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Georgianna
Price
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
044
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
December
19,
2014
BaCle
Mountain,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hCp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 044
Interviewee: Georgianna Price
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: December 19, 2014
P:
My name is Georgianna Price. I’m part of the Battle Mountain Band, which is now the
Te-Moak Band. I have lived in Battle Mountain all my life. I remember us living like,
very poorly when we were young. We had no electricity, and we had no—we did have
outside running water. But we had no restrooms, and lived in small houses that were
originally built as summer homes, and they were kind of chilly inside of it all the time
because the government, I guess, was going to eventually build a regular home. These
houses were supposed to be temporary homes until the new ones were built. And they
have never—they didn’t do that. So, later years, I don’t know under what program it was,
they came and put that foam insulation into our homes. And originally, there’s only a few
of those homes sitting in the old colony now at this present time. I think there’s one,
two—actually, I think about two homes, plus two private homes that’s been there for
years, which are, one was owned by my dad’s niece, Maryjane Blossom. And that house
is still sitting there, and it is built out of tie. And then the Saggie Williams home was next
to ours, and our home eventually burned down. Me and my sister burned it down!
[Laughter] We were cooking french fries, and we set the house on fire, so we lost our
original home. And my grandmother lived next door, thank goodness, because she helped
us out. My grandma’s name was Annie Muncy. Annie and Jack Muncy. Jack was my
step-grandfather. And my grandfather would have been Dewey Jim from Owyhee. I have
never met the man, but I remember his brother Sam Jim that used to come and see us all
the time. That was my mother’s father, this Dewey Jim. And Mom had, I think, two halfbrothers from this Sam Jim. And at the time that—well, when we were little, they always
told us that if a family member dies, mainly a woman, then the widowed man would
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marry the next sister down. And that’s how my grandmother did at that time. And I think
my grandfather—my step-grandfather—ended up coming from Austin area. And he had a
daughter, and named Jessie Leach. Well, Jessie Muncy, it would be. And she had—her
mother had passed away when she was little, so she never knew her mother. But, after the
mother died, Jack, my step-grandpa, married her sister Annie. And that’s how we come
about with all these half-uncles, half-whatever, cousins and whatever. You know. But
that was a tradition of passing on the family member, whoever died, the other marries the
next sister down. And that’s what happened in our family. So, my mother and my aunt
were half-sisters. Step-sisters, and they were also cousins, is the way it turn out. Well,
Jessie was always our real aunt, you know? And they grew up as two sisters. The Indians,
in the olden days, used to camp outside the town of Battle Mountain. And there was a
white house with a spring there on this end of town, on the west end of town, where my
Aunt Jessie says they used to go and get their water. They would carry the water in
buckets. And they kind of just built a lean-to shack, is what they lived in. And the thing
was, if some member of the family passed away, they would burn down the house and
then build another little place to live in, see? That’s the way they used to do it. And I
don’t know what year it was, but there was a spring out here where the old colony is now,
that had nice running water. And that’s where, I believe it’s the government that moved
Indians over to this area, this old colony there. And that’s where we had—they did pipe
our running water in to the front of each home. And us kids used to go around in that,
where the spring was, and play over there all the time. Wade in the water, you know. And
there was just one big pipe that stuck up, and we’d go into the water like a shower.
[Laughter] We’d just go run around in that water over there. But the tribal building was
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always there. I don’t know what year that came, either. But we used to go over there
every once in a while, and there was a laundry room. They had, looked like steel tubs, or
I don’t know what kind of tubs they were, against one wall. And they had stoves in there.
But they were wood stoves, you know. Cooking stove, couple of them. They had dishes
of all types, and I don’t know whatever became of all those things that are in there. But
they had cupboards in there with all these dishes, and heavy dishes at that, you know.
And they slowly disappeared. [Laughter] Kids probably broke them up, or whatever. But
I know we used to go in there every once in a while, that was your laundry room. They
built, like the modern-day laundromat, I guess, you know? They probably had machines
in there at one time, gas machines or something. And, so that’s where I grew up. And like
I say, we didn’t have no running water inside the house. We didn’t have no inside
bathrooms. And we had no electricity. We had to use kerosene lamps, and us girls, as
we’re teenagers, we got them little curling irons. And you could stick that curling iron in
the chimney of the lamp and heat it up, wipe it with a cloth, then you curl your hair with
it. That’s how we did it. It was just kind of crazy, now that I think about it—I guess that’s
the hot curling iron, now! [Laughter] And, but we grew up very poorly. Like I tell my
grandchildren, I said, “We didn’t have everything you kids had. Things came hard.” And,
so then we moved to South Fork for a little bit when they put up that reservation over
there. But we didn’t stay there too long, because my mother started getting sick, so Dad
just moved us back to Battle Mountain. And when we moved back to Battle Mountain,
we lived in a tent. But we stayed in that tent all winter. But it was nice and cozy. Dad put
up a wood stove in there, and put plyboard around the bottom of the tent, and it was nice
and cozy home. We survived in there, but we ate with my grandparents, until those
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people left and then we move into the house. My grandparents lived next door, and they
really helped us a lot. We had an aunt who worked around town, she was dishwasher for
some people who owned a restaurant. To us, when we lived in South Fork, being very
poor we didn’t get too much of anything. But Christmas was our big day. And Dad had a
pickup—he always had a pickup. And he’d load us kids up in the back of that pickup in
the middle of winter, in December, and we’d come all the way to Battle Mountain. We’d
sit under quilts. And we’d see the airport and we’d get so happy because we’re coming to
Grandma’s. And our biggest thing for Christmas was color crayon and books! [Laughter]
That was—my aunt gave us that every year. We didn’t have too much of anything, you
know? And that’s how we were raised. There was nine of us at one time, in my
immediate family. And then, my aunt only had one daughter. And then, I had, my
uncle—I had two uncles. One was killed in Germany, I think, during Second World War.
And my other uncle lived here. They both was in the Service, but he came back. And I
think I was three years old when my uncle was killed in Germany. For some reason, I
remember the policeman coming to the door with a piece of paper—kinda odd, how that
stuck in my mind—and told my grandmother what happened. I know Mom had lost a
couple children, but there was Delores Conklin—now Delores—she passed away a
number of years ago. And then, I had my brother, then myself—no, then I had sister
Louise, who passed away from heart problem in Phoenix. And then I was the next one.
Then my brother George who passed away with, he had diabetes, pretty serious diabetes,
and we lost him. And then we had Rosalie, who lives in Salt Lake at this time. And then
Ronnie. We also lost two twins, a boy and a girl. She died of a thyroid problem in
Owyhee—no, in Boise—and then, her brother couldn’t stand it because he was so close
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to her. He went and committed suicide when he was living with the Atkinses, Ed Atkins’
family in Owyhee. So we lost our twins that way. Then we had our youngest sister Anna
Sue, who now lives here at the same colony I live in here. And she works at the hospital
for the long-term care, is what she works on now.
C:
So you had a big family.
P:
We had a big family, plus we had about two others that’s buried at the cemetery as
babies. It’s kind of like our private cemetery. There’s an old cemetery right along the
freeway, on the right side of the freeway. And I was told that it didn’t start out as our
cemetery. An old man, which my aunt and mother didn’t know the names anymore at that
time, but they said he was hit by a train in north Battle Mountain. And said, put him on a
little handcart and brought him this far. And they got tired. Rather than go any further,
they buried that old man in that cemetery. Buried him on that spot. And then my family
eventually, I guess, started burying their people, their old people, over there at that
cemetery. After the time my dad was alive, they was all—they all worked at ranches.
They didn’t get much pay, but they made a living enough to get by with, you know. And
then we’d go with my family. My older sister didn’t go, she was already working here in
Battle Mountain. Delores. But the rest of us would pack up, and we’d go to that Rancho
Grande ranch toward Owyhee, where Dad and they would hay all summer. Or we’d go to
the Buffalo Ranch, which is down south of Battle Mountain, and we’d camp there all
summer, too, while they were haying, see? And that’s what we did every summer, every
summer, is what we used to do. And then, Dad used to tell us spook stories. He was good
at that, always telling us stories about different things. And he was telling us about, I
guess now we call it “the rock man,” I don’t know what they call it in Indian. But one
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night, he was telling us stories about the rock man, how he built a—like a helmet, like,
out of pitch and pine. Pine pitch, and made a hat. And he says that’s how he killed the
people, was by putting it over the head and circling that off, or something! And he was
telling us a wild story about that one night, and we were sleeping in a tent. And—like a,
more like a bunkhouse, all our bedrolls in a row, and he was telling us that story, and the
wind was blowing. And all of—he says, he said, “Wooo!” The wind knock our tent
down! You should have seen us jump all over him! [Laughter] But he’d tell us stories
about, like, he used to tell us the pinenuts supposed to be bigger than what they are. And
he always talk about the Coyote being the bad guy. And he was sent, the Coyote was
sent, to deliver some of this pinenut so that they can—I guess pine seed is what they
are—to deliver to them a different area. And they told them, “Don’t mess with it. Just
take it straight on over there.” Well, Coyote got hungry halfway, and he bit off some of
the pinenut in half, took one piece off, and he said, “Oh, they won’t notice.” And that’s
why we ended up with half a pinenut, instead of a point on each end and being big. It was
only half a pinenut is what we get now, see? And, he got over there, and he had eaten half
of the pinenuts, so we ended up with half a pinenut now. See, there’s only one point to it,
one end. There should be a point on each end, see? But we don’t have that, you know.
And that’s what, he told us about that. And then Water Babies. I don’t know how many
people know about Water Babies. And Humboldt River’s not too far, walking distance
from here, and I was telling my nephew, Shawn Conklin, and my kids, about the Water
Babies. Because they’re always going to the river and swimming over there when they
were kind of little, and I didn’t like that too well. So Dad had told us about Water Babies.
And he said they lived along the river here, and he said they take a form of the baby. The
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Indian woman used to wash at the river, and put the babies in their basket. This Water
Baby would get in and suck up the baby, and take the form of the baby, and get inside
this basket. So when the mother nurses the baby, he would suck up the mother and kill it!
Is what we used to be told. And they say, they play with—when the guys are riding
horses, they chase them, and they say they kind of go glug-glug-glug, sound like water as
they’re running. And they jump on back of the horse, jump off, just teasing the riders all
the time. And they said they’re pretty swift when they run. You know. I don’t know
whatever became of Water Babies, but I scared my grandkids—my children and my
nephews. So they never went to river for a long time. And that’s the only time I ever hear
of Water Babies. I don’t know. And they say you can hear them at the river when it’s
quiet, you can hear them crying, these Water Babies. Of course, I’ve never gone to river
in the evening, so I wouldn’t know! [Laughter] That was one of those stories. And then,
they told us about, he told us about, we’re supposed to not die once, and we’re supposed
to come back alive. But again, Coyote did this bad thing to us. He said there was—
Coyote and Rabbit lived in a hole. And this bad Coyote, he’s always doing something
bad anyway. So the Rabbit said that the army was coming—I guess that would be
considered something like a cavalry. And he told, he had to go do something, or
somewhere, and they were in that hole, and he told the Coyote, he says, “Don’t look out!
No matter what happens, I’m going to go”—do whatever errand he was going to go on.
And these—it wasn’t actually calvaries that started out. They said, it was a certain
people, he said they went to bathroom on top of the hill then, you know, and their
whatever you call it rolls down the hill, and they turn into army. That’s what happened!
[Laughter] And he told the Coyote, he says, “Don’t look out while I’m gone. You stay in
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that hole. Because if you look out, we’re going to die just once and we’re gone.” Well,
Coyote didn’t listen. But he heard those cavalry coming, or whatever kind of soldiers that
were coming. So he peeks out the hole. And that was it, see? And it killed him. That was
end of Coyote. But I never did hear whatever became of the Rabbit—if he came and
found him or what. [Laughter] But that’s why we die only once. They say we’re
supposed to die at least twice anyway, and come back alive. But Coyote did that to us, so
we only die once now.
I knew of an old man, Rice, that lived in—I think Ely? I think he was in Ely, or Wells.
When my sister and brother were getting sick, the twins, one would get sick, and the
other would be nice and chubby. It was an opposite. They were going back and forth.
One would get skinny, and one would gain weight, you know? This went on for quite
some time when they were babies. And we got this old man Rice. He probably had an
Indian name, but he was a real tiny little guy that came. So Dad and they went and got
him. He was ready when they got there. They said he was packed and ready to come,
because somebody was coming after him. But I can’t remember if it was—I think it was
Ely, is where he was. And so they invite him back, and they doctored them for I think
two nights, the two babies. And broke them apart from each other so this wouldn’t
happen. And then, he told them—the babies used to sleep, they were twins, and they
would sleep on one little cot, opposite directions, feet to feet. And he told them, “Don’t
do that to them. That’s not good for the babies.” And my sister had already passed away,
my older—next to me, older than I am—and so that was her babies, she used to play with
them a lot. She was older than us. And as I said, because she’s out there, outside by the
side the house there. She’s waiting for them, she says. “So separate the two, and break
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them apart.” And so that’s what they did. That’s the way they—so they got over their
sickness. They didn’t get sick no more after that. This old man did that to them. And I
enjoyed that, because at midnight, they’d have refreshment. They’d have cake and coffee,
or whatever. And then, they pass a cigarette around, everybody take a puff of cigarette.
That was a big event for us kids, and we’d make sure that we were up there, up and at it,
when they’re doing their cake thing, you know? [Laughter] But, and he—that’s the only
one I really knew as a real Indian doctor, that man. He was a real tiny little guy, but I
never knew his real name. They just called him “Rice.” Little tiny guy. So, besides my
aunt Josie. Yeah, she was a—she’d pray with us, and pray for us, all the time. And then, I
think there’s a book in the museum in Elko that mentions her, because some of the
doctors go, and go to her when they not feeling good or whatever, and she’d pray with
them or whatever. The old-time doctors would go over there. So.
C:
So, the doctors from Elko recognized her as a healer?
P:
Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, the old-time doctors. But there’s an article in the museum about her.
C:
What can you tell us about, how was Battle Mountain named “Battle Mountain?” Was
there a battle here, or how did that come about?
P:
There’s about three different versions, and I see that in the museum. And there’s
supposed to have been a fight between the Shoshone Indians and the Paiutes. See, Paiutes
are in Winnemucca area, and Shoshones on this side. That’s one version, and then there
was another one where the Indians attacked at the wagon train that was going through by
the river, is the way it was told. And there’s another version, I can’t remember what it
was. But who knows what actually happened to make it Battle Mountain? Yeah, there’s
about three different versions of how it came about. So who knows what really happened.
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I believe the wagon train probably was attacked. I don’t know why I feel that way, but,
you know, then it became Battle Mountain. And Battle Mountain actually isn’t, shouldn’t
have been Battle Mountain right here where it’s sitting. Battle Mountain should have
been in Argenta. You see that little Argenta, that hill you kind of go by just when you
leave town? Other side the airport there, and then you kind of make that little swing? But,
the railroad moved—I don’t know if you call it “railroad,” or cars, I guess, there’d be
railroads. They come from Austin to Battle Mountain. So rather than having to come
along the mountain edge, they came straight, decided to come straight and build a
railroad directly to where Battle Mountain is now, is how they come about. See, we
should’ve been sitting by the hillside over there, you know. [Laughter] And then, if you
happen to be in a higher area, you can see where the old railroad came from Austin to
Battle Mountain. In fact, back of town here, you can still see this little high spot where
the railroad ran through, railroad tracks were on. But you can still find places along in the
Austin Canyon there where the railroad was built. Was kind of built high like a highway.
We didn’t have too many people living here at the time at the old colony. But my mother
and my aunt went to school at a old Indian school. They didn’t go to school in the white
school. And the courthouse now used to be the white kids’ school, and there was a gray
building next to it that was wooden building, good-sized building. And that’s where the
Indian children went to school. They didn’t go to school at the beginning with the white
children. I don’t know what year they finally let them go to school in the main building.
But by time I went to school, we went to what is now the courthouse. That was our
school, up to the eighth grade. And we used the old Indian building as a gym in the front
part. It was good-sized building. And then, the back part was a little, they made into a
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band room for the band students. So, but we had no problem going to school. There was
only, I think in about our class, there was people coming and going, little mining people,
whatever—I’d say about eleven to twelve children from Battle Mountain that went to
school there. But rest of them come and go, come and go, all the time. And they, but
more people started coming in, so they moved us—I think I was in eighth grade at the
time—they moved us into the high school. Seventh and eighth grade they moved to the
high school, because high school was a bigger building. And the bigger kids didn’t like
us. [Laughter] They’d pick on the seventh and eighth graders; the high school kids
resented us being there with them, you know? Because for a long time they were like
that, and they finally accepted it. “Hey, this is where they’re going to stay.” So that’s
where I went to school, at the high school—which is now the site where the hospital is
sitting. The old trees are still there, but they tore down the newer building. Why they kept
this old courthouse I don’t know, because that’s a lot older than what the other building
was. So, I don’t know what year they moved them. Then they built the newer schools,
and that’s when they moved them over to the high school over there, and then the
hospital; county, I guess, took the building over as hospital, and they tore it down, and
build a new hospital there now. And around Battle Mountain, that hospital is sit on the
end of where it’s sitting now, and there was an airport and sagebrush on the other side.
There was not all these buildings that they got now, you know. You didn’t go too far.
And the rest was just all sagebrush, sagebrush country. Now there’s buildings, and there’s
trailer courts, and high school’s sitting where the sagebrush used to be in the back, and
things have grown quite a bit. Now, it seem like there’s lot of people here. Copper,
Copper Canyon was one of the mines, and Natomas. Copper Canyon, Copper Placer,
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Natomas: they were small mines at the time. Copper mines and gold mines, and
whatever. And the people would come and go. They’re just miners. And then, when they
really found that Duval mine came in. They found a lot more gold, I guess! And then, it
started booming. So, we were living at the T.S. Ranch, and we and my husband, they
didn’t like the way the BLM was doing it. The BLM was fencing everything. And they
said, oh, they had quit. They were not going to work here no more. They were going to—
he was a buckaroo boss at T.S. Ranch. So we moved to town. And then we went to work
for Duval. We couldn’t find a house in town! We lived—it was horrible! We moved into
town, and there was an old bar across the tracks here, and he had a couple old tin shacks.
That’s all we can find, so here we move into one of them old tin shacks, and it was
horrible! [Laughter] The kids were embarrassed, they didn’t want to go to school. They
said we were living in the ghettos. We couldn’t find nothing! And you hear the mice. And
so, we cleaned it out and everything, but you can hear the mice in the walls. Oh, it was
horrible! I don’t like mice. [Laughter] And then, so then, we eventually found a trailer
down the street for sale, so we bought that. But the six of us that lived in that little, teeny,
two-bedroom trailer. We managed! Then we moved across the tracks. But I kind of grew
up with the Marvel family. When our house burned down, she asked me to come live
with her. I lived with her for three years. Freshman to junior high school, is where I lived;
I lived in luxury. [Laughter] And, because they owned all the ranches around here. And I
lived with her for a long time.
[Break in recording at 28:41]
P:
I had a good life. In the summertime, I’d go with the Tom Marvel family, and we’d go—
I’d babysit for them, and they went on the buckaroo wagon. So, we’d go on the buckaroo
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wagon. They’d help with the kids all the time. So, I kind of—as I got into teenage area, I
kind of just got away from the Colony, you know? Didn’t stay too much, have to spend
too much time here at the Colony. Because my sister worked for the Tom Marvel family,
my oldest sister Doris. So she was helping raise the Tom Marvel’s children here, as a
teenager. And then, later on, after she and Earl Conklin got married, they stayed at the 25
Ranch and worked for them. And we all stayed with the Marvel family until they sold
out. And that’s when we moved with the T.S. family—I mean, family, T.S. Ranch. And
then we moved to town after that. We enjoy—I was a buckaroo cook. I moved with the
wagon. Me, and my kids were little then, and I used to—as soon as it start warming up,
it’s time to move out. Spring, you know. So, I would put the kids on the bus at seven in
the morning, school bus at the crossing over there at the ranch, and then I’d go on—the
guys would cook breakfast for themselves. They’d start out from other side of Argenta,
and move up into the hills all the way to north of Carlin, about—I guess you would say
northeast of Carlin, up in the hills. Coyote Ranch, that’s as far as we would go. But when
we’d move camp, they had an old cookhouse, sheepherder cookhouse. That was our
kitchen, you know. Then they’d load up big old tables, and chairs, and benches, and
whatever; we would look like a bunch of gypsies. And we moved to different places. We
moved one, two, three, about four different places, and then we get to—well, three, and
then we get to Coyote Ranch. And that was our main camp, see? And we stayed there all
summer. From there, we come directly back to T.S. Ranch. And then the—what’s so
good about that, it’s time for the kids to start school. So, it turned out good for us. And
one thing, we never had no TV. We had nothing up there, just no electricity, nothing.
And the kids liked it. We had to wash and give them a bath in the creek. [Laughter] You
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know? It’s the way we lived! And that’s where they got their love of reading. They love
to read, because that’s all they had was books. And we joined that Elko book club at the
library, and we’d get books from them. They sent us different books. We’d send in a list,
and then they’d send us some books, because we were out in the sticks. Living out in
sagebrush. Some places, no trees! Couple of places, there was no trees whatsoever. You
know? But we enjoyed it. It was good to live like that. So, there was no problem. And
that’s the way I like to camp: just load up and go. Heck with these travel trailers they
carry around. [Laughter] That’s not camp! Yeah, that was our life. And we enjoyed living
like that for a long time. Twelve years. Twelve years. And then, if I wasn’t cooking on
the buckaroo wagon, in the winter months, I cooked at the cookhouse when the cooks
quit. And it seems like every time I’d get in there, they’d look for a cook, and I’m stuck
there for quite a while before they would find a cook. But it was a good life, to live like
that. I don’t remember what my pay was at that—they paid pretty good, though. But I
can’t remember what it was. Because I got paid, my husband got his pay, and the two
older boys got their pay. And they were only in the eight and tenth grade, but they paid a
man’s wages on weekends when they worked there, because the boss from California
said, “Well, they’re doing man’s work; they may as well get paid like a man.” So. And
the boys been working ever since! [Laughter]
C:
So, what kind of work did they do on the ranch?
P:
They did, they buckarooed. They buckarooed, they watched cattle, and worked with
cattle a lot, is what our part was. And the ranch part was more irrigating and working on
machinery and repairing things. So, they had the ranch crew, and then they had the
buckaroo crew. I used to cook for about, originally started out with cooking for about
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fifteen people, three times a day. And that wasn’t—I couldn’t do it now. I don’t think I
could do it now, because you get up, and cooking breakfast, and have it ready by six
o’clock, and then you got to fix lunch. And do the last, their supper. Three times a day,
have two different types of dessert every meal. Next day, you had leftover desserts.
[Laughter] And, because you got to make sure—but we had the meat, we had the big
commissary, whatever you needed, it was all right there, so that wasn’t bad at all. And
they paid us to do it. And we ate over there with my four kids. So we were doing pretty
good. We lived in a ranch house. They furnished the ranch homes to us, and the utilities
and all, so we didn’t pay for anything as far as ranch renting part. So, that was an easy
life, really. I’d like to go back to that now—without the cooking part! [Laughter]
[Break in recording at 34:12]
P:
With our youth here in, around this area, I would strongly recommend that they finish
their high school education, and get some kind of training. There’s lot of idle children
around here that’s not doing anything. I mean, older people that’s gone—should have
finished school, but they’re not. Nobody’s encouraging them too much to finish school.
Get that high school diploma if nothing else. And they don’t seem to be too interested in
the education. And at least go on and further your education. Get off of the reservation
right here, because there’s nothing here. There’s nothing to offer. No type of job training
or nothing here on our reservation. And the only thing we got around here is mining. And
then, for mining even, you have to have some kind of training. But our children, they do
need some kind of training in our area. I don’t know about other places. They need to be
encouraged to go on into it there. Regular, further their education. I’m sure there’s funds
for financial help with things like that if they want it. But nobody’s looking into that or
�
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anything. Yeah. And even parents. Like, when I was growing up, our parents were
uneducated. They didn’t really push us to study or whatever. So when my kids were
growing, made sure that they studied! [Laughter] You know? And then I try to join
different things for them, to help them along. Like, I watched how to write with the
homeroom, when they were small. Then we went into Brownie scouts with my daughter.
And I was always into the homeroom, helping there. And then, when they got older—
well, I worked for the school for a while, until they’re—Title IV run out of money. And
then I get a job at the smoke shop. Yeah, they close that program off. I was teacher’s aide
for two years over there. And, so then, I just kind of encouraged my children to do the
best they can in everything. And they had no problems as far as school and getting along
with other students or whatever. We went in from Brownies. Like I say, from Brownie
scouts. And homeroom teachers, and then I worked as teacher’s aide, so I was connected
to all the little Indian children. You know, number of them. Now they’re children with
kids getting out of high school, almost! [Laughter] And there’s not, we never did have
too many Indian students. Just, our population’s kind of small here. Then I went in to
Little League. I was a Little League coach for one team, baseball. Went to baseball, and I
made—then my niece, my sister Rosalie’s daughter, too, was in there, so they were in
sports, and we made two trips to Denver for the All-Little League, with our Little League
team. And then I took up umpiring. Started umpire the boys’ baseball—well, I didn’t
intend to go into boys’ baseball, little boys’ baseball. Took umpire training, and I ended
up with the little boys. And I had no little boys! But that’s who, I umpired their games.
And then, from there, Patricia went on into high school, and she went on into volleyball.
So I ended up refereeing volleyball games. I was a state volleyball referee. We had to
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take tests to be that, and there was number of us here in town that did that for a long time.
Then she graduated, and I was there for two years, and I thought, “What am I doing here?
She’s gone!” [Laughter] You know, and I’m still umpiring volleyball games! So, I finally
dropped that, and that was the end of my career. So, we’ve been pretty active in our
home, doing things. I see parents don’t encourage their kids in sports or nothing anymore,
either. And I think if they did, maybe they’d make better grades and try harder, you
know, if they were given that chance. But it’s not working out that way, seems like. And
my sister Delores and her group, one time, when the kids were younger, they tried
teaching the Shoshone language to the kids. But the kids weren’t interested! Few of them
went once in a while, and then the teachers finally—Glenda Johnson and my sister
Delores tried with them. They finally gave up on them. Because if they weren’t showing
up—just once in a while, their kids pop in. So, that didn’t go over very well. And now, I
don’t think we have too many people here on the reservation that do speak Shoshone. I
don’t know who would. I can’t even think of anybody that talks Shoshone. No, I’m just
saying that I hope the parents would encourage their children to further their education.
And living on small reservation like ours, I prefer that they will go out and go elsewhere.
[End of recording]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Western Shoshone Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories of Western Shoshone elders collected by the Great Basin Indian Archive.
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories compiled
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
GBIA Oral History Collections
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
2006-2015
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Norm Cavanaugh
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Georgianna Price
Location
The location of the interview
Battle Mountain, NV [residence of Georgianna Price]
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/510
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
DVD, MP4, and AVI format
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:39:54
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
Oral History - Georgianna Price (12/19/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral History interview with Georgianna Price, Western Shoshone from Battle Mountain, NV, on 12/19/2014
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Georgianna Price is a Western Shoshone from Battle Mountain, part of the Te-Moak Tribe. Georgianna begins her oral history by highlighting her time growing up and going to school in Battle Mountain. She speaks about the Battle Mountain camp, and how it came to be. She then goes into her family lineage describing traditions among Western Shoshones and history of Battle Mountain. Price then goes on to tell the audience about some Shoshone tales told to her. She ends her discussion by giving details of raising her kids while she was cooking for the buckaroos around Battle Mountain, and she also addresses younger audiences encouraging them to go to school.</p>
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<p><a title="Georgianna Price 2014 Oral History video in separate page" href="http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/46z6p" target="_blank" rel="noopener">View Oral History video in separate page if above player not working.</a><br /> <br /><a title="Georgianna Price 2014 Oral History Transcript" href="/omeka/files/original/76daf31ab0c6397b2f4782684882a7bd.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read Georgianna Price Oral History Transcript [pdf file]</a></p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 044
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
12/19/2014 [19 December 2014]; 2014 December 19
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; Andrew Moore [GBIA]; Scott A. Gavorsky [VHC]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017.
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/489
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Language
A language of the resource
English
Battle Mountain
Community
Crossroads
family
folktale
GBIA
ranching
Shoshone
South Fork
Story
T.S. Ranch
traditions