The cabin in Oklahoma Territory was small. Well, settlers cabins were all small, no matter how they have been expanded to work as movie sets. The size was limited by the trees they could get for the largest roof beams.
My grandma described it to me, remembering it from her childhood. “There was a platform on one end where Mother and Daddy slept. Nora and I slept underneath on a pallet on the floor. There was a table in the middle and a pallet was put under it for my brother Frank to sleep there at night. There was a fireplace for cooking.”
That is a pretty sparse description. Understandable, as she was 3 when they first moved there. My speculation is that they lived there for at least nine years. The records I have searched tell me that her uncle had lived in that general area for something over a decade in at least two different places. I found no record of her family during that time.
My grandma greatly admired the Indians they lived near. I don’t know what tribe it was. My grandma either didn’t understand about the tragedy of The Trail of Tears, or maybe didn’t think it a suitable story to tell a kid. In social media this time of year there is a lot being shared about the “first” Thanksgiving. History is always written by the winners, and is slanted. The stories grandma told me were the memories of a child, influenced by her parents but through her eyes. I repeat them as well as I can remember.
“The Indians had better healing than the whites did. We could have learned from them. When someone broke a bone, like an arm, they put a brace made out of stiff leather to hold it in place. It laced up, so when the swelling went down they could tighten the laces and keep the bone straight.
This one time, the chief's son was hunting in the woods. A big branch fell on him out of a tree. It was a heavy limb in a big y shape, and it hit him across the chest and upper thighs.
Uncle's cabin was closest, so they brought him there and laid him out on the bed. The doctor came and gave him morphine. When his people got there, the doctor told them ‘All I can do for him is give him these pills for the pain. If he doesn’t urinate soon, he will die.’ The native healer said ‘I can do nothing as long as you are giving him your medicine.’ So the doctor threw the box of pills in the fire.
The medicine man had the Indian women start a big pot of water heating on the fire. He put some dried leaves in it and brewed them like tea. They stripped off the injured man’s clothes. Then the medicine man took a straight razor and made tiny nicks all up and down the man’s body. They covered him with a sheet, and several women sat around the bed. They took mouthfuls of the tea and stayed it out over the sheet to wet it and keep it wet. Within an hour the injured man urinated and defecated. By the next day he woke up. They made a travois and took him home. The man was saved!”
Grandma was known to startle very badly at sudden sounds. This is the story she told to explain it. “Not long after we moved to the cabin, there was a big powwow. My uncle traded with the Indians, so we always went to their gatherings. This time, at the beginning, they brought out this big drum. It was more than six feet across and very heavy. It took at least ten men to carry it in. It had little wires coming up in circles staring from the center. Coins were attached to each one so they would jingle. The smallest coins were in the middle and then each circle had bigger and bigger coins. Men stood all around it with big drum sticks. Everyone was quiet. Then BANG! All of them hit it at the same time. I was so scared by the sound I still jump from it. That was how they started the dancing.”
When my grandma was very old, she needed cataract surgery. I never saw her doctor’s name written out, but it was pronounced Yeganna. “Every time I hear them say his name, I have to try not to giggle. One time my uncle had promised to bring this older Indian woman a chicken. When we got there, he pulled it out of the sack and put it on the table to show her. The chicken strutted a few steps, then pooped right there on the table. The old lady made a face and said something like “ee, gahna!’ In disgust. So when I hear his name, I think Dr. Chicken poop.”
My grandma only attended one year of school. She always felt ashamed of that. She said the Indian children were provided schools by law, and she envied them. She had no idea of the abuses of those schools. She would have been sad for the loss of the culture stolen by this forced education.
It is a fact that all of human history includes winners doing their best to wipe out the traces of the conquered. It hurts my heart to think about how much wisdom and beauty has been lost. This time of year families gather. Share your family stories. Write them down. We may not know the whole story, but that makes them even more precious.
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