Good morning, Welcome, Welcome, welcome it. He's nine forty five.
Time for Cherokee Chat. John Weston is I studio? And John, you
brought friends? You always bring friends. Well, I tried to tom Oco
Nagata. So what's the son Ali? Hell? Everyone, and good morning.
Welcome to another edition of Cherokee Chat. How are you Tom Did you
get a chance to see the eclipse? Not directly? Yeah, yeah,
I think that's probably bad advice to look at it directly, right. I
was actually doing something really peculiar. I was in a movie being shot down
in tul Us at the time. They used the eclipse as part of the
movie. Oh that's so we got an extra twenty minutes for lunch. Oh
that's cool. That's really cool. So I know a lot of people who
went down to see the eclipse in the Totality pad. Oh yeah, Broken
Bow and Arkansas and just everywhere. And some of the comments that were making
were things like, well, you know, the bird song has trailed off,
or the animals are acting a little weird. But I really didn't notice
that around here. I know, our bird we're just kind of going crazy,
just singing, you know, singing their songs like they always do.
I said of this, our birds are having a concert out there, you
know, so anyway we would be in today's show. As always, I'd
like to extend our thanks to our sponsor, Cooperative Credit Union of Coffeeville,
located through thirteen West ninth Street. They're all about providing it with great personal
financial services, whether it's car loans, home loans, business loans, or
helping you to plan for your retirement. Check them out today on Facebook or
their website at Cooperative CU dot com. As Lyle Martin, their president,
says, our goal is to save you money. It's where you belong.
Insured by NCUA. And speaking of Lyle Martin Native American Fellowship, our Cherokee
community in South Coffeville, of whom I'm a member and and so as Lyle
recently had an election for their boarder directors. Lyle has served on that board
in the past and he was elected again in the board last week on the
board last week along with Nicole Nolty. Because so congratulations to both of them.
And while we're on the subject of inn AFI today, I have with
me the secretary and one of the hosts of Fribred Journeys, Chris crane,
Chris, how are you fine? How are you doing? What did you
guys do for the eclipse? Actually I came home and I lived next to
my mother, and she and her buddy Jeanette, they go out every Wednesday
for lunch. And they were setting This is a seventy year old woman and
an eighty year old woman, and they were sitting on the front porch steps
and they had one pair of eclipse glasses between them, and they were changeing
sweat, you know, back and forth, switching, And I got a
chance I looked, and then I said, what are you doing? And
they were just they'd gone out to lunch and they were just sitting around hanging
out. And I said, okay, so that was their adventure for the
day. But I did sit over there and watch quite a bit. Yeah,
and I didn't notice anything. I mean, it did get quiet.
I thought it got it. The birds kind of got quiet little, but
that was it. Yeah, I don't know what. Our birds must have
drank something. I guess they figured it was time to go to bed,
you know, it was dusk to sleep. Yeah, well, I know,
cherkey ate. They had enough clips viewing party down at one Firefield,
which is right next door to the Tribal Headquarters Complex. Chief Brian Warren our
Deputy Chief Brian Warner. He was the MC of that event. They had
games like stickball and speaker saw the pictures. Yeah, it was. It
was pretty cool and it reminds me. I need to mention this. Our
giveaway this month. A prize word for this broadcast is actually our giveaway this
month is going to be the first fire book by Brad Wagman. It's about
how the Cherokee's obtained fire and in honor of the eclipse, the prize word
for this broadcast is going to be the word the Cherokee word for son,
which is the dough. And if you don't know how to spell that,
I'm going to hold it up here on this piece of paper, so visual
age. I love it. That's right, So you can actually see that
and know what to comment in the comments section. So if you see our
post on our Facebook page, be sure to go ahead and put this in
the comments so you can ear a chance to win this book that's signed by
Deputy Chief. Can I just put the sun emoji? You know what?
You can do that too. I'll accept. That's a great idea. Have
you noticed I posted for Frybread Journeys and I'm just trying to advocate for our
language. I get it. Coincidentally, this is the same word for moon.
So anyway, but the Cherokees, they have interesting beliefs about the eclipses,
and they believe that a large frog called a wallosi is eating the sun
of the moon. Depending on whether you know it's a a sonar, not
a sonar, a solar or a lunar eclipse, I'm combining those words.
They go outside and they scream to make noise, and they actually did that,
done it our ceremonial ground. Some of my friends were posting about that
too, so they were kind of carrying on the tradition. So anyway,
switching gears for a bit, since we have Chris for Frybread Journeys, let's
go or just ask me anything. Yeah, well, how long you've been
doing the show up there in Coffee bel It's been about a year. It's
been about a year, and John was on last month in March, and
we do it with We do a forty five minute one a month's show and
my co host is Amy Dollar, who is the Coffeeville Tourism director. So
it's we got started because we used to both be on the Historical Society for
a Coffeeville and I was president for me seventeen years or something, and we
would get on once a month and kind of chitty chat about things that were
going on. And then when we both left, my husband was upset because
he liked listening to us. He says, he doesn't like me talking this
much, but believe it or not, so he wanted He said, I'll
pay money. I'll pay money if you guys are going on. So we
were going to do a fifteen minute show, and then Lyle Martin with Cooperative
Credit Union he said, I'll pay for fifteen minutes. And now Cherokee Nation
is also a sponsor too, and we're looking at somebody else maybe possibly,
so we could go to one hour month, which you have to come up
with stuff what three times a month? Honestly exactly. I think that's it,
miss him. We have to have we got to get I do a
fifteen minute a third Thursday and month. So this Thursday I call it Naffy
Notes, and it's just me getting on given the update on what's going on
at Naffy, and then we do Friybread Journeys the fourth Monday of the month,
and it's it's nice. It affords us time to have guests like John
we had Chief Hoskin came on in February, and Lyle has been on as
a sponsor. And actually my husband's birthday is Monday. And I told him
he took off and I said, well, guess what you can be on
Friybread Journeys. And he said, I don't know what to do. I
said, you just all you got to do is sit and smile at that
camera and look pretty and let's just say yes, honey to everything I say.
Done done. And I think he's going to bring some food for him
though. Oh So I have a question, because this is something I don't
think we've ever really talked about. How did you come to embrace your Cherokee
culture? I mean, what started you're getting involved in your Cherokee community.
I think I've always known I was Cherokee. In fact, I'm really big
on genealogy, and my is too, and her mother who was Cherokee,
and her father both her parents, so my mom's maternal grandmother was on the
Dows roll and her paternal grandfather was on the DOS roll, so she had
double I've had my card since I was a kid. Talking around to my
grandparents, I don't remember. My grandmother was more Cherokee than my grandfather,
but she didn't really talk as much about it as a kid, but my
grandfather did and was try and teach us words quite often. And later on
when I was older, I think maybe that might have a lot to do
with it. You know, when I was a teenager, my grandmother would
talk about tell us stories and tell me some things I had never known.
I remember brushing my hair. I had long hair, brushing my hair in
the car somewhere, and she said, you know, that's okay, don't
ever do that in front of people. And I'm like, there's a belief
that you know. She had a belief about keeping your hair and your hair
is a sacred thing. So there were some things that she's told us about
and stories and everything, and I think she's always been very proud. Both
my grandparents were very proud of their Cherokee heritage. And then as I ended
up working for the school district in Coffeeville for almost thirty years, and I
started out in Indian education, started out as a secretary for the Indian Education
Program. And when I ended and retired a little over a year ago,
I was the director of the Indian Education Program. I wrote to grants,
one of them is through Cherokee Nation and Jowam Grant. And I would write
the grants and implement them and spend the money and sponsored junior high and high
school Native American Club and had an elementary after school program. And I still
get to be involved with it even though I'm retired long ago. Tell us
a little bit about that. One of the things we did was it was
a I called it a Native American Food Day, food Culture Day, and
we would have people come up, maybe teach basket weaving. It was really
about food because honestly, I liked to eat and I had company. I'm
I'm a pretty decent cook, and I make really good fry bread, though,
and I make I made a great chocolate cake that you had, and
so I thought, you know what, this would be something that the kids
could We could teach him a little bit about how to make fry bread and
the history of fry bread. And I started doing that and Aaron Lee,
who is now the Director of INDIANAD took over for me. She has me
come up and I went up there the third of April and actually Cherokee Nation
JOm program they sent a whole crew. Nol Grayson was one of them,
and they played stickball and chunky with the kids outside. It was kind of
windy, but we had we had hominy and pork soup and I made fry
bread. They came in and watched and some wanted to help and make some
bread, and they really just wanted to eat more than anything. So we
were at an out large event in Kansas City a few weeks ago and Noel
Grayson he's one of the Cherokee National Treasure and he is incredible. He has
just got an extensive knowledge of all sorts of things about how to make bows
and arrows and blowguns, blowgun darts. And the coolest thing is he gets
a group of kids up on the stage and sets up a target and has
them practice using blowguns. Some of them have never used them before. But
within what was it, say, five minutes, Oh, you had some
people kids that were proficient and actually using blowguns. And then he yeah,
he worked it down into like the last you know, the ones that were
still hitting the target that girl. There was a young one girl, young
girl there and she was she was pretty good, she really was. I
think she ended up winning the whole thing. Yeah, it was. It
was just fun to watch and they got more and more excited about it,
and they would move the target farther and farther away to see how well they
how they could do. They were excellent and it is really good to get
those kids engaged and to learn about their culture. Absolutely, and that's one
of the exciting ways to do it. I mean, you can sit there
and do presentations, you know about cultural ass specs, you know, all
day long, but until you get these kids hands on and evolved exactly,
I mean, that's that's what really fires their passion for about the culture.
Oh yeah, it was great. It was a lot of fun. And
Bill Davis, some of the elders came. We had Bill and I'm trying
to think Harry Howard and some others came up from Nafie and enjoyed lunch too,
So it was it was for the kids. Yeah, it was a
lot of fun. Yeah. So what you know, Naffi's always engaged,
in active. So what sort of plans does NAV have for the immediate future
or what's on the horizon. I know the Unity Gathering is coming up,
and that's not until September, and that would be September twenty eighth. It's
always the last Saturday in September, and it is a day of anybody is
welcome to come. You don't have to be Native. And as far as
I'm concerned, there are no stupid questions. As long as you ask questions
respectfully and are not making a mockery or trying to make fun of somebody,
there is always room for that. And we have oh gosh, we had
we had free food that really goods people out there. Why has it been
this event? I mean, how many people this It'll be the fifth year
and the first year it's it was COVID and we ended up having it at
the side of the Brown Mansion in Coffeeville because the Cherokee Nation Building CCO buildings
were shut down because of COVID, So we had it on the Kansas side
and we had probably around three hundred and fifty people, you know, just
come and go. Then the next year we were able to have it with
restrictions at NAFI and I want to say about five hundred and then the next
year we had it and we're still worried about COVID, but we're under and
it was about seven hundred and then last year we had over nine hundred people
and it's we have and it's not a pow wow. That's what I want
to make it clear. It's not a pow wow. There is this is
this is just a unity gathering. And there were dancers Indian sign language.
Mike Pasatopa who's from Sepolpa did as written a book on it and he did
some dancing, and Ryan Mackey was there. Levi Randall came from a Delaware
tribe. Tribe. We've had Robert Lewis who is a Cherokee Nation treasure storyteller.
Tommy Wildcats played the flute. Matt Wren who was Osage I believe from
Independence and played the nephew of Will a man killer. He had written a
book called Walking in Balance and just kind of helped people navigate through the modern
world and maintain your mental health in the process. And and also he taught
stickball, and we had Chokey Nation had a couple of little booths set up,
you know, and you could play chunky and there were some things but
dancing and things. It was a lot of fun. So anyway, I
encourage everyone to check out our Cherokee community Facebook pages, the Cherokee Cultural Community
in Dewey, the Washington Kind of Cherokee Association, your Osheleda, the Nuita
Cherokee Community Foundation, and no One in the Native American Fellowship at South Coffeeville.
And I encourage every one of the tune in to catch our next addiction,
this of Cherokee Chat April twenty six at eight thirty and the am I
guess we'll be Stepur Or the president of the Washington County Cherokee Association when we
talk about the upcoming cultural celebration we're going to be having on April twenty seventh.
You can follow us on Facebook at Cherokee Chat, or catch our show
on the Barcel Radio Facebook page or on demand through the Barsel Radio app available
on the Apple Store. Big wad O to my guest Chris Crane and all
of you Doda dog oh e until we meet again. Alrighty, you have
been listening to Cherokee Chat right here on K one, the one you trust.
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