavanaugh and Joe Ducette
Date: Jan 27, 2006
J:
As I remember, we used to live in a tent when I first remember it. On side of the road, by
the Presbyterian Church that’s out of town out here. And I remember I lived there in a
hard winter. My grandpa used to get up and paw the snow off the tent, so he said it won’t
break it, it won’t rip the tent. We get a lot of snow. And that’s what I remember about
that.
Well, our Indian diet mostly… meat, dried meat. You know, you make venison, you
make a jerky out of it, and a berries that my grandmother and grandfather get, we put it in
a patties like a hamburger and grind it. During the winter, eat that. And usually make
bread out of a flour, we called Indian bread. You know, they put it in the oven, you know,
cook it like that. Or over a open stove, like with a grease, lot of grease. And they call it
“grease bread.” That’s what we loved to eat. And our old-timers, if you set up a table and
there’s no Indian—we called it Indian bread—if there’s no Indian bread, you put a white
bread on, they said, “Throw that white bread away! That’s no good. We want Indian
bread.” So the womenfolks usually always making that bread, they don’t buy that readymade bread, Wonderbread.
As I remember first, we used to have a wash tub stove. Like, in a tent? In a wash tub, you
cut a hole in there, put a pipe in there, and put a little door in the front. Use that for stove.
And they cook on it.
Yes, or sagebrush, or willows. Whatever that you get. My parents were Robert Jackson,
and my mom was Lena Jackson. When he first moved to Owyhee—in [19]30s, I guess,
I’m not too quick on that—and I was born here in [19]34.
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I moved here because my mom’s dad, my grandfather, they lived here. They raised
horses, cattle, you know. So he move here and work on odd jobs around Owyhee
reservation.
Well, we used to grow up playing all the time. In the snow, in the winter; sometime we’d
go swimming; and sometime we go hunting, with the slingshot. You know, with the
slingshot, we’d go out and kill these squirrels, and we cook them over open fire out there
someplace and have it for lunch. That was our life.
I had two sisters and one brother. I’m the second. Second to my sister, my sister was
oldest and I’m the second.
School was, they called—what was they call it—Swayne school, I guess. Because I
remember, went to kindergarten. I don’t know how old I was. I didn’t know how to speak
English. Maybe “yes” or “no,” as I remember. [Laughter] And I always tell this story
when someone ask that question. Said I went to school. And the teacher got a paper, and
calling people’s name out. So they said, “Raise your hand up when you hear name.” Kids
start raising here and there, you look around. And there was lot of people that we don’t
know everybody, because they come from different areas. And we only knew people in
town because we live in town. Surrounding area, we’re not too acquainted with these
other kids. So I said, “Whose name is that?” Look at them. So pretty soon, the teacher
said, “Ellison Jackson.” I was looking around. Who’s Ellison Jackson? Nobody raised
their hand up. And the teacher pointed at me. And I said, “me?” They say yes. Says,
“Raise your hand!” So I raised my hand. It was a funny name, I never did like since! I
said growing up, “I hate that name!” Because my Indian name my grandfather gave me
was Bombo. Everybody called me Bombo. So I thought that was my—well, that was my
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name. Still they call me that today! [Laughter] They don’t use Ellison! I thought that was
so funny.
Well, I went to seventh grade. I went to seventh grade here, I go to work on a ranch.
C:
And what did you do at the ranch? What was life like?
J:
I was a buckaroo. Horse riding life, you know, ride a horse? Cowboying for different
ranch. Wherever they hire me, I go to work.
Well, generally, it’s mostly… You work with cattle. On a horse.
Early. Four in the morning.
Sometime, if you work close to the house, you work long hours. Like, eight hours, nine
hours. And sometime you’re far away, you don’t come home until late, like couple
twelve hours in fall. In roundup time, you’re busy.
We used to make hundred and quarter a months. It’s a room and board. So, I thought that
was great.
When you get in in the morning, there’s a buckaroo boss there. In the corral, there’s a lot
of horses. Then you tell the buckaroo boss which horse you’re going to ride. You’ve got
about six horses that yours, like they belong to you. You keep them in good shape, you
put shoes on them, make sure they’re not sick. You feed ‘em, take care of them like you
really own it. So you tell the buckaroo boss, “This horse I want.” So they’ll go out there
and rope it for you. So you saddle up, get ready for—other cowboys get ready. Then
everybody ready, then you go. The cow boss take the lead, so you follow. Like he’d say,
“Well, we’re going to work that area.” Certain area of the hills, mountains, you know.
You’re working cattle. You’re moving from, move a cattle from different places to
different area. Like, fall, spring, summer, then branding time. You know, you do all that.
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C:
And how many buckaroos would you have on a ranch?
J:
It’s a big ranch, usually about ten. Small ranch, maybe five.
C:
Were they married?
J:
Mostly young, young buckaroos. There are about eighteen, seventeen, eighteen, up to
twenty young buckaroos. A few of them married, you know.
Well, my dad, he was… He became a operator, cat operator. Later on in years, learn how
to run the Cat. The big D… D8 or something like that. Anyway, he worked on a Cat. And
he worked as mechanic, here. But he don’t—he’s always busy, so he don’t, he really
didn’t teach me anything as I remember. But my grandfather, Jim—his name was Jim
Cavanaugh. James Cavanaugh. He’s the one that give me a lecture on, you know, learn
how to work. Mostly ranch work he was talking about. Like fixing fence, stacking hay,
being buckaroo, being nice to people, and always be polite at the table. You know, these
things which, were never taught that at home. He said, “You go work with these ranchers,
you’re going eat. Everybody eat together. There be twenty people there, maybe fifteen.
So you always say, ‘Please.’ When you order something, always say ‘Please.’ Then don’t
point at things.” He taught me all that. Then later on, I learned that my grandfather came
from Battle Mountain, that area. They’re the people that was called Western Shoshones.
And my dad came from Austin, Nevada. They’re also Western Shoshone people. Western
Shoshone band, I mean.
Well, it’s a long story… [Laughter]
C:
That’s okay!
J:
It goes—a legend, way back in legend times, the story goes like… There was a Coyote.
They go into Coyote, like this. Well, the Coyote’s our father. No, Wolf’s our father, and
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the Coyote is Wolf’s brother. So, us Indians, we’re all Coyote’s children. So, he was our
father. And he had whole bunch of kids, in different race, I guess. But there was only two
that he brought home. And to Nevada, I guess, to his home. After he got this woman
pregnant. And anyway, so he brought two home. Where they live in the mountains, where
there was a stream. And, so early in the morning, when he woke up, he thought his little
boys need cleaning, like a bath. Stream running, so he got up, and he give them a bath.
He use, the Indians use that mud, the fine mud, for soap. [Rubbing hands together] You
use that for soap. Put that on them and clean them up. But the two little boys, when they
first, when he let them go, after he let them go—they always fighting. You know how
boys… They fight each other. So, then the Coyote said, “Well, this not going to work.
You’re both my boys, you guys fighting.” But he said, he put a curse on them, he said,
“What I’m going to do is I’m going to separate you two. Apart.” So, he took one of his
boys, he got to live on the south, and one on the north. So the guy who going to give you
a, you be the—well, I don’t know where the Shoshone came from, but “you be the…”
They call them a newe, Indian. Shoshone word means, you’re your person, newe. And the
Paiute separated to the north. But he was your brother, and he was separated from you.
Then I don’t remember where he get the name Paiute, but they was both neme, because
they’re both brothers, they’re both Indians, that’s what was given to them. But the curse
put on them was, “Whenever you two meet someplace down the trail, no matter where at,
since you don’t like each other you guys going to fight. The Paiute and the Shoshone, you
meet each other on the trail somewheres, you just going to battle it out. You won’t like
each other.” That was the curse put on them. And they said, “The way you can recognize
each other is, the Shoshone will have a round eyes, like a owl.” Kind of round eyes.
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That’s a Shoshone. You look at the other guy, he’s a Paiute, he’ll have a slant eyes. Like,
upwards? So that’s the way you can recognize each other. So that’s the way the story go,
end up like that! [Laughter] So, that’s where we came from. That’s what the legend told
us. Yeah, it was kind of interesting. But in life, today, when you tell that to a Paiute, they
get hostile. I tell that story lot of times, and they say, “We’re all Indians! How come you
don’t like us, the Shoshones don’t like Paiutes?” “But it’s a legend!” I said, now, yes,
once.
Well, this one I always tell. You ask us where we came from. You know, I always—well,
my grandfather said, well, this is… When—we don’t say “God.” We have our own
religious way of live, I guess. Our own belief, the Western Shoshones. So, that’s what my
grandfather told me.
There was this world. It was up there. There was nothing on it. But that’s where they
believe that Wolf—they call it a Wolf and a Coyote—that’s where they came from. From
this, uh… the world was getting made, and that’s where they came from. So we, like a
Bible say, we came from our Father, the God. And it’s similar to that. But in Indian way,
that’s the way they tell. But they said, “That’s where we came from!” And when the,
after the world was, people on it already. There’s human beings on it. But the sun was
going too low. Instead of up high. It was too low. It was so hot. So the people that live on
this earth, they live underground. But when he cool off, they’ll come out. At night. So,
you roam around. So, then they go back underground, when the sun coming out. So the
chief decide—they had a chief—but Coyote wasn’t one of it [16:30]. There was some
chief, they had, I can’t remember the names. But the mostly animals they talk about. The
Indians said, “Well, we should do something about this sun. It’s too low, too hot up there.
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Why don’t we set it up higher, so it won’t burn us?” So they decided, “Well, we could do
it.” Then they said, “Well, how?” Then their chief said, they decide, “Well, we could kill
the sun. Because Sun’s alive, because he come out every morning. He’s alive.” So they
said, “We’ll kill it.” Then they said, “Well, if we kill it, it’ll come down to earth and burn
us,” somebody said. Then they said, “Yeah, that’s true.” Then they said, “Well, we’ve got
to find somebody that could run fast and dig a hole underneath the ground and jump in
there before the sun come down to earth, after they shoot it.” So the Coyote said, “Pick
me!” But they said, “Don’t pick Coyote, he’ll do something wrong” because, see, they
don’t trust him, the Coyote. “So what? I could run fast.” So they put a test, who could run
fast. You know, so many yards, who could run fast that distant. So the people keep
trying, Coyote keep saying, “I’m fast!” He’ll go up there and come back. Real fast. But
they don’t trust him. So there was, two people was pick. There was a Cottontail, and the
Brush Rabbit that was picked. So they said, “Well, you two kill the sun.” So they went
out, went to hunt for the sun. So they went to the mountain where the sun came out. They
settled to wait for the sun. So the next morning, when they sit up there, the sun didn’t
come out. [Laughter] He come over the other mountain, across. So they never did caught
up to the sun. But keep traveling, keep traveling. But every night when they camp out, or
dig a hole where they going to live, under the earth. So, finally, I don’t know how long
they travel, try to catch the sun, but finally they… One morning the sun came out on top
of that mountain where they were staying. Close. It was so hot! So they came out of their
hole, and they had a bow and arrow to shot at it. And their bow and arrow just burned.
Pwoosh! The arrow. They don’t had it. Or they shoot it, and it burnt before it reach the
sun. It was so hot. So the, they decide, “Well, if we use a medicine”—the Indian people
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use certain type of medicine that’s strong. So they decide, “Well, we’ll just use a
sagebrush bark and wrap it real tight around that arrow. And they pray to it. Put their,
whatever medicine they have, they put it on and pray to it. And they shot that. And that
thing burn, Pwoosh! And hit the sun. Once it hit, Sun got hit, he came down. Fall off the
sky to the ground. So they took off and jumped under a hole. So the brush rabbit and the
cottontail jump in their hole, but that brush rabbit didn’t dig a deep hole. And the
cottontail, it was a deeper hole. So pretty soon, the Cottontail, he hears his buddy Bush
Rabbit crying. Screaming. But it was so hot! The Cottontail put his foot in that hole,
where they dig to keep the heat off. So I don’t know how long, it took quite a while for it
to cool off. So after he cool off, the Cottontail came out of the hole looking at his brother.
His brother was all cooked, blacked. Singed. So then he notice, the sun was laying there
on the ground. But the sun was still alive. So, then he told the sun that’s what’s
happening. “You’re burning us,” you know, “You run too low. Why don’t you go up
higher?” So he grab it and send it up higher, up into the sky. So he won’t be traveling
close to the earth after this. But he cut his, Brush Rabbit’s gut, and use the
[cut in recording from from 21:33 – 21:36]
you travel up there, you make a star. Became a star. And the gut here became a Milky
Way. And what else they made out of that? [Laughter] I can’t remember—That’s what he
did! So, like, they say, “Well, today when you look up at the sky, you’ll think, ‘Well,
that’s the Brush Rabbit’s eyes shining.’” Oh, they made a moon out of the kidney! Throw
it up there and made a moon out of it so you could travel at night. You could see the light.
So he done all that. So the job was completed. So the next morning, the sun came out
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over the mountain, it was up higher. So they done their job. [Laughter] That was legend.
So, it was told to me.
Well, the Indians, they get together. It’s a get-together. On a big holiday, like that. So at
the Indian Colony up in Elko, they had this hand game going. And the womans play
cards, and Round Dance every night. And they’ll four days, four-five days, and that fair
going on. And lot of people, they came in from different areas. And Fourth July, people
do the same. They came over to Owyhee. And they do the same thing. Hand game, card
games, races, rodeo here. And a Round Dance.
Well, if you work on a ranch, you go with the boss. They usually haul the workers in for
holiday. But if somebody had a car, you jump in with them. To Owyhee, if it’s short
ways. Like if you work in WP, or Flying H Ranch [23:34]… But other areas, the boss
go to town, and jump in with him, and come back to work with, to the ranch with him.
Yeah, there’s Indian celebration going on all the time. And there’s some singers. You
know, they call a Round Dance? People take turns singing a song, about… Singing
Indian song is telling a story. Instead of telling a story, you put it into singing. So… And
that’s whats it’s all about, and people enjoy that as celebrations.
Everybody dance together, you know, you hold hands and… Women, old lady, young
kids… They just have all kinds of fun.
Yeah, that’s how I brought my drum and that. Maybe I’ll sing a one song. This is, my dad
used to sing that. I remember that. When I was a little kid, he always singing a song. So I
always, I pick it up when I was a young kid. So. he always sing a song. So. This talk
about a mountain. You know, that big mountain. How the mountain looked, it’s kind of
blue, all this and that. Put it into song, and he always singed it. It’s—he always say, “In
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Austin, where I live, there was a big mountain. So that’s what my song about.”
[Laughter] He always say that! Never been to Austin, so I always remember what he used
to say. So this is it:
[sings in Newe at 25:19]
[song concludes at 26:32]
So that’s that Round Dance song. You could go over, I don’t know, two-three difference
in, if you’ve got a good wind here, because you sing it over and over about two, three
times, same wording. And people dance to it. When they like that song, they said, “Come
on, sing that song again!” Then you have to go over and over. And that’s a Round Dance
song.
Yes, I did, uh-huh. Made out of a elk hide. So I made that.
Well, you had to have a board inside, and soak the hide. After you scrape the hair off the
hide, then you stretch it when it’s wet, over this. Then they dry out like that. So got to be
tight. So, that’s what I made for a trip down Fort Hall. I made some. They invite me over
to tell a story, so wanted a, I thought I needed a drum to sing a song. [Laughter] I made
one!
Okay, um… When I was a young kid growing up, there was our neighbor. His name was
Stanley Gibson. He was cripple. He was in a wheelchair. And used to visit him all the
time. I’d carry water for him, he was real nice. He give us nickel now and then for candy.
Was growing up, and he’d do rawhide work. Sit in wheelchair and do all that. Talk to us,
and laugh, and then we push him out to the store in the wheelchair, and was good friend
of ours. So I learned little bit about rawhide from him. So… But as time went on, I
always want to work a rawhide because when you work on ranch, somebody know how
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to work rawhide. Cowboys, maybe tie a knot, maybe somebody working rawhide. And
they willing to teach you. But, as I was growing up, I hate to ask somebody. You know,
because they’re busy doing something, you hate to ask them. It’s so complicated. So,
what I did was, my brother-in-law have a ranch south of Elko. His name was Raymond
Darrough. I live one winter with him there, helping him, feeding cattle. So he said, “Well,
let’s make reata, we’re going to run horses.” Wild horses, mustang. So says, “I’ll show
you how.” So he taught me how to make reata. Slow process, and he’d braid it together,
and he use it. So, then he taught me how to braid and tie a few knots. Simple one. But it
was so complicated. I keep asking him. And pretty soon he get tired of me, and he said,
“Well, this is last time I’m going to tell you. You better pick it up!” So I went so far, and
that was it, I kept making mistakes. But later on in years, there’s a book called Cowboy
Horse Gear. It show how to tie a knot, and all the rawhide knots the cowboys use. So, I
learned how to tie knots from studying that. Kinda complicated at first. Then I learned
how to cut it, how to soak it, how to treat it, everything. Then braid, you do lot of
braiding. Hard on your hands, the knot-tying’s. You know, on that set arrange that, lot of
different knots I put on. And that’s the way I learned. Because whoever work rawhide,
they don’t want to waste time teaching you, because you’ll never learn in one day or two
days, or a week. Take forever! And the person that teach rawhide, they… You go to
school nowadays, I think they cost about, for six week, about $2000 to attend a class. Just
for couple hours a day. So nobody got no time to teach a person. So that’s where I learn
how to work rawhide, then. And I had some—I donated some to Elko Museum, my work.
And it was hanging at Stockman’s that one year.
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Well, I wouldn’t say don’t count it, just... [31:12] I always say, “Forever!” [Laughter]
Because you braid it during the summer. You clean the hide, you braid it during the
summer. Cut the strings into fine—fine strings, all even. Then wintertime, you tie the
knots. Sit there at night through the cold weather. Slow process. Then complete it finally.
And then you’re happy. Then you want to look at it, then somebody come along and said,
“Hey! How much you want for it?” Say, “Nah, not for sale.” But I sell it all the time.
[Laughter] So… It’s a good art, because then people knew I, since I had my work
hanging in Stockman’s and people knew my, who I am and what type of work I done,
good rawhide work they say, so they want to order. They call me and said, “Hey, make
me one!” And I tell them, “Well, if I get around to it, I’ll make one, but right now I don’t
have any.” So that’s the way I got a clean up [32:22] with that.
Growing up is… I don’t know how old I was—well, maybe ten or something—but our
favorite pastime was hunting, fishing, riding horse, swimming during the summer, and
playing all the time. That’s all we did. Nothing much. But, I love to ride horse. My
grandpa let me ride a horse, I’ll ride a horse. My grandpa was real strict on the horses.
You can’t—he got to be with you, if you ride his horse. He always say, “Don’t run your
horse to death!” You know, when you’re young kid, you just want to run, run, run!
[Laughter] You don’t want to run slow! So, he said, “I got to be there!” So that was fun
part. And he took, grandpa took me fishing. I enjoy that. Go up the river to go catch some
fish. Trouts, usually.
[End of recording]
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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
Ellison "Bombo" Jackson
Location
The location of the interview
Owyhee Hospital, Owyhee, NV - Duck Valley Reservation
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Transcript available: http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/ca19c29d24318e8927a3aa630ba1e8a3.pdf
Original Format
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DVD; VOB format
Duration
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00:35:30
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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Ellison "Bombo" Jackson (01/27/2006)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral History Interview with Ellison "Bombo" Jackson, Western Shoshone from Duck Valley NV, (01/27/2006)
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Ellison Jackson was the son of Robert Jackson and Lena Jackson. He is best known by his Native name Bombo. Bombo tells us of his childhood growing up in a tent near the Presbyterian Church in Owyhee, Nevada. He also tells us of his experience at the Swayne School. Bombo also tells us about his buckaroo and cowboy days riding horses, and what his grandfather James Cavanaugh told him to expect. He also tell us a Shoshone tale about Coyote, the Shoshone, and the Paiute. Also tells us about another tale about the Sun, Brush Rabbit, and Cottontail.<br /> <br />Interviewed by Norm Cavanaugh</p>
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Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive
Source
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Great Basin Indian Archive, GBIA 003A
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
01/27/2006 [27 January 2006]; 2006-01-27
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC] University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2016.
Consent form of file administrator access only:
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/2e823d76c4f4bd92f31936e2d966dcef.pdf
Format
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streaming video
Language
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English
Community
Crossroads
Duck Valley
folktale
GBIA
Paiute
ranching
Shoshone
Story
Swayne school