Harriet Allen Oral History

Harriet Allen Oral History

Harriet Allen Oral History

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

February 22, 1996

Analog Cassette Tape, Text File, Mp3 Audio

English

Audio Cassette

1:57:03

Churchill County Oral History Project An interview with Harriet Allen

Fallon, Nevada

Conducted by

Marian LaVoy

February 22, 1996

This interview was transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norine Arciniega; final by Pat Broden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project, Churchill County Museum.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewer and interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Churchill County Museum or any of its employees.

Preface

Attractive, gentle, shy, unassuming and intelligent – a remarkable young woman is Harriet Allen!

In this oral history, she gives us a glimpse of her grandmother’s and mother’s life on the Shoshone Indian reservation in the distant Reese River area of Nevada, and on the local Shoshone/Paiute Stillwater reservation.  She provides an insight into the difficult living, but family oriented life of a Shoshone Indian family from the 1920’s through the Depression era.

The family’s existing with Mother Nature – observing the signs of birds and animals, subsisting on venison, ducks, trout, etc, and celebrating the pinon harvest as a two or three day family “outing” lifts the veil for a few minutes on the wonderful life of the Shoshones.

Harriet’s generation leads a completely different lifestyle, but the family love and traditions are not forgotten and some ancient ceremonies life the purification in the sweat lodge are still practiced.

Her interest in educating Indian children is sincere and it is commendable that she, herself, is attempting to learn her father’s Paiute language, so she, in turn, can pass it on to her nieces and nephews, and other interested people.

She works diligently in attempting to write grants that will eventually bring more Federal education programs to the Stillwater Reservation inhabitants as well as Shoshone and Paiutes who are attending universities in different areas.

Harriet is an inspiration to her people.

 

 

 

Interview with Harriet Allen

This is Marian Hennen LaVoy of the Churchill Country Museum Oral History Project interviewing Harriet Allen at my home 4325 Schurz Highway. The date is February 22, 1996.

LaVoy: Good afternoon, Harriet.

Allen: Good afternoon, Marian.

LaVoy: I’m so glad that we have finally gotten you here for an interview. Could you tell me your full name?

Allen: Harriet Allen.

LaVoy: And where do you live, Harriet?

Allen: In Fallon on the reservation.

LaVoy: And what’s the address?

Allen: 1950 Graham Lane.

LaVoy: How long have you lived there?

Allen: All my life.

LaVoy: Oh! That’s very interesting. Harriet, let’s start back a little bit. Tell me something. What was your mother’s name?

Allen: Martha Weeks.

LaVoy: And where was she born?

Allen: She was born in the upper Reese River Valley.

LaVoy: Now, tell me roughly where the Reese River Valley is.

Allen: It’s north of Austin.

LaVoy: About how many miles. Do you know?

Allen: No, I don’t.

LaVoy: Where did she grow up there in the Reese River?

Allen: Well, in Reese River they have a tribal office or reservation. It was probably about seventeen miles south of there in the Toiyabe Forest.

LaVoy: Now, you say a “tribal reservation”. What tribe would this be?

Allen: Yamba Shoshone Tribe.

LaVoy: Tell me something about your mother. What you remember that she has told you about her early life there on the reservation.

Allen: Well, they didn’t live on the reservation, but they had a cabin way back in the hills, and my grandmother and grandfather had a little ranch there. There were other ranchers around there also, not Indian ranchers. So they grew up there. I think they had a little school nearby ‘cause they used to talk about having to walk to school. My grandmother had seven kids, and I think only about four of them she had raised, you know.

LaVoy: That lived.

Allen: That lived, yeah.

LaVoy: What were some of the things that your mother remembers about the crop they raised?

Allen: It was mostly grass hay, you know, like for horses. They had gardens. They raised corn, potatoes, and things like that they ate.

LaVoy: What did they do for meat?

Allen: Deer. They hunted deer, probably rabbits, and things like that.

LaVoy: Did you ever remember your mother saying anything about your grandmother setting traps for the rabbits?

Allen: No, I don’t. I knew my grandmother knew how to shot. She hunted herself while her husband was working.

LaVoy: Did she go out by herself into the hills to hunt?

Allen: I imagine so. She had a son. He probably did a lot of that, too.

LaVoy: What was your grandmother’s name?

Allen: Lena Weeks. Her maiden name was Bell.

LaVoy: Lena Bell?

Allen: Um-hum.

LaVoy: How long did she live in the Valley? How early did she go into the Reese River Valley that you can recall?

Allen: Well, my mother was born in 1917, so I imagine it was probably around mid 1920’s, maybe. I’m not too sure. She never did give me an exact date, but I knew they were young, like around six, seven years old—my mother, anyway. She was the youngest.

LaVoy: Something I’ve always wondered about. The Indian people used the pinion pine so very, very much and made a soup out of the pine nuts. Can you tell me roughly something about that?

Allen: Um-hum. Well, after you cook the pine nuts whether on the stove or some people boil them, but you shell them. After you shell them you put them with little red coals and you kind of push it around so that the coals will dry the pine nuts.

LaVoy: In a pan?

Allen: It can be in a pan. In the old ways they used a basket. They had a basket made out of willow. A winnowing tray I guess you would call it, and they would shake it, you know, side by side like this, and then the coals in there would keep moving and the pine nuts would dry. Then they would take them out, put some more in. after they dried them, it was dry enough to where they can grind it into a powder.

LaVoy: How’d they grind them?

Allen: Rock. They had a big rock on the bottom and a little one that they hold in their hand that they just grind them back and forth to a powder.

LaVoy: Is that called a metate?

Allen: Yes, uh-huh.

LaVoy: Is that the correct word?

Allen: I think so.

LaVoy: All right, then now the pine nuts are all ground. Then what do they do with them?

Allen: Put it in a bowl or a little container, and they add water to it to a consistency like wheat hearts or something like that.

LaVoy: And then eat that, or do they make something else out of that?

Allen: No, they eat it like that.

LaVoy: I understand that it’s a very, very good protein food.

Allen: Right. And they would store them also. They’d store the pine nuts for later use.

LaVoy: What would they store them in?

Allen: Containers. I’m not sure how my grandmother used to do it, but I know some would store them in basket containers or just whatever they had.

LaVoy: Now, did your grandmother and mother do basket weaving?

Allen: My grandmother did. She wove cradleboards. I’ve seen her do cradleboards, and the round baskets that you store seeds in. You know, small sizes. I remember she had a water jug that was covered with pitch. I remember seeing that when I was a child.

LaVoy: She wove it of willows?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Now, something – I have an Indian basket that Shoshones did that it’s willows and then they put color in it with rose roots. Did she use those too? The wild rose roots?

Allen: Yes, she did.

LaVoy: Then the pitch. Where’d they get the pitch that they put on the baskets?

Allen: From the pine trees.

LaVoy: Now these are the pinion trees you’re talking about?

Allen: Right. Yes. You could see it hanging down from the trees in little balls, clumps, or whatever, and just pick them off that way.

LaVoy: Did they heat it?

Allen: Um-hum. What I understood was, you pit it like—woodstoves was what they had—and it would melt. After it’s melted you could strain it and then leave all the gunky parts there, and it’s real clear. It looks like honey. And then after it’s warmed, they would roll it around or brush it on the outside. Some even on the inside. I don’t know how they do that to make it waterproof.

LaVoy: I don’t think they could have used their hands. They’d have been so sticky they wouldn’t get loose.

Allen: I know. Probably with a brush made out of pine needles or something sage [sagebrush] or something.

LaVoy: And then how long did it take that to try before they could use it?

Allen: It dries fast.

LaVoy: Does it really?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: And then that made the basket waterproof?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Do you remember your mother or your grandmother saying about getting water from a spring or something carrying it in that?

Allen: Where they lived there was a stream that ran by there. I imagine in their days, though, they had buckets and things like that.

LaVoy: Well, probably with your grandmother, I doubt very much that they had too many buckets. I was raised on a ranch, and I know that sometimes it’s kind of hard to come by some of these.

Allen: Um-hum.

LaVoy: We had wooden ones. They probably had the wooden ones instead of the metal ones.

Allen: I don’t know.

LaVoy: You said that they cooked this pitch on the stove. Did they have like a tin can that they put the pitch in to heat it?

Allen: I don’t know. I would imagine so.

LaVoy: And I wonder what they strained it through.

Allen: Cloth. Some type of cloth.

LaVoy: That’s fascinating. I never realized that pinion pitch was that clear.

Allen: I was surprised. I collected some when I went out pine nutting, and it looks like beeswax. It’s all crusty looking, but after it was melted, all that went away. I strained it in like a mesh cloth, and it came out really clean, and it was like honey, but it would harden too. If the stove wasn’t warm enough, it hardened. It was just like real hard candy.

LaVoy: Like sugar candy.

Allen: Yes, uh-huh. Then you had to hear it up again and use what you wanted to out of it.

LaVoy: Do you have any of your grandmother’s baskets?

Allen: We have a winnowing basket that she had.

LaVoy: Now, I know what a winnowing basket it, but I’d like you to record for me exactly what they look like and what they were used for.

Allen: Okay. It’s probably about two feet long and about that wide. It’s shaped like a big oval with a wide part on the top.

LaVoy: About twenty-four inches wide of eighteen inches wide?

Allen: Yes. That’s small. It can be larger than that also. It’s made of willow. The willows go up and down and they’re woven across. It’s not a tight weave. It’s big enough to where when they’re cleaning the pine nuts from the shells, the shells and the pine needles would be able to sift down through the willows, or she would toss it in the air and the wind would catch the pine nut shells and blow it away. That’s how they used it. To shake and clean their pine nuts.

LaVoy: For heaven sake. Did they use it at all for any wheat that they raised? Do you know?

Allen: No, I don’t think so.

LaVoy: Just basically for the pinions.

Allen: Right. The nuts are kind of large. Anything else would just fall right through.

LaVoy: With pine nuts there’s an Indian lore that if there’s a tremendous crop of pine nuts, we’re going to have a heavy winder. If there’s a poor crop, it’s a light winter. Did you ever frown up with any of that lore?

Allen: Yes, (laughing) my grandmother would tell us that, and you would see – we call them rabbit brush. It’s those plants along the side of the road that have the yellow flowers on it, and she would watch those, and when the flowers would be a dark yellow, “Oh, the pine nuts are getting ready,” she would tell us. And when it dried up and blow up, she’d say, “The pine nuts are on the ground now,” and she’d let us know when we’re to go out and go pick them up.

LaVoy: That amazes me! By a rabbit brush she told when they were ready.

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: So you didn’t have to climb up in the trees and get that pitch all over yourselves.

Allen: (laughing) Right.

LaVoy: Would groups of you go out together and make it like a picnic day?

Allen: Right. Families. Usually my uncle and us and my aunt and her family.

LaVoy: What were their names?

Allen: John Weeks and Agnes Foster.

LaVoy: Now, you’d go out early in the morning and go to wherever the pine trees were, and would you pick them off the ground individually, or how did you do that?

Allen: Well, it depended on the time of year. Sometimes if we wanted to go out we’d pick them in the cone, and then while we’re out there, my uncle would cook them underground so when we’re done picking we’d have pine nuts ready to eat.

LaVoy: Now, let’s stop just a minute. He’s cook them underground. He’d dig a little pit.

Allen: Um-hum.

LaVoy: Put a fire in the pit.

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: Then put the pine nuts in their shells in the pit?

Allen: In the cone. They’re still in the cone.

LaVoy: There were in the cones, and he’d put the cones in underground in the fire and then cover the fire over? Is that what he did?

Allen: What he would do, dig a hole and build a fire in there and then after he had just the coals in there, he would take those out, put the pine cones in the hole, cover that with dirt, and then put the coals back on top of that. Then it would roast under there for three hours maybe. I don’t know really how long. He just seemed to know, and then when we were through picking pine nuts, say, towards the evening, we’d come back to the camp and get supper ready and we’d dif out the pine cones, and they’d be already. We just kind of hit ‘em around because as they’re heating up the cones would open up, and then we would just shake the pine nuts out, and they’d be all cooked and really good. Really luscious.

LaVoy: I love pine nuts. Now, you said, “when we camped.” How long did you stay out there when you were harvesting?

Allen: Oh, sometimes three days. Couple of nights. It would just be a family outing.

LaVoy: And would you take just your sleeping bags, or would you take tents with you? What would you do?

Allen: We had tents. We’d take tents with us and some food and do some fishing while we were out there. Just have a nice time.

LaVoy: That must have been lots of fun. A nice memory to remember.

Allen: Um-hum. We try to do that every year. Well, when there’s pine nuts. Some years there aren’t any.

LaVoy: With your grandmother being so good at telling exactly when the pine nuts were ready, did she have any lore about the thickness of the crop and whatnot?

Allen: No, basically what you said if one year is a lot of pine nuts, the next year… It never was a lot of pine nuts every year, and it depended, too, on where they were. They weren’t always in the same place. Sometimes it’d be up around the Reese River. Sometimes we traveled on the other side of Tonopah. It just depended. My uncle seemed to know. He talked to a lot of people, and they’d let him know where the pine nuts were, and that’s how we determined where we would go.

LaVoy: That’s amazing. When you were out camping at that point in time, do you recall your grandmother or your mother saying anything about the wild animals that they saw?

Allen: I remember – Well, it wasn’t pine nutting, but my mother had this little Model T. This was when she was a little older, she would drive my grandmother different places, and they were going to Carroll Summit, and she saw track of a rattlesnake. It was huge! She said she never seen tracks that big, and she was curious, so she kind of drove her car over towards the edge of where the tracks went down into the little gully, and she was going to get out. I mean, it was huge! Must have been six to eight inches around the belly part, and she was going to go and look. It was kind of towards evening, but my grandmother wouldn’t let her go down there. She said, “If the snake is that bug, you just let him go.” (laughing) So my mother went back, but she was kind of—She wanted to see it. A snake that big—she’d never seen one that big in her life.

LaVoy: How did they follow the tracks? Just the zigs through the dirt?

Allen: Yes, ‘cause it was sandy along the side of the road and it went across the road where she was able to look at it. I think at the time it was a dirt road.

LaVoy: I grew up with dirt roads all over Nevada, so I know what you’re talking about.

Allen: Um-hum, um-hum. Somewhere she had seen – I remember her telling me that.

LaVoy: Now, what other animals did they see that are pretty scarce now, I’m sure?

Allen: At that time there were a lot of mountain lions. I remember them talking about mountain lions and how they would scream. Sound like a woman screaming right outside their door practically.

LaVoy: Did they ever shoot any of them that you recall?

Allen: I don’t recall. But, it sounded like at that time they were mostly by themselves because of the work my grandfather did. I’m not sure, a rancher or something. There weren’t really too clear on that, but it was a hard life out there. My grandfather was killed in a car wreck at one point. I’m not sure how old my mother was at the time, but they were kind of young yet.

LaVoy: Where did this happen?

Allen: Coming from Gabbs. Going down the Gabbs summit somewhere the car had overturned with him underneath it.

LaVoy: Oh, my.

Allen: And the people were too late to help him. My grandmother tried to keep the family out there and raise them. They’d have sheepherders coming through there at different times of the year, and they would drop of lambs for them to raise for their meat and stuff. They’d try to help them out like that. Sometime they’d bring deer if they got deer, or something, and with the vegetables they raised and things like that, but it was too hard for them to stay out there, so they moved here to Fallon.

LaVoy: Did your grandmother and mother dry jerky?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Tell me how they did that.

Allen: Would just slice it thinly.

LaVoy: This would be venison?

Allen: Yes, and hang it off of wires. I think that’s how they did it. Just to let it dry, and then they would put it in cloth bags so it wouldn’t mildew.

LaVoy: Do you remember them using any seasonings on it? Did they use juniper berries or anything like that?

Allen: No, I don’t. I think just salt and pepper to keep the flies away. That’s how she used to teach us.

LaVoy: Did she have a few chickens out there?

Allen: yes, they did.

LaVoy: Do you remember how she preserved the eggs for winter because chickens stop laying in the winter? They have a nasty habit of that.

Allen: I know. I don’t remember.

LaVoy: I wondered if she put it up in what they used to call glass eggs. It was a solution of something that was very slimy, and you’d put the fresh eggs in it, and it would seal the shell, and your eggs would keep for months. Of course, if you got the last egg out, it didn’t taste too good. I just wondered if you remembered your mother or your grandmother doing that.

Allen: No, I’d never heard that mentioned.

LaVoy: Did they see a lot of deer at that point in time in the Reese River area?

Allen: Yes, it seems like they always had deer meat. Like I said my grandmother would hunt or my uncle would hunt.

LaVoy: And fish, too?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: What type of fish would they get?

Allen: Mostly trout. Little brook trout.

LaVoy: Did they eat them right away, or did they dry some those, too?

Allen: I think they ate them right away.

LaVoy: How often did your grandmother and mother get into, say Austin, to buy supplies?

Allen: They never said. No, I don’t know.

LaVoy: Something I’m wondering about how many Shoshone people lived in that area at that time? Roughly. What were some of the family names that you can remember?

Allen: Well, they were more like on their own, but there was like probably the Hoopers family, Smiths, Bradys. I’m not really too sure even when that reservation started over there.

LaVoy: Did you have an agent that came and ran the reservation, or was it a loosely-knit group of Indian people?

Allen: I am not too familiar with Reese River area, you know, reservation-wise when it started. I know they had that here in Fallon.

LaVoy: Another thing I’m very curious about. The Shoshone people in Elko did such beautiful buckskin and beadwork. Do you recall your mother and grandmother doing any of that?

Allen: She did beadwork. Made a lot of her own patterns and things.

LaVoy: What were some of the patterns?

Allen: Mostly like birds and flowers. She had those. She said they were Shoshone designs. You know, living things. So, I remember seeing those when I was young.

LaVoy: How did she do the beadwork?

Allen: She had a loom for doing belts or wristbands, headbands, that type of thing. Some patterns she had – I don’t know what you would call that, but it wasn’t on a loom, but she was able to do the patterns with just her needles and thread.

LaVoy: The beads that she had. Where did she get the beads from?

Allen: I’m not too sure. I have some of her old beads myself that I was going to be using to make some things, and some of those they’re real small. Smaller than anything you see now. Real tiny. Others are long made of glass. I mean they’re just all different types. I have no idea where she got those. Trading maybe, I don’t know.

LaVoy: I’ve often wondered about that because living so far out and yet doing such beautiful work, you wonder where she got the supplies for it.

Allen: Um-hum. I know where she was here in Fallon, she was going beadwork. I’m not too sure. They never said anything about doing beadwork out there. I imagine she did it, she had the time. Her kids were young then. I don’t really know.

LaVoy: Did she make her own loom, or did she have a loom that she bought?

Allen: She mentioned her husband had made her a loom at one time out of woods.

LaVoy: I had some dear friends that their children were carried in cradleboards, and I just love those. I’m so sorry that I didn’t have the sense to buy one at the pint in time. But, tell me how a cradleboard is made and what it’s used for.

Allen: There’s a frame. To make a frame out of – Let’s see, my grandmother used willow. It could be willow. Probably about an inch in diameter, maybe. She’d usually try to get a long willow that would shape the base of it. The bottom part is narrow and it kind of widens up into the tip, rounded like a half round circle. She would heat the willow she wanted to bend it so that it wouldn’t break.

LaVoy: How would she heat it?

Allen: Over a fire. It’s green willow, but at sometimes you can’t really bend them at angles you want, so she would heat them and then shape it, tie it in place with leather, or whatever she had.

LaVoy: Did she take the bark off the willow?

Allen: Yes, the bark was taken off of there.

LaVoy: Now, were those ditch willows, the red willows, that she used?

Allen: No, the red willows, she would say, weren’t strong enough. It’s either that she could use willow, or if she was here in Fallon, I know she used like tamarack which was a tougher wood.

LaVoy: A salt cedar. [Tamarisk]

Allen: So, I know those two varieties she used.

LaVoy: She started to get her frame built, and then how did she continue from there?

Allen: From there on the back you would have braces, but then she would take smaller willows a fourth of an inch wide. She would lay them flat and you’d have to put them together. She wove them side by side the length of the basket what it was going to be, and she would place that over the frame and tie it on. The braces are under there first to keep it straight, and then she would do the hood. The hood is places on the top of the basket, and it acts like a shade. It curves up over the top, and it has—well I call them legs—on the side that attaches to the frame of the basket to keep it sturdy and upright. That is all made of willow.

LaVoy: Willow or tamarack.

Allen: No, that’s willow. The tamarack is the thicker one for the bottom. The frame of the cradleboard, and it’s used for babies. Depending on the size of your infant. They have some for newborns. As they grow, they used to in the old days, make the basket just for one child. They child grows, they set it aside out in the brush to go back to nature or whatever. They don’t use it for another baby, so as the child grows, they had the baskets made. They could just whip them out real fast back then.

LaVoy: Now, do they tie them together, these braces, with rawhide?

Allen: That or buckskin. She’s used buckskin on the ones I’ve seen her make.

LaVoy: Did she put any beading or anything on them to ornament them?

Allen: Some of her later baskets I’ve seen her do that, or if they were going to some meeting or gathering of people then they’d want to pit some decorations on there. Some of the ones I’ve seen her make for me little brothers and sisters were plain.

LaVoy: I think it’s so interesting that they weren’t used for the second child.

Allen: I know. I know.

LaVoy: All that work.

Allen: All that work, yes. I remember when we were young, my brother and sister when out into the, way in the back out by the brush across from where out neighbors lived, and they found a basket out there laying against the brush. So they brought it home. “Oh, look what we found.” My grandmother had a fit. She says, “No, you don’t touch that. You take it back, and you put it back.” Anyway, she made them put it back and she explained to us later on the baskets were made for specific children and the spirits of that child go into the basket, and then it wasn’t to be used to anybody else. It was just for that child, so that’s how she explained it to us. Like I said they took it back. And so we were taught that when you find something laying out there, it’s not yours, don’t touch it. That’s how we were raised.

LaVoy: Tell me, I know you would not remember but I rather surmise that perhaps you had a cradleboard, too.

Allen: Yes, I did.

LaVoy: And it was put out in the brush to go back to nature.

Allen: Yes. Well, I think it did, but, later on, because the baskets were hard to come by and not that many people made them, families kept baskets within their families. They changed their custom and used it for all their children. Hoods would change depending on whether it was a boy or girl.

LaVoy: How were they changed for a boy and girl?

Allen: The designs. If it’s a slanted design, it was for a boy. If it showed diamonds, of the lines crossed, it was a girl. Color didn’t matter. It’s just the design on the hood of the basket.

LaVoy: For heaven’s sake. How is the basket carried?

Allen: The ones that I have seen were carried in the arms. I never saw anybody wear the straps around their head, you know, carried them that way. They made have had the straps, but they used them to like brace it against a tree or whatever whenever their working. My grandmother used to do that when we were small.

LaVoy: Well, I was always so amazed. The babies were always so quiet. Never raised a fuss in those baskets, those cradleboards, and I used to think, “Why are they so quiet?” but I guess they were comfortable.

Allen: Right, and it felt like you were being held. You know, you were secure. You were safe, and which you were because if the basket should have fallen over or tipped over, the hood of the basket protected the baby from getting hurt. Shade. You covered it with a blanket or something, you were in the shade. You were kept cool. In the winter buckskin was used because of the warmth. In the summer it was a denim basket. I mean, the covering on the basket was some kind of cloth. There was a little mattress on the bottom so you’re not laying the baby right on the willow. They had their little mattress down there and a little pillow.

LaVoy: What was the little mattress made from?

Allen: Just feathers, I mean, down.

LaVoy: Down put in a…?

Allen: Like a canvas or a heavy material. Now I think they just fold up blanker and put them in there or something.

LaVoy: I haven’t seen a child in a cradleboard for quite some time, which is kind of sad because I know my father used to tell me that’s the reason the Indian men in Elko were so straight, because their formative years were in the cradleboard.

Allen: Right. Like I said, thought, it’s hard to find people to make them and now they want so much money for them. Six, eight hundred dollars. Unless who have someone in the family who does. We’re lucky. My nephew taught himself how to make cradleboards, so he knows how. There are people in Pyramid Lake who make cradleboards yet.

LaVoy: What is your nephew’s name?

Allen: Reese Allen. He’s in the Marines right now. He’s a recruit at boot camp, but he’ll be home in a couple of weeks. But he had taught himself out of the Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes. He read that book, and he just fell in love with it, so he taught himself how to make cradleboards.

LaVoy: I think that is wonderful. Just wonderful. I was trying to think of living out in that area. What did you use for light at night out in the Reese River valley?

Allen: Well, candles for sure. I know they had those. I don’t know if they had kerosene lamps at that time, or not, but later on they did.

LaVoy: Did they make their own candles from the tallow from the deer, or did they buy them when they made their trips to town?

Allen: I was never told. I don’t know.

LaVoy: Now, you’re talking about using down. Where did they get the down from to make the little mattresses in the cradleboards?

Allen: Well this was later on like when my grandmother was here, my father did a lot of duck hunting and stuff like that. Raised out own ducks, too.

LaVoy: Approximately how old were you when you remember leaving the Reese River Valley?

Allen: They lived out there before I was born. Should have explained that. At the point of when my grandfather had died is when my grandmother moved her family here to Fallon because she received a position as a cook at the Indian school in Stillwater on the reservation. She couldn’t make it on their own, so they moved here. So she started living here in Fallon, on the reservation.

LaVoy: When your grandmother and your mother and the rest of your aunts and uncles moved to Fallon, what did they do with the land that they owned out in the Reese River Valley?

Allen: They kept it. They still have the land there. My uncle is taking care of it. He’s like the caretaker of it, so it’s still there. Cabin’s still there.

LaVoy: What was the cabin made of? I neglected to ask you that.

Allen: The older part of the cabin was made of logs.

LaVoy: That they had cut?

Allen: Um-hum, and the mud mixture in between the logs. And later on they had the boards, made out of boards.

LaVoy: But the original part of it was probably cedar logs with the mud in between.

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: How many rooms did it have?

Allen: There was two bedrooms, the kitchen area, and another big bedroom in the back.

LaVoy: And then did you have a living room area? Basically you used the kitchen, right?

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: That’s what most people did in that point in time.

Allen: yes, and the way I understood it, that was a newer made cabin. The other one was gone. They mentioned rocks. They had used rocks. I don’t know too much about that one.

LaVoy: Was that on the same land.

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: And that would have been your great-grandparents that were on that. Is that correct?

Allen: I’m not sure. I’m not sure what their first house looked like, but this is the one we saw as we were young, growing up. We’d go out there in the winters to go deer hunting and things. That’s the one we knew of when we were small.

LaVoy: Now, I’m sure that you got a lot of rabbits. What did your grandmother and your grandfather do with the rabbit pelts?

Allen: I remember she had rabbit skin blankets ‘cause we used to wrap ourselves in it. I was so warm.

LaVoy: She would tan the one side, and leave the hair on the other?

Allen: No, as they were skinning them, she would cut them into long strips and then it would automatically curl up. It was just kind of dry that way. She would hand them and let them dry out and later on come back through, gather it up and sew it together. I don’t really understand how she did this, but somehow something she did to make it soft, you know, where you were able to bend it around. Like maybe she’s worked it with her hands or something and got it soft. I never could understand that part of it.

LaVoy: I wonder if she sewed it together with thread or whether she used the sinews of the deer to sew it together?

Allen: I think she used thread.

LaVoy: And then you had rather a bumpy soft blanket?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: The hair was basically against you, wasn’t it?

Allen: Well, she would cover it. She’d cover it with a cloth.

LaVoy: Oh!

Allen: Yeah. Just like a quilt.

LaVoy: For heaven’s sake! That’s very, very interesting. And you kinds would all roll yourselves up in it and keep nice and warm. Now, what would she do with the deer hides?

Allen: She used those to cover cradleboards. She used to make gloves. I remember her making gloves. Moccasins.

LaVoy: How did she get the hides soft for those gloves and moccasins?

Allen: She tanned her own to get her own tanning of the hides.

LaVoy: Do you remember anything at all about the tanning process?

Allen: No, I don’t. I asked my mother that one time, and she remembered trying to help Grandma do this, but she said it just smelled so awful. (laughing) You know, it does. The process it does through that she just started gagging, and she couldn’t do it. My grandmother sent her away. She’d rather do it herself, Mother was no help.

LaVoy: (Laughing) Then did your grandmother sell these gloves and moccasins that she made, or did the family use them?

Allen: I think she sold them.

LaVoy: Well, I know ranchers loved those buckskin gloves because they were so sturdy, and they lasted so well. Were there many owls that were out in the area there that they mentioned?

Allen: No, I don’t remember that. All she would say about owls was if they did something unusual, they flew up and sat in your window or no tip of your house, that was a bad omen, but she didn’t mention if there were a lot of owls out there or anything like that.

LaVoy: I am wondering because I do know from my home town that if an own hooted, that many of these older people were very upset because it meant a death in the family, and I wonder if that – your grandmother must have felt the same way if she felt that an owl near the window or something like that, that something bad was going to happen.

Allen: Yes. Like I said, if it did something unusual, she would say it would talk to you. You know, it would talk in her language to her. This is what she would tell us. We have owls around out house. Just because they fly around doesn’t really mean anything.

LaVoy: As it did to her?

Allen: Right. I think she would be upset. I know there are people out there who don’t like owls around their place at all at anytime. I would say if it did something unusual ‘cause owls don’t usually come sit on your window ledge or they don’t sit on your house. Those particular times, yes, you kind of feel something’s going to happen.

LaVoy: Now, you said that she said they spoke to her in her language. Was she very proficient in the Shoshone tongue?

Allen: Yes. Yes, she was. All of her children spoke the language.

LaVoy: I hope that some of you have kept it up.

Allen: My uncle’s children know how to speak the language because their parents were both Shoshone. My dad was Paiute and my mom was Shoshone, and they would never talk the language in front of the other because, I think, they thought it was impolite. When you talked you made sure everybody understood you. I did try to learn from my grandmother, but you know, I was young. You have other things you’d rather do. I kick myself now, but that’s how it was. (laughing)

LaVoy: Now, she spoke, did you call it Yamba?

Allen: Yamba. That’s the name of the tribe.

LaVoy: Oh. What dialect then was that?

Allen: Shoshone.

LaVoy: She spoke Shoshone, and your grandfather spoke Paiute.

Allen: No, my grandfather was Shoshone, too. My father was the one who’s Paiute.

LaVoy: So then your grandmother and your grandfather probably spoke Shoshone to one another all of the time?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Do you recall, and I don’t mean to be offensive in any way, do you recall any ceremonies like that sweat bath ceremony and whatnot that your grandparents, that you as a little girl remember them taking part in?

Allen: They had things they called fandangos. It was just a gathering of people. They gambled, danced, feasted, and it would happen at different times of the year where people would decide they were going to have something to go on in one area, and everybody would gather around there. Lots of people, she would say. Not really giving numbers, but lots of people, and she would talk about that. Meeting families and friends you haven’t seen for the whole year since the last one. She would tell, also, stories of some of the old medicine men. They were very powerful at that time, and that was interesting.

LaVoy: Let’s just go back a little bit to the fandangos. They had the dancing and the gambling and what not. I’ve always been fascinated by the gambling the Indian women did with the sticks that disappeared. Now, what do they call that game?

Allen: I’m not familiar with that one. She didn’t really talk about the old gambling that they did. Yeah, you’re right. The women did gamble.

LaVoy: There was one game that they always enjoyed doing. I used to see them up in Elko is the reason I’m saying this.

Allen: Are you talking of the hand games? The gambling with the sticks they had?

LaVoy: Yes.

Allen: Oh. I’m sure they did that, too. That’s really a hard game to understand. They would have two teams with say five members on each team. Each one of those had six little foot long sticks that they had in front of each of the teams. They would have four bones, they called them. Two bones had a stripe in the middle, and the other two bones were just blank. It was a guessing game. To start it out – the sticks were green – in order to really start the game, one team had to wind up with all the sticks. The sticks had to pass from one team to the other, and then once all that happened, then the game really began. They would hide the bones, and the other teams had to guess which hand held the one with the stripe in it. They had different ways of guessing, whether it was straight down the middle, off to the left, to the right, or on the end. They would go like this. So if they guessed which hand the one with the stripe was in, they would win a stick. If they didn’t guess they had to give a stick. So by doing this back and forth, they would win all the sticks. The ones who won all the sticks were the ones who had one.

LaVoy: Did they gamble for money or for products or what?

Allen: I’ve seen them gamble for money. Each one had to kick in so much money when they were playing, and people on the outside would bet too. Bet on one team, and if that team won, why you won double what you put in.

LaVoy: Oh, that is fascinating. With the dancing, I remember every spring in Elko on the reservation they would have a sun dance. Do you recall your grandparents doing that?

Allen: No, I don’t.  I have never been to a sun dance.

LaVoy: it was to welcome the spring, and they would all gather together, and I just wondered if you had ever attended one of those.

Allen: No, I haven’t.

LaVoy: Fascinating. I’m so happy that you told me about the gambling game because I’ve watched that and I’ve thought, “What are they doing?” but now I sort of understand how it worked.

Allen: Yeah, took me a long time to really see that.

LaVoy: I’m trying to not pass up anything that I can think about that your grandmother would have done when she lived in the country like that. Did she have nay lore about birds other than owls? What did she have to say about the hawks?

Allen: No, there was nothing about hawks. Coyotes could be a messenger of bad news.

LaVoy: In what way?

Allen: Only if they did, like again, something unusual. Coyotes usually run off. They’re gone. They stand there and they look at you, and they start talking to you or howling, that’s not good. Just like the owl. She would tell us that also.

LaVoy: Were there any other animals that forebode evil?

Allen: Not that I can think of. Just mostly those two.

LaVoy: How about squirrels? Did she have any lore on squirrels?

Allen: No.

LaVoy: Well, I think we have pretty well covered your grandmother’s life out there. It must have been very, very hard for her, especially after your grandfather was killed.

Allen: From what I understood, I don’t know how long afterwards, but it wasn’t even a year, I don’t think. But then they moved in here. My mother said they moved to Fallon.

LaVoy: I’m sure that in that area the snow was very, very deep in winter.

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: You said your grandfather was killed in a car accident, but they must have had horses out there. One of two horses to get away from their cabins to get to food.

Allen: I’m not sure. She never did tell me about that part.

LaVoy: About what year did your mother move into Fallon?

Allen: She was old enough to go to school. She didn’t really give me a year or exactly how old she was at that time. I don’t think she was a teenager. She was younger than that. At some point in time, she went to an Indian school.

LaVoy: On the reservation, when she moved to the reservation, did she move in with someone or was she by herself at the reservation?

Allen: They had a small room for my grandmother to live in because she was a cook from what I understood. There wasn’t enough room for her – she had three children with her at that time. The older daughter was married, and there wasn’t enough room for all of them to live there, I think, is the reason why my mother and the others were sent to Stewart. My mother, anyway, I remember, she said she went there. I’m not sure about my aunt and uncle what happened to them.

LaVoy: All together, how many children did your grandmother and grandfather have?

Allen: Seven that my mother told me of, but she says there were babies who had died. Three are still living. The older daughter who was married lived in Fallon.

LaVoy: What was her name?

Allen: Her name’s Joanna Bowser. She married Jim Bowser, but she died, so there was just three of them.

LaVoy: The others had gone on their way to other places.

Allen: The others were like babies when they died.

LaVoy: So she actually moved with your mother and your uncle and your aunt to the reservation?

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: What did she say about your grandmother cooking on the reservation?

Allen: That she cooked for the school. I don’t know how many years.

LaVoy: I don’t quite understand the school. I keep thinking of public school, but was it a school that the children on the reservation attended?

Allen: From what I understood, yes.

LaVoy: And they boarded there? That they roomed there? Is that it?

Allen: They were children who lived on the reservation that went to school there. They already had homes there. They just went to the school.

LaVoy: What did your grandmother cook for? The teachers?

Allen: My grandmother cooked for the children.

LaVoy: That attended the school?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Probably their noon lunch?

Allen: Probably so, yes.

LaVoy: I see. Who supplied the food for that? Would that have been a federal government?

Allen:  I think so. I’m not really too sure how the running of it went.

LaVoy: I wondered if that would be BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] or whether it would be county or just what it would be.

Allen: I would imagine BIA.

LaVoy: What did your grandmother think about BIA? Did she ever comment at all?

Allen: No comments on that. No, she never did say.

LaVoy: Do you remember your mother saying who any of her teachers were at the reservation out at Stillwater?

Allen: No, I don’t remember.

LaVoy: Then probably when she got into high school, she went over to Stewart. Would you explain a little bit about the Stewart school?

Allen: I remember my parents talking about the school and how they weren’t allowed to talk their language. They had to wear their hair cut. The boys couldn’t talk to the girls. They were punished for different things. I don’t really know that much about. Some children that were there were very small children. Just starting school and they had older students there too. I’ve just heard so many stories about it; I don’t remember exactly what she had said.

LaVoy: I wish I had done more research on this. It seems to me Stewart was set up by the government and all the Indian children were supposed to go there to school, and especially children brought in from Arizona and New Mexico. Arizona I know.

Allen: Yes, that’s what I understood. Because of the funding of the school, mostly those tribes contributed things like a sheep to feed the students got first chance of going there. I’m not too sure. I remember their tribal leaders from those tribes down there would come up and walk around the school. They would stay and look at how things were. The kids that were these did their own cleaning of their rooms, the cooking and taking care of the grounds. And they all pitched in and helped that way.

LaVoy: Was that to teach them trades?

Allen: I think so. Later on, I remember, they had their own ranch there where they learn how to take care of cattle and things like that.

LaVoy: I wonder how many years Stewart was in existence, when it first started, and I know it closed a few years ago. I am very remiss in now having researched that. Your mother went there for how many years that you know of?

Allen: I don’t really know. I know she graduated from there. They also got jobs for the kids after school. They would do housecleaning and things like that. She moved to California for awhile after the school, I remember. She was over there for awhile and then she came back home, but I don’t remember years or anything.

LaVoy: Did she ever say anything about her treatment at the school?

Allen: She never talked about it.

LaVoy: I know the grounds of the school were beautiful. I remember that from years ago when I was a younger person, but it’s very interesting to me that the children would have to go there, and as I think back right now, I recall that many of the children from Elko from the Shoshone reservation there went to Stewart, but I can’t recall who they were or what they had to say about it.

Allen: I know there were a lot of students that went through there. I remember something really sad was they would talking about the little graveyard in the back with all the children. They were homesick. Some of them would get sick. They would die. There was a little graveyard back there. Nobody knew about it.

LaVoy: Oh, for heaven’s sake. On what part of the grounds?

Allen: I don’t know. I would just hear some people talk. Nobody really…

LaVoy: Instead of sending the children’s bodies back to Arizona or wherever.

Allen: Well, I’m sure they took care of their own down there, but there were children who were orphans or didn’t have any family, but they would take them so young. Five, six years old. They’re just babies.

LaVoy: And they’d miss their parents. Did your mother meet your father at Stewart?

Allen: About at three years difference. I’m not sure exactly. They probably did. I don’t know. Because of my grandmother’s tires with the reservation here, she was always coming back and forth, so I really don’t know if they met there or here.

LaVoy: What was your father’s name?

Allen: Gardner Allen. [Golden Glove Champion of Nevada]

LaVoy: That’s an interesting first name. Was he named after some family that his parent’s admired, or do you know?

Allen: I have no idea. At the time they got their names it usually was because they were working with a non-Indian family is how they got their last names, but I’m not too sure about first names. Maybe it was someone his father knew, or grandfather. Usually whatever rancher or whoever they were working with, they took their last names. In fact, there are some full brothers who have different last names because of who they were working with at the time.

LaVoy: Prior to this time they had straight Indian names?

Allen: Probably before my great-great-grandfather. My grandfather’s name was Carson Allen, his father’s name was Jack Allen, and before that I think was when the Paiute names were used. I don’t know further back than that.

LaVoy: It’s a shame that they lost the Paiute names, but I’ve noticed how many of the yound Indians are going back to Paiute names. That’s a very good sign. Gardner Allen then was your father?

Allen:  Yes.

LaVoy: How did he and your mother meet?

Allen: I’m not too sure whether they met in Stewart because they both went to school there, or if it was because of the time my grandmother had here by being a cook. Because my mother would go back and forth and my father lived here, and had his family here. So I’m not really too sure.

LaVoy: Where were they married?

Allen: I don’t know.

LaVoy: Who is the oldest child in your family?

Allen:  My brother Norman. [Attorney for Nevada Attorney General’s Office]

LaVoy: How old is he?

Allen: he’s forty-eight years old.

LaVoy: And then you are number two?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: and then do you have any younger brothers or sisters?

Allen: I have a younger sister. Her name is Nora DeWitt. She lives in Alaska. She’s probably around forty-three. Then I have a sister younger than that, Nellena [Allen]. She was born in 1955.

LaVoy: That’s make her forty-one.

Allen: And then a younger brother Jack who’s thirty-seven.

LaVoy: A nice family. What did your father do for a living?

Allen: He was a rancher.

LaVoy: And where did he ranch?

Allen: The reservation. He has land there he took care of at one time.

LaVoy: Out here in Stillwater?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: I see. When he and your mother were living in Stillwater, she was doing some cooking at the Indian school, and he was ranching. Is that it? Or did she quit her job at the school when they were married?

Allen:  That was my grandmother was the cook. My mother – she was my mother. (laughing)

LaVoy: She stayed home and was a mother. Wonderful. And your father ranched?

Allen: Um-hum.

LaVoy:  Tell me some of the things that you remember. What kind of a house did you grow up in?

Allen: We had a two-room house. It originally came from – the reservation got what they call these Babbitt homes. They used to be there in Babbitt [Nevada]. For some reason they moved them. They were one-room houses that they had moved out onto the reservation, so some people had just the one-room house, and other people, depending on the size of their families, for the two-room houses. This house belonged to my mother’s uncle. His name was Patsy Graham, and when he passed away, he had deeded over his land to my mother, so when my mother and father married they moved there. I don’t know how old that house was, or whatever, but I still see some down there on the reservation. They’re really old homes.

LaVoy: Are you living in that house now or in a different home?

Allen: He had a house built. I was probably about in high school that he had this house built. But, no, that one burnt down when I was about ten or eleven. I’m not sure. I’m not very good with dates.

LaVoy: What chores did you have to do when you were a little girl?

Allen: There was none that we really had to do. We just helped. Mostly like feeding chickens, taking care of the dogs. Just little things like that.

LaVoy: What kind of dogs did you have?

Allen: Oh, we just had little mutts. I remember a small German shepherd. We had that type of a dog.

LaVoy: What was his name? Do you remember?

Allen: I called his Rex.

LaVoy: Good name.

Allen: We had Australian shepherds. That was my dad’s favorite because he had cattle, and these dogs would help him with the cattle. This old one we had, I remember, we called his Bob, but he was just ancient. He had one blue eye. I remember that.

LaVoy: and the other one brown?

Allen: Yes. And then the Labradors because he liked to duck hunt, and stuff, too.

LaVoy: You dad ran how many cattle? A good herd or a small herd?

Allen: A small herd.

LaVoy: And then he loved to duck hunt.

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Do you have any duck hunting stories that you’d like to share. Other than that you had to pick those darn ducks.

Allen: (laughing) I know it. Yes. My dad really loved the kids, and whatever we wanted, he’d let us do, so I had it in me that time to go duck hunting. I wanted to learn, so he would take me out. We’d go out early in the morning about five o’clock and it was still dark and stuff. I’m not a type of person who would be wide awake that the time. I’d be just stumbling around. After awhile he got me my own gun. I had a single shot. We called it long Tom. One of those big long barrels on it. He would take me out. I never did hit anything, but he indulged us, you know, what we wanted to do.

LaVoy: How did you duck hunt? Did you have a blind out in there Stillwater area?

Allen: They called it the firing range. The blinds were just the tall sage out there, the sagebrushes or greasewood or whatever you call it. The hunters would sit behind those and wait for the ducks to come over.

LaVoy: How many’s the most that you recall him bringing home at one time?

Allen: Six, maybe. But, my brothers were also out there, and he’d take his nephews out there, but I remember the most enjoyment I got was just as the sun was coming up to hear the ducks make their sounds and the Canadian geese and coyotes. You hear all the wildlife out there. That was a favorite time. I remember one time I was so anxious to go I forgot my gun.

LaVoy: (laughing) yes, that’s make you very popular!

Allen: So he let me sit in his blind with him, and he had one of those pump guns. It’s a bigger gun than the one I had because of the twelve gauge. Mine was a sixteen. Anyway that’s that first time I shot as a canvasback, and I was so proud. But I was using his gun. I said, “Well, that’s what made the difference.” Before I was just out there.

LaVoy: How long would you stay? All day?

Allen: No, we’d probably be home around nine or ten o’clock in the morning.

LaVoy: And then I know what your job was.

Allen: Yes. (laughing)

LaVoy: (laughing) Picking ducks is no fun for anyone.

Allen: No, it isn’t.

LaVoy: And then would you eat them the same day?

Allen: We’d soak them the first day, and then probably the next day is when we’d eat them.

LaVoy: What would you soak them in?

Allen: Just water. Changed the water a couple of time.

LaVoy: To get that wild taste out?

Allen: Um-hum.

LaVoy:  How did your mother cook them?

Allen: She baked them.

LaVoy: Did she put any apples or anything with them? Did you have any secret ways of cooking them that made them taste better?

Allen: No. She would maybe pit an onion inside. She didn’t really do anything fancy with them, but I remember them as being really good.

LaVoy: That’s wonderful. Which was the first school that you went to?

Allen: West End.

LaVoy: Do you remember who any of your teachers were at West End?

Allen: I remember Mrs. [Esther] Price. She was my first-grade teacher. That first year of school, I caught double pneumonia, so I had to take that class over again. So, I remember Mrs. Price because she was my teacher the next year. I remember Mrs. [Echo] Wood. I think she was my third-grade teacher.

LaVoy: Did you enjoy going to school at West End?

Allen: My first day was terrible. See, on the reservation we never got to get out or anything, and I remember walking in the classroom and being the only Indian student in the class. It was frightening. I didn’t want to go in there. I wouldn’t go through the door, and the teacher had to come out and talk to me, but I was just terrified. I’d never see so many non-Indian people in one place at one time. That was kind of hard, but after awhile you made friends, and it was easier.

LaVoy: Who were some of your friends at school?

Allen: Geese, I can’t remember now. That was so long ago.

LaVoy: Oh now, (laughing), it wasn’t so long ago.

Allen: I remember Brenda Tedford, Audys Dodge, Mike Luce.

LaVoy: Then after you finished at West End, where did you go?

Allen: I was at West End up until I went into junior high. I never moved schools. I was always there.

LaVoy: And then where did you go to junior high?

Allen: That was the first year they built E.C. Best Junior High School. Out class was the first one to go through there for the first three years.

LaVoy: My goodness!

Allen: Way back then, yes.

LaVoy: Who were some of the teachers that you remembered there?

Allen: Mr. [Louis] Buckmaster was there.

LaVoy: Well, did you feel that by this time you had assimilated right in with all the other kids?

Allen: Um-hum. Right, because at that time there were still not that many Indian students. I could probably count them on my left hand.

LaVoy: Where were there so few?

Allen: Most of the kids went to the Stewart Indian School. They were still going there, but at that time, you had to not really be a bad student, but you had to be either from a troubled home like an orphan or you had trouble with the law. Then you could get into Stewart. From Nevada. Nevada kids had to meet that criteria, but at the same time the Arizona kids of the New Mexico kids they would come up whenever they wanted. But it was difficult for our students here in Nevada to get into the school. So, some of us, we didn’t mind. We liked it, so we went to school there.

LaVoy: Then you went from junior high to the Churchill County High School.

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: How did you enjoy high school, and what were your favorite subjects?

Allen: Oh, I liked psychology. Mrs. [Cecilly] Jacobsen taught some of those classes, and I really enjoyed her classes. And geography. I liked learning about different places. I guess those are my favorite. I’m not much of an artist, so I didn’t really care for that.

LaVoy: Who was the principal of the high school when you were attending?

Allen: I can see his face, but I can’t remember his name.

LaVoy: Tell me about graduation night.

Allen: It was nice. The first time I got to wear a nice dress, and shoes, and then they cover you up in your old gown.

LaVoy: After you spent all the money for a nice dress and shoes.

Allen: Yes. Right. But, it was nice. My family had a dinner at our house and family and friends came over. So, that’s what we did.

LaVoy: Did all of your brothers and sisters graduate from Churchill County High School?

Allen: My youngest didn’t. She never liked school here in Churchill County. I don’t know why. She just wouldn’t go, so they offered her to go to school in Stewart, and she went. We never thought she would, being that she’d never been away from home or anything, but she went over there. She graduated the highest honors of the school.

LaVoy: Well, that’s wonderful!

Allen: Gave her speech, and everything. Yes.

LaVoy: Now, this would be Nellena.

Allen: Yes, that’s Nellena.

LaVoy: I think that is absolutely marvelous. What is she doing now?

Allen: she’s home right now. She’s taking care of your mother who is partially paralyzed, and she takes care of my niece’s son. He’s six-months old. So she’s there taking care of the home so that I’m able to go out and work, otherwise I’d be there. So I do my job, and she’s there to take care of the house.

LaVoy: Well, with her having such scholastic abilities, I wondered if she had gone on to college or anything like that.

Allen: She did attend the University for one semester. She’s involved with tribal things like the tribal election committee and she gets into tribal politics. She enjoys doing stuff like that. She writes letters and…

LaVoy: with your graduating from high school, did you go right immediately into the work you’re doing now, or what did you do when you graduated from high school?

Allen: No, I went to work.

LaVoy: Doing what?

Allen: Doing clerical things. I worked out at the base [Fallon Naval Air Station] for awhile. I woeked at the library. Just sporadic things. In the meantime I was married in there for about five years.

LaVoy: When were you married?

Allen: I was married probably about 1970 for five years, and then I divorced.

LaVoy: After you came back to work again, were did you work?

Allen: I worked for the tribe. I was involved in their community health representative program which was a program that the clinic ran where you went out into homes and you checked on the elderly. Made appointments for people. At that time, we didn’t have our clinic here in Fallon. We had to go to Schurz to see the doctor. I was involved in transporting patients, and because of the transporting we had to make their appointments. We also took people into Reno to see specialists. So, I did that for about seven or eight years.

LaVoy: Something I didn’t realize, instead of using the local doctors, your tribal system is set up so that there is a central place where you all go for the doctor?

Allen: It has to do with Indian Health Service. We have to go to them to get our health care.

LaVoy: Is that under BIA?

Allen: No, it’s different. It’s still a Federal program, but it’s for health. BIA is education, tribal affairs type of thing, but for out health needs, we had to use the Indian Health Service. We went there for direct care. If a person needed to have an operation or something like that, they had something called contract care. You still fad to go to the clinic and get referred, and the referrals are the ones we had to take into Reno or Carson or wherever those doctors were at.

LaVoy: Do you feel it’s a good service?

Allen: Yes, because without it a lot of our people wouldn’t be getting any type of health care. It could improve, yes. But its’ all they have, and it’s what they use.

LaVoy: It’s sort of like they’re trying to have all of us join these medical systems—I can’t think of the word right now, but it’s the same idea. Like the Kaiser plan and things like that. What did you do after you finished that?

Allen: I worked in Reno for about a year. As an option to that program, they had one called the maternal child health representative, and that program worked with the women-infant-children’s program. They traveled through the western part of the state certifying women and children for their program which was a nutrition supplement program. I did the heights and weights of the children. Took little blood samples and things like that.

LaVoy: That didn’t make you very popular. (laughing)

Allen: No. I hated to make children cry.

LaVoy: From there where did you go?

Allen: I applied for the alcohol-drug counselor position they had open down here, and I got that position. I worked there for probably about a year. I was uncomfortable doing that because I felt my clients knew more than I did because I’d never had any training. The only thing I had was reading. We had to read up on it and stuff. But, I had this gentlemen help me. He, himself, was a recovering alcoholic, and he was a big help to me. He made my job a lot easier at the time.

LaVoy: I noticed that you attended the Western Nevada Community College. What classes did you take there?

Allen: I took anything and everything that had to do with psychology or sociology. I just loved those subjects. I didn’t have to. I wasn’t really working towards a degree or anything, but things popped up that I thought were interesting.

LaVoy: And what did you take at Chapman College?

Allen: At that time I was going into more business-type classes.

LaVoy: And then when Chapman closed at the base, and you went to Troy University.

Allen: Same thing there. My problem was I couldn’t get enough credits in those programs to graduate. Before I would reach that point, the school would close because of maybe not attendance or something going on with the system there, so they had to pull out.

LaVoy: So, now you have enough credits to be actually a senior at the University.

Allen: I am a senior, yes.

LaVoy: And are you taking classes now?

Allen: Yes, I am. Their requirements I have to meet now is so many hours in their system. I’m almost there.

LaVoy: Do you drive into Reno to attend classes, or are you doing it by correspondence or what?

Allen: I have one correspondence course I’m going. That’s on nutrition. Most of the classes I have to take now are electives which is all right with me. I have that class going. I’m taking a criminology class that’s going to be held out here in Fallon, which is nice. They offer classes out here now, and we’re also getting a telecommunications microwave system out at the reservation where we can take classes right out there.

LaVoy: That is marvelous!

Allen: They have that system here at the high school and at the community college, but they had a grant out that they wrote, so they’re putting these programs out on the reservations, so we got one of them, and that’s really exciting.

LaVoy: Did you have anything to do with writing the grants since you’re good at these things?

Allen: (laughing) No, it happened about two or three years ago, I think. The community college did that. They wrote the grant, and it came through. So, there we are.

LaVoy: Wonderful. So, one of these days, before much longer, you will have your college degree. Well, I’m very proud of you. I think that’s marvelous. What are you doing right now? This program that you’re working with now, what’s it called?

Allen: It’s the tribal education program. I work under the Johnson/O’Malley Program which monitors children first grade all the way up to seniors in high school. We just try to make sure that they try to get the best they can out of their education. If they need tutoring, I plug them into programs they have in the school. If they can’t get in there, I have an after-school program where kids come out to my office, and I work with them. We do the kindergarten bus run. We transport the kindergarten students. The school will transport one way, and then we either bring them from school, or take them to school, so we have that one going.

LaVoy: About how many children are in that program?

Allen: We have twenty. And they’re so cute. All shiny faced, excited going to school. It’s really neat. I like working with the little tiny ones like that. They’re really cute. We offer a Paiute language class on Monday nights which is really good. It’s mostly younger kids come out and we teach them words. Colors, animals, body parts. Just the basics, and as an option to that I’ve signed up under the community college for a Paiute language class in Schurz, so I go out there Thursdays to take that, and use some of the things I learn there for our language class Monday nights.

LaVoy: Are you fluent in Paiute?

Allen: No, I’m not. I’m learning. I mean, I really want to learn. And I don’t mind going. I talk with their elders, and that’s really a lot of help.

LaVoy: Do you speak Shoshone at all?

Allen: I know some words, yes. At one time we were offering Shoshone language classes, so I took that, but it was really hard because I know how to count in Paiute, and I know how to count in Shoshone, and I was getting them all mixed up. So, I had to take a choice. I’m going to either learn Paiute or I’m going to learn Shoshone. So I sat back and looked, and we have more people that can speak Shoshone than we can Paiute, so I thought, well, I’m going to choose Paiute, so that’s why I’m stressing to learn more on that language.

LaVoy: Well, I certainly admire you for putting forth the effort on that. Something I am curious about. I read a great deal in the paper about the problems that they’re having with elections out of the reservation, and I just do not understand it. Basically, what is the problem out there?

Allen: Well, like anywhere else we have different factions that both vie for power, always looking for something that went wrong in order to either stop an election, or get a new election. Out council is made up of seven members, and we elect the chairman, secretary-treasurer, vice-chairman, and the other four are members. And it’s staggered. Next year we’re going to be choosing a chairman. This yeah we chose a secretary-treasurer, and our vice-chairman and two members.

LaVoy: What is the job of the council?

Allen: out chairman is a paid chairman. It’s a job for him. He has to be there. He does correspondence. He attends meetings. He travels.

LaVoy: Representing?

Allen: The tribe.

LaVoy: The Paiute tribe?

Allen: Both.

LaVoy: Paiute and Shoshone?

Allen: Yes, we’re one tribe. It’s a Paiute-Shoshone tribe.

LaVoy: He takes care of all the tribal business?

Allen: Yes, the tribal business. Our secretary-treasurer does the clerical portion of that. Resolutions, maintaining records. She’s also in charge of our finance department, so she’s got her duties there. On our reservation, we have different programs. Like the program that I take care of, it’s through what we call a six thirty-eight grant. This is a grant that is given to us from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to run a program. The health clinic has theirs. We have our elders’ meals program, social services program, and there’s just a variety of programs out there that the tribe administers, and the monies that come in are the ones that the finance department takes care of. They have to keep track of the budgets of all these programs and make sure the money is being spent right, so that’s what she has to oversee.

LaVoy: With your elections do all of your people that live on the reservation or all of your people that are Shoshone-Paiute vote?

Allen: We have a tribal membership, and to be a member you have to be one quarter Paiute or Shoshone and approved by the tribal council, so all these people who are eighteen years or older have the right to vote whether they live on the reservation of off the reservation. If they live far away we have a system that’s called an absentee ballot. They can apply for that, and others who can, they come in and vote.

LaVoy: The votes are counted by whom?

Allen: We have an election committee, and that’s comprised of five people that oversee the elections from the beginning to the end. They have their own ordinance that they follow. They make sure that everything’s running right.

LaVoy: Something I just read in the paper that I didn’t understand. There was a question about your last election, and a judge had to decide it, and the judge was from Schurz. Will you explain that to me?

Allen: This was something new. Before when we had a challenge to the election, it had to go before the tribal council, and the tribal council made the determination of whether it was a valid challenge or not. But the problem we ran into there was it depended on who had the power in the council. Were they able to hold back the election? Before, we tried to have our council seated that very first meeting in January. That one council wasn’t seated until April, so in order to stop that from happening, when they re-did their ordinance, they thought all the challenges would be handled by the court system. We have a tribal court that we have there, and the judge would determine whether that was valid or not, but because our tribal judge that we have, there was a conflict, so we had to pull a judge in from the outside to come in. Someone who had no ties, who wasn’t working with the tribe. Someone really didn’t know, so that’s why they pulled a judge from there.

LaVoy: Well, that was very smart, and, as I recall, he agreed with the election as it happened. Is that correct?

Allen: Yes, he did. Because, he said, the challenge, well, it didn’t hurt anybody. None of the people who didn’t make it into vote because of the wrong date, they weren’t there to say, “Hey, I didn’t get a chance to vote, I thought it was Sunday.” They had affidavits, but the affidavits weren’t notarized.

LaVoy: With your tribal council, I know in ancient times you had a chief. You no longer have a chief, is that correct.

Allen: We call them tribal chairman now.

LaVoy: So, the tribal chairman is actually the chief?

Allen: Right.

LaVoy: Who is it at this moment, or do you care to say?

Allen: Alvin Moyle is out chairman now. He’s got one year to run, and the next year, he runs again, or if somebody wants to challenge for that, they put their name in, and the people vote on them.

LaVoy: Is he a local boy?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Went all through school with you, perhaps? Or probably he’s older than you.

Allen: A little. I’m not sure. I think he was mostly around Carson area, but his family’s always been down here.

LaVoy: In ancient times it was usually the chief ran straight through a family, did it now?

Allen: I think so.

LaVoy: And now it’s no longer that way. It’s whoever is the most qualified according to members of the tribe. Is that it?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Does he go back to Washington to meetings to represent you?

Allen: Yes, he does. He travels to Washington, Phoenix. Wherever there’s something he needs to attend to.

LaVoy: Do you feel that the way things are set up now is advantageous to the Indian tribe?

Allen: I think so, yes. It’s more of a business now. It had to be because we’re not like in the old days where it was like a community. Everybody helping everybody. You didn’t have all these programs that you had to take care of, and now we do. There’s a lot of money involved, and you have to take care of it like you would a business.

LaVoy: Do all of your people take advantage of this? Like I understand that there are some tremendous scholarships if you are a fourth of any of the Indian tribes. Do you have many of your young people here taking advantage of that?

Allen: Those who want to, yes. We have quite a few students who do. They’re not all students that live here in Fallon. We have students in California, New York, Oregon. They go wherever they want to, and we’re able to help them. So, we don’t really say you have to be living on the reservation. We look at the kids just coming out of high school as our first priority. We want to get them started and get them going, so any of those who want to apply, we stress for them to apply within their time lines. That’s what I do is work with them and get them going that way.

LaVoy: You must be very proud to able to send so many of them.

Allen: I know. Yes. It’s really exciting, and we’ve had about four of them graduate from school now, and that’s just the beginning.

LaVoy: That’s wonderful. Something that I’m curious about, I have a little friend whose father or mother was a Paiute and they came from the Battle Mountain area, and there was a tremendous monetary settlement for lands in that area. Now, would that affect the people here, or would that be only the Paiutes that would be in the Battle Mountain area, or do you know?

Allen: No, that would be only for that area.

LaVoy: I don’t think the money had completely dispensed yet because there was a question as to the amount of it, and some members of that tribe did not think it was enough, and there were others that were willing to accept, so I think it’s in abeyance. Have you had any settlements like that in this area?

Allen: Yes, we did. It had to do with, we appropriated land north of the reservation, and there was something going on there. It had to do with water rights. Anyways we did have a settlement that came through on that, and that is why we’re able to supplement some of our programs out here.

LaVoy: That money did not go to the individual families. It went into the pot, per se?

Allen: Most of it into the pot. A certain little percentage of it – not of the whole thing, but of the interest accrued, they did set aside for per capita payments.

LaVoy: For each member?

Allen: Yes, each member.

LaVoy: Of the tribe here in Stillwater?

Allen: Wherever our members are.

LaVoy: Thinking back who in the history was the most prominent that you can think of your Shoshone-Paiute ancestors?

Allen: I would have to say Wuzzie George. She did a lot to maintain the traditions and to keep it going.

LaVoy: I’ve certainly read a great deal about her. That’s tremendous that she did that.

Allen: I know.

LaVoy: Are any of her relatives living on the reservation yet?

Allen: Yes, most of her family is still there.

LaVoy: By any change, is Wilma George who works for the county manager, is she by any chance a relative of Wuzzie George?

Allen: Yes, that’s her granddaughter.

LaVoy: Oh. She’s an outstanding young lady. Well, that is just fascinating. You have a group of young dancers out at the reservation that I find absolutely fascinating. What’s the name of that group, and what started it?

Allen: That’s the Sage Dance Group. It started out, maybe, eight years ago as a program through the alcohol-drug program we had. Ellen Johnson was the director at that time, and we started it as a preventive program to prevent alcohol and substance abuse. She had just moved to the reservation. Her mother lives here. Her and her sister, Francine Tohanni, and both of the girls knew the dances. They knew how to make outfits, and they decided to start a program. We’d never had anything like this out here before, and it’s something, I think, that the kids really wanted. They asked me to help so I help them, so, and we just got some kids together. It started out small, just our own nieces and nephews, and then from there it grew. Right now we have probably about thirty kids, and they range in age from five years old up into seventeen. They do various dance styles. We have the Jingle Dress Dancers, Fancy Shawl. The boys are into Grass Dance, and we have some traditional dancers. They do performances for the schools or other civic organizations. Tribal functions. We go to pow-wows. We just try to keep the kids involved.

LaVoy: You mentioned George Johnny. What did he have to do with the program?

Allen: Oh, George Johnny. Him and his wife, Norma, when we first started, we didn’t have a drum. The music we used was taped music, and it wasn’t really conducive to learning because you don’t have the drum beat that you can hear very well. It’s kind of fuzzy, but, anyway, we asked them to come out and sing some songs from the tribe. Tribal type things. So they came out and they drummed for us and sang, and the kids just had a real nice time learning some things like that.

LaVoy: And this gentleman is how old?

Allen: Oh, I’d say probably in his sixties, maybe. Seventies. I’m not really too sure. Maybe older.

LaVoy: He just came and volunteered to teach them the drum beat?

Allen: Um-hum. They came out a couple of times. That was really nice of them to do that.

LaVoy: Is there any program that has continued on for the children. Tribe programs like your… I think you mentioned a native studies program. Would you tell me something about that?

Allen: Oh, yes. This is a grant that I helped to write with Marie Thompson. She comes from Arizona. She’s with the Southwest Indian Original Training Center out of Tempe, Arizona, and Roberta Lindeman and I first met to try to get a program together that would help bring a native studies program into the school district [Churchill County School District]. We pilled this together, what it did was it helped with the tutoring program for the kids of all grades. Third grade through the sixth grade and seventh grade on up we did workshops for them, or put that in the grant and offered a native studies class to the high school students. Which was really good to have something like that in the school district and the tutoring program for the younger kids. Tutors would go into classroom and work with the kids, or they would meet after school at the high school for children there. It’s a good program. We really worked hard to pull it together.

LaVoy: What were some of the native studies? What is involved in native studies?

Allen: When it first began, Francine Tohanni was the instructor, and she talked about nationwide like different tribes, similarities, and Indian issues that were cross Indian country. Different things the tribes were doing just to try to get the kids introduced into what it was like being an Indian and the problems that they had.

LaVoy: That’s a wonderful program. Did you have quite a number of your students taking it in high school?

Allen: I’m not too sure. The first semester because the class was offered after everybody else had already registered for other classes, the attendance was small, I think. A few of our Indian students took advantage of it, but the ones who did take it, after reading their little evaluations, they really enjoyed it.

LaVoy: And it’s continuing now?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: Getting with your tribal programs and what not, I’m curious, you mentioned that there were two non-denominational churches on the reservation, but now are there still any Indian ceremonies that are being held on the reservation or nearby reservations?

Allen: Ceremonies that probably the most ones that they have are maybe the sweat lodge on the reservation. It’s family oriented, meaning a small sweat lodge, for just the family members. There’s probably about three, maybe four down there, you know, different families who do that.

LaVoy: Would you explain what a sweat lodge is?

Allen: It’s used for purification. It’s a small structure made out of willows covered with canvas or anything that would seal it to keep the heat inside. Usually in the center, there’s a hole where rocks are placed, and water is prided over them. It’s like a sauna. You go in there, and close it all up. It’s your time to pray or just meditate or whatever.

LaVoy: And the rocks are heated prior to your going in.

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: And then the water is put on the rocks to bring the steam up. Is that correct?

Allen: Right. That’s correct.

LaVoy: How long does one normally stay in a sweat lodge?

Allen: It’s an individual thing. I attend a sweat lodge in Schurz, and we’re in there probably about an hour and a half, you get breaks. The door opens four times. It’s four rounds, they call it. Yeah, it’s about an hour and a half.

LaVoy: And you feel completely – I won’t say refreshed. That’s not the word I want to use. You feel more that you’re back with your spirits, your ancestors?

Allen: Um-hum. Yes. Depending on what you are praying for, or whatever, you can feel refreshed, like you said. Or if you’re really tired or whatever, it’s just a really neat feeling. You never felt so clean inside, and out, and that’s what it is to purify you.

LaVoy: Do you have a big one in Schurz that is centered, or does it belong to a private family?

Allen: The sweat lodge belongs to Junior McMaster. He’s the doctor. It’s a large lodge. You could have about probably up to maybe sixty people in there if you crowded enough.

LaVoy: That is a good-sized one.

Allen: Yeah, it’s really nice. It’s on his own property, and he’s had that for about eighteen years now.

LaVoy: You mentioned his name. Is he a Paiute?

Allen: Yes, he is.

LaVoy: And went to medical school?

Allen: No, to become a sweat lodge doctor it involves fasting and a lot of prayers. It’s more a spiritual thing where he’s given this special thing to be a sweat lodge doctor.

LaVoy: In other words he’s more like a priest of minister, but within the Indian tribe.

Allen: Yeah, like a medicine man.

LaVoy: Do the Indians still use a lot of herbs and whatnot for their medications?

Allen: I think so, yes.

LaVoy: They do this privately?

Allen: Yes.

LaVoy: And do you feel that, as of old, some of these primitive remedies are far better than some of our modern ones?

Allen: Yes. I think so.

LaVoy: This has been very, very interesting. I think we have pretty well covered most everything, and I certainly want to thank you for taking the time from your job to come and be interviewed for us. I’m thrilled with this interview. On behalf of Churchill County Museum, I want to thank you for all the time that you’ve taken.

Allen: You’re welcome.

LaVoy: This will be a wonderful addition to our archives.

Allen: Thank you.

LaVoy: You bet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harriet Allen

Index

Pages

Allen, Carson (Grandfather) .      .               .               .               .               .        27

Allen, Gardner (Father) .               .               .               .               .               .        27, 28, 29-30

Allen, Jack (Brother) .     .               .               .               .               .               .        28

Allen, Jack (Paternal Grandfather) .          .               .               .               .        27

Allen, Martha Weeks (Mother) . .               .               .               .               .        1,2,3,9-10,23-24,25-26,28,34

Allen, Nellena (Sister) .   .               .               .               .               .               .        28, 33-34

Allen, Norman (Brother) .             .               .               .               .               .        28

Allen, Reese (Nephew) . .               .               .               .               .               .        16

Basket Making . .               .               .               .               .               .               .        4,6,13-15

Beadwork.          .               .               .               .               .               .               .        12

Churchill County High School .    .               .               .               .               .        33

Cradleboards.    .               .               .               .               .               .               .        4, 13-16

Deer      .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .        10,11,19

DeWitt, Nora Allen (Sister) .         .               .               .               .               .         28

E.C. Best Junior High       .               .               .               .               .               .         32

Employment      .               .               .               .               .               .               .         34-37, 41-42

Fallon Reservation .         .               .               .               .               .               .         25, 37, 38-45

Family Life ..       .               .               .               .               .               .               .         2,3-11,14-15,16,21,28,29-30,31

Fandangos.         .               .               .               .               .               .               .          21

George, Wuzzie .              .               .               .               .               .               .          42-43

Graham, Patsy. .               .               .               .               .               .               .          29

Hand Games.     .               .               .               .               .               .               .          21-22

Indian Health Service.    .               .               .               .               .               .          35

Johnny, George.               .               .               .               .               .               .          44

Maternal grandfather    .               .               .               .               .               .          10,17,20

Native Studies Program .               .               .               .               .               .          44-45

Pinon pine.         .               .               .               .               .               .               .          3-9

Rabbit skins        .               .               .               .               .               .               .          18-19

Reese River Valley, NV   .               .               .               .               .               .          1,11-12,17-18

Sage Dance Group           .               .               .               .               .               .          43-44

Schooling.           .               .               .               .               .               .               .           31-33, 36-38

Stewart Indian School.   .               .               .               .               .               .          25-27, 33

Sweat Lodge.     .               .               .               .               .               .               .          45-46

Teachers              .               .               .               .               .               .               .           32,33

Tribal government.         .               .               .               .               .               .           38-42

Weeks, Lena Bell (Grandmother)              .               .               .               .           2-4,7,10-15,17,18-20,23-24

West End School               .               .               .               .               .               .           31-32

Yomba Shoshone.           .               .               .               .               .               .          2,11-12,20                              

 

Marian LaVoy

Harriet Allen

4325 Schurz Highway, Fallon, NV