Helly, good morning and welcome, welcome, welcome me. It's time now
for Cherokee Chat. John Weston in the house and John, as always,
he brings fans. How you doing, I do, Tom, how are
you doing? Super doop osio and nagatostus on the lee, which just means
hello everyone, Good morning, Welcome to another edition of Cherokee Chat. Last
time we were here, Tom, we talked about the potential for wicked weather.
Unfortunately Oklahoma weather delivered. Well you prophi. Yeah, and we certainly
want to keep all those folks affecting our prayers and help out where we can.
Our hearts go out to the people of Barnstall. I know several businesses
in Barnstall and the area who either organize drives for supplies or open their doors
for people who needed shelter. We all know, the Barsels an amazing community.
When it comes to that, I can remember, you know, my
entire life, I've lived here, so I can remember the eighty four flood
and they wiped out part of the west side of town. And you know,
we always, we always seem to come together and build, We come
together as a community. I think it's great. I think I'm very fortunate
to live in a community like this. So, as always with the h
of our episodes, we want to extend our thanks to our sponsor, Cooperative
Crewdit Union. They are located at three thirteen West ninth Street and Coffeeville.
They're all about providing you with great personal financial services. They want to remind
you that when life happens, a little extra money can help. And that's
probably something people are realizing right now. Who hasn't been there. It's an
unexpected car repair, home repair, medical bills they can really add up.
They want to remind you that they're here to help. Cooperative Credit Union it's
where you belong. Check them out today on Facebook or other website at cooperativecu
dot com. Insured by NCUA. And speaking of Coffeeville Credit Union, I
saw their president, Lyle Martin this weekend. It was at the one hundred
and twenty fifth anniversary homecoming and picnic of the Indian Women's Pokhontas Club Nice and
it was a great event. He couldn't stay very long and he had to
head back to Bartisville because he was celebrating his parents' seventieth wedding anniversary. Now
I can't even imagine that. In fact, I was just telling stage before
he came on that I'm going to be married for sixteen years on Saturday,
so I could not imagine being married for seventy years. That's a lifetime in
itself. But we're going to wish the Martin's a happy anniversary. That family
is a kind and positive influence of the Cherokee Nation in our communities, and
we're happy to see the Martins reach that mile. So this past Saturday's event
was held at the Will Rogers birthplace that's near Ulaga, just off the lake.
Will's birthplace was the Dog Iron Ranch. In last June, Cherokee Nation
acquired it and is in the process of restoring the house there on the grounds.
I have to say, as a Cherokee, seeing that Cherokee Nation flag
when I pulled in, it gave me a boost of pride. Honestly,
it gives you a good feeling. The ladies of the club did a wonderful
job organizing the event. It's always good to seeing some of our friends from
that club. Manta Ewing, the club president, was there, Ali Starr,
she was the main organizer. Celest Tillery and of course Chris Crane from
Fried Bread Journey. She's been on the show before and a secretary at Native
American Fellowship. Manta is actually going to be on our show with us here
on Cherokee Chat in June seventeenth, we were able to catch up with Shella
Bolin, who's our Secretary of State from Cherokee Nation Can Duncan or Undersecretary.
It's always good to see them. I spoke with counselors Poindexter and Kevin Easley
and our former counselor over there, Keith Austin, and he's helping to oversee
the restoration project, and he said, we would guys talk a little bit
about the efforts to have going on there, and he said something I thought
was pretty profound about the whole process. He said, one of the difficulties
restoring a historical building that needs work is you're restoring some of the main elements
of the building without actually disturbing certain aspects of it. So, for example,
the roof is in desperate need of repair. He said, there were
just tons of leaks that were in the roof, and say that they've got
the shingling stripped off and everything, and he said, but the problem is
in some of the repair efforts. They have log hewned rafters, so you
want to make sure you keep those things in their place and undisturb when you're
actually trying to build around it. And he said, so that's going to
be a long and tricky process. It's that's going to be a little tedious
exactly if anyone knows, if anyone's ever worked on their home and done something
major like that, replacing flooring or replacing a roof, Yeah, it's going
to be. It's a job without having to worry about that. Yeah.
Set the event, there were several vendors, There was live music. We
had traditional games such as hatchet throwing, cornstock shooting Cherokee marbles, and I
tried my hand for the first time of my life at at at laddle.
I have a hard time saying that at laddle for those that don't know,
well, before the invention of the bow, at laddles were used to throw
spears. It's basically a piece of wood with a hook on one end and
sometimes it has a rest on the other and the hook goes into the blunt
end of the arrow or spear, and you study it and then you get
it lined up with your target and then you overthrow. You basically you throw
it just kind of like you would a ball, and what it does is
your arm and the at laddle actually act as a It actually gives you leverage
to give you a little more speed and power as you try to whip.
Actually exactly, that's exactly where right. And the cool thing is, I
mean, they have discovered that this was technology that was used all around the
world. In fact, I think they it went back as far as they
found one that was like thirty two thousand years old, and they actually found
the skull to arms of some of the prehistoric people. They call it at
lettle elbow because of the repetitive nature of using that to hunt and probably to
go to battle. I would imagine they actually saw repetitive stress injuries for those
folks. Wow. And the cool thing is the guy that was running it.
He told me that the world record for the longest spear throw was two
hundred and eighty six yards, So, I mean you think about that for
a minute. I mean this's almost three football fields, man. Yeah.
So anyway, we had a great time at the hatchet throwing contest as well.
Bill Davis, Chris Crane, Harry Howard and I. We all played
for Naffy because we kind of vited up into communities. And today I brought
somebody with me who's nonger to stickball or hatchet throwing, blowguns or anything Cherokee
related or really and that's Sage Ellison of Sage Brush Beads. How are you,
Sage? I'm good, great. So we had talked about you coming
on today before the show, and I wanted to mention before we get started
that Sage helped out at our last cultural day. She helped with beating and
just taught. We had probably about one hundred and twenty people out there so
for our Cultural Day, and it was great. But she had a little
booth set up out there and she would help with beating. And what I
came away with was a better understanding of the ability of some of the kids,
some kids who had never beat it before. Yeah. I was just
amazed at what they were able to do. So have you seen that before?
I mean, do you see that very often the kids are able to
maybe do a little better than some of the adults when they're trying it out.
I haven't until that day. Like I had taught my sisters and they
struggled with it a little bit, but there was one kid and he really
understood it. He sat there with me all day and he did just about
as good as I did. A few months in. Yeah, I was
amazed he made a keych either it was a key chain or something. Yeah.
Yeah. So, and then the other thing I got to kind of
brag on her about is we had some kids, and of course we were
being safe. But she's really great with some of the younger people. And
I just want to ask you, you know, I try to ask everybody
this because not everyone comes to it in the same way. Some people are
born into it, some people discover their identity through it native culture. But
how did you become interested in your Cherokee culture. I've always been around it,
really. I spent a lot of time with my grandma growing up,
and she always took us to the elder nutrition and I spent a lot of
time with elders growing up. I heard their stories. She instilled it in
us really early on that on oor year elders and everything. So that's a
mindset that's I've carried on for twenty years and everything. Yeah, and her
grandmother was Barbara Ellison, just a sweet lady. Everyone I've ever talked to
has nothing the nice things to say about her. And she showed me a
picture one time over and she's a little five foot grandmother. I think everyone
could say that's kind of about their grandma's But she was trying to load her
up with food when she was over at her house, and I said that,
just that's a typical Cherokee or a really typical grandma anywhere you go,
right always thinking their grandkids are going hungry for some reason. So, you
know, embracing your Cherokee heritage. What are make some of the values you
think you've learned from it. I've never really thought about that. Like my
grandma instilled in me, like honoring elders and anything. That's something that I
always try to carry with me. Please remember that as we get older.
I don't really know. Well. I think one of the things, one
of the things I've learned from it is it's just the aspect of community.
Yeah, always given back, you know, and always helping each other out.
I mean, just like we saw in the aftermath of tornadoes, you
know, always going around helping each other out. So what led you to
become How did you become interested in beating, is what I want to know.
Did your grandma teach you that? Or is that? Okay? I
was the first person in my family that was interested in anything like that.
I was going through a really hard time. My mental health was non existent,
and I needed something to do other than sit at home crying around.
So I turned to that. I taught myself with YouTube and TikTok and whatever
else I could find, and eventually I got a little bit better, and
I started buying better supplies, and I've just kept going now. So you
really turned that into a positive I did, really. I mean, that's
great. Nice so as an artist, because I really I consider you an
artist beating your art farms and you know, like you know, songs,
songs are an art, you know, of writing poetry is art very much
in art, especially in the Native communities. How do you see it as
a way to represent, you know, Native culture to the public and other
natives? I mean, do you see it as a way to sort of
open up about your Cherokee Here we're a monolith, but we're all the same
and everything exactly. You know. I always think it's funny to watch some
of the older mooiners. I still like that movie, but you know,
as tribal citizen, she's still well. And the funny thing is, you
know I'd mentioned that he had been a squad overcoming on Cherokee Chat and for
everything you do to keep our cultural Cherokee, I'm sorry, Washington County Cherokee
Association Facebook of and two this month's prize giveaways two coffee cups and Blaze with
Cherokee Nation Seal. You can actually drop the Cherokee word for coffee, Cowie
or the emoji coffee in the comment section on our Facebook page. You can
also tune in to catch the next edition of Cherokee Chat May twenty fourth,
at eight thirty in the morning with my guest, Cherokee tribal member and Washington
County Commissioner MIT Channel. You can follow us on Facebook at Cherokee Chat,
or catch us our show on the Barzel Radio Facebook page or on demand to
the Barswel Radio app available in the Apple Store. A big Wado to my
guest, sa Jellison and to all of you Doha until we meet again.