Winey Harjo - Part 2

Part Two

WH: We just give $300 for the T-Model.

WN: You gave $300 for your first car?

WH: Model-T, it didn't run but on battery. It runs on mash. And you had to crank it.

WN: Well did you pay cash for the car or did you--

WH: I don't remember. I don't think so.

WN: You had to pay it out like we all--

WH: Yeah. You didn't have to buy no tag or nothing.

WN: You didn't have to have a driver's license?

WH: No.

WN: Could you drive the car?

WH: Yeah. No one didn't teach me. I just sittin' in the car [undecipherable] you know driving, and I just learned.

WN: Learned by yourself? That is fantastic. Well, after you got your car then you didn't use your wagon anymore?

WH: Yeah.

WN: You used your wagon some?

WH: Yeah, we'd use the wagon, too.

WN: Alright, can you tell me, did you ever take a summer vacation anywhere?

WH: No. We didn't know nothin' about no summer vacation. I don't do that now.

WN: You just work all the time, don't you?

WH: Yeah.

WN: Tell me, your children, tell me about your early children. When you had them did you have a doctor? When you had your children, did you have a doctor?

WH: Well, an Indian doctor.

WN: An Indian doctor.

WH: Then after that, well, doctors came in pretty regular in Bristow, different ones, you know. [Indecipherable] children didn't get sick like they do now.

WN: Yeah, well it's because they didn't eat all the junk.

WH: Yeah. They would play in the woods, you know, and swim all the time. They 00:02:00didn't have time to get sick.

WN: And they minded, too, didn't they?

WH: Oh yeah.

WN: They didn't sass you. Do you remember your first radio? Do you remember ever getting a radio.

WH: Yeah, but it was run by battery.

WN: It was run by battery. How long was it before you got a refrigerator? How did you keep your food from spoiling?

WH: Well, we didn't have much to cook anyway, so when we cooked, there was none left over because with a bunch of kids.

WN: Fill 'em up!

WH: Yeah, they would eat between meals if there was anything left over. It didn't have time to just spoil like it do now. And I remember when we first got an icebox, we had to buy ice and put it in there, the refrigerator.

WN: Well now let me ask you, did you make squaw bread all the time?

WH: Oh yeah. After they started selling flour, made squaw bread.

WN: But you made corn bread before?

WH: Yeah.

WN: Well, let me ask you again, when your children were little, when they went to school, were you living here, right here, when the little ones went to school?

WH: Yeah, not here.

WN: Not here?

WH: Huh uh. We used to live right back here.

WN: And the children walked to school?

WH: No.

WN: No.

WH: Well, most of them did until they started driving the bus.

WN: Well, now let me ask you, did your children all go to this school right here at Edison, or did they go over to Washington?

WH: No, Edison.

WN: They all went to Edison School.

WH: Yeah, and Wilson and Wesley, they went to [indecipherable].

WN: Are they the only ones that went to an Indian school? Well, you didn't have any children that went over to Sapulpa then to the school--

WH: Yeah, two of them.

WN: Two of them.

WH: There was Barney and Taylor. They went to that Sapulpa Indian school one year.

WN: Indian Mission School.

WH: One year.

WN: They didn't like it?

WH: Well, they liked it, but it closed down.

WN: Oh, I see.

WH: And, so they just went to school here.

WN: How did you teach your children about their Indian ancestors. Did you make them speak Indian any?

WH: They wouldn't. This school wouldn't let them talk it.

WN: Oh, they wouldn't? That's awful, isn't it?

WH: I don't know how come. But see me and my husband would talk it all the time 00:05:00between them at home, but they wouldn't pick it up.

WN: The didn't learn to speak Indian? Wesley doesn't? Can Wesley talk Indian now?

WH: He can understand but he don't talk it.

WN: Would you say something in Indian for me on this? Can you just tell us anything in Indian, and we won't ever know what it is.

WH: Okay.

WN: Alright.

WH: (speaking Indian)

WN: Oh, I wished I had a television [indecipherable]. You're such a beautiful person, Mrs. Harjo. Oh you're just such a nice person.

WH: And I know what preacher has pastured our church.

WN: Who was that?

WH: His name was Jasper Bale and the other one was Louie Dunson (ph).

WN: Oh, that's such a wonderful bit of info--tell me anything else about that church that you can remember. Can you tell me how people came? Did they used to have more Indians coming or less? Tell me about your church.

WH: Oh, well (speaks Indian).

WN: Oh, that's so lovely.

WH: That means a lot of them used to come, but they don't now, because some of 00:07:00us stay sick and some of them come and some of them don't. That's what I said.

WN: That's wonderful! Sing me an Indian prayer. Can you sing me an Indian prayer?

WH: Yeah. (Speaks Indian).

WN: Oh wonderful! What did you do for entertainment when you were about 15 or 16-years-old. What was it like being a teenager?

WH: For entertainment?

WN: Yeah, what did you all do?

WH: Go to Indian stomp dance.

WN: Well, come on in Wesley and join us.

WH: We'd go to Indian stomp dance.

WN: You went to the Indian stomp dance.

WH: Yeah and had a big dinner and everyone dance and--

WN: Well, what did you look for in a husband. What did your mother tell you to look for in a--how did she tell you to look for a husband?

WH: How did I do?

WN: Yeah, what did your momma say to you to get a husband?

WH: She said--she didn't say. She didn't want me to marry, but after I meet this man in church, you can go ahead and marry him if you want to.

WN: Well, how old were you?

WH: Well, see I married in 1911, and I was just 15-years-old.

WN: 15-years-old. Wesley, what do you think of that?

WNH: [Indecipherable] I guess.

WN: How old are you, Wesley?

WNH: 76.

WN: 76. Your oldest baby, isn't it?

WN: Yeah.

WN: And she told me you didn't learn to speak the Indian language very well. Shame on you, Wesley.

WNH: I couldn't help it. They didn't like us talking it at that government school.

WN: I want you to tell me what made an Indian handsome in those days. Why did you choose your husband?

WH: Because he would go to stomp dances and sing these stomp dances, and then we'd enjoy and we like to hear it.

WN: Alright, now can you sing me a song?

WH: That's Indian?

WN: Yeah, you sing--

WH: Oh, I can't sing that.

WN: Well, sing me any song.

WH: Indian song?

WN: Any, any.

WH: Oh--(sings in Indian).

WN: And what the title of that song?

WH: I don't know it has any title.

WN: Oh, well it sounds good, doesn't it? Did you understand it?

WNH: No.

WH: No, he doesn't.

WN: Wesley, what do you remember about being a little boy? What's the favorite thing you remember about your mother when you were a little boy--and your daddy? Did you have any favorite toys or favorite thing that happened to you with you and your father?

[Inaudible]

WH: They'd go to church every day with us.

WN: Well, that's something.

WH: But they got up into the teenage..WN: And then things changed, didn't it? Did you work in the fields with your father, Wesley?

WNH: Yeah [indecipherable].

WN: And do you remember some of the things that you planted and everything?

WNH: Yeah. Planted corn and [indecipherable] and chopped corn and everything else.

WN: Did you help your mother a lot?

WNH: Not as much as I did my dad.

WN: Your girls helped you a lot?

WH: Yeah, when they wasn't getting married.

WN: When they weren't married.

WH: And then when they get married well then [indecipherable].

WN: Well, yeah, that's the way it always happens, isn't it? Wesley, do you remember ever being sick or anything?

WNH: Yeah. I had the pneumonia.

WN: And did the medicine man cure you or did you go to a doctor? Do you remember?

WNH: I had to go to the doctor.

WN: You had to go to the doctor for that. Who was your best friend when you were growing up? Do you remember having a best friend?

WNH: Tony Harris, I think.

WN: Was he an Indian boy? About as old as you are?

WNH: Yeah.

WN: Do you remember Tony Harris?

WH: Yeah.

WN: Was he ornery or a pretty good boy?

WH: He was ornery. He got killed in a car wreck. He was staying with us [indecipherable] raise him, too.

WN: Oh, really? And he was killed in an automobile--not the Model-T was it?

WH: No.

WNH: He got killed down at Nuyaka Indian School.

WN: Oh, tell me about that Nuyaka Indian School. Did you all ever go down there?

WH: Where?

WN: To Nuyaka?

WH: I never did, but I know where it was at.

WN: But isn't there a place you had stomp dances down there sometimes, down in that area by Deep Fork?

WNH: Yeah.

WN: I want to know, how come everybody finds Indian arrowheads down on Deep Fork?

WH: I don't know.

WN: Well, I thought maybe it was part of yours when you were killing the rabbits or something.

WH: No, I never did go down there, but I know where it was at.

WNH: Didn't you used to shoot them fish in that Deep Fork River, but I guess it broke the arrows, and that's the way--

WN: Well, when you were shooting the rabbits, did you make your own bows and arrows?

WH: Yeah.

WN: What did you make them out of?

WH: Bodock. We got a bodock tree.

WN: That one that has the big orange--the big things on it?

WH: Yeah. Of course, you make your arrow where the tree grows with that certain thing, it would go just as straight and you make arrows with that.

WN: And then you just sharpened the point?

WH: Yeah, you just peel all that skin off it, and then heat it on the blaze fire. Brown it. And then make a spike. Then you cut the spike in a V-shape and 00:14:00wrap it over that.

WN: What did you wrap it with?

WH: A hammer.

WN: A hammer? And just hammered it like that?

WH: Yeah.

WN: What did you use for feathers? Did you have a feather on the end?

WH: That's when you make a--kill a squirrel, you put that feather on--any kind of feather. You put that feather on there.

WN: Chicken feather or anything?

WH: Yeah. Shoot and make it go straight.

WN: I would have starved to death back there. I bet I couldn't have shot.

WH: You didn't kill a squirrel with no gun. You shoot it with a bow and arrow.

WN: Did you ever kill a squirrel with a bow and arrow, Wesley?

[Inaudible]

WH: Fish. Shoot the fish.

WN: He shot the fish with the--yeah.

WNH: I was too young to shoot bow and arrows. I tried to shoot them, but I couldn't [indecipherable].

WN: He didn't have the patience, did he? How long has your husband been dead, Mrs. Harjo?

WH: Oh, how long is it, Wesley?

WNH: About 30 years.

WH: I think he died in 1960, along in there.

WN: Okay, did you have a special Indian ceremony for him?

WH: Huh uh.

WN: Just a regular church.

WH: Just at church.

WN: Just at the church. How many children do you have living now, Mrs. Harjo? Just Wesley?

WH: And two girls.

WN: And the two girls. I forgot to tell you when we were doing this. This is March the 6th, 1991, so they'll know when I was interviewing. I forgot to tell that at the very first. Well, let me see what else I need to ask you. I'm just--eh--let me see. I should have just gone over here to the page and asked 00:16:00you some more. Oh, what did your husband do? Did he do anything but farm?

WH: That's all. He didn't work. That's the reason when he passed away, I didn't get no kind of--

WN: You didn't get any pension or?

WH: No.

WN: You didn't get anything? You don't get a government check or anything? That's awful! That's terrible.

WH: We just didn't have no money to buy clothes, just barely living buy a little rent. My cattle [inaudible] and then we had someone was renting up here. We'd collect that rent at $3 a month for about four or five houses, and we'd live on that. Buy us something to eat, clothes--

WN: That is terrible. You know, you Indians really ought to have an uprising and shoot all the white people. That's what you should do. That's terrible, Mrs. Harjo.

WNH: Yeah, it was pretty rough back in them days.

WN: That is awful. I don't know how you can even talk to a white person.

WH: I think in Muskogee they used give the kids a little clothes, shoes and sweaters or something like that when they going to school.

WN: But not much.

WH: Not much, no. [Indecipherable] no pants or shirts or nothing like that. They get shoes and coats and sweaters.

WN: Yeah. Well, that is, that is terrible. Well now you all can go to the Indian 00:18:00Hospital, but then you have to drive to Claremore, don't you? Do you, can you go to the hospital now over at Okmulgee?

WNH: No, they got one over at Okemah.

WN: Okemah for you. Well, do you get any, you don't get any Indian benefits at all now then?

WH: No.

WN: That is terrible. I'm going to write my congressman. I think that's awful Mrs. Harjo. Well, you have done--

WH: This year, I guess it must be about a year ago, they told me to get on that disabled social security.

WN: Uh huh.

WH: So, I signed up on that.

WN: Did you get it?

WH: I got $137.

WN: A month?

WH: A month. Could you live off of $137?

WN: No! Well, I'd have to change my way of living, I tell you. Is that what you live on?

WH: That's all I get.

WN: Well, I swear, I did not know that.

WH: 'Course Wesley draw soldier pension.

WN: Yeah.

WH: Cause he'd been to the army.

WN: Well, of course. But you earned every dime of that in the service. When did you go into the service, Wesley?

WNH: Nineteen-forty--I think it was forty-one.

WN: And did you have to--you served overseas?

WNH: Yeah.

WN: Where were you stationed?

WNH: In the navy.

WN: Oh. In the navy. And were you wounded then?

WNH: Huh?

WN: Were you wounded or anything but you get a service pension?

WNH: No. When you're in combat all the time, they'd get pretty lucky, they'd get wounded.

WN: Yes, I'd say you were lucky. I remember your grandson, Larry. I had him in school. He was such a handsome boy. Ornery but handsome. I think it's wonderful 00:20:00that you've come back here to be with your mother.

WNH: Yeah.

WN: You help her all the time now?

WNH: Yeah.

WN: She looks like she's pretty agile herself. You do all your own work and everything, Mrs. Harjo? You do your own cooking?

WH: No. I can't.

WN: You can't cook. Do you cook for her, Wesley?

WH: I can, I can cook, but, and I can clean the kitchen up, but I can't clean no big room or things like that.

WN: Yeah. Well.

WH: Of course, I can't get around too good. I just clean the kitchen and wash dishes. I can cook a meal.

WN: Oh, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. How many children, grandchildren do you have?

WH: Oh, about nine.

WN: About nine? And how many great grandchildren?

WH: Ten, eleven.

WN: You all ever get together and have any--

WH: No. They won't even come see me yet.

WN: They won't? That's terrible. Well, do they live far away?

WH: Well, one lives in, oh dear, not Chickasaw, but that other--Anadarko.

WN: Anadarko.

WH: And then Taylor had three, but I don't know where they went. Tulsa, but I don't where they at now.

WN: Well, now, Wesley, I'm so glad I got your voice on. You know what I'm going to do for this? I'm going to put in the library, down here, so that people who come after us, if they want to hear Mrs. Harjo or any one of your children or grandchildren are going to want to hear you talk, and we are going to have in down at the library. But I am going to make a copy of this and give to you all 00:22:00so that you'll have it for your family--for your family, too. I want to know, if you were going to tell your children, give your children and grandchildren any advice, what would you like to say to your grandchildren? You tell me something that you'd like to say to your children and your grandchildren.

WH: Oh, you're meaning, I would like to talk to them?

WN: Yes, tell them what you want them to do after you are gone. Yeah, I want you to tell them so that when they come to listen, they will say, hey, look what my grandmother wanted me to do, and maybe they'll do it.

WH: Well, I wouldn't know how to say that, but I don't know what I would say about them.

WN: What would, what do you want them to do? Tell them how you want them to act after you're gone. You're going to be up there looking down at them.

WH: Go to church and do right and go to Sunday school or something like that.

WN: Yes, that's right.

WH: If I pass and go on, well, they can go to church and Sunday school go to these Indian church.

WN: That's what I want you tell them. Go to the Indian churches and learn about their ancestors. They need to, don't they?

WH: Yeah.

WN: Because we need to make some changes for the Indians. I really think we do. We owe you guys a lot. Yes, we really do. We came in and took your land. Did you ever feel resentful? Did you ever hate the white person for some of the things sometimes?

WH: No. I don't hate nobody.

WN: Well, I know you don't but didn't you feel badly sometimes or didn't you feel--you must be a wonderful Christian that's all I've got to say. I would have 00:24:00taken one of those arrows and run it through their belly button.

WH: You know I don't hate white folk, and I don't hate colored, and I don't hate--

[Inaudible]

WN: Okay, Wesley. Well, that's wonderful, that's wonderful.

WH: Cause I don't, I ain't done nothing to them, and I don't think they anything to me.

WN: Well, that's a wonderful--

WH: So I don't have nothing against them.

WN: That's wonderful. Well, I just think that's great. And I want to tell you that I appreciate--

WH: I know one white man sure hate colored people.

WN: Oh, that's too bad, isn't it?

WH: I wonder how come?

WN: I don't know because we all come from God, don't we?

WH: We all going to the same place.

WN: That's right. And, boy, when were--

WH: [Indecipherable] divided.

WN: That's right. And when were in that cemetery, nobody going to know the difference between anything. No, they really aren't. I wish you'd sing some more for me in Indian.

WH: Sing some more?

WN: Uh huh. Or sing some more for me in Indian. Because I think that's so wonderful. We've got a little bit left on our tape, and I want you to tell me some more in Indian.

WH: (Sings in Indian). I'll say three times.

WN: Okay.

WH: (Sings in Indian).

WN: Oh, that's great. Now one other thing I want you to tell me. When I was a little girl and went to the stomp dances, they always had a big pot that they had cooking something in, you know, at the stomp dances? What was in that pot?

WH: Oh, they'd make uh--they'd call it the beef (ph) soup for Indian. It had 00:26:00corn and make that pot for soup for the Indians.

WN: Alright then, what was in that pot where the boys scratched their arms and put some of that stuff on the--they took sticks and--

WH: [Indecipherable]

WN: No. When they were dancing.

WH: Oh. I don't know. They had a certain doctor to doctor them.

WN: And they put in on there.

WH: Yeah. But I don't--

WN: But you don't know what was in it.

WH: Huh uh.

WN: Oh, okay.

WH: I know they used that red root.

WN: Red root? Can you think of anything else you used for medicine?

WH: Uh, let's see. What did they call that? I can't recall the name of that medicine. I know what it is in Creek, but--

WN: Well, say it in Creek. What was it?

WH: (Speaks Creek).

WN: Okay. What else did you use for medicine? Did you use--

WH: Oh, you could use this horsemint and uh--

WN: What did that cure?

WH: Well, it make you medicine, well they put that in there. Sassafras tea.

WN: Where did you get the sassafras?

WH: Well, you go down towards Muskogee and get it. They can dig that root and you can buy it now. You can buy that sassafras.

WN: Well, I declare. I didn't know that.

WH: You didn't?

WN: No.

WH: Yeah, the sell it in the store.

WN: Well, can you remember anything else you used for medicine? When you had a toothache, what did you do? A toothache.

WH: If a tree had lightning had hit a tree, lightning had struck a tree, and you 00:28:00get that splinter, like a splinter come off it, you can find a little splinter, and just pick that place where that toothache is. [Indecipherable] and that tooth will rot out.

WN: You gotta be kidding--I'm gonna try that.

WH: Yeah. I don't do it now because I don't have no teeth.

WN: When did you lose--

WH: I guess I done, well, see the Indians had a chewing gum. It's a tree grows, an Indian makes gum out of it.

WN: Well, how did you get the gum out of the tree?

WH: Strip that first bark off that tree and get the second bark, and then they put it in that water and beat it. And beat it fine, and then they'd take that and chew it. And when they chew it, that'd get chewing gum. But it rotten your teeth.

WN: It did rot your teeth?

WH: Oh, yeah. That's the reason I ain't got no teeth now.

WN: Cause you chewed it all the time.

WH: Cause we used to chew that all the time. I got three of them growing right out yonder there that tree that make that gum.

WN: And what's the name of that tree?

WH: I don't know. They just called it [indecipherable].

WN: Well, I'm going to have to look at that tree and see if I can figure out what it is. Did you ever use feathers, you know, for--

WH: On the head?

WN: Uh huh. Never used feathers? You used ribbons on your--

WH: Yeah. You actually call that the ribbon dance.

WN: The ribbon dance. And the gar dance?

WH: Yeah.

WN: And the buffalo dance.

WH: Yeah.

WN: Did you ever see any buffalo out here?

WH: No. I never did use that, but I did use that ribbon dance.

WN: Oh, and did your children learn to do those dances, too?

WH: No.

WN: They didn't? Not any of them?