Interview with Corbin Harney, July 24, 2006

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Corbin Harney July 24 and 25, 2006 Tecopa, California Interview Conducted By Mary Palevsky © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Corbin Harney July 24 and 25, 2006 Conducted by Mary Palevsky Table of Contents Introduction: birth in Little Valley, ID, deaths of parents and grandparents, childhood in Idaho and later with uncle at Duck Valley Indian Reservation 1 Life on Duck Valley Indian Reservation: gathering food, and prayers for continuation of food 4 Discovers healing powers and family background of healers, works with uncle as a healer at Duck Valley, learns about gathering food from grandmother 6 Talks about imprisonment of people and death of father 7 Recalls experience with BIA boarding school at Duck Valley Indian Reservation 8 Leaves school, moves up into Jarbridge country alone for three years, work on BIA road project 9 Reiterates the necessity of cleanliness and prayer in the gathering of food from nature, and talks about the circular nature of life and the need for respect of others, making different kinds of natural foods ( root flour, jerky), finding water by asking birds, and hunting 12 Discusses female origin of life on Earth, and female leadership in human society 13 Talks about forced removal of native peoples by Europeans in order to exploit the Earth’s wealth ( turpentine, oil, minerals, beaver), and dispute over land ownership 15 Recalls destruction of pine trees on Indian reservation land by BIA, treatment of Indian children at Stewart Indian School 16 Talks about controversy with BIA superintendent on Duck Valley Indian Reservation re: treatment of Shoshone people vs. Paiute people, and work with Jack Peterson on treatment of Indian people by War Department, i. e., payment for scalps 18 Discusses foundation of talking circle, drum group, and spiritual gathering for Indians in Nevada, involvement in Sundance, forming Shundahai Network ( 1990s), creation of healing center in Tecopa, CA 19 Remembers Indian dance customs, talks about gift of healing present in everyone and healing the sick through natural spirits 20 Talks about healing radiation victims in St. George, Utah, and travels throughout the world 21 Discusses involvement in the NTS, and differences in how various people see the land, and talks about his first two books 23 Talks about corruption among American leaders, trouble that will be caused in U. S. society by the current war efforts, untruths told by political leaders and scientists 25 Reflects on the demise of the doctor in Russian and American society and their reliance upon computers, and necessity for truth- telling by political leaders and scientists 26 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 Discusses the necessity of unity of all peoples, especially of women, to lead people out of the darkness which the world has become 27 Talks about creation of spiritual healing center in Tecopa, CA 29 Talks again about healing, and people’s reliance upon others for healing, and discusses personal health problems and inability of doctors to discover what is wrong 33 Tells Indian stories illustrating how animal life protects and saves human life, and emphasizes importance of passing the stories from one generation to the other 35 Gives examples of using plant life for natural health remedies, and talks about necessity of care and cleanliness in dealing with plants and animals 38 Describes gathering, drying, and preparation of native foods 43 Talks about desire of non- native people today to learn Indian ways, because we will eventually have to rely on nature in order to survive 44 Recounts how he became a doctor, and reiterates importance of nature in healing 45 Talks about the necessity of “ rules and regulations” to keep nature in harmony 47 Discusses importance of songs sent from spirits in doctoring 48 Conclusion: details controversy with BIA superintendent at Duck Valley Indian Reservation re: favorable treatment of certain Indian peoples over others 49 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Corbin Harney July 24 and 25, 2006 in Tecopa, CA Conducted by Mary Palevsky July 24, 2006 Interview recorded on audio and video [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disc 1. Mary Palevsky: Why don’t you tell me about the trip you’re going to take? I’m just testing the sound level. Corbin Harney: Well, the trip that I’m going to take into Oregon where the healers [ are] coming together, Indian healers, that’s what’s coming, so I’m going to go see them, see what kind of problem that I got, so they’ll tell me. OK, I’m going to stop and see if we can hear this OK. [ Pause] OK, so now talk again so I can make sure— oh yeah, I’ve got you great now. Thank you. OK. As I said before we started, I thought it might be interesting for people who are trying to understand this history to know something about your background, so as much as you can tell me about where you were born and what your early days were like— OK, OK, OK. Well, my name is Corbin Harney. As I was told at one from the beginning, I was born in Little Valley, Idaho. When I was born, my mom passed on when I was two hours old, I’ve been told. I don’t know my mom. I never seen a picture of her. I don’t even know where her resting place is today. But I think I know the trail that they have came at that time, everybody travels on wagons, there was no automobiles. When she passed on, they brought her back toward Duck Valley Indian Reservation, but they could never get there with her body, as I’ve been told. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 But far as my dad goes, I don’t even know my dad. My dad, his life was taken by the War Department because they were gathering Indian people at that time for prisoners, prisoner of war they call it. And those are the reasons why my grandpa and my grandma is the one that raised me until I was seven years of age. Then they passed on when I was seven, in Fort Hall, Idaho. I remember where they were buried, at what they call Gibson. That’s their ground where they bury people. In other words, a cemetery, as they call it. As I remember seeing them, because they died about three days apart. And I didn’t have anybody because my grandma and grandpa passed on at that time. I only had my uncle, a fellow by the name of John Adams. And then he had problems of his own, I guess, so he left me in Fort Hall with some people. So I roamed from one family to the other, one week at a time. So what I learnt the hard way, not to do what I have to do because I was told by some people not to do this, not to do that. Because I remember when I was young, staying with a family that had a [ 00: 05: 00] big ranch out of Blackfoot, Idaho, and one time they went to Blackfoot and left me in the house and told me not to monkey with the latch on the doors. But when you were told that, you had to monkey with it. That’s all there is to it. And I locked myself out during the winter months. That was in, I think it was in February. And I didn’t have no place to sleep. But they had horses there. Their work horses was them big Belgian horses, the great big ones. And I tried to sleep under their manger where they were eating their food, but they were putting the steam on me so bad that I was kind of getting wet, so I got out of the manger and got on top of the two horses, so they stand [ side] by side, and then I keep turning over and over and over. They never separated. They just stood there and I guess they knew they were taking care of me. And the next morning, when daylight came, UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 and then I tried to go in the house again and I couldn’t, so finally they came home about way late, and then they bawled me out because you know I had locked myself out. So the next bunch that I went to, next people, I stayed there for about a week, I guess. They took care of me for another week. Week after week, I went after different families. At that time, people used to take care of one another. They cared for each other. And those are how I was raised, raised old enough that I can be, understand what the world was about. At that time, my uncle had problems and he went there to see me and then he said, Well, I can’t take you back to my home because my wife passed on and my baby passed on, so there was nobody at the house. He had a log cabin. So I stayed with another family a long time, I don’t know, about a couple of weeks, I would say. And they taught me a lot of different things and how to work, because I was told to work. So I prepared myself food, if I had to, when I was young. What kind of work would you do, these different places? Well, leveling land, walk behind the two teams, and harrowing, and putting the garden in, and so on and so forth. There was a lot of work and of course they’d have to teach me how. And then when I did come back with my uncle, his daughter and her husband picked me up at Fort Hall, brought me to Duck Valley Indian Reservation. So I was born out in the sticks, in other words. I didn’t have no birth certificate. There was no such thing as that I had a record by any hospitals or anything. Do you know about what year that was? I know where I was at, you know. Now I see where I was born at when I go through it. So, you know, this is something that I had to learn the hard way. People have pointed out to me, this is where you were born at, during the time when they were shearing sheep. My grandpa was shearing sheep in that part of the country. That’s how they made their living. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 What was your grandpa’s name? Sam Harney. So that’s the reason why I was named Harney. Because at one time you followed your grandpa and your grandma’s name, not this phony name that we go by, the European names. We don’t go by them things. We had to go by our Indian name. The last [ 00: 10: 00] name I got was Harney because my grandpa was a Harney, my grandma was a Harney. What was her first name? I don’t remember. All I remember, I was told that my mother’s name was Irene, but I don’t know. But all I know, her name on a piece of paper was a Shoshone— So- so- neh. They call it So- so- neh, not Shoshone, but So- so- neh. That means, you know, a bed, a so- neh, you lay down on it, and that was her name. And then when I got brought back to Duck Valley, then my uncle took me over, and him and I lived together. And then her daughter. There was three of us living in a tent. At that time, there were no houses. There were just mud houses or a tent. That’s how I lived with my uncle. What kind of food— did you raise your food or—? No, we gathered our food from the nature. We had to get groundhogs, squirrels, chicken, sage chicken, deer, antelopes, and so forth. Roots that we’d get, different kind of roots, were different kind of food. And that’s how we survived. We’d dry them during the summer months and you’d use it for the winter months. All different kind of berries. You don’t play around. You had to go out to work. It’s not like nowadays. Whatever you wanted, you had to go out there and get them up in the hills. So we’d dry them for the winter use, and that’s what we’d survive on. A lot of rabbit, dried rabbit. Lots of groundhogs. Lots of sage chicken. All different kind of birds. We don’t have no eggs during the winter months. In the spring months, we’d have lots of eggs, lots of duck eggs, sage hen eggs, blackbird eggs, different kind of eggs. The only time we’d have UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 anything green to eat was in the spring of the year when things start growing. Then we’d have something green to eat, roots of all different kinds, we had to wait until the season is there. We don’t get the green anytime we’d feel like it, anytime we’d want to. They taught us how to pray for them, ask their life to continue. That was really something that was hard because you can’t touch nothing without praying for it first, telling them to grow healthy and strong, so that way you can keep me healthy when I do eat you, and so forth. All different kind of berries, everything is prayed for. Before we take any life, we had to tell them the reason why we’re taking the life. Not anytime. It’s got to be at a certain time. It’s got to be the season for it, when they’re fat and tender. They made sure that we understand those things. Like our roots, like our wild potatoes we get in the fall of the year, we had to take care of them and dry them up, and there’s flowers that we make out of, it’s what they call it toza. It’s a big root, white man calls it [ root]. We had to have that. We’d have turnips, we’d have carrots, all of that was grown by the nature. Not this turnip that we get now, not this carrots that we got now. It’s the white carrots that still grows out in the hills. Today I see it. Those are the things that we had to survive on, because people didn’t have no [ 00: 15: 00] money. Just a very few people work for the government. Very few people, like my uncle, he was milking cows for the agent, the superintendent and the people that’s supposed to teach us what it is. So those are the things that I learnt the hard way. And then I knew from the beginning of my life that I was special, I guess. I can see things in the people, and I can see things, different kind of seeing I see, because my uncle keep telling me, That’s your gift. Make sure you take care of your gift. Because he was a doctor. He was an Indian doctor. So he saw that in you. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 And he saw that in me, I guess. My grandma was a healer, my grandpa was a healer, and I understand my mother was a healer, but I don’t know, like I say. I don’t know about my dad. I have no idea about him. But I know that when he [ my uncle] goes doctoring people, he used to go from one house to the other, or one tent to the other, in other words, where they’re living, to go doctor people. We’d have to travel miles sometimes, two, three miles, walking. He had a horse, a saddle horse that he’d usually ride if he had to go a long distance, but he don’t take me with him, but on short distance he does, and I go with him and watch him doctor people, what he does, and then I can see the sickness in the people at that time. So those are the things that I learnt, and from the beginning of that, you know, the beginning of my life. So a lot of times I never told nobody what I do. I tried to tell my uncle one time. I said I seen this kind of sickness in a man. He told me, Don’t tell me. I might see it different than you. But, you know, he said, Don’t tell me about it. Don’t talk to nobody about it, you know, unless if you were asked by the people that’s sickly, don’t go over there and just start telling people that you’re gifted and this and that, you know. Those are the reasons why I’d travel by myself in the hills, you know, when I was young. I understand because my grandma used to take me up in the hills, point me out to the what kind of plant we used this plant for, what we use the other plant for, what we can survive on, how to prepare, and so on and so forth. How to make traps to catch different little animals, and so forth. And by talking to them, you can bring them in. So that’s what I learnt from them. So when my grandma used to tell me, when they were taken prisoner, prisoner of war at that time, they were over there at, what they call, in B. C. [ British Columbia] where the big prison camp was for the Indian people. So they were marched over there. That’s where they were marching my dad, I guess, but he didn’t want to go, but they took his life anyway on the road. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 So they lived there for six years, they told me, Vancouver, Washington, Vancouver, B. C. That’s a big, big, I guess it’s a prison there. And then she used to talk about all of that. And then when they were coming back, when they were coming back and then they say they slaughtered about fourteen hundred people in one box canyon. Then I went over there just to see what my grandma told me, then I went to see it, and me and my other friend of mine, we went and uncovered fourteen skulls out there in the sagebrush in a box canyon. This was later when you went back? It was way later, you know, when I was already a pretty good- sized kid. And you found those skulls. [ 00: 20: 00] And then, you know, before that, you know, the Bureau of Indian Affairs [ BIA] wanted to put me to school. Yes, I was going to ask about school. And then put me into a different kind of school. So they picked me up one time up in the people when I was living with a different people. In the evening they came in and came and picked me up and put me to jail. The jail was made out of two- by- sixes, flat on top of each other, got a window cut— there’s no window in it, but there’s a door with a steel door on it. And I stayed there. We had an old mattress there. There was no water. There was nothing in this jail. So they took me to school in the morning, nine o’clock, to school. There was a boarding school there. And I go over there at nine o’clock. At noontime I ate good because that’s the only time I ate a meal, because everybody already ate, but I didn’t have nothing. And then during the noon hours I ate good, tried to do the best I can. I ate hurry up and choke it down much as I can. And then Friday night, the police that’s supposed to pick me up never came up. It was all fenced in with eight- foot netting fence all the way around the school. So Friday came. When he didn’t UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 pick me up, so I dug a hole underneath the fence and I got out and I went to my uncle’s place and I told him by God, I’m not going to go to school no more because what I seen in school at that time, a young lady, young girls, they were poking their head with a pencil. Blood was running down their face. And the boys, their ears were, you know, pulled and hit with a triangle ruler, and knocked us down sometimes, their ears where they’re attached onto your head. And I seen that happen. Where was the school now? In Duck Valley. Not Death Valley but Duck Valley, you know. So I went over there and told my uncle that night, I said, By God, I’m not going to go to school no more. He told me, By God, if you don’t want to go to school, you’re going to have to hide out. Don’t tell me. But you got your own horses, you got your own— See, my mom and my grandpa, they had horses, they had a bunch of horses. They used to sell horses to the War Department one time. And then a fellow by the name of J. W., I don’t know who he is, white man, he buys horses from the Indian people, then he sells them to the War Department. And that’s how I knew them horses because I used to ride two horses that I particularly loved. So he told me, Go ahead and take them horses and go up in the hills. Don’t tell me where you’re going. I don’t want you to be telling nobody. I don’t want you to see nobody. If you see somebody coming, always hide out. So I went up in the hills about, I would say, thirty, maybe forty miles away from the reservation, outside the reservation. So there was a log cabin that I have seen there, whether the miners used, or either the trappers used one time. But I seen this log cabin there when I was young. Then I went over there because it was away from everybody. It’s up, you know, over there toward what they call Jarbridge country right today as they call it. It’s a wilderness area. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 You can’t— you know, big hills, I can see all over the, you know, when I get on top of the hills, all the trails and all the wagon trails and whatnot. So I hid there for three years. How old were you? I would say about nine, I guess. About nine. I stayed there three years and then one guy told me, he said— one guy, the old man that I know, he bought me a .22 single- shot one time, and he brought me some shells for it, the .22, you know, the short ones, you know. [ 00: 25: 00] But I used that for, you know, kill groundhogs or a chicken or whatever. There were lots of things to eat at that time. Did you see anybody? And when I do kill a deer, I jerky it. I’d jerky all of those things. Because I was prepared to do all of those, which my grandma used to tell me, by God, always have a knife with you, knife and some kind of flint that you can start a fire with, white flints, you know. They’re easy to start fire with. So during that time— then I asked this old man one time, I said, when he would give me the .22, short .22, I said, I want a scissor, a big shear scissor to cut hay for my horses for the winter use. So I made a willow corral around the horses, so they can have something to eat. So in the wintertime they stayed in this thing that I built for them. Had a lot of snow. Sometimes you get about four feet of snow. So I put lots of snow up against that cabin that I was staying in and keep it warm that way. And I made a little stove out of a washtub, that big around [ indicating size] I guess. Cut a hole in it. There was a stovepipe there, and then I made [ so] the smoke goes out. So those things that I did at that time when I was very young. And finally one time that a guy I knew, and he was working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They were building a road, what they call toward Crescent Valley right now, as it’s called. He was running a steam shovel at UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 that time. But one time he told me, he said, Why don’t you come and work for me? He said, By God, you know, I’ll take care of you, and then you can, you know, stay with me, then I’ll make sandwiches for us every day. So I went with him. So I greased his machine up every morning early, about twenty minutes before eight o’clock. And then noontime, when he was eating lunch, then I would grease the machine up at that time. At that time, the gears, you had to have tars on them, no grease, you know. So I’d do all that for about, I don’t know, about a month, I guess. So he never did, you know, give me money, but he took care of me. So one time he didn’t show up for work, one Monday morning. I was pretty good- sized then already. But I understand that machine, how it works, because I used to, you know, swing it around and do whatever I can with it during the noon hour while he was eating, when I’d grease it up. In the morning I’d do the same thing. I had to run the, you know, the shovel back and forth so the tar would work easier when he’s, you know, dropping it down. So I remembered all of those things, the cables and whatnot, it’s all cable- operated. So one time, by God, when he didn’t show up, there was eleven trucks that was hauling dirt, you know, on this road that they were building. So everybody told me, he said, Load us up. And I was scared to and I didn’t want to. So I didn’t want to do that. And then finally this one guy that I know, he had a bunch of kids, he said, If you don’t load me up, how am I going to feed my children? So you better, you know, you better, you know, feed me and, you know, load my truck up for me. I said, OK, I said, OK, I’ll do that for you. So the truck was on this side, and then another truck pulls on this other side, so I can’t help but load him up and load this guy up, and I did do that all day long, you know, and didn’t have no lunch at all because I didn’t have nobody to bring me lunch or nothing. So I, you know, I stayed there, you know. And the next day I was there again, and then I done the same UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 thing. Finally the big superintendent, I guess, over the road department came one time and he [ 00: 30: 00] told me, he said, You’re doing a good job. He said, You want this job? I told him, No, I don’t want this job. Well, he told me, he said, well, you know, he’s going to try to bring an operator in to work with that shovel. But he never have. I worked there for, I don’t know, about two, three weeks, I guess, on that machine. And then another guy came and told me, You better get on the patrol, get on the patrol leveling the roads out. I didn’t know a thing about those things but, you know, I had to learn the hard way, you know, right from the beginning. So it was really a tough thing. That’s how my life begins at that time. It was really a tough one but still at the same time I have learnt from my grandpa, my grandma, my uncle, and so on and so forth, how to live with the nature, how to take care of the nature. I was taught never to misuse the nature, always praying for it, always making sure that I don’t touch the berries before I talk to it. I was taught that. I think all the young people were taught that from the beginning, because I hear them talk about that. Don’t touch anything unless if you pray for it. Clean yourself off first. Cleanse yourself before you touch anything, I don’t care what it is. Roots the same way, roots that we survive on. There’s all different kinds of roots out there that we can survive on. There’s roots out here that I see that I can survive on them. There’s roots up here, up in the hills that I can see. I can survive off of that. But they’re drying up, you know. But at that time, in my time when I was young, I was taught all of that. So never say anything to anybody, because everything’s going to come back to you, they keep telling me. If you say something bad about somebody, it’ll always come back to you, because everything’s made in a circle, I don’t care what it is. We’re made in a circle but we don’t UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 realize it. We always make a circle. We always come back to where the beginning is. So everything is that way. So when the world made everything round, there’s nothing square out there. Everything is round, you know, there is everything in circle. Our berries in a circle, our food’s in circle, and then all the roots in circle, when they grow. But there are a lot of, you know, roots out there. I was taught never to touch it until in June. June, you can gather them, that’s that, you know, toza, but they’re that big around [ indicating size]. They’re pretty good size. But you get that, and then you dry them up and then, you know, then you can mash them. Then you make flour out of them. And then you make flour of out them and then you can flatten it out, you know, like what they call now is that popcorn— I don’t know what they call it, popcorn something that’s flat. You get them in layers, you know, something like that. But you pour water on it, then they’ll get heavy, then it turns to flour. Then you can make a dumpling out of it, you can make anything out of that, you know. Because that was the same with making the jerky. If you got a jerky maybe that big [ indicating size], you know, maybe big as your hand, if you got a jerky, you can chase a deer, you can outrun him in a few days, because he has to eat, he has to drink water. You don’t. You keep a- going. You just are ready, you know, because you got this jerky in your hand. And then you got birds out here would give you water. Some sun dancers will tell you the same thing today. There’s some birds out here that sing songs in the morning. They give you water if you ask them to. That’s what they call a dowse now. The white man calls them dove, but we call them hey- wee [ sp]. So, you know, they can give you water on the run, you know, if you ask them. [ 00: 35: 00] And then you got this food to eat on the run. You can outrun, animal, any animal, as far as that goes, because you’re not stopping. He has to stop. He has to stop to sleep and he has to UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 stop to eat, he has to stop to drink water, but you can catch up to him pretty soon. That’s the way the people used to do it a long time ago. And of course they used bow and arrow afterwards and so forth. So those are the things that I learnt from the beginning of my life. It was tough, I thought, but as I grow older I begin to understand. That’s what I taught nowadays. Look at the nature, how the nature works. Right today, I talk about those things. Who put us here to begin with? Why are we here as humans? Who put us here? Somebody put us here. So it all comes from down to a female. Female is the one that put us here. You look at all of this plant life out there. Female is the one that makes them grow a lot more. Look at the birds that you, you know. I start out by telling the young people or the people, I said look at the honeybees. They got a queen honeybee. They all follow. Ants, same way. Birds, same way. Animal, same way. Look at your buffaloes, you know. Buffalo used to roam all over the country here, all over, not just in one place. So the female is the one that leads them, to tell them that we got to stay here three or four days, and then they move them again for the next bunch so they have something, food to survive on when they come. That’s the way the woman folks were. As I remember not too long ago, they had a thirteen- woman council sitting in one area, and the twelve— and one man folks. But the man folks is all they are is just scouts. And today they’re still scouts, if you look at it. So the woman folks tells the man folk, two of you guys go that way, two of you guys go that way, two of you guys this way, and this way. Go see where we’re going to camp at the next week or so. How much food is there? How much water is there? How much of, you know, wood is there? And so on and so forth. How can we survive there? And so forth. So in about a few days’ time, the man UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 folks came back to report to the woman folks. Then the woman folks is the one that makes the decision, not a man. Man is not a decision- maker. All he is, just a scout, you know. So right from the beginning, as I see it and when I look at all of this thing, [ when] the European first came here, they were using the man folks for scout, you know, all the time. Who tells them to do this? So what they done so far is something that we have seen as a native people, because they took our life for what reason, you know. Most of our people throughout the country, in this part of the country, was moved, forced to move from one area where they were at because somebody wants something underneath him. It still shows us that today. You take Oklahoma, for one. Where were they come from