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Floyd Collins
Great Basin Indian Archive
GBIA 050
Oral History Interview by
Norm Cavanaugh
June 2, 2016
Duckwater, NV
Great Basin College • Great Basin Indian Archives
1500 College Parkway
Elko, Nevada 89801
http://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced in partnership with
Barrick Gold of North America
�GBIA 050
Interviewee: Floyd Collins
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: June 2, 2016
FC:
My name is Floyd Collins. I was born in Ely, Nevada, August 27th, 1937. My dad’s name
was Abe Collins, Sr. My mom was Della Small out of Bridgeport, California. They met
somewhere over in Stewart when he used to ride broncs. Broke his leg, that’s how she
found him. Couldn’t get away—couldn’t run. [Laughter] Yeah. So, grew up in Ely. We
moved around quite a bit. Spent one year in Elko, one year in Carson, half a year in
White Pine before I got eight-sixed out of there. [Laughter] Then I joined the Marine
Corps. Eight years in the Marine Corps, and come back, married Mary—Collins now.
Forget what her name was before. She was from Ely. Her dad used to be a shovel
mechanic up at Kennecott, in Ruth. If they worked; they stood around the fire a lot and
cooked pinenuts in the falltime. Yeah, then when I was growing up, we used to do lot of
deer hunting, lot of fishing. Rabbit hunting. Sagehen. Didn’t have any chukar yet. They
weren’t planted yet. Didn’t hunt elk, there wasn’t any yet. They didn’t plant them until, I
think it was the late [19]40s when they finally planted elk over there, up above Cave
Lake. Sometimes we lived on the Colony, other times downtown. And we’d go hunting
down in Cave Valley, up Spruce Mountain, up in Long Valley. Then, you could hunt
anywhere in the state; not like it is now, certain areas you draw for. No deer in one area,
you go up to the next area. We’d go up to Spruce mainly late in the season, because
you’d get the migrates coming out of Idaho. Bigger bucks. But then, the horns were a lot
bigger, too. Not them little willow horns like we got now. They used to be mainly all
four-pointers, which is—now all you see is two-pointers, even out here on the
reservation! Look at my grandson, he’s about ready to go get us one here, pretty quick.
Jerky time! I already got jerky shed made; wires are up. [Laughter] And the little one in
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there, the grandson, he wants to go fishing. He don’t need a license because he already
knows how to fish, he told me.
NC:
Going back to when you came back out of the Marine Corps, what’d you do?
FC:
Oh, I worked for the BLM for about four years as a fire control technician in Ely. And
then went to work for Kennecott, took a mechanic’s apprenticeship up there. Then moved
to Reno—after I got divorced in Ely, of course. And I run my own business over there
until I couldn’t afford the rent on the building. [Laughter]
NC:
What kind of business did you run?
FC:
Diesel mechanic. I just worked on the eighteen-wheelers. That, and went to air
conditioning/refrigeration school down in California, city of Industry, to work on reefers:
Thermo Kings and Carrier Transicold. Then I worked for Thermo King in Reno for a
while. And other trucking companies over there. And I went to work for an outfit called
Westran out of Missoula, Montana. They come and found me in Wadsworth and put me
to work. [Laughter] And I traveled around with them for about five years. We’d haul
asphalt, and doubles, belly-dumps, cement. Could pay—use them for cement hauling. It
wouldn’t leak out. And down in Phoenix; Ontario, California; Lovelock; St. George;
Tonopah; and a few other places I can’t remember. Yep. So that’s about what I’ve been
doing. ‘Til I retired when I turned seventy-five; I quit. Turned in my Tribal credit card
and said, “I’m gonna retire.” [Laughter] But I still do work for the Tribe. I still got to put
a motor in here soon’s they get one. They don’t have big enough tools to put motors in.
NC:
So how old are you now, Floyd?
FC:
Seventy-eight right now. I’ll be seventy-nine in August. Still a pup. [Laughter] I used to
go to Sundance up in McDermitt. Everybody had to have a pipe up there. So, you make
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your own. Get pipestone out of Minnesota. I got one piece left, and that’s about it. This is
how they looked when you get a wider one. But that’s basically the pattern you use. Then
you drill a hole down through the top, down here. Then you drill in this way with a
eighth-inch drill bit, to meet. Then you make a bigger one on the end, three-eighths or so.
And about a five-eighth hole in the top. And you can whittle these down with a knife.
Feels like talcum powder when it’s on your hand. But since I’m out of stone, I ain’t made
one. And for the stems, I’ll use chokecherry or cedar. And drill a hole through them all
the way through. Partner used to say it’s hard to train a termite to drill that one straight
hole through there! [Laughter] Then, me and my grandkids, we’ll sit around here and
make drums. Make them out of any old wood we can find. We got one up there, and one
over there. Sell some, give them away. Give some to the Tribe for their festival, so they
can raffle them off. Yeah. I make little rattle drums, too. Like this guy here, that’s a little
rattle drum. If it’ll come off from there, if I don’t lose everything else. I don’t know what
that guy’s doing up there. Yeah, they make them like that. Use sacred rocks in here:
whatever you find on the ground. [Laughter] Yeah, we make a lot of them. Donate them
or sell them; only get about fifteen bucks apiece out of them, but we use that new white
man’s wood in them, called “PVC”? [Laughter] And these here are bigger drum rings,
like that. Just smooth ‘em up, put a rawhide on ‘em, tie ‘em up; then they come out like
that one up there. Started my youngest—middle-age grandson, I guess he is—he’s
starting to do the painting for me.
NC:
So, what kind of hide do you guys use to make those drums?
FC:
This one here is elk hide. It’s a little tougher than the deer hide. And it lasts you a little bit
longer. Yeah, and we just tie them up in the back. Just—take rawhide across there, at
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least a quarter inch thick so they don’t break on you. It’ll only take you about hour to
make one. But it’s scraping the hide; you have to scrape the hair off, and the membrane
off. We got a scraper set outside. We don’t want no hair in here! [Laughter] It’s hard to
pick up! So, yeah. That’s what we do. Mainly wintertime, but then, we don’t do much in
the winter because our water freezes up out here. So, summertime—and now, we don’t
get no hides ‘til about falltime. We go into the butchers’ shops in Ely, because they’ll
process the wild game in there for these hunters. They do the skinning, so you don’t have
to worry about skinning them. Take them out and soak them in water and little bit of
lime, or the ash from your woodstove, the white, that’ll make a lime solution that’ll make
the hair and the membrane come off a lot easier. And then, just scrape them until they’re
nice and smooth, or make buckskin out of them. Because we make our own drum sticks,
too. We use—well, I use white buckskin for the outside, and then stuff them with buffalo
hair. One guy, he asked me, “Where you get your buffalo hair?” I told him, “Off a
buffalo! Where you think?” [Laughter] Then one guy asked me, “Where’d you get your
pinenuts?” “Took them off a pine tree!” [Laughter] I don’t know about some of these
guys out here. I think that was old Maurice Churchill ask me where I got my pinenuts.
That’s what I told him at lunch. “Off a pine tree!” [Laughter] And Jack Malotte asked me
where I got my buffalo hair. I usually get that from my nephew Shawn up there in South
Fork. He was raising buffalo, so he always had hair there.
NC:
So, is he still raising buffalo, your nephew?
FC:
The last time I saw him, he was. But I don’t know, I haven’t been up there for long time.
Since can’t play basketball no more, don’t have to travel! [Laughter] Yeah, we’d go play
Owyhee, Elko, Wells. Went to LA for their world tournament one time. Come out fourth
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in that, from Ely. We didn’t have very many Indians, so— And some tournaments we
went to, there was only five of us. We tell them our other car broke down with our subs.
[Laughter] Yeah, we go play in Fort Duchesne, up in Fort Hall. Reno. We go over there
and play Stewart every now and then. Play Elko in afternoon, Owyhee at night. Then
drive back home, go back to work. Moved to Reno, used to play softball with the Reno
Indian Athletic Association over there. We played that AAA fast-pitch over there. Then
go down California and play a lot over there in their tournaments.
[Break in recording]
Oh, I made that one when I was married over in Wadsworth. Then, when I got divorced
over there, I took my tools, and my stove, and my old pickup. That’s what I got away
with. Oh, some clothes, too. I didn’t leave all my clothes. [Laughter] But there was a lot
of them I left there. Couldn’t pack them all, I only had a [19]67 Chevy pickup, that was
my ride for a long time. I used to use that for my service truck, too. Up and down the
highway, working on trucks. Yeah. So, me and my grandson built this shop we’re in, and
it’s all out of scrap lumber from housing. [Laughter] Couldn’t throw it away, couldn’t
burn it up. Had to have a place to put the stove, keep warm in the winter. That’s drill
steel. I just welded the bottom, top, and legs on it, and made the door. Put hinges on the
door so we could open and close it. It keeps it warm in here. This sixteen by twenty. So,
it works all right in here. I got one sitting outside I made out of a fuel tank. [Laughter]
That’s when I worked for trucking. We had a shed up there that was cold, so I made a
stove and put it in there. Then, when trucking folded up, I went and got my stove back,
too. Yeah, I had a Ranger 8 welder, but Shawn, my nephew up there in South Fork was
building his buffalo corrals. So I says, “Take mine up and use it.” Never went and got it
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back; I don’t need it right now. If I need one, I go get one out of the shop over there. We
got a little buzzbox there, and we got oxygen, acetylene, so. Ain’t much we need in here.
Got beer in the fridge, so we’re in good shape. [Laughter]
[Break in recording]
I’m not much for their powwows; I go to one here in Duckwater. Now and then, to the
one in Ely. But, they don’t have much in Ely. They got no singers, no dancers, no drum.
Least Duckwater’s got their own drum; kids are singing out here. And they do have some
dancers. My grandkids quit dancing already, so. Don’t have to make any bustles now.
[Laughter] Yeah, we made all their stuff. My wife, she made all their outfits for them.
Sewed all them together, made the bustles, their moccasins. Just about quit making
moccasins, too. Don’t nobody need them now. None of the kids. I don’t make them to
sell. I don’t sell them. They’re just for the family. Grandson in Pyramid Lake, he’s got
one with all eagle feathers. Oldest one here, he’s got eagle feathers. The middle one, he
got hawk feathers in his. Not supposed to sell feathers from birds of prey. You can give
them away, but you can’t sell them.
No, out here, Boyd Graham from Duckwater does it in Ely. There’s hardly anybody in
Ely talks Shoshone, except the ones that moved in from Duckwater. The last ones in there
pretty well died off, that talked. And mainly, the ones in there that do talk the language
are mainly from Duckwater, some of their kids that’ve moved in. But the older folks,
when they started passing away, it pretty well died out with them. Because them days,
you couldn’t talk it in school anyway; you’d get whacked. So you, you know, even if you
had friends you could talk to, the teacher catch you talking, that’s the end of you. Oh,
they’d whip you! They’d actually whip you then, they had their own paddles in every
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room! [Laughter] Well, that’s just like Stewart, they couldn’t talk their language over
there, either.
I only made it halfway through my junior year in White Pine High School before I got
kicked out of there. Don’t know why I got kicked out, but I did, but then, there’s always
the Marine Corps, so I joined them. That was in 1955.
Oh, I spent a year in Japan, six months in Okinawa, Phillipines, Formosa, and a lot on the
ocean. Float around on carriers, mainly.
NC:
If you were to recommend anything for the youth of today, what would you recommend,
or what do you think is important?
FC:
I think, school: go to college. Get a degree in something, because every job you apply for,
you’ve got to have a college degree in something. And out here, what they hire, they
stipulate a lot of, you know, what you’re supposed to have before they hire you, but it
don’t work; they just hire whoever comes in. And none of them been to college that I
know of. Ely, same way: they don’t go to college. They go to work for the mine, then the
mines’ll close up on you overnight. You’re out of a job again! [Laughter] Oh, if you’re
living on a Rez, you need a trade school. Learn mechanics, welding, electricians. Because
out here, it’s a long ways from town, so you usually have to do all your own work. You
can’t afford to have a service man come out and work on your tractor for you. That’s why
I don’t work on them; they’re all broke. They pay you payday, but they never have a
payday! Yeah, so I don’t work on cars or anything like that; barely work on my own. But
you know, on a reservation, you’ve got to be able to take care of all your own equipment.
NC:
So out here in Duckwater, is it more of a ranching community, then?
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FC:
Yeah, most of them do have ranches, but they’re small. You’re not going to make a living
on them. So, you do have to have a job, too. And if you don’t work for the Tribe out here,
or down to the oil field, you don’t work.
NC:
So, is your family all here in the Duckwater area, or Nevada, or are they—they live
elsewhere?
FC:
Oh, they’re all buried at White River. We have our own family cemetery over there. Just
off the highway over there. My grandfather and grandmother used to own a ranch right
there. It’s up on the hillside above it. But, don’t dig the grave by hand unless you got
dynamite. So we use a backhoe now to get in there. But I got—my mom and dad are
there, and my grandfather, grandma, two brothers, one uncle, one aunt. And a whole
bunch of kids that my grandma and grandpa had that didn’t live past a year or two.
Nope. But some of these kids got to learn how to keep their crafts alive. Make drums,
pipes, moccasins. Tan hides—hardly anybody tans hides anymore. And you get a good
tanned hide, you can get about three hundred bucks out of them. But, you ain’t going to
sell them to an Indian, because they ain’t got three hundred bucks! [Laughter] Mainly,
that’s—you know, I see lot of people take them to, like, their powwows, because you get
a lot of white people around there that does have money, and that’s about the only ones
can afford to buy them. Indians got three hundred dollars, they’re going be drunk!
[Laughter] There, that’ll conclude it!
[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
Floyd Collins
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:20:53
Location
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Duckwater Reservation, NV [Floyd residence]
Transcription
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/526
Original Format
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DVD, MP4, and AVI format
Dublin Core
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Title
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Floyd Collins - Oral history (06/02/2016)
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Floyd Collins was born in Ely, NV on August 27, 1937. His dad was Abe Collins Sr. and his mom was Dellis Maul. Floyd speaks about living all around Nevada but mostly in Ely, and how he worked different occupations such as BLM, Kennecott mine, and West Tran to name a few. He also recants about the hunting him and his family take part in, as well as keeping up with traditional crafts such as creating drums and tanning hides. Floyd joined the U.S. Marine Corp in 1955 which he stayed with for 8 years. He retired at age 75 but still assist the tribe as needed. He also speaks about his time playing basketball and softball with the Ely Indian Colony. He concludes his oral history by suggesting to the younger viewers that they should keep in school and attend college.</p>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qB5hNy_KZOg" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>Interviewed by Norm Cavanaugh</p>
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 050
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
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06/02/2016 [ 02 June 2016]; 2016 June 02
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; Scott A. Gavorsky [VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
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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/345
Language
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English
Subject
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Oral history interview with Floyd Collins, Western Shoshone from Duckwater Reservation, NV on 06/02/2016
Format
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MP4
Community
crafts
Crossroads
Duckwater
Duckwater Reservation
Ely
GBIA
hunting
Shoshone
Story
traditional crafts
traditions
veteran
-
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468b986c3712f7c3ca67f631d2762413
https://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/files/original/aff4ca802ba8f057e9f294ca28cc1a1e.pdf
3b36b8e4c9dee3a7e906043dc7df862a
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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Transcript of Oral History by Delaine Spilsbury [GBIA 036]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Delaine Spilsbury, Western Shoshone from Ely, NV
Description
An account of the resource
Delaine Spilsbury of Ely, NV discusses family hunting stories and experiences, as well as her work in engineering for Nevada Power.
Interviewed by Norm Cavanaugh, 28 May 2014, in Duck Creek, NV
Creator
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Great Basin Indian Archive, in partnership with Barrick Gold of North America
Source
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Great Basin Indian Archive - Western Shoshone Oral Histories - GBIA 036
Publisher
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Great Basin Indian Archive
Date
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28 May 2014
Contributor
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Norm Cavanaugh (interviewer)
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Great Basin Indian Archives
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http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/items/show/77
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pdf file
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English
PDF Text
Text
Delaine
Spilsbury
Great
Basin
Indian
Archive
GBIA
036
Oral
History
Interview
by
Norm
Cavanaugh
May
28,
2014
Duck
Creek,
NV
Great
Basin
College
•
Great
Basin
Indian
Archives
1500
College
Parkway
Elko,
Nevada
89801
hDp://www.gbcnv.edu/gbia/
775.738.8493
Produced
in
partnership
with
Barrick
Gold
of
North
America
�GBIA 036
Interviewee: Delaine Stark Spilsbury
Interviewer: Norm Cavanaugh
Date: May 28, 2014
S:
Hi. I’m Delaine Spilsbury. I’m Western Shoshone, Great Basin Shoshone as I choose to
call it, and I’m from Ely, Nevada. I was born in Ely during the Depression, and it was a
different type of life for the native people here in Ely than it was most anywhere else in
the West or in Nevada. We had no reservation, we had no place where all the families
lived. We had a tiny little colony that—I don’t know, what, it was federal, or state, or
even county—that some of the people lived, but not—just a very small. We still lived the
old ways with our families as we had when… We were hunting and gathering. We had,
our families lived separately in a different place, and it was just like we’d been out. Every
once in a while we would all get together, just like in the old days. And the primary place
that they migrated to for their ceremonies was now called the Shoshone Cedars in Spring
Valley. And there were, my mother was from Snake Valley, which is to the east. And my
dad, they’d go to Spring Valley, and—I think probably to marry off their people, and to,
there was a good place to harvest plants, and animals, and fish. It was a place of bounty,
with plenty of water. And then my dad wandered around and migrated. He was from two
valleys—three valleys west of where my mother was. And so, they eventually met
somewhere down the road, maybe even at Spring Valley at the Cedars, I don’t know. But
they compromised, and ended up living in Ely, Nevada, along with her sister and my
dad’s brother. And so they had quite a little family group, and all lived up on Seventh
Street Canyon, across the railroad tracks. When we were poor Indians. And I’d like to
interject that now that’s where all the rich people live! [Laughter] Not at that time. They
have four wheel drives and kick it up the hill. We had to walk in the wintertime. It was a
pretty hard life. I don’t remember a lot of being—I don’t remember being miserable or
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anything, because it seems like I was always kept warm, and I was pretty well fed. And
that’s lasted through my lifetime as you can see. [Laughter] We just… We had, dad
hunted. Dad and his brothers hunted all the time. And when, especially if they weren’t
working, during the summertime, the spring and the summer, they seemed to have plenty
of work. I went with them to the sheep, up at the sheep camps. And the men—my dad
and his brother, and—I’ll have to put a little more family information in here, now. My
mother’s two sisters, my mother and her sister were from Snake Valley. My dad and his
brother were from White River. And since my mother and her two sisters were from
Snake Valley, their brothers were also. Well, those two brothers married two other
sisters. [Laughter] So it was quite a small family there. I mean, a small few families for a
lot of kids. But—
C:
What was your father’s name? Of what family did he come from?
S:
My father was from, his mother was at Duckwater. And she had married a gentleman
who was half—he was from Salt Lake City, probably a white Mormon, I don’t know. But
I know he wasn’t a Mormon because I know he drank. [Laughter] But, and his name was
Stark. So we don’t have an Indian name. And my mother’s name, mother’s family name
was Joseph. And anyway, we, they always hunted as a group, and worked as a group.
And they went sheep-shearing when they could. They had, my dad was a very ambitious
and very intelligent man. And he soon became a private, I don’t know what you call it, a
contractor. Just a one-man kind of organization. And organized for all the brothers and
whatever to go to the north to work at logging during the summertimes. And they started
here, they started logging just around the corner from where I live now, on the Schell
Creek Range. And they expanded upon that for a few summers, and I guess they did quite
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well doing that. And my dad had only one eye, so he really didn’t work any jobs that
were where he could hire on in town. So he also got into prospecting, and mining, and
whatever kind of thing that he could make some money at it. He did very well doing that.
We, so we had a childhood that wasn’t hungry and it wasn’t cold. I mentioned that
before, but that was quite an accomplishment when we were in abject poverty and really
had no place to live. He and his brothers, finally, he and his brother eventually built
homes for the families, adjacent to each other so the two sisters could be together.
Sometimes that was really good, but after they had kids, they did argue a lot. [Laughter]
C:
So were those homes built on the Ely Colony?
S:
No, they were not. They purchased some property up that canyon that I mentioned up
Seventh Street, and they built on their own property. And that property is now owned by
one of the rich people in town who’s building a beautiful home up there. We thought it
was a long way from town, and it was on the other side of the tracks, but I enjoyed the
train as a kid. Putting pennies on the rails, and just, kid things. And when we went sleigh
riding, we’re not supposed to go across the tracks. And so we’d sled just as fast as we
could so we’d think we couldn’t make the turn, and if we didn’t go over the turn, then we
could go over the tracks and down the hill even farther. [Laughter] But… with the wild
game they gathered, and harvested, anyway, they had my great-auntie, Lizzie—Lizzie
Lee—had a place in White River, which is where my dad was when, where he was born.
And she raised potatoes. So the boys would take her a leg from their venison, and she’d
give them a sack of potatoes. So we always had meat and potatoes, and even though it
was Depression, and it was in a very poverty area—poverty situation, we always
managed to have something to eat. And then, when the World War II started, the big
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thing for individuals to do, families, was to have a victory garden. So once we dug the
victory garden and found out how easy it was—for the kids, anyway! [Laughter] But, we
didn’t have any running water where my dad built. And eventually, the adults did dig a
water line down to the Ely water main, and brought water into the reserv—not the
reservation, into our homes. Reservation was not there. And so, we had a much easier life
once we had running water, because we had always hauled it prior to that. But the kids
got to help with that, too. Because they got to backfill the ditch. So, we worked pretty
hard. My dad and I had a—we were kind of a little bit separate from my mom and my
sister, because my sister’s four years younger than I am. And I used to go out into the
hills with him, to go prospecting, and mining. And I got a big thrill out of that when we’d
blast. [Laughter] It’s just one stick of dynamite, but to me it seemed really exciting. And
we’ve always, I gathered the, got the habit of carrying all the rocks home that I could.
And, because that’s what my dad did, take all his ore samples home. And at one time, we
mined turquoise over by Austin, Nevada. And we took a lot of samples home, but we had
investors and whatever that’d come in from LA and look at the rock, and say, “Well, I’m
going to take this home and have it analyzed.” But we never really sold much of it. But I
got in a real love for that turquoise from that period of time when we were mining. And
that extended into what I’m doing now, too. My dad and I were pretty much buddies. We
were hunting and fishing all the time, because that’s what fed us. And the rest of the
family fished, too, when it was summertime. But at that time, my younger, my sister was
too young to go with us, so they eventually became kind of two partnerships. My sister
stayed with my mother, and I went with my dad. And he hunted until, oh, until his death.
He took up bow hunting when Nevada determined they would have two hunting
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seasons—hunting with permits: one for bow, and one for rifle. And so, dad decided he’d
like to—and as did a lot of other guys—like to learn to shoot a bow, too, so we could get
more venison for our table. And I eventually took up bow hunting with him, too. That
was a lot of fun. And very, very tasty, I’d have to say. So I went to school in—
C:
So what kind of animals did you guys hunt—or your dad hunt, or you and your dad?
S:
Uh, primarily, we hunted venison. We hunted deer in season. However, there’s a little
story to tell about that, too. The, a lot of the locals convinced my dad and his cousin—
Bill McQueen, and my dad’s brother, Elmer Stark—convinced them that Indians could
hunt at any time of the year. So, they went out hunting, and ended up in jail. They had an
animal, and they went to jail for feeding their family. And found out that they, Indians
don’t have any special rights to hunt and fish. Not out here. They do on the reservations,
but not out here in the non-reservation world. And I guess I probably should say a little
bit more about my school life. I’ve been very fortunate all my life. My dad had a friend
who lived up in the canyon behind us—and he was very knowledgeable, very intelligent.
And he took to me, too. And I spent many, many hours with him. He taught me, he was
my—he taught me all the necessary things, like math and writing and, oh, just, spelling…
My alphabet, to begin with. But by the time that I went to public school, I wasn’t old
enough to actually go the year that I went. But, this friend of my dad’s took me in to
school to talk to the principal. And he said, “Okay now, Delaine. Write all this that I tell
you to write.” And—oh, first, the principal said, “Can she say her ABCs? Does she know
her ABCs?” Well, yeah! And he said, “Now write something for him.” And he said,
“Now, I’m going to ask you, I’m going to have some math questions.” And he said,
“How about reciting your times tables?” and things like that. So, I was able to get into
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school a year early. [Laughter] Which helped a lot later in life. But I just had mentors all
along the way. I don’t know if it’s luck, or what. But, it’s been a really good life because
of those mentors. Excuse me. [Crying] I forgot all about him until this! [Laughter] But,
let’s see, to go back to the school, I went to Ely Grade School, which was a really good
experience. I had a good friend that lived across the tracks from us, and we’d spend a lot
of time out in the hills together. And my cousins were near, and we’d go picnicking up in
the hills. And one time, there was a big fire in a bar downtown. And my cousins came
home with a lot of whiskey, we didn’t know what kind. And since we lived at the
railroad, I lived above the railroad cutoff, we went down in those cliffs and cut holes in
them and buried all our whiskey. And then we sold it to the drunks for about a year. That
was pretty good money! [Laughter] We were just little kids, so it meant a lot to us. The
school, Ely Grade School, was a very good school. I had a lot of really good teachers who
helped. And I had some who were, actually, probably I’d have to add them to my list of
mentors. I only had one school teacher that made life tough for me. I tried to be a grade-A
student all the way through grade school, and I was really proud of myself when I had
one year of spelling where I only missed one word in the entire year. And I still—now I
know how to spell “squirrel”: with two “l”s. [Laughter] But, I had some great help along
the way. And then, when we had our graduation, there were three of us students. They
couldn’t decide who was the valedictorian, and who could be the salutatorian. But since
these other two people were guys, one of them became the valedictorian, and we had a
dual salutatarian ceremony, which was pretty exciting for me. And I’d have to mention
that just about all my life, all of my friends except for that one girl that was my friend that
lived across the street, all my friends were boys. Because that was the kind of interest that
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I had. I went to a few birthday parties where I was the only girl there, and I usually had
fun with the mom. [Laughter] Along with the guys. So, it was a very special, very
different life for me, than the other kids. And I attended high school here in Ely part of
the time. By that time, my dad had moved to Vegas and become a building contractor.
And so, he would take contracts in Vegas in the wintertime, when the weather was nice,
and then when it got too hot he’d take contracts up north. And he built some, a few
buildings in Ely. The Armory that is no longer, now I think it’s the Jailhouse. There was a
grocery store in between, and a motel, and some other things around Ely. And then we
took contracts in Wyoming, and did some work for the mine people and their workers.
And that was an interesting life, too, because I made friends with the people who lived
there, and everything was provided for them. They had a swimming pool, and all sorts of
things that we didn’t have around here. But that’s because the mine did all that, and we
could go into the store and get whatever we wanted. All my friend had to do was sign.
Because the paychecks from the miners went directly to this company store, and nobody
ever had any money. And it was a pretty interesting thing to learn, and to experience.
And we did a lot of hunting in Wyoming. We went out every night after rabbits. And they
had rabbits and hares, and whatever. And because by that time, we had a really good taste
for that. Plus, we were always saving money. And that seemed to be a way of life for us.
We were very thrifty, because, when I went to Vegas, and went to high school there, my
mom always used to buy my clothes at—I guess they’d be called “flea markets” now, but
they would just have the, put their clothes out on Main Street, or whatever they had to
sell on the weekends, and we’d buy our clothes there. And they were always out of the
style. If it was a short skirt, mom sewed a strip of velvet—two inch or four inch,
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depending on what the styles were that year—velvet ribbon on the bottom, to make them
acceptable. I wouldn’t get slapped in school for having too much showing, I guess!
[Laughter]
C:
So where was your experience in going to school? Did you go to school here in Ely, or
was it a public school, or…?
S:
No, the—just, I went to Ely Grade School, and White Pine High School. Off and on. I
would start at White Pine, because we were—that’s what I was starting to tell you, and I
lost my train of thought there. That was when dad was moving back and forth with the
seasons. We would start in White Pine High School, and—wait a minute. I started doing
that when I was in third grade. And then we’d move to Vegas, and I’d spend the rest of
the year—or, part of the year, and then come back to Ely to finish the year. So, it was a, it
was—I think, I didn’t like it at the time, but I think I learned a lot more by doing that. So
I did that all the way through high school. I finally—I think it was the last two years in
high school, I did, stayed in Vegas. And I had an advantage there, also, by going to the
school later in the year. One year, I couldn’t have, they didn’t have any sophomore
classes. That was a required class. And so they put me in the junior class. And so it was a
little tougher, but I think that was good for me. And the other thing that helped, is when I
was in Vegas, and I tried to get a drafting class, they wouldn’t let me take drafting
because I was a girl, and they thought that I would be—I have to back up and say why I
wanted to take drafting. My dad by then was a building contractor. And he was having—
a lot of his expense was having drawings made for the building so he’d get a building
permit. And so he said, “Why don’t you learn to do this?” Because I kept working with
him in the building industry. And I no longer paint walls, because when I was such a little
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kid, and I was working with him, that was all I could do was paint the walls! [Laughter]
That and climb up on the roof and lay some sheathing. But I’d had enough painting for
the rest of my life. [Laughter] So, it was, I’m losing it again—I was, okay, so I went to,
tried to take my drafting classes, and they wouldn’t let me into the class because they felt
it would be too distracting to have a girl in the class. And so the next fall, when I came
back to Ely, I asked for drafting at White Pine High, and they said, “Sure.” So when I
went back, when I transferred back, and I need to transfer to a class, they, I guess they
felt they couldn’t refuse me. But they did put me in a back room where I had to work on
my own. The teacher had to come back, and then work—when he had everything else
done, if he had a little extra time, Mr. Portinier. He would come back, and see what, and
help me with what I was doing. But I took to it so well, and I did so well at it, that he
became a mentor also. And by the time I was a senior, which wasn’t—I’d only been in—
well, I’d gone to the Las Vegas all four years, but not full four years—I was hired. They
had a program that if you had a job, you could get credit for the job. And they gave us the
afternoon off. So I became a professional draftsman when I was a senior in high school.
[Laughter] And it paid well, too. So, that just kind of, all that kind of thing just carried
through, pretty much most of my life. And I attended Nevada Southern in Las Vegas for a
few years, but I was, always had such a good job and made so much money, and mentors
would take over and teach me all they could, I finally just felt that I was doing well
enough on my own—not my own, but the results were—that I did quit school. But it
didn’t seem to hinder anything that I did. They, at that time, they didn’t actually require a
degree just for an interview. I did get turned down on a lot of jobs because they said, “We
don’t hire women.” And that was it. You know, they wouldn’t even give me an interview.
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But so I started in, started off with government jobs. I worked for the county, and then I
was able to get a job with the city, and I found a really good mentor there. And from then
on, I had a reputation, so I didn’t need anything more. And that carried through. I
eventually—the one thing that did happen that I didn’t like so well is, somewhere along
that way I got married. And every time they had a layoff, because of a depression or a
recession or something, they would, everybody in the industry, I think—or even
everywhere else, but that’s the only, engineering is the only industry I know—they
would, if there were a couple working, the wife always got laid off, because they felt that
the man was the breadwinner and all that kind of thing. So I got laid off a couple times.
And the last time I got laid off, I said, “You know, I think I’ll do something I really want
to do.” Which, well—other than get laid off, I loved the work. So, I was kind of set back
a little bit, and that’s when I got my training in Indian arts and crafts. My mother tried to
teach me everything that she knew, and I eventually ended up with an Indian arts and
crafts business. And it just, everything has just been—I don’t know if kids have those
opportunities these days.
C:
So in those places you worked, you mentioned, where was it in part of the country?
S:
Oh, all my engineering life was around Las Vegas. I worked for the county, I worked for
the city, I worked for Nevada Power for a number of years, and long enough to get a few
promotions and a few raises and things like that. So each time I changed jobs, it was a
step up. And then, my final job was kind of by accident. I got laid off at Nevada Power—
or fired, or whatever in the heck it was. I think that time, I think that time was the time I
got dumped, and it was all, had a personal beef for—my chief engineer didn’t see things
the way I saw it, and so I got dumped there—and was collecting unemployment
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insurance. And at the time, my dad was alive and well, and very… I can’t think of a word
for it, he was, he was going fishing all the time, and he had a boat, and we’d go to all the
lakes around there—Lake Mead, Lake Mohave, and, depending on what kind of fish we
were fishing for. And I said to him, I said, “Dad, I think I’m just going to go fishing with
you.” And we did that for—it was spring—for quite a long time. And then, at that time, at
the end of unemployment, you had to go in and talk to the man, and they would ask you
if you had been looking for work. And of course, I always said I was, because I always
had applications in places that I didn’t think would hire me—right off anyway. And I go
in one day, and this employment guy says, “They need someone like you at the telephone
company.” And he said, “Will you go for an interview?” And I said, “Sure!” Because I
had to. [Laughter] And doggone, when I went for that interview, if the supervisor, the
minor supervisor, which I was to work for there, was a guy that had worked for me
someplace. And when he saw me, he said, “Oh my God, Delaine! We need you! I’m so
glad you’re available.” And that put an end to my fishing. [Laughter] So I stayed with
them for a very short time. It was a good company, they had a good company policy, but
our senior supervisor was just a picky-picky-picky, and I couldn’t handle that. And that’s
when I went to the Test Site. And I stayed there for quite a number of years. The Nevada
Test Site, out of town. So all my engineering career was in the Vegas area.
C:
So you were a pioneer, as a woman, in that field, when there wasn’t very many women in
it.
S:
There were very few women in that field. I did work with one other woman who was a
right-of-way engineer. And she was, she had been at Stanford, and she was quite a bit
older, but… She was a good friend of mine. But I think that’s, those are—I don’t ever
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remember having another woman on the job anywhere I worked. Not in that line. We had
secretaries, and that sort of thing, but… I don’t remember any other women. Once I got
into the Indian arts and crafts business, I became really enchanted by all kinds of
handmade stuff. And a lot of stuff in my house is handmade, and, this particular chair, the
gentleman is still alive. And for one reason I can’t remember his name, and he is in Ely.
And they had these chairs in an art gallery in Ely, oh, probably 10 or 12, 10—oh, some
years ago. I’ve lived in this house now for over 10 years. And during that time, a friend
of mine from Vegas was visiting, and we went to the art gallery. And this chair looked
small enough and nice enough that I said, “Gee, that’s nice. I’d better try it out.” And I
really loved that chair. But I walked away from it and went on with what I was doing.
And on my following visit to Vegas, when I walked in to my friend John’s house, there
was my chair. Waiting for me. So, but I guess I stopped visiting him enough, because he
said the chair was getting lonesome, and he brought it up to here. And it gets used every
day up here. [Laughter] The only horse I’ve ever ridden is, well, the one that my dad had
that wasn’t very sound, we found out. Because he decided to sell it. And it was
“Helldorado,” which was a big rodeo time, big Western days in Las Vegas. And he
bought all the black, I guess it’s called “surge.” He looked like Roy Rogers all decked
out in his black pants and shirt, and black hat. He was showing off his horse. He had
advertised it as sound and gentle and all that sort of thing, and the guy was—there where
we lived in Vegas, there was, out on the edge of town, as usual, and it was all alkali dust,
alkali dirt, which is totally white. And for some reason, that horse stumbled, and my dad
rolled in the white alkali. [Laughter] So, we were never permitted to ride that horse again.
I think he had a bad back, I think that’s what it was. He said it stumbled, but I think it had
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a bad back. And a few stable horses or whatever, when I’ve gone up into the mountains.
I’ve ridden some really wonderful horses when I’ve gone on some packing trips for when
I’m hunting big game with my bow. And I’ve loved some of those animals. But that’s the
extent of my horsemanship.
C:
But the saddle—
S:
The saddle. Back to the saddle! [Laughter] Would you…?
C:
It says, “25th Annual Treaty Days.” Was that a rodeo, or…?
S:
That’s in Oregon. It’s a big rodeo. It’s an all-Indian rodeo. And my cousin Mel Joseph,
who is, was my, one of the uncles that lived in Snake Valley, his son. And he was a real
tough little kid. So he really excelled in what he was doing. He got his first job when he
was 12 years old, and moved to California. He was a horseman on one of those greenhorn
trips that I was mentioning that I took when I went hunting. And so, he became a pretty
good rodeo hand. He’s been a clown and everything all the way up, and he and his
brother just last year won a national championships at the Indian National Finals in
Vegas. So he went the full gamut in rodeo, and that ended up at my place. I let him visit it
once in a while. [Laughter] I mentioned earlier that I eventually ended up in the Indian
arts and crafts industry. And I have a very nice wholesale business going on now. I’ll
probably work until I can’t work anymore. And those items are some of the items that I
carried when I was in Vegas, and had a bigger clientele. And I sold pottery rugs. The—I
had all kinds of artists that I had access to. And I really enjoyed that. It was nice to really
be able to get to know them, and to know them well, and that’s been another, really fun
part of my life, is… and the beauty of the Indian work, the Indian handcrafts is just, it’s
still hard for me to believe how they manage to do these things. I did a lot of traveling,
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and went to a lot of shows and whatever with these people, and I became, I was on the
board of directors for the Indian Arts and Crafts Association, which is a national
organization that guarantees quality and authenticity. And the artists were just
unbelievably talented. They weren’t “talented,” they were inspired. It has been a great,
great experience.
C:
And that necklace you have on? What’s that?
S:
Well, that’s actually Shoshone. And it’s, it’s kind of a, real special, this is made with the
old number 13 cuts, which are the ones that the artists, the beadworkers that really like to
work with beads, and they’re almost impossible to acquire. The supply house that
everybody got them from in New York was—they were imported from Italy, the beads
themselves—is no longer there, and so, I treasure it. It’s got bone, and crystal beads. As I
mentioned before, my dad took up bow hunting when he could hunt for two seasons. And
when I finally got big enough to shoot a bow, they didn’t have all the kinds that they have
now. Had to be pretty strong to pull a bow back in those days, they were pretty much
longbows. There’s one behind me that—this one’s a Mongolian bow—that’s pretty much
along that design. And the new ones have all kinds of wheels and whatever to make them
much easier to pull, so now they even have really efficient children’s bows. But I had to
wait until I was old enough, big enough to actually be able to handle a bow. And we, that
ended up being a great, a real fun part of our life, too, because we—when we moved to
Vegas, we got into the Archery Club, and competition, and that sort of thing. And my son
was, had won a state championship or two. And I won the women’s division, the bow
hunting division, for a number of years. Dad did, was real pretty good with his bow, too,
and we just had a lot of fun in archery. We even had a range, an archery range, on some
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of the land that my dad had invested in, in addition—well, when he had, could no longer
be a contractor, I guess it just was too much pressure, because his doctor told him to go
fishing. [Laughter] And he started investing in land, and he always felt that land was a
good thing to have. So he had quite a lot of acreage on the outskirts of Vegas, and we
built an archery range on one of his properties, and everybody that was involved had a
great time. We organized and built our own targets, and would have our own
tournaments, and whatever. So anyway, along the way, of course, you know, dad was
always hunting, and I was always hunting with him. But I finally discovered that when I
did become pretty good at shooting a bow and hunting, I had to forget everything that he
had taught me. [Laughter] And start again! So I’ve been pretty much hunting, oh, most of
my life. I’ve always, well—small game, of course, is the most available. And a lot of fun.
And I love to eat it. Rabbits and that sort of thing. I was able to harvest a couple of birds,
too, which isn’t that easy with a bow. Especially when you cut their head off, let’s not
ruin anything—but that was a missed arrow. [Laughter] But I’ve been hunting around in
Nevada for a number of years, and I ended up, one of the guys that—oh, it’s, I decided
that I wanted to go javelina hunting. And over the years, I became acquainted with,
because of my business, I would always work the trade shows that were connected to
archery. I met people that—movers and shakers in the archery industries, manufacturers
all over the country—and got into some, got invited to some great things. I got invited to
go javelina hunting with Doug Walker, who published the National Bowhunter
Magazine. And he eventually asked me to write for the magazine. And a part of that, we
didn’t get paid much, but he took us on hunts. And he took us, I think the one that I had
the most fun, and had the most game was at Chudwayo [42:09] Ranch in Texas. And
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they have a lot of exotic game. It seems like the grandfather, the one that started the
whole hunting thing, had an opportunity to buy some game from one of those countries
that had a new sultan or whatever. And when they come in and take over the country,
they always just kill all of the animals that the prior ruler had. And put in their own. And
they had some animals down there that were extinct other than on that ranch. And that
was—the only fence it had was on the very out—the perimeter fence, and it was, I don’t
know. I can’t tell you how many square miles it was. It’s just a huge, huge ranch. And the
only fenced part they had, was inside, he had some really special animals. But they
weren’t, you couldn’t hunt those. There were a couple of giraffes, and all kinds of exotic
game. But the ones that were free-roaming, we could hunt. And we did. And we went
there for a number of years. And one year, I had a big thrill when rock star Ted Nugent
came hunting with us. I think I’ve been hunting with him about three times now. So that
was a highlight. [Laughter] Not that I think he’s so—I don’t agree with his politics, but I
sure like to hunt with him! So, and then, some years ago, I was lucky enough to draw one
of the rare elk tags—it was probably about thirteen or fifteen years ago—here in Nevada.
It’s a tremendous—some people apply all their lives and never get a tag. And I was able
to get a tag and hunt it just around the corner from here, for the elk that I have here, that
at the time was the largest elk in the record book—for one year. It isn’t my bow that does
it, it’s me! [Laughter] Actually, I’ve been shooting with a bow that probably a lot of
people would say doesn’t work, because I shoot forty pounds. But a well-placed arrow is
a lethal arrow.
C:
So is that the bow up there, that you have mounted?
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S:
Those are some of them that I’ve shot over the years. Actually, one of those is my dad’s,
and one’s my son’s. They’re sentimental, so they kept theirs. I sold all mine. Except for
the one I’m using now. And eventually, after I got too many years on me, too many
miles, years and miles, I did have to go to the compound bow that I shoot now. But I still
shoot it the same style that I shot the recurve and the long bow. And that’s with no sights,
and no mechanical release. Just Indian fashion. Ind’n fashion. [Laughter] And it’s, some
of these animals here are the animals that I harvested in Texas. There’s different kind of
deer: fallow deer, sika deer. All very tasty.
C:
So can we begin with the white-collared deer above your head, and then just move
around the room?
S:
Okay, that’s a white fallow.
C:
And that was harvested in Texas?
S:
Yes, the next—all four of these.
C:
And the one next to it?
S:
That is a sika. I can’t really remember what kind of sika it is. But it’s different in breed
from the other one. And the chocolate is the brown deer that has the moose paddle and
has the Ted Nugent signature on the paddle. That doesn’t show from here—it shows from
here. [Laughter] And then, the other, the next one down is also a sika. And that one, I
shot with other people present, and it just dropped. But that’s because I missed. I hit it in
the backbone, instead of the sweet spot. I was shooting uphill, and at a longer range than I
normally do. And the next one is a nice mule deer from Black Rock Desert, that my son
and I worked on. And the two antelope are from around here, and Spring Valley. Both of
them are from Spring Valley. That’s out by the Shoshone Cedars. And the little piggy
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over there is a javelina. And Ted Nugent was on that hunt. I have a little photo of him in
my trophies over there, of Ted and I. And this, the one on the floor, the full-body mount,
is an axis deer. First time I saw one, I thought it was the biggest fawn I’d ever seen,
because of the spots. [Laughter] And this is probably the tastiest one of all.
C:
So where was this deer harvested, in Texas?
S:
That one’s from Texas also. And all the taxidermy on those was done in Texas.
C:
And then, can you tell us about the mountain lion?
S:
The mountain lion is from an old friend of mine who’s no longer with us. He’s passed on.
And he was the best gardener in Ely. Had a huge garden. And everybody was welcome to
come in and take what they wanted, but his son was jealous, because I’m the only one
that his dad would harvest the vegetables, and even wash them, before I got them.
[Laughter] Everybody else had to dig their own. And the bear, on the floor, is from
Alberta, Canada. There’s a good picture behind it if you can catch the picture. That was, I
had a picture of the group of us who all got bears, and that one was the biggest of all.
C:
And you shot it with the bow?
S:
Oh, it’s all bow, yes.
C:
Ah.
S:
When I got—Rick, my son, was with me when I got the invitation to go along. And I
said, “Yeah, I’ll go bear hunting!” And when he got me alone, he said, “Mom! What
were you thinking? You’re going bear hunting?” [Laughter] And that was an exciting
trip, too. I had another bear fall in love with me, but that’s another story. That was not
fun.
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I forgot to tell you that when I was out mining and prospecting with my dad, that I
actually worked in those mines with a real shovel. Not like today, with a huge scoop
shovel and a big truck, but we actually got in there and dug holes to plant the dynamite,
and then we dug the muck out by hand. When I was a kid. And I think dad did it on
purpose so I would get an education. [Laughter]
This is a picture taken at Mount Moriah, which is just east of us here. Over—that’s by
Spring Valley, too. That’s why Spring Valley was so sacred to the Shoshone people,
because it was so full of, just, game, and fish, and food, and shade. On the bottom, where
the Shoshone Cedars are, it’s the bottom of the valley. And these cedars had been—
they’re actually Rocky Mountain junipers, and they’d been pushed in there by an ice age,
and it was the only place around where there was really good shade and grass, and all the
people that wandered around these valleys here all ended up there for their ceremonies, a
number of times a year.
The drum is just a part of my collection, it had an elk, and it was a Shoshone artist. And
it’s signed, but I don’t remember who it is. I’ve had it for so long. And I don’t even know
if it drums anymore, but it’s just something I like, so, that was—and it’s something I
acquired.
C:
And the baskets up on top?
S:
The baskets, the ones on each end are Mono baskets that were made by Julia, Julia—boy,
I can’t remember her name! She’s still alive, and I met her somewhere on the powwow
trail, and she had baskets for sale, and since my aunties are Mono, I thought that was a
great idea. I do have miniatures that my aunties gave me when I was a kid.
�
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Well, there came a time when we lived in Vegas when there were drive-by shootings and
that sort of thing, and the only time I could go anywhere was from 10 o’clock in the
morning until 2 in the afternoon, because the traffic was so bad that if you did go to the
freeway to get across town—which you’d almost have to because it’s so huge—there was
so much free parking out there in the middle of the summer. Free parking on that
freeway, in the 120 degree heat, that I decided it was time to go back home to die,
because that’s kind of what our people do. We, we’re so tied to the land that we want to
be back home when it’s time. And so I shopped around up here to get some property.
And in the interim, I was a partner at the Idaho Heritage Museum on Highway 93
between Hollis—no, it’s at Hollister, between Jackpot and Twin Falls. And my partner
there gave me a call, and he said, “These logs are available.” This mill—I guess they’re
called millers, the guy who owned the log mill, the saw mill, had some logs that he
wanted to get rid of. And it was a good price. And probably less than I’d have to pay for
material to build a house. But I didn’t realize there were so many, because I wasn’t
intending on a place this big. But when I did find this place, and saw the possibilities of
berming into the side of the hill for the insulation value, and the logs combined—because
this is cold country, here—that I decided to have a house the way I like to live. And that’s
why it’s all free and open with the kitchen island in the middle. And I was lucky enough
to find a contractor here in Ely who could do it. However, my partner, who was also a
cement—he was a contractor, also—started the place. He did all the groundwork, and he
put in all the foundations and that sort of thing. And he got arrested for supposedly
digging one arrowhead—I mean, that’s the conviction that they had on him, but I think it
was a trumped-up charge. Because the stuff he had, pretty much the museum all had
�
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certificates. But, I don’t know. Anyway, I had to hire another contractor along the way,
and I was lucky enough to get a local guy who’s honest and talented and worked for a
decent price. And we’re still good friends. Matter of fact, I—if you see the picture of the
fishing over here, under the sika deer, and those are salmon on the Kenai Peninsula in
Alaska. I’ve gone fishing with him up there twice now. And the 65-pounder is mine. And
the little fish on the end is my buddy’s fish. [Laughter] The little silver salmon. But
we’re—and we’re still friends, even after that. Even after that fishing trip.
So, I understand we’re going to be closing now, and from all you’ve heard, I’ve had just a
wonderful time, a great life. Everybody has just been absolutely great to me. If I do have
things that are, that I think are wrong for me and bad for me, I just remember all the good
things. And how lucky I have been. And I’d kind of like to talk directly to younger
people now. And I know it’s hard to get out in the outdoors now, when we have all this
electronic stuff, and screens, and whatever, that keep you all tied up, and keep you from
getting any activity. But I would encourage you, if you have somebody in your family or
something that goes for these outdoor things—maybe you can talk them into introducing
you to what is, what was our Newe way of life. Being on the land, living with the land,
and preserving the land. Right now, I’m in a big battle with a bunch of people to try to
keep the Great Basin water in the Great Basin, instead of being pumped away for where it
will never recycle into the system again, and that, the Great Basin Water Network, I’m on
their board of directors. And I would encourage you, our native people, our native kids,
to get to know the Earth Mother. She’s kind, she’s generous, and she needs protection.
And we can do it. I know we can. We’re having problems with climate change, and it’s a
good time to be able to extend, do something, learn about what’s out there, and always
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have faith in yourself, and always look at the bright side. There’s always something good
in everything. And ignore that other stuff.
[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
Delaine Spilsbury
Location
The location of the interview
Duck Creek, NV [residence of Delaine Spilsbury]
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<a href="/omeka/files/original/aff4ca802ba8f057e9f294ca28cc1a1e.pdf" target="blank">English transcript available as pdf file</a>
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
DVD, MP4, and AVI Format
Duration
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00:58:10
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
Delaine Stark Spilsbury - Oral History (05/28/2014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history interview with Delaine Spilsbury, Western Shoshone from Ely, NV, on 05/28/2014
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Delaine Stark Spilsbury is a Western Shoshone, or as she says a Great Basin Shoshone, from Ely, Nevada. She was born in Ely, Nevada during the depression, and attended school there as well as Las Vegas. Delaine speaks about her ancestors and how the hunted and gathered within the area as well as their family groups. She gives us an account of her family’s lineage and their vocations. She also speaks of how she hunted, fished, and mined with her father. She then goes on to tell of her hunting adventures, including some with Ted Nugent, and how she got into drafting. She finishes her oral history by leaving a message for the youth.<br /> <br />Interviewed by Norm Cavanaugh</p>
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Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Basin Indian Archives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Great Basin Indian Archives - GBIA 036
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Great Basin Indian Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
05/28/2014 [28 May 2014]; 2014 May 28
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Norm Cavanaugh [interviewer]; Scott A. Gavorsky [GBC Virtual Humanities Center]; James Hedrick [GBIA/VHC]; University of Utah SYLAP [streaming video]; Great Basin College; BARRICK Gold of North America
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Non-commercial scholarly and educational use only. Not to be reproduced or published without express permission. All rights reserved. Great Basin Indian Archives © 2017
Consent form on file (administrator access only): http://humanities.gbcnv.edu/omeka/admin/files/show/477
Format
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DVD, AVI, and MP4 format
Language
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English
arts
Community
crafts
Crossroads
depression
drafting
Ely
gathering
GBIA
hunting
mining
Shoshone
Story
White Pine High School
Women's History