Native American Biography: John Joseph Mathews, Osage

 John Joseph Mathews was Osage.  This was the tribe that many members were murdered for the "head" rights, which gave them oil money.  He became a very important person among the Osage and was their spokesperson.  He was university educated, University of Oklahoma and Oxford, and served as a pilot in WWI.  He became a writer of books.  His first, Wah 'kon-tah: The Osage and the White Man's Road (1929) was a best seller.  His second book, Sundown (1934) would be his most significant.  It explored the effect of the oil boom on the Osage people and looked at the murder of the Osage by those wanting oil money.  This book is his only novel.  In the 1930s he served two terms on the Osage Nation Tribal Council.  He also served on the Oklahoma State Board of Education. He married and had two children by his first wife, however he walked away and had little contact with them.

He built an unusual home on his reservation property and called it The Blackjacks.  It was a two room sandstone home with a fireplace in the middle.  The home is now part of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and seasonally open to tours.  From here he continued writing.  His third book was Talking to the Moon (1945) about his life among the Osage.  He wrote a biography of a prominent oilman, Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland (1951).  He also published a book of stories from the Osage people based on his research with Osage elders, The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961). He remarried a widow and she had two children who he raised with his wife.  

In his later life he was working on a three volume autobiography.  One volume was publish posthumously, Twenty Thousand Mornings (2012), edited by Susan Kalter.  Kalter also edited a group of short stories which was also published, Old Three Toes and other Stories of Survival and Extinction (2015).  Mathews passed away in 1979 and at his request was buried in the garden of his home Blackjacks.  He was inducted posthumously into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame.  

Historical Markers at Creighton University: Before the University and the University

 

Native Americans before the University: Omaha, Ponca, Ioway and Oto.  The Pawnee were here originally before these later arriving tribes

History of Creighton University

Mountain Man: Old Bill Williams

William Sherley Williams, known as old Bill was a mountain man of some renown, but also served as an interpreter for the U.S. as he knew several languages.   He was born in 1787 in North Carolina.  His family moved to St. Louis.  When he was 17 he left home to be a preacher, and then became a mountain man/ fur trapper.  He also became a trail guide.  He married into the Osage nation, A-Ci'n-ga (Wind Blossom) and had two daughters by his wife.   He helped to translate the bible into Osage.  He also became a trail guide.  His daughters both married John Allen Mathews, first Mary Ann and when she died then Sara.  Old Bill Williams is the grandfather of John Joseph Mathews, an Osage writer.  He helped the blaze the Santa Fe Trail and traveled in the southwest.  He traveled with Albert Pike.  He trapped with Kit Carson along the Green River and he had friendships with the Utes.  He served as guide for the John C. Fremont fourth expedition which became mired in snow and eleven members died.  In 1849 he returned to the area with Dr. Benjamin Kern to look for survivors as well as papers that had been lost.  While on this mission he and Dr. Kern were killed by Ute Indians.  The town of Williams in Arizona is named for him and there is a statue there.  

Omaha Indians The Sacred Pole as per Fontenelle Park

The Cottonwood tree is the state tree of Omaha.  But before that designation it was the sacred pole, which represented the venerable man.

 

Book Review: The Inca Ruins of Machu Picchu

 The Inca Ruins of Machu Picchu a Wonders of the World book by Jennifer Silate, Kidhaven Press, Thomson Gale, Detroit, 2006.

In 1911 Hiram Bingham came to Peru looking for an ancient Incan city, Vilcabamba.  He followed the old Incan road north of Cuzco.  eventually a local told him of, and guided him to ruins on top of a mountain above the Urubamba River.  This turned out to. by Machu Picchu, not the ancient city he was looking for, but it was an impressive site.  He found intricately carved steps, walls tightly carved and jigsawed together.  There tamples.  The ruins contained intricate canals, and a system of agricultural terraces for capturing moisture and raising crops.  The ruins also contain sixteen fountains.

The question came up, What is the purpose for the buildings?  Most studies point to Machu Picchu being a retreat for affluent Inca.  This is derived from the burial sits discovered.  Court documents indicate that the estate of Pachacuti petitioned for the return of his retreat.  It was identified as Picchu.  The beauty of Machu Picchu appears to be a tribute to Pichacuti who had it built as a retreat.  The ruins also appear to contain a private temple.  

Magazine Article Review: Omaha's 1909 Train Robbery

 Omaha's 1909 Train Robbery by David L. Bristow, Nebraskaland Magazine, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Lincoln, Nebraska, April 2026, pp 36-39.

On an eastbound train in Omaha, just after passing 72nd street on the track that now runs parallel just south of I80 two bandits jumped onto the engine wearing masks, and accosted the engineer.  They had him stop where there was a fire signal just west of 42nd where the train went through a ravine which provided cover for the crooks.  They were met there by two or three other men.  In about 15 minutes they break into the ail car and take a great deal of the mail and put it into a car before they all take off and order the train to continue to Omaha.  At the South Omaha station a report was made of the robbery.  This was a passenger train but the robbers did not interact with the passengers other than to fire their guns in the air to keep them under control.  

There were no clues in the case for several dats, other than the automobile.  People were asking about seeing four or five men in a car.  It wasn't until some boys from Brown Elementary School found a couple guns, slouch hats and polkadot masks that there was any progress in the case.  Slouch hats and polkadot face coverings had been used in the robbery.  The boys were playing with the slouch hats at school, and someone from the school noticed them.  Police staked out the area where the items were found, and when the thieves came back they were arrested.  Three men were arrested, but the police were sure there was at least another accomplice.  The were able to get his information from a photo they found with a girl and four men.  Turns out they were a criminal group from the Spokane Washington Area.  Janitors from Brown Elementary found the mail in the attic of the school.  The mail was missing anything of value.  Four men went to jail but one later escaped and lived in Canada.  He was not extrdited because they locals liked him.  

I would recommend this article for reading and for the pictures.  Brown School was at 19th and U.  It has since been demolished and the area used for parking for the middle school across the street.  The boys and the janitors shared in the reward.

Book Review: The Summer of the Bone Horses

 The Summer of the Bone Horses by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, illustrated by Steph Littlebird, Amulet Books, New York, 2015.

The author in this book tells a typical Sioux story based on things that happened to her brother, Eddie.  At the same time the author was with her other grandparents, while their father underwent surgery.  The story talks about her brother's loneliness, which was alleviated somewhat when grandfather gave him a set of old bones and called them horse bones.  Traditionally horse bones were made from buffalo bones, but these were made of cow bones.  Eddie made ropes for them to play with as well as a stable and corral.  he story talked of life on the reservation and iving un rural America.

I enjoyed the story.  This gives an idea of what life was like on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota 70 years ago.