Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome
time for a Native Beat, and we have John Weston. He brought friends.
How are you, sir. I am doing great, Tom. I'm
hoping everyone out there listening to us is doing great. Ocio nagata Hello everyone,
or as the great Catto people would say, cooh hat a hot.
My guest today is Ken Duncan. He's a proud member of the Catto tribe
and a good friend of the Cherokee, including this Cherokee what the Catto would
call tayshaw, which just means a friend. We were speaking with him in
just a minute. Happy Monday, everyone, and welcome to this edition of
Native Beat. Tom. Did you have a great weekend? I sure did.
I watched other people mov yard well conditioning covered in my own home.
Well, if you're near my house, you would have seen that. You
would have seen me out there doing it. You know how to live,
John. I was one of those crazy people out there about one o'clock in
the afternoon, and my wife she was like, you know, your your
brains are gonna be boiled here pretty soon if you're not careful. Anyway,
As always, I'd like to start out by thanking our sponsor, Coffeeville Cooperative
Craig Union located three thirteen West ninth Street in Coffeeville. They're all about providing
with great personal financial services. They want to remind you if you're traveling,
which is this time of year for the peak season for travel, to give
your financial institution and notification you'll be on the road. You don't want to
have your debit card flag the temporarily de activated. That's actually happened to me
before. We were traveling one time and my card wouldn't work all of a
sudden. It was from the same account. I was like, well,
they noticed some unusual activity and so they suspended it. So you know,
it's one of those things. You just want to give them my heads up
before you head out. Carfield Cooperative Credit Union, It's where you belong.
Check them out on Facebook or their website at Cooperative cu dot com. Insured
by NCUA. Native would also like to thank you our listeners for your continued
support and tuning in with value. We wouldn't be here. And as they
say in the Catto language, howe, which just means thank you. I'll
admit I didn't know much about the Catto people before I met Ken and started
to research the history of the tribe. The Catto people are descendants of agriculturists
with a netimate understanding of the world, stars, the sky, the earth,
and the world. The Cato have strong set of values regarding how to
treat one another and how to live, handed down to them by their creator
in the origin story they have, and many Catto lived their lives according to
these values to this day. The different bands that made up large confederacies of
their ancestors were the builders of the large earth and flat top mounds upon which
they built structures. In fact, the spiral mounds down in the southern part
of the state are thought to have been built by the ancestors of the Ghetto.
Catto priests studied the Nights Guide to understand the passage of time, their
placed in the universe, and when to plant crops. It's a very common
theme, it seems, among a lot of native tribes, as they were
very much into archaeo astronomy, building structures that actually to actually mark certain times
of the heavens that you see when the plant crops, or you know when
you summer or winter solstice would be, or you know, different times of
the ear were important to them, and today there are many ancient items that
were left behind or buried, such as futury items that were on earth,
that have been study by archaeologists in ancient Cato homelands of Louisiana, Texas,
Arkansas, and Oklahoma. These items gave insight into ancient Cato culture and reflected
a deep and complex understanding of the world in which they lived. And when
members of Henrando de Soto's expedition under the Region of fifteen forty two, they
found thriving Catto communities and they were distributed along the Brazos Trinity, Netchez,
Sabine, Red and Washita rivers, and the Sabine is kind of important to
me because my own family, who were Cherokee, actually had settled along the
Sabine River in Texas. In fact, my great grandmother was born in Texas
and was buried here in Oblesby in southern part of Washington County, so that's
kind of interesting. These communities played important economic and diplomatic roles during the seventeenth
and eighteenth century colonial era, and the Cato confederacies and the bands within them
scattered three directions over a period of decades, and the three bands that they
had listed had names that were actually a little hard to burn out, so
I kind of skipped over that part. But anyway, they eventually united an
Indian territory at the Wichita Reservation. The Removal Treaty, signed on July first,
eighteen thirty five, and what would later become Shreveport, Louisiana, was
signed by the Catto that lived in northwestern Louisiana. A group of Cattos settled
along the Chalktaw on Chickasaw in south central Indian Territory near present day Paul's Valley,
Oklahoma. A small town of Whitebread, Oklahoma was named for this group
of Kato, who are sometimes referred to as the Whitebread group among the Catto
people today. Another group of Katto were in turned along the Lower Brazos Reservation
near the Salt River on the Brazos River in present day Young County, Texas,
and this group was emergency evacuated by the US Indian Agent Major Robert S.
Neighbors in eighteen fifty nine to avoid a massacre by Texas frontiersman led by
Colonel John Baylor. So if you're a Baylor fan. I don't know,
you might want to rethink that anyway. After multiple force removals, the Catto
eventually reallyocated to what is now Caddo County, Oklahoma. Three Catto confederacies and
all the bands within them consolidated geographically as a consequence of Indian removal. Additional
losses resulted from the subsequent sale of reservation lands as a result of allotment.
That's true. That's a story that I think is ubiquitous throughout Native communities,
especially here in Oklahoma. We were resettled here and then after allotment, we
lost a lot more territory. Twentieth century efforts to revitalize economic, social,
political, and religious institutions have enabled Catto people to maintain a distinctive identity today
and continue building toward a hopeful and prosperous future. And currently, what I
was interested to learn was there are six thousand enrolled members in the Catto tribe,
with three thousand living here in Oklahoma. We have one with those members
with us here today. Thank you Ken for joining us. How are you
this morning? I'm doing well, great, well great, So anyway,
and tell us a little bit about yourself. Where were you raised, what
was like, your former occupation, what are your hobbies? Your interests is?
Tell us who Ken Duncan is. Okay, I was born and raised
in dew And I've met a police officer out at one of the department stores
here one day and he was working off duty, but he was actually in
uniform from Dewey, and I told him who it was. We talked for
a little bit, and I told him, I said, but don't go
back to Dewey and start throwing my name around, because anyway, we got
a kick out of it. But I was born and raised there, and
I moved a long way from home to Bartleviille. I've been here seventy six
years in the area anyway, don't have any plans to go anywhere anytime soon,
right, Yeah, let's see. I had some time here with the
Bartswool Police Department. That was from nineteen sixty nine through nineteen seventy six.
I went to work for Phillips Petroleum and was there for nineteen years. Took
play all package of ninety two and I worked at the Sheriff's office for a
couple of years, and then I went as a contract trainer out at Trock
County Tech and that's where I retired. Great great So, how did you,
I know that you came to the Catto culture kind of lad in life?
I did? So how did you come to know your culture as a
citizen of the cat Do Nation? Oklahoma? Okay, this goes back to
my mother's side of the family, and I know that some of my relatives
would indicate at times that we were Native American, but nobody had any history
behind it. No one talked about it. And I remember my brother and
I asking Mom a couple of times why we were so brown, and she
said, you guys just tan easy. And that's just about the only answer
answer we would get. And you know, back then, especially a full
blood could not find work really during that time. And the other thing is
I have my grandfather who was a full blood and then my great grandfather.
They both lived here in the Burbotville area back in the twenties, and then
then they moved actually moved to Dewy at one point where they both passed away.
And but there was one aunt in the family and it was Lena,
and she she talked and she was the only one in the family that would
talk about I think that's where all these rumors that coming from was aunt Lina
anyway, if you want to know anything, just ask yeah, that's right.
Yeah. But she, over a period of time let her kids and
grandkids know that there was Native blood in our family. And I have this
one cousin, and she started researching and she had researched for years, and
she finally made a connection with the Cattle Nation and with my grandfather being in
full blood there. And you know, that's another interesting thing because the confederacies
that the Katto has had. I had one guy tell me one time,
well, how would they figure if you were full blood? If they were
all confederacies? And I wouldn't really know how to answer that question for him
because I don't know a lot about it at this point. I have a
lot to learn, but I know that on my grandfather's card, his enrollment,
he was full blood. My mother was half, and I'm a quarter.
You cannot and roll into the trib at this point unless you are one
sixteenth or more. So they have a blood quantum. They do, yes,
they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's a different to
the Cherokee Nation because I think we've grown to about four hundred and nine thousand
people now, but when I understand, ninety percent of our tribe has less
than one quarter Cherokee blood, you know, so it's definitely a different ball
game altogether with what's required to be a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation.
So anyway, when you were discovering your culture and everything and your family history,
what was the thing that most surprised you about what you discovered? Was
there something that this kind of stood out to you that you were shocked by
or that you will I mean, yes, I guess the first thing that
shocked all of us was the blood quantum that my grandfather had. You said
he was full blood? Yes, wow, yes, and there's not a
lot of history about him and where he came from. That was a surprise
because it appears, and it's just my opinion, but it appears that our
grandfather was probably adopted. Oh I see, there's a lot of information there
that kind of suggests that, and that happened a lot during that time.
Parents would get killed and they people would come in and they would adopt those
children then, yeah, and raise them. So well, I know,
reading in my own family history, my grandmother was she came over on the
trail of tears at the age of nine and lost both of her folks on
the trail, and another family adopted her. And that was in the testimony
before the DAWs Commission when they were when they had opened the roles to togetheryone
registered. So yeah, that was a very common thing to happen. And
of course people people would also die from disease or people would you know,
diseases to go through a family like scarlet fever or cholera or something like that,
you know, So that was a common thing someway. You remember the
Washington County Cherokee Association, which welcomes everyone, whether you're Indigenous or not.
We do and although our mission is to promote Cherokee history, culture and language,
and the spirit, it could do you which just means community. How
as being a member of that association helped you grow as a Cato tribal or
Cato tribal member. Well, you had mentioned in your introduction there about the
Kato's how they how to treat each other, how to get along, and
in with the Cherokee Association, it's number one with that. I've never been
so welcomed into an organization like that that I have with the Cherokees. They're
a fantastic group to be with to be around, and I noticed that during
some of the votes that are being taken on certain issues, that the votes
taken, there's never there's never a word about yay or n a from anybody.
That vote is accepted and they move forward and that's the end of it.
There's no brickering or anything like that. It's an amazing place to be
a part of. We're kind of a close family, but it's kind of
minus the minus the bickering at times. So, you know, for creating
unique items that celebrate the Catto and native culture. So some of the items
that you've created, Uh, you've created some rattles understand, And so how
do you how do you get your inspiration for finding items that you create.
Well, I've got I've been on some site with the Kettle. I looked
at some of the items that they've made in the past. I've made one
replica of a wing fan it's actually uh for use for ceremonial dances, uh,
And I did make one of those for my son. But I've also
looked at other cultures as well, and there's a lot of of the craft
work that is very They're similar in a lot of ways because it still goes
back to the animal world. Yeah, burden from there at all, and
so I mean that's the only products they had so at the time. Yeah,
but my inspiration comes from my heart exactly. That's the best inspiration right
there. Well, Ken, I certainly appreciate you coming on today. And
it was as a cut off people would say, how eyah, before we
go, we're gonna have a couple of announcements, so we don't want to
forget this month's prize giveaway for Native Beat for our listeners. It's a newly
illustrated guide to the Cherokee Sillabary to help you learn proper pronunciation, written by
Brad Wagman and illustrated by Beth Anderson. You can go to the Barsel Radio
Facebook page and drop a feather in the comments section for a chance to win.
A winner will be announced during our broadcast on July twenty sixth. Also,
make sure to check out our Facebook pages, and we wanted to mention
to you might want to give a listen to our friends up in the mighty
six ninety KGGF Chris Crane and Amy Dollar with Fribury Journeys on our sister station.
You can check out their Facebook page and we want to make sure you
tune into the next edition of Native b July twenty sixth at eight thirty in
the morning. You can catch us on the Barzel Radio Facebook page. You're
on demand of the Barzel Radio app available in the Apple Store. A big
wadu, as we say in Cherokee, Wanishi is the Delaware would say,
Wanzi is the Usah would say in how We as you would say in the
Cato language. And all of you listening do to do gohaye until we meet again.