The Wisconsinology Blog: Ancient Wisconsin and Much More

Frank Anderson is the creator of the Wisconsinology blog. It is a not-for-profit site and doesn't promote anything except the views of Frank and his guest bloggers. Wisconsinology - in my opinion - features a lot of interesting content, some of it being relevant to Native people.

One of the posts is about our own Revolutionary War hero (or, more precisely, it is about his gravesite, the exact location of which is unknown), Captain Hendrick Aupaumut.

A series of posts on Wisconsinology is called "Ancient Wisconsin.." Some of the posts in that series gave me a better understanding of the effigy mounds that I've come across in various parts of the state.

Another post is about Billie Freshette, the Menominee whose claim to fame is that she was John Dillinger's ladyfriend. Somewhere else on the site somebody writes something about Johnny Depp's Public Enemies being a good movie - I disagree with that. I thought Public Enemies was a waste of my time. But enough about me, what do you think?

Jeanette "Granny" Gardner: A Living Bridge

The 1930's was a pivital time for the Stockbridge Mohicans.  In the political sphere, the Indian New Deal gave them a chance to regain federal recognition, purchase land that was once theirs, and have a piece of it proclaimed a reservation again.

But the 1930's were just as important to the Stockbridges from a cultural point of view.

On the downside, William Dick, the last speaker of the Mohican language, died and the Stockbridge Bible was sold in a transaction that many of today's tribal members regard as illegal.  (That is a moot point, however, since the Bible was returned to the tribe in 1991.)

Anyway, on the positive side, Granny Gardner was 100 years old in 1930 and she survived for six more years.  I have seen some literature put out by the Lutheran Church which boasted that, at age 98, "'Granny' Gardner" was "the oldest Lutheran Indian in America."  It also said that she was still making splint baskets with no tools other than a jacknife and her own hands.

Jeanette (her given name) was an Oneida by birth.  When she was nine years old her grandmother sent her off to Wisconsin Territory, where the New York Indians were a somewhat closeknit community.  Our heroine became part of the Stockbridge community when she married Jeremiah Gardner. 

The thing about Granny Gardner that is so important is that she was a medicine woman.  And not just a medicine woman, but the oldest known link in a thread of knowledge that continues to this day.  The Stockbridge Mohicans have worked really hard at reviving their language and other cultural ways.  But herbal medicine seems to be the one field of knowledge that was never really "lost," forcing tribal leaders to get help from other tribes to bring it back. 

Granny Gardner taught the Native medicine to her granddaughters, Ella (Bowman) Besaw and Mary (Bowman) Burr.  Ella Besaw passed the knowledge on to her son, Dave Besaw.  Dave had been the administrator of the tribe's clinic until arthritis forced him to retire early.  He stayed actvie in retirement and passed on his knoweldge to Misty (Davids) Cook.  While speaking before a sizable audience at the 2011 tribal history conference, Besaw announced that his apprentice was ready to practice traditional healing.  The torch was passed.  About six weeks later Dave Besaw died.

Postscript: Misty (Davids) Cook has written and published a book about traditional medicine. She ignored a request from this reporter to be interviewed.  However, if you want to purchase the book, I have the following information to share, thanks to the August 15, 2013 issue of Mohican News "According to Cook, the book will be available for $35 via contacting her at 715-851-2848 or via email at niconishkawah[at]yahoo.com.

 

American Indian Gothic

Have you seen American Indian Gothic before?

It is part of the Smithsonian art collection and when you find it online it comes with this important information:

The Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History

It can be a lot easier to learn history if maps are avaliable.  That is a central premise of a book that can be very helpful to anybody trying to understand Indian history in the Great Lakes states and Ontario, Canada.  The Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History was edited by Helen Hornbeck Tanner and the Cartography is by Miklos Pinther.  It is far from just a book full of maps.  Instead, maps illustrate the text.  The two formats complement each other very nicely.

If you want to locate an Indian village in one of the Great Lakes states, this book is the place to look (see especially pages 88-89).  If you want a clear understanding of the Blackhawk War, the map and text provided (151-154) might be the best place to start.  For most peole it will be as much as they need to know. I doubt there is a better source for getting an understanding of "the frontier in transition" for this part of the country.  Tanner and Pinther have done us a great service.

Here's an example of one of the maps (click on it to get a better veiw):

Carlisle Fools Harvard: The Hidden Ball Trick

Pictured above is Jim Thorpe, known as the greatest athlete of all time.  He played football for the Carlisle Indians before going on to professional football.  However, most of Carlisle's players were not as big and powerful as Thorpe.  The average weight of the players on Glen "Pop" Warner's teams was about 170 pounds.  They were smaller than the college teams they played against.  And they made up for it with speed, deception, and tricky plays, the most famous of which was the "hunchback" or "hidden ball play."

A number of years before Jim Thorpe came to Carlisle, the team's quarterback was an All-American named Jimmie Johnson.  Johnson was a Stockbridge Mohican.  Under Johnson's leadership, Carlisle pulled off one of the most remarkable trick plays in all of sport.  And it happened during a game against the arrogant Harvard Crimson.  It was a home game for Harvard but the Carlisle Indians duped the Harvard players so badly that the fans were laughing at the home team's obliviousness.

The game and the play that I'm talking about is featured in Sally Jenkins' book, The Real All-Americans.  Fortunately for us, the chapter is already online, thanks to NPR books. 

After Carlisle, Jimmie Johnson continued his education and became a dentist.  He also continued playing football at Northwestern University.  (They didn't have strict eligibility rules back then in college sports.)  A special tribute to Jimmie Johnson was created by an unoffical website of Northwestern Football.

Louis Leroy - One of the "Real All Americans"

Admittedly the reputation of Lance Armstrong has suffered; not only from his cheating, but also from the fact that he lied about it.  Nevertheless, the 2001 biography Its Not About the Bike was a bestseller and is still favorably regarded on Amazon.  Armstrong's co-author, Sally Jenkins, came out with another popular book in 2007, this one was about the football teams at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. The Real All Americans is a good read.

This blog is often about the Stockbridge Mohicans and one young man from the tribe, Samuel Miller, is said to have played for Carlisle under the famous coach Glen "Pop" Warner.  Miller didn't make it into Jenkins' book, but another Stockbridge Indian, Louis Leroy, did.

We pick up the action in 1901.  Warner's teams were struggling because they "played against teams that were invariably bigger, wealthier, better educated and more privileged"(page 190).  On page 191, Jenkins introduces Leroy.

One of Warner's recruits was a twenty-year-old Stockbridge from Gresham, Wisconsin, named Louis Leroy.  But Leroy was only a halfhearted teammate - he really aspired to baseball's big leagues.  Leroy would stroke his arm and tell the other players "Now this here is a ten thousand dollar arm."

According to to Jenkins, Louis Leroy had run away from Carlisle before the 1901 football season, was followed by the coach, brought back to Carlisle and "tossed" into a "guardhouse."  And here's what happened next:

Leroy responded by attacking the guard who brought him his meal.  Leroy hit him with the heel of his shoe, broke out of the cell and tried to hide in a haystack.  He spent the rest of the summer in a dank cell, and was finally released in September, just in time for football practice. 

And sure enough, Louis Leroy stuck around to play some football.  In that 1901 season, Louis Leroy was a "steady performer" at halfback for Carlisle until they traveled to Detroit to play Michigan in November.  At that point Leroy took off again, and he took the team's other halfback, Edward DeMarr (another Wisconsin Indian), with him.  Without their speedy backfield, Carlisle lost to Michigan 22-0.

Louis Leroy really did make it in major league baseball, pitching for the New York Highlanders in 1905 and 1906.

A Different Perspective on St. Joseph's Industrial School from Elaine Doxtator Raddatz

It is now taught in K-12 scoial studies classes that Native American boarding schools were "tools of enforced assimilation."  And they were.  I don't intend for this blogpost to be meant as an argument against that sad reality.  Forced assimilation was a very bad thing.

Students (residents) of Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, PA.

Nevertheless, if you've been reading this blog, you know that, as a tribe, the Stockbridge Mohicans accepted a Christian mission voluntarily in 1734.  As a result, by the time some of the Stockbridges became students at St. Joseph's Industrial School on the neighboring Menominee Reservation, they were speaking better English than the white people who ran the place.  At least that is what Elaine Doxtator Raddatz's mother told her about her expeience there.

Elaine Doxtator Raddatz, a longtime resident of Chilton and Calumet County, Wisconsin, and co-author of The Stockbridge Story walked on to the next world last year.  Before she died she completed a book of family recollections, which was produced for her family members and not for sale.  However, a copy of Ms. Raddatz's book, Touching Leaves, is available at the Arvid E. Miller Library-Museum on the Stockbridge Reservation.

As Doxtator Raddatz recalls her mother telling it, St. Joseph's Industrial School was, at first, kind of scary because everybody lived in "a big, strange house."  But, at the same time, her mother said that she "loved it there," and that the "priests, brothers, and nuns helped the children with schoolwork, homemaking, gardening, and other trades. They were like a huge family."

In regards to language, here is how Doxtator Raddatz quoted her mother:

The nuns spoke German and French and the brothers and priests spoke German and Polish.  The Indian children could speak in the Menominee language and French but I couldn't speak in any of those languages.  I spoke English!

Another intriguing recollection of St. Joseph's in Touching Leaves has us witnessing how Elaine Doxtator Raddatz's mother became a good enough organist that she was asked to teach the younger girls how to play that instrument.  One of her students was a "gentle little girl named Evelyn Frechette."  Lilttle Evelyn later took on the nickname Billie and, when grown up she became the girlfriend of one of America's most notorious bank-robbers, John Dillinger.


See these other possts about the St. Josph's Industrial School:

Sarah Shillinger's Case Study: An Oral History of St. Joseph's
and
Menominee Confessions to Sister Mary Ignace

The Many Trails Symbol and a pdf about the "Folk Art" of Wisconsin Indians

Richard March of the Wisconsin Arts Board (now retired) developed an apprenticeship progran in the mid-1980's that facitated the process of passing along traditional skills also known as folk art.

March and Janet Gilmore proceeded to develop what might be called a pamphlet, now accessible online as a pdf.  The full title is

WOODLAND WAYS: Folk Arts Apprenticeships Among Wisconsin Indians 1983-1993


This blog tends to focus on the Stockbridge Mohicans and the creator of that tribe's "Many Trails" symbol, Edwin Martin, is one of the featured artists.

If you're a Stockbridge Mohican, you already know that the Many Trails symbol has been reproduced in pendants, rings and earrings. (In my web searches for a good pic of the Many Trails symbol I've also seen it as a large tattoo on a woman's back.)  These were depicted in Woodland Ways:

Here's Martin's description of the symbol that he created:

The design symbolizes the endurance, strength, and hope of a long-suffering, proud, and determined people.  The curved shape represents the arms of a man raised in prayer.  the circles represent many campfires.  The lines represent the many trails taken from the time the Indians left their ancestral homes.

There are also a lot of other good artists featured in the Woodland Ways pdf:

 

Appenoose Declines Mission Opportunity

It may come as a surprise to many, but the Stockbridge Mohicans were such devout Christians that they initiated a mission trip to their fellow Algonkians, the Sauk and Fox (aka Sac and Fox) Indians.  At that time, 1834, the Sauk and Fox Indians were living in Iowa and along the western edge of northern Illinois.  Due to their lack of funds, the Stockbridge Mohicans asked the mission society that supported their church, the ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions) to help pay for the trip.  They also asked if a missionary could accompany them.  

Not surprisingly, the ABCFM liked the idea and they instructed the Stockbridges' missionary, Cutting Marsh, to make the trip.  The Stockbridges were living at Statesburg back then (present-day Kaukauna, Wisconsin), so the delegation took a birch-bark canoe up the Fox River, then portaged onto the Wisconsin River which they took down to the Mississippi.  From there they traveled by steamboat, horse and maybe again by canoe.

The record we have of the mission trip comes from Cutting Marsh's journals.  He unfortunately didn't have much to say about the four Stockbridge Mohicans that traveled with him.  Nevertheless, Marsh's descriptions make for a rather good read.

Even better - I think - is the summary of the trip written by Marsh's biographer, Roger Nichols.  Nichols' re-telling of Marsh's attempts to get the Sauk Chief Appenoose to bring Christianity and "civilization" to his people is worth quoting at length.

After a week, Appenoose agreed to confer with [Marsh] on August 7.  They had already talked informally about the possibility of establishing a school or mission, and the chief seemed interested.  His apparent cooperation caused Marsh to become very optimistic, but their planned meeting was never held.  That afternoon an Indian trader brought several kegs of whiskey to the village and in a few hours all was badlam.  The chief, as well as most of the tribe became drunk and Marsh lost this opportunity.  He retired early, complained bitterly about the lack of dependability among the Indians, and blamed the white men who brought whiskey to the village.....

The following morning Marsh and Appenoose conferred about the establishment of a school at the village.  They were unable to reach an agreement, partly because the chief was suffering from the effects of his drunken spree.....the Indians managed to treat Marsh with some courtesy and still, in effect, refuse his offer.

Nichols tells us that Marsh did some preaching and persuading over the next two days but made little headway and, feeling sorry for himself, he went into the woods to be alone.  Nichols continues:

While [Marsh] was gone the traders brought another canoe with whiskey, and the merriment began again.  Marsh was disgusted by the drunken revelry and savage yelling in the village, and remained away until late in the evening.  

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians - Anton Treuer's New Book

Wow!  I really would be afraid to ask a lot of the questions that make up the headings of Anton Treuer's new book.  Here's a sample:

Why do Indians have long hair?
Why does getting the Columbus story right matter?
What is blood quantum, what is tribal enrollment, and how are they related?
What is Indian religion?


Treuer doesn't make the claim that he can speak for all Indians. Instead, his contacts with people from other tribes give the reader an idea of the diversity of Indigenous peoples in this hemisphere.

Here's an excerpt that shows Treuer's expertise and also his willingness to "tell it like it is":

What is "Indian Time"?
Indian time is...a terrible misconception widely held in Indian Country. Today the concept is used as an excuse to be late or lazy.  But Native Americans in former times were neither. If you woke up late or took a lazy day your children often went hungry. People worked hard and were physically fit to in order to survive. [from page 46]

Buy Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But were Afraid to Ask from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Oneida Language Resource from UW Digital Collections

The Wisconsin Oneida Language Preservation Project is part of the University of Wisconsin's Digital Collections.

Contents include a K - 6 curriculum, songs, and stories told and recorded as part of the WPA or Works Progress Administration program during the New Deal era.


Don't forget, Oneida is an Iroquois language, closely related to the languages of the Seneca, Tuscarora, Onandaga, Cayuga and Mohawk Indians.

Mohican News Features the Latest Pow-Wow

The Mohican News has a new reporter.  Mark Shaw was the grandson of Virgil Murphy, a former tribal chairman.  Mark told me that he took about a thousand photos at the 36th Mohican Veterans Pow-Wow that was held August 10-12.  Only the best of those photos made it into the paper. 

The Pow-Wow took place at the Pow-Wow grounds, of course.  North of Lutheran Church of the Wilderness on Muhheconnuck Road (on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation, Shawano County, Wisconsin).

LaKeisha Williams was Miss Moheconneew.

As he has for the last few years, Bear Man made an appearance.




See these and many other photos on the Mohican News website!