John Joseph Mathews
Osage Writer and Tribal Councilman, Artist, Naturalist, Historian, and Scholar
“So after years spent in many other parts of the earth, I had come back to the very spot where I had lain as a boy, watching the circling of the red-tailed hawks and actually shedding tears over the fate that had made me earth-bound, the spotted bird dog and the flaxen-maned pony indifferent to my tragedy.”
Talking to the Moon, p. 4
On November 17, 2009, John Joseph Mathews and the Osage Tribal Museum will be honored as the eighth Oklahoma Literary Landmark. This dedication honors Mathews’ valuable literary legacy and his devotion to the culture and history of his Osage tribe. John Joseph Mathews was an influential writer and tribal leader for the Osage Nation. A veteran of World War I and graduate of the
This designation celebrates the writers and the places that influenced them. We hope this booklet will inspire you to read the works of John Joseph Mathews, visit the Osage Tribal Museum and learn more about the great Osage Nation. Then visit the other Oklahoma Literary Landmark sites throughout the state and discover Oklahoma’s rich literary legacy.
University of Oklahoma and Oxford University, he
Enjoy the journey!
returned to his hometown of Pawhuska in the 1930s
Michael Wallis
where he wrote five outstanding books, served on the
Author and Oklahoma Literary Landmarks
Osage Tribal Council, and was dedicated to preserving
Committee Chair
the history and culture of his people. He has been
Karen Neurohr
honored posthumously by the Oklahoma Historical
Associate Professor, Librarian, Oklahoma State
Society and the Oklahoma Center for the Book.
University and Oklahoma Literary
Mathews and the Osage Tribal Museum join seven Oklahoma Literary Landmark sites across Oklahoma.
2
John Joseph Mathews
Landmarks Co-chair
The most illustrious Osage man of letters is John Joseph Mathews. His first novel, Wah’Kon-Tah (1932), is the finest single account of how an American Indian nation made the transition from buffalo-hunting and relative freedom, to living on the Oklahoma reservation onto which they were forced in 1872. Sundown (1934) is the story of a young Osage named Challenge who grows up on the reservation, goes to the University of Oklahoma, plays football and joins a fraternity (with satire like that in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise), becomes a pilot at the end of World War One, and returns to a reservation seething with murderous exploitation of oil-rich Osages by the bankers, ranchers, lawyers, merchants, police and doctors of the booming town of Pawhuska. Talking to the Moon (1945) is a Thoreau-like account of living in Osage country, friendly and funny—but as deep, clear, and beautiful as Thoreau’s Walden Pond. It has twelve chapters, one for each of the Osage months of a year’s living in the stone house built under his direction north of Pawhuska “The Blackjacks,” where woods and prairie meet. The coyote who “talks to the moon” is always present, rarely seen, and (until the end) smarter than the cowboys who pursue him. Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland (1951) is an incisive history of Oklahoma politics told through the life and troubled times of the Ponca City oilman and Oklahoma Governor who founded Conoco Oil Company. The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961) is the best single history of any American Indian Nation, with poetic expositions of Osage ceremonial concepts and patterns linked to detailed history of how the United States has dealt with Osages, and vice versa. The Literary Landmarks celebration in Pawhuska, this November 17, of contributions by Mr. Mathews to our understanding of Osage cultural history, will begin a new era in our literary history. Before long, students and teachers of American Indian history and literature will be coming to Pawhuska, perhaps to a restored Memorial and Residency at The Blackjacks, to research and meditate on the work of Mr. Mathews, and on the Osage Nation whose beautiful and deeply philosophic ceremonies, social structures, individual lives, and heroic struggle to remain a sovereign nation he has so finely illuminated. Carter Revard, Ph.D., Osage Poet and Scholar
John Joseph Mathews
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John Joseph Mathews and Osage Tribal Museum Timeline
1800s 1872 Constructed as a schoolhouse and dormitory, the building that will later become the Osage Tribal Museum in 1938 is established. 1894 November 16 - John Joseph Mathews born to William Shirley and Eugenia (Girard) Mathews on Osage Agency Hill in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
4
1900–1910 1906 June 28 – Allotment Act of 1906 (34 Stat. 539), passes in Congress and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, provides for the election of a principal chief, assistant principal chief and eight members of the tribal council, which is the recognized governing body of the Osage Tribe (Section 9); Ne-kah-wah-she-tunkah elected 1st Principal Chief and Brave elected 1st Assistant Principal Chief under this Act.
John Joseph Mathews
1911-1920 1907 November 16 – Osage Reservation is incorporated as the largest county in the State of Oklahoma (Cherokee for “Land of the Red Man”); Osage County becomes the State’s most prolific oil producing area, and one of most renowned cattle grazing areas in the United States.
1912 Mathews, sophomore at Pawhuska High School, serves as editor-inchief for the Pawhuska High School first-ever yearbook. His other school activities include football, basketball, Ciceronian Literary Society, and Debating Club. Sculptures of Osage individuals commissioned by the Anthology Department of the Smithsonian‘s Department of Natural History. Thirteen molds were created and eight were cast into full-size plaster busts.
1920–1930 1914 Mathews graduates from Pawhuska High School and enters the University of Oklahoma. World War I begins; Osage Agent George Wright discourages Osages from joining the military saying that the full-bloods were not citizens and thus not subject to the draft; nevertheless, 153 Osage men serve in the military during that time. 1917–1919 Mathews enlists in the Army and serves as a pilot in the Army Air Corps.
1920 Mathews graduates Phi Beta Kappa with a B. A. degree in Geology from the University of Oklahoma. He accepts an offer to study at Oxford University but declines the award funds.
1923 Mathews graduates with a B. A. in Natural Sciences from Merton College.
1921 April- Mathews begins studies at Oxford.
1924 Mathews completes an International Relations certificate from the University of Geneva. Mathews marries Virginia Winslow Hopper in Switzerland.
Osage Tribal Council purchases the John L. Bird Collection for the future museum.
1926 August 3- Mathews’ son, John, is born in Los Angeles. Mathews works in real estate in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas of California through 1928. 1929 Mathews leaves California and returns to the Osage Hills to live and becomes a rancher and writer.
1925 March 9- Mathews’ daughter, Virginia, is born in New York City.
John Joseph Mathews
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John Joseph Mathews and Osage Tribal Museum Timeline
1930–1940 1930s Mathews receives WPA grand and is instrumental in getting Osage Principal Chiefs to sit for paintings by WPA artists. 1932 Wah’Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road published by the University of Oklahoma Press. It is the first University Press book selected for the Book-ofthe-Month Club. 1934 Sundown published by Longman, Green & Company. June 4 – Mathews is elected to the Osage Tribal Council.
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1940–1970 1935 Mathews appointed to the Oklahoma State Board of Education but serves only a short term. 1938 May 2-3 – Dedication of the Osage Tribal Museum, in Pawhuska, and, as of the present, the oldest tribally-owned museum in the United States. June – Mathews re-elected to the Osage Tribal Council. 1939–1940 Two successive Guggenheim fellowships awarded to Mathews to research Indians in Mexico.
John Joseph Mathews
1945 Talking to the Moon published by University of Chicago Press. Mathews marries Elizabeth Palmour Hunt after divorcing his first wife. He gains two stepchildren John Clinton Hunt and Ann Hunt Brown.
1951 Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland published by University of Oklahoma Press. 1961 The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters published by University of Oklahoma Press.
1970–2009 1962 Mathews receives Distinguished Service Citation from the University of Oklahoma. Mathews receives Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History for The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters 1967 September 30 – Osage Tribal Museum reopens to public after a year-long modernization program funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Mathews instrumental in acquiring grant funding for the project.
1979 June 11 – John Joseph Mathews passes and is buried in the garden by his beloved stone house which he named “Blackjacks.”
1996 Mathews inducted posthumously into the Oklahoma Historians’ Hall of Fame for preserving history of Oklahoma and of the Osage people
1987 October 15 – Osage Tribal Museum placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
2006 Mathews honored with the Ralph Ellison Award by the Oklahoma Center for the Book. Award recognizes deceased individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Oklahoma’s literary heritage. Virginia Mathews accepts the award for her father
John Joseph Mathews
2009 November 17- John Joseph Mathews and the Osage Tribal Museum honored as an Oklahoma Literary Landmark by Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma.
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Introduction to Sundown By Virginia H. Mathews
To read Sundown with a full measure of
and accepted where Indian people were concerned.
understanding and appreciation, one must realize
But what of creativity and intellectual brilliance? As
that in the times in which it is set American Indian
late as the 1930s white Americans had not become
people were at their lowest ebb. The Indian
accustomed to thinking of Indians as educated,
population had shrunk to about half a million, and
articulate beings, and in truth there were not many
the fervent hope of the federal government that
who were—an inevitable result of the confused
Indian people would simply disappear entirely,
bureaucracy relating to federal Indian policy, poor
following years of effort to that end, seemed likely to
educational opportunities, low expectations, and
be realized. Until the human-rights revolution of the
little motivation, The few poets and writers of Indian
1960s made such prohibitions illegal, it was possible
heritage were to some extent regarded as curiosities,
to see a sign in a western restaurant proclaiming,
admired by a small elite but decidedly out of the
“No Dogs, No Indians”; and “breed”, meaning half or
mainstream. John Milton Oskison, of Cherokee
part Indian, was widely used language. In the 1950s
descent, who wrote frontier romances which did
a young American Indian veteran of the Korean War
not deal with Indian perceptions of issues, was
was denied burial in a cemetery in Iowa.
married to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s granddaughter
Against this background, it is understandable that
Hildegarde (also a writer), and he fit comfortably into
American Indian young people—especially those
establishment literary circles. The Cherokees were
of mixed blood—might well have had a problem
one of the ‘”five civilized tribes”, and their great leader
with self-image and self-esteem. Of course, a few
Sequoyah placed great emphasis on literacy, having
Indian people came into favorable public view: sports
invented a written language for his people. This tribe
figures like Lewis Tewanina, a winner in the 1912
also produced Lynn Riggs, a poet and playwright of
Olympics, and Jim Thorpe, a great football and track
the 1930s; his Green Grows the Lilacs burst into fame
star. The United States Army and air services in World
as the play from which the musical Oklahoma! was
War I provided a means for American Indian men to
created in 1943.
breakthrough and demonstrate their military skill,
But, as Andrew O. Wiget wrote of the 1930s, “The
patriotism, and heroism. Outstanding among them
principal novelists of this period, however, were John
was the Oklahoma Osage Clarence L. Tinker, born in
Joseph Mathews and D’Arcy McNickle, both of whom
1887, who became a brigadier general in the U.S. Air
established careers in writing. Mathews, as Osage
Force was honored by having Tinker Air Force Base in
Oxonian, became popular when his Wah’Kon-Tah: The
Oklahoma named for him.
Osage and the White Man’s Road became a Book-of-
So physical prowess, which reflected stereotypical fleetness of foot and bravery, came to be expected 8
John Joseph Mathews
the-Month Club success in 1932. In addition to a lyrical autobiography, Talking to the Moon, he is best known
for Sundown, a novel about young Chal (for challenge)
all certified members of the literary establishment
Windzer, so named because his father expected the
of the time. It was the first university press book
boy to challenge the white world. In the end, however,
thus singled out for popular distribution, and it sold
despite his making gestures toward becoming a
fifty thousand copies in its first year in the depths
lawyer, it is difficult to believe Chal will, or even can,
of the depression. At last, an American Indian writer
make something of his fragmented, frustrated life.”
in the mainstream! When a paperback reprint of
1
Later American Indian writers wrote on the same
Wah’Kon-Tah was published in 1986, a reviewer wrote
theme: of young Indians of mixed blood who return
that Mathews “consistently stressed the spirituality,
from encounters with the white world bruised,
dignity and humor of the Osages who grudgingly
uncertain of their identity, and alienated from both
acculturated to the white man’s road, adapting those
worlds, white and Indian. Among the other novels,
aspects of the new way for their own purposes.”3
were D’Arcy McNickle’s The Surrounded, M.Scott
When Talking to the Moon, his third book, was
Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, which won him the
reprinted in 1986, one reviewer wrote that “it was
Pulitzer Prize, and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.
his evocation of the Osage countryside and of life
John Joseph Mathews was in the vanguard of
on the old reservation (in Talking to the Moon and
American Indian writers who brought their education,
Wah’Kon-Tah) that made Mathews a legend for this
their sophistication, and their considered pondering
prose-poetry.” 4
on a dual cultural heritage to the service of their tribes
In 1980, the year after Mathews’ death, in a tribute
and if Indian people collectively. As a result, for more
in the The American Oxonian, his longtime editor and
than fifty years now, Indians have been speaking
fellow Oxonian, Savoie Lottinville, wrote of Wah’Kon-
on equal terms—and often on terms of significant
Tah: “ As a portrait of Siouan people in transition, it is
advantage—with bureaucrats and politicians, with
perhaps without match in the literature of the Indian
historians, philosophers, and other intellectuals. Yet, as
in our century.”5 In the same article, Lottinville, wrote
late as the 1970s, it was possible for a staff professional
about Sundown: “ It was well and strikingly written,
from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to testify before the
but in those deep depression years it had much the
National Commission on Libraries and Information
same fate as other first novels, but it was destined
Science that “Indian people can’t read, don’t want to
not to die.” Published originally in 1934 by Longman,
learn, and would not use libraries if they had them.”2
Green and Company, it is, as Lottinville says and
When Mathews’s first book, Wah’Kon-Tah, was
other reviewers have noted, partly autobiographical.
chosen to be the November, 1932, selection of the
Reprinted in 1979 by G.K. Hall in Boston, this is
Book-of-the-Month Club, the jurors were Henry
Sundown’s second reprint, fifty-four years after its first
Seidel Canby, Christopher Morley, and Amy Loveman,
appearance. John Joseph Mathews
9
Savoie Lottinville was editor, at the University of
trading company and a bank after moving with the
Oklahoma Press, of Mathews’ two final books: Life
Osage tribe onto the new reservation in northeast
and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland,
Oklahoma in 1872. His grandfather, a black-haired
published in 1951; and The Osages: Children of the Middle
Welshman named John Mathews, founded the town
Waters, published in 1961. Of the Marland biography
of Oswego, Kansas, as a trading post. John Mathews
Lottinville said, “Historians have singled it out for the
married Mary Williams, and after she died, he married
kind of distinction they seldom accord the work of a
her sister Sarah, both of them daughters of William
non-institutional scholar.”6 And of The Osages: “for all of
Shirley Williams and his Osage wife, A-Ci’ n-Ga.
us who work in the areas of Indian history and American
William Shirley Williams is known to history as “Old Bill
expansion, the research-oriented writer who gives us
Williams,” an interpreter, trader, guide, and explorer,
reliable interpretation is a person beyond price. In The
and the only one of the mountain men known to have
Osages, a massive history of his people, Mathews in
been literate. Williams, Arizona, and many other places,
1961 demonstrated for us... what had been needed in
are named for him. Another interesting ancestor, also
this area of history. It combined history and ethnology,
Welsh and related to the Williamses, was Meriwether
written from a sure linguistic base, for Mathews knew
Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
the Osage language intimately. His tribal oral history and
Although John Joseph Mathews’s father, William
white documents were on straight. We now cite him
Shirley Mathews, was of only one-quarter Osage
with the certainty that he was right. This book, it seems
blood, he served as a member of the several
to me, joins the indispensable company of those… who
delegations which negotiated so successfully with
recorded for us early the Homeric qualities of the Osage
the federal government for land payments and
tradition, rites, and wi-gies or recitatives.”
for mineral rights accrued to the tribe. He married
7
Sundown, then, is the only fictional work of a
an intelligent, energetic young woman from the
remarkable writer who made literary history in
Missouri French settlements, Eugenia Girardeau, who
an admittedly narrow area of American literature.
became the author’s mother. John Joseph delighted
It joins his other four books of history, natural
in the conviction that his heredity was a good one,
history and biography to create the oeuvre of a
and he was fluent in the English, French, and Osage
uniquely creative artist.
languages. He grew up the only surviving boy in a
Because Sundown reflects so much of John
family with four sisters, and in keeping with the family
Joseph Mathews’ personal experience, feeling,
priority accorded to education, Joe Mathews and all
observation, conflict, and complexity, it is thought
four sisters graduated from college.
of as autobiographical, and of course, in a sense it
Like Chal, his Sundown character, Mathews, born
is. But there are important differences between the
in Indian Territory in 1894, also roamed the hills and
author and his protagonist. Like Chal Windzer in
prairies with horse and dog, a boy full of dreams
Sundown, John Joseph Mathews was of mixed Indian
and wonderings. Even then the tug of his Indian
and white blood. His father, William Shirley Mathews,
heritage was strong, and he spent time in the camps
was a highly respected tribal leader who founded a
of the elder full bloods, listening to their tales. Like
10
John Joseph Mathews
Chal, he observed the coming of statehood in 1907,
he reflects the purposelessness, the alcoholic haze,
when the Osage Nation became part of the state of
the lawlessness, the shrillness of the period which
Oklahoma. Like Chal, he went off to the University of
he found so distasteful. Chal’s search for purpose is
Oklahoma. played football, and joined a fraternity,
mingled with hatred of what he also longs for—the
popular because of his good looks, his brains, and his
casual relationships, the meaningless chitchat of white
athletic skill but always feeling himself to be a bit of
culture—which runs counter to his Indian instincts. It
an outsider. Mathews interrupted his college career to
seems safe to say, however, that by the time Mathews
enlist in the army. He chose the cavalry, but because of
wrote of Chal’s dilemma, he had already passed
his exceptional night vision, he was soon transferred to
through his own period of alienation and self-doubt.
the aviation branch of the Signal Corps and served as
Having found his identity at his roots, he knew that
an instructor in night flying and as a aviator in France
his purpose lay in preserving the tradition of his
during World War I.
Osage culture and history—what he called “Osage
Unlike his fictional character, Chal, Mathews returned to the University of Oklahoma and was
culture rescue.” Professor Terry P. Wilson of the University of
graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1920, with a degree in
California, Berkeley, says: “Sundown is a unique
geology. He refused the offer of a Rhodes Scholarship
evocation of Osage life and thought couched in
and went to Oxford on his own, one of the first—if not
the fine literary style of the writer’s other work.
the first—of the American Indians to do so. His degree
Sundown illuminates the psychology of the
in natural sciences from Merton College was received
American Indian during and after the reservation
in 1923. He loved his Oxford years, the burnishing of
period as well as any novel published on that
his mind, the discipline and personal attention of the
theme and better than most.” 8
tutorial system, the easy comradeship with non-
Settled on his own allocated land amid his
Americans. He was invited to visit at great estates,
blackjack oaks, immersed once more in his Osage
where he felt at home with the British adoration of
culture, John Joseph Mathews began to write
hunting, of horses and dogs and the countryside,
seriously when he was entrusted with the personal
with the reticence, formality and tradition coupled
records of Herbert Hoover’s uncle Colonel Laban
with humor and friendship. He toured Europe and
J. Miles, who for more than thirty years was the U.S.
North Africa on a motorbike, did a reporting stint for
Indian agent to the Osages. When his friend Joseph
an American newspaper, married an American girl in
A. Brandt became the first director of the University
Geneva, Switzerland, lived in California and fathered
of Oklahoma Press, it was Brandt’s encouragement,
two children before returning to his Osage hills in 1929.
together with that of his family and tribal elders, that
In the felicitous words of Savoie Lottinville, “It was a response to the call of cultural integrity he could not withstand.” He distrusted and disliked
Wah’Kon-Tah was written and became one of the Press’s earliest and finest successes. Inspired by his mother and sisters (his father had
the frenetic, drifting world of the 1920’s and could
died much earlier), who maintained an active interest
find no satisfaction or direction in it. In Sundown
in Osage culture, Mathews founded the Osage Tribal
John Joseph Mathews
11
Museum, which opened in 1938. It was the nation’s first tribally owned and operated museum and is part of the Osage Agency complex. Mathews was joined in this endeavor especially by his sister Lillian Mathews, herself an archivist and historian of tribal affairs, who served on the Osage Agency staff for many years. He was perhaps prouder of his museum than any other thing that he had written or accomplished, and he loved to regale visitors with funny stories of getting some of the old chiefs to sit and have their portraits painted by WPA artists in the 1930s. After his success as the author of Wah’Kon-Tah, John Joseph Mathews blossomed out and made full use of his heritage and status as a mixed-blood bridge between two cultures. Governor Marland of Oklahoma pressed him into service as a Regent for Higher Education in the state. His geological training led to his appointment as representative of the Osage Tribe’s oil and other geological interests, and in that role he made quarterly trips to Washington for a number of years. He served on the Osage Tribal Council and was often cast in the role of tribal spokesman. He used his influence and charm, as well as his high intelligence, to influence Indian policy, and he was involved in the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs under John Collier in the 1930s. He always had the greatest scorn for the (sometimes) well-intentioned do-gooders who wanted Indian people to shed their special status, their treaty privileges, and protections by the federal government. As John Joseph Mathews grew older (he was to live to be eighty-four years old), he associated himself more and more closely with the Osage culture which he had done so much to record and preserve. He would tape the singing at the Osage dances in the
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John Joseph Mathews
“Spring came to the prairie and the blackjacks and the hills looked like undulating green velvet. In the early mornings the sonorous booming of the prairie chicken came over the hills on soft, whimsical little breezes. The blackjacks were hung with tassels of green, like the fringe on a piano cover. “ Wah’Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road, p. 280 13
spring of each year and afterwards would sit listening
day’s hunt, there was much good “man talk”—joking
to the tapes, tapping the arm of his chair as the
and storytelling—with the likes of Frank Dobie
rhythm coursed through his veins. The building of
and Roy Howard. Mathews had a great capacity for
his little stone ranch house is chronicled in Talking
delight, and he took enormous pleasure in the good
to the Moon (published first in 1945 by the University
things of life: laughter, good food, a roaring fire, and
of Chicago Press and again by the University of
good company when he wanted it. Above his giant
Oklahoma Press in 1981). It was there that Mathews
stone fireplace he painted a phrase in Latin which
lived most of the years of his life, close to his hills,
pleased him so much that it almost seemed to have
making friends with a coyote, photographing the
become his motto. He found it in a Roman ruin
dances of the prairie chickens—and it is there that
during his North African adventuring. The translation
he is buried. A second wife, Elizabeth, entered
reads: “To Hunt, to Bathe, to Play, to Laugh, That is to
comfortable into his chosen life-style. Many visitors
Live.” To the day of his death he was able to say that
came to The Blackjacks, including U.S. senators,
he had never in his life done anything he did not
newspapermen, filmmakers, philosophers, and a
want to do.
rancher-neighbor or two; and there was barbeque
In response to a conjecture about whether one
and good talk. Inevitably, his admirers expressed a
looked or did not look Indian, he would reply: “Being
longing for the kind of simple, uncomplicated life
Indian isn’t in looks, in features or color. Indian
Mathews lived, free of the “rat race” of New York,
is inside you.” In writing Sundown, John Joseph
London, or Washington. “But they would not last
Mathews shows us that he had conquered himself.
out the week,” he would say, laughing contentedly,
He created Chal out of what he had expunged from
because they worshipped the white man’s symbols
his own life—despair, dichotomies the aimlessness,
of success and status and cared nothing for the
the uncertainties he knew when he was young—to
natural world. In Sundown it is perhaps significant
become valuably and uniquely himself, triumphantly
that in the course of Chal’s downward spiral two of
white and Indian.
the white business-success models that he observes Notes
kill themselves.
1
John Joseph Mathews left his beloved land no oftener than he could help. There were the trips
Andrew O. Wiget, “Native American Literature, A Bibliographic Survey of American Indian Literary Traditions,” Choice (Association of College and Research Libraries), June, 1986.
2
to Washington, D.C., and trips to many parts of the
Taped testimony before the NCLIS, used in the 1974 report and recommendations by Virginia H. Mathews as a consultant to the Commission.
country to do research. During the 1940s he spent
3
Studies in American Indian Literature, Fall, 1985.
4
Oklahoma Today, May-June, 1986, p.5.
several years in Mexico doing research on the Indian
5
Savoie Lottinville, in The American Oxonian 57, no. 4 (Fall, 1980).
culture of that part of the Americas with funds from
6
Ibid
7
Ibid
two successive Guggenheim grants. And since,
8
Terry P. Wilson, unpublished article.
almost above all else, he loved hunting, there was an annual trip to New Mexico in the fall to stay and hunt with friends there. In the evenings, following the
14
John Joseph Mathews
“The prairie is deep copper-color now and remains so all winter. The leaves of the blackjacks are brown and tick gently on calm days but rattle like shot on paper when the wind blows.”
Talking to the Moon, p. 193 “To the Osage the coyote a symbol of cupidity and double“Theisprairie is deep copper-color now and remains so all dealing, and their stories about indicate he thought of and tick winter. Thehim leaves of thethat blackjacks are brown himself as a very important their gently animal. on calmIndays butstories rattlethat like depend shot on paper when the upon dignity made ridiculous as a basis for humor the wind blows.” coyote often appears.” Talking to the Moon, p. 193 Talking to the Moon, p. 188
“The Osage say that the moon is a woman and that she makes her appearance twelve times a year.” Talking to the Moon, p. 33 Final resting place at the Blackjacks
John Joseph Mathews
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My Father John Joseph Mathews by Virginia H. Mathews
John Joseph Mathews will be remembered for his books, but I remember him as both talented writer and father. I was born March 9, 1925 in New York City and named for my mother, Virginia Hopper. My mother’s family had a long American colonial history and I remember my father encouraging me to always keep and honor my mother’s family name. It seems my parents were drawn to each other by their love of art, education, history and theatre. They told me stories of their romantic meeting in Geneva and their Swiss wedding in 1924. My father and mother often told me the story of their accidental meeting with World War I Ace flier, Hermann Goering in a Roman hotel while they were on their honeymoon. Joe, (my father’s informal name) always maintained his fierce love of flying and was proud of his military service. Goering and my father compared their flying successes and abilities. Later in the conversation, the German military man warned that there would be, in the future, another World War with France, England and the United States and others, despite the Peace Treaty of Versailles. Much later, my father shared this warning and threat with President Roosevelt, far ahead of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. In 1926 my father wanted to investigate some barren land lying between Los Angeles and Pasadena with the hope of creating a lucrative living for his family. My parents enjoyed traveling to California by ship via the Panama Canal which first opened for service in 1914. Arriving in Los Angeles,
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John Joseph Mathews
“I am always sorry to leave the blackjacks to be gone for several weeks, but during this month I usually spend several weeks or a month in Washington, D.C., attending to the business of the Osage. They have bills in Congress to be guided, and because they have oil royalties they are, as a tribe, ever on the defensive, so that there are always matters under litigation as well. It seems that they must be constantly protecting themselves against those who sincerely believe them to be a vested interest.” Talking to the Moon, p. 212 they found temporary quarters, and before long, my brother John was born on August 3, 1926. Father lost no time surveying the barren land he hoped to make into a subdivision. My parents bought a lovely colonial house in Pasadena with palm trees and a beautiful garden. It was a few blocks from the famous Rose Bowl. Both my parents were active in amateur theatre productions at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. I remember my father taking me when I was about three to see my mother perform the role of Minnehaha in a Rose Bowl production of “Hiawatha.” One of my earliest detailed memories of my father was of him reading New York Times editorials to me as I sat on his lap. Although I was only about four, I have the distinct memory of his explanation of the word “facetious” and my thrill at his attention and respect for my young intellect. A few days later, he was again reading the Times to me and I said, “That man is just being facetious, Daddy.” I will always remember his laughter and pleasure in my grasp of the word. Father began to see that being a businessman was difficult and perhaps not meant for him. Then in 1929 came the blow – the Stock Market crash followed by
John Jo
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the Great Depression. For a man whose life, so far,
American Literature.” The book is taught in college
had been full of success, it filled Father with despair.
curriculum today, a fact that would no doubt please
He felt the need to return to the reservation and a
my father, for it is taught as much for its language,
world he could understand.
storytelling, and simple beauty, as for its chronicle
John Joseph Mathews
Upon his return to Pawhuska, for some time Father lived in the second story quarters over the Mathews’s family house garage. For Father,
of the Osage looking both at the end and the beginning of a way of life. My father and I always maintained a relationship
interesting and literary work came at once. Laban
through letters and visits when he was in
Miles, former Indian Agent to the Osage after their
Washington on tribal business. In 1941, when I was
removal from their Kansas lands, bequeathed his
16, I made my first of many visits and stays with my
diaries to Father and charged him with the job of
father at his beloved Blackjacks, the stone cabin
creating a literary work based on the journals. Joseph
where he lived and wrote his subsequent books.
A. Brandt, Father’s college friend, and first director
We spent hours reading and talking and he told
of the University of Oklahoma Press encouraged
me stories of when he was a little boy. He took me
father, as did tribal elders and the Mathews’ family, to
to visit the Osage elders and to the Osage “hand
complete the book that became Wah’Kon-Tah.
games” where he delighted in my success with
As the Depression swept the country, I picture my father writing above the garage near where Miles
concealing game objects. I was with Father when he passed away on June 11,
lived in the 1880s, creating this unique picture of
1979, and I was there when Ed Red Eagle, Sr., Assistant
Native American transition into modern America.
Principal Chief for the Osage Tribe, conducted an
My father made full use of his Osage heritage, his
Osage Indian ceremony in the garden of his beloved
education, and status as a mixed blood to bridge
Blackjacks, with all members of his family present.
two cultures, but yet he wrote with a simple depth of understanding that transcends labels such as “Native
John Joseph Mathews
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Books by John Joseph Mathews 1932 Wah’Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road Volume 3 in The Civilization of the American Indian Series In Wah’Kon-Tah, John Joseph Mathews relied heavily on the papers of Osage agent Major Laban J. Miles to recreate the world of the Osage during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Using his own experiences, Mathews stressed the spirituality, dignity, and humor of the Osages as they acculturated to the non-Indian world and adapted some of its aspects for their own use.
1934 Sundown Challenge Windzer, the mixed-blood protagonist of this compelling autobiographical novel, was born at the beginning of the twentieth century “when the god of the great Osages was still dominate over the wild prairie and the blackjack hills" of northeast Oklahoma Territory. Named by his father to be “a challenge to the disinheritors of his people,” Windzer finds it hard to fulfill his destiny, despite oil money, a university education, and the opportunities presented by the Great War and the roaring twenties. Critics have praised Sundown generously, both as a literary work and a vignette into the Native American past.
“The idea of a book came to me when I noted that the old men talked more eagerly and with more patience to me than they had ever done before. It couldn’t have been deference to my age, since I was still a young man. Then I suddenly realized that they were worried; they were worried about the disruption of their father-to-son history. They were worried about the end of their own gentile and tribal importance, and that the sheet water of oblivion might wash their moccasin prints from the earth.” The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters. p. xii 18
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1945 Talking to the Moon: Wildlife Adventures on the Plains and Prairies of Osage Country In this beautiful account of what he saw and did and thought, Mathews describes his solitary life among the creatures of the blackjack-covered ridge on his ranch with rare perception and style. His observation are based on the white man’s seasons as well as the Indian cycles of the moon, and he discourses upon the eccentricities of man, the behavior of animals (including the communicative talking-to-the-moon coyote), and the encompassing and particular beauty of his wilderness home.
1951 Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland One of America's most colorful oilmen was Ernest Whitworth Marland, a man who had much in common with other industrial giants of his age — the Mellons, Rockefellers, the Morgans. Moving to Ponca City, Oklahoma, from Pennsylvania shortly after the turn of the century, Marland quickly found oil on the lands of the Ponca and the Osage Indians. E.W. Marland was a man of paradox—an advocate of unhampered oil exploration but also a champion of oil conservation, a man who lived in luxury but espoused the common causes of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1961 The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters Volume 60 in The Civilization of the American Indian Series Once in a generation, perhaps, a great book appears on the life of a people, less than a nation, more than a tribe, reflecting in a clear light the epic strivings of men everywhere since the beginning of time. The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters is such a book. From the oral history of his people extending to the period before the coming of the Europeans, the recorded history since, and his own lifetime among them, John Joseph Mathews has created a truly epic history.
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“The Light-of-Day-Returns Moon is the season of lengthening days and the season when Grandfather the Sun again becomes interested in earth and its children. When the Osage say they ‘live in the light of day,’ as they do in most of their prayers and songs, they thus express their happiness in the approval of Grandfather.” Talking to the Moon, p. 236 20
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Osage Nation “The culture of the Osage Nation reaches back in time, perhaps to the beginning of time. There is not much written about the Osage People before the mid-1600’s. At that time, traders and explorers began to document their accounts with tribes of the Midwest in what was later to become the United States. The Osages were considered a Siouan people, semi-nomadic in nature and recorded mainly throughout the Missouri and Arkansas area. They were a Nation of people with a familial culture of Northern Plains’ tribes.” “All nations east of the Mississippi traveled the Trail of Tears. The Osage were no different. They were removed and settled in Kansas. By the time they negotiated the treaty of 1865 to purchase land in Oklahoma, the Osages had reduced in population by 95%. Only 3000 Osage People walked across the Kansas border into their new land.” “The Osage of today resonate their culture of long standing traditions by clinging to the lessons of their ancestors. The modern day Osage is educated, diverse and staunch to the fact that being Osage is their identity. Our native culture today is a respectful memorial to our past. We participate in our dance, our feasting and our naming ceremonies because that is what we have left. We do not try to re-create the past, we are the present and our culture is in the present. Like all indigenous cultures, we are a traditional people. No matter where we roam, we are always “Osage” and that is what brings us back to our Osage Reservation, to commune with each other, to relate to each other and to be recognized each year during our ceremonials as Osages.”
Please visit our sites listed below and in doing so, we hope that the personification of what it means to be Osage will be of some inspiration to you. Text from Osage Cultural Center webpage: http://www.osagetribe.com/cultural/ Osage Government: http://www.osagetribe.com/main_government_overview.aspx Osage Departments: http://www.osagetribe.com/main_departments_overview.aspx Osage Language Department: http://www.osagetribe.com/language/ Osage Minerals: http://www.osagetribe.com/main_mineral_overview.aspx
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“Later, one May day when the prairie was emerald, and mauve cloud shadows moved indolently across the campus of the agency, and the smoke from the separate camps of the four Osage clans arose in a semicircle around the new museum, we celebrated its opening.” Talking to the Moon, p. 136
Osage Tribal Museum Collections include ■■ “Osage Ten” Project, Bust sculptures of Osage individuals from the early 1900s ■■ Original Paintings of past Osage leaders and well-known members of the Osage Nation ■■ “The Osage Timeline,” which tells the story of our existence from 650 a.d. through today ■■ The Osage Nation Constitution of 2006. If you are of Osage descent and wish to sign this historic document, visit the museum. ■■ Photo Archives from the 1800s to the present. Many photos illustrate the early use of traditional clothing, dances and ceremonies, award presentations, and architectural features. ■■ “2229” Exhibit, photos of original allottees and their descendents, along with a 1906 map displaying the location of each allottee’s land.
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John Joseph Mathews
Osage Tribal Councilman John Joseph Mathews was instrumental in establishing the Osage Tribal Museum, with the approval of Principal Chief Fred Lookout and the 14th Osage Tribal Council (1934–38). The museum was dedicated on May 2 – 3, 1938. Miss Lillian Mathews, a sister of John Joseph, was the museum’s first curator. The Osage Tribal Museum is known as the “oldest tribally-owned museum in the United States since 1938” and is located on the Osage Nation Campus in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Originally constructed in 1872 as a chapel, school and dormitory, the building’s adaptation to a museum was a WPA project which was carried out by the CCC. It is finished with native Oklahoma sandstone. The museum consists of two exhibition galleries and a collections/office area. Kathryn Red Corn Museum Director
Osage Tribal Museum 819 Grandview Avenue, or P.O. Box 779 Pawhuska, Oklahoma 74056 Phone: 918.287.5441. Fax: 918.287.5227. Website: www.osagetribe.com/museum Open Tuesday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and closed on major federal holidays. Visitors are always welcome at the Osage Tribal Museum!
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Additional Resources Selected Works by Mathews Wah’Kon-tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road, 1932 Sundown, 1934 Talking to the Moon, 1945 Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland, 1951 The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters, 1961 “Singers to the Moon” http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oktoday/1990s/1996/oktdv46n4.pdf Works about Mathews Bailey, Garrick. “John Joseph Mathews.” American Indian Intellectuals, 1976 Proceedings of The American Ethnological Society, edited by Margot Liberty (1978): 205-214. Hunt, John. “Mathews, John Joseph.” Encyclopedia of North American Indians. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. 363-5. Hunter, Carol. “The Historical Context in John Joseph Mathews’s Sundown.” MELUS 9 (1982): 61-72. —. “The Protagonist as Mixed-Blood in John Joseph Mathews’s Novel: Sundown.” American Indian Quarterly 6 (1982): 319-36. “John Joseph Mathews.” Native North American Literature. NY: Gale, 1994, 409-416.
—. “Maps of the Mind: John Joseph Mathews and D’Arcy McNickle.” Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: U of OK P, 49-89. Richter, Sara Jane. The Life and Literature of John Joseph Mathews: Contributions of Two Cultures. Diss. OK State U, 1985. http://dc.library.okstate.edu/cdm4/document. php?CISOROOT=/Dissert&CISOPTR=72429&REC=1 Ruoff, A. Lavonne Brown. “John Joseph Mathews’s Talking to the Moon: Literary and Osage Contexts.” Multicultural Autobiography: American Lives. Ed. James Robert Payne. Knoxville: U of TN P, 1992. 1-31. Schweninger, Lee. Listening to the Land: Native American Literary Responses to the Landscape. Athens, GA: U of GA P, 2008.
Kalter, Susan. “John Joseph Mathews’s Reverse Ethnography: The Literary Dimensions of Wah’Kon-Tah.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 14.1 (2002): 26-50.
Vaught, Michael. “Osage Scribe.” Oklahoma Today 46.5 (1996): 34-7. Web. 7 October 2009. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oktoday/1990s/1996/ oktdv46n4.pdf
Logsdon, Guy. “John Joseph Mathews: A Conversation.” Nimrod 16 (1972): 70-75.
Warrior, Robert Allen. Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions. Minneapolis, U of MN P, 1995.
—. “Mathews, John Joseph.” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture, published by the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/M/ MA037.html
Wilson, Terry P. “John Joseph Mathews.” Native American Writers of the United States. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1997. 154-62.
Lottinville, Savoie. “In Memoriam: John Joseph Mathews 1895-1979.” The American Oxonian. 57.4 (1980): 237- 41.
Osage Tribal Museum, John Joseph Mathews Collection.
Mathews, John Joseph.” Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, vol. 45. NY: Gale, 1995, 268-9. Owens, Louis. “Disturbed by Something Deeper”: The Native Art of John Joseph Mathews. Western American Literature 35.2 (2000): 162-73.
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John Joseph Mathews
—. “Osage Oxonian: The Heritage of John Joseph Mathews,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 59 (1981): 264-93.
Other sources
John Joseph Mathews Papers 1921–1979. University of Oklahoma Libraries, Western History Collections. Includes diaries, letters, & manuscripts.
Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma 400 Civic Center · Tulsa OK 74103 http://www.okfriends.net The Governor’s Conference on Libraries in 1978
Literary Landmark™ designations within Oklahoma
called for the creation of a state Friends of Libraries
by following the National Literary Landmark™
group; thus the original board and membership
guidelines and application process of the
of Friends of Libraries (FOLIO) in Oklahoma was
Association of Literary Trustees, Advocates, Friends,
established. All board members are lovers of books
and Foundations. Committee activities include
so the name FOLIO seemed exactly right. FOLIO
selecting sites, submitting applications to ALTAFF,
won the Outstanding State Library Friends Group from
and collaborating with local groups to secure
Baker and Taylor at the American Library Association
partners, coordinate publicity, and plan a public
Annual Conference in 1999. The award was for work
event. The committee maintains contact with the
completed in 1998, the 20th year of FOLIO.
group or individual responsible for the site and its
Our mission is to promote and support libraries
continued designation. In the future, FOLIO will be
in Oklahoma through friends of libraries and other
recognizing other Oklahoma authors and Literary
library support groups. FOLIO provides seed grants
Landmark™ sites. To join FOLIO or help support
for libraries in Oklahoma wishing to start a Friends
FOLIO and the Oklahoma Literary Landmarks
group, scholarships for librarians to further their
Program, contact us:
education, educational programming, and two
Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma
annual awards for Friends groups that demonstrate
400 Civic Center, Tulsa, OK 74103
exemplary success in support of their local library.
http://www.okfriends.net/
FOLIO’s Literary Landmarks committee coordinates
FOLIO Board Members, 2009-2010, *denotes officer *Gerry Hendon, *Carolyn Klepper, *Sharon Douthitt, *Jeannine Spencer, *Carol McReynolds, Kim Bishop, Betty Boyd, Patrick W. Brennen, Denyvetta Davis, Clare Delaney, Beverly Dieterlen, Jon Douthitt, Emily Dunagin, Eugene Earsom, Eleanor Edmondson, Cindy Mitas Friedman, Jennifer Greenstreet, Robert Greenstreet, Tom Haines, Mary Harkey, Cletta Kinnear, Erwin Mason, J. Michael Matkin, Joe McReynolds, Gail Miller, Judy Neale, Karen Neurohr, Elfridge Nikkel, Julia Brady Ratliff, Lynda Reynolds, Bruce Stone, Laurie Sundborg, Tom Terry, Irene Wickham, Harlene Wills FOLIO Advisory Board, 2009-2010 Dr. Bob Blackburn, Kay Boies, Glenda Carlile, Oliver Delaney, Dr. Kathy LaTrobe, Lynn McIntosh, Susan McVey, Teresa Miller, Vicki Mohr, Dr. Ann Morgan, Donna Morris, Judy Randle, Linda Saferite, Michael Wallis, Pat Weaver-Myers
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Literary Landmarks™
C
The purpose of the national Literary Landmarks™ program is to recognize and dedicate historic literary sites. Led by Michael Wallis and Julia Brady Ratliff, FOLIO started Oklahoma’s Literary Landmarks Program as a Centennial Project in 2001. Oklahoma’s Literary Landmarks are part of the national Literary Landmarks™ program. With the addition of John Joseph Mathews, Oklahoma has eight Literary Landmark™ Sites: ■■ Woody Guthrie and Okemah (2001). Plaque displayed in Woody Park ■■ Ralph Ellison and the Ralph Ellison Library (2002). Plaque displayed in the library ■■ Lynn Riggs and Territorial Claremore (2003). Plaque displayed in Claremore Public Library ■■ Angie Debo, 2 sites: Marshall and the OSU Library (2004). One plaque displayed on city hall in her hometown
Marshall. One plaque, art, and photos displayed on the second floor of the OSU Library,
home of Debo’s literary archives
■■ John Berryman and McAlester (2005). Plaque displayed in the McAlester Public Library ■■ Sequoyah and Sequoyah’s Cabin State Park (2006). Plaque displayed at museum entrance ■■ Will Rogers and the Will Rogers Memorial Museum (2007). Plaque displayed in museum ■■ John Joseph Mathews and the Osage Tribal Museum (2009). Plaque displayed on museum grounds Nationally, the Literary Landmarks™ program began in 1989. It is a project of ALTAFF, Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations. To date there are over 100 national sites and the list continues to grow. Sites must be dedicated to a deceased literary figure, author or his or her work. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/altaff/outreach/literarylandmarks/index.cfm
Partners FOLIO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following partners for this booklet project: Osage Tribal Museum Osage Nation University of Oklahoma Press Oklahoma State University Library Oklahoma Center for the Book Oklahoma Department of Libraries Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers Oklahoma Library Association City of Pawhuska Pawhuska Public Library
Ms. Marsha Hayes Ms. Virginia Mathews Carter Revard, Ph.D Mr. Roger Lloyd Lindsey Smith, Ph.D., O.S.U. English Department O.S.U. Native American Student Association Wah-Zha-Zhi Cultural Center of the Osage Nation ALTAFF
This publication is funded in part by the Oklahoma Humanities Council (OHC) and the We the People initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of OHC or NEH.
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Credits Booklet edited by Karen Neurohr, Associate Professor & Librarian, Oklahoma State University and Dr. Lindsey Smith, Assistant Professor of English, Oklahoma State University with special assistance from Kathryn Red Corn, Rhonda Kohnle, Lou Brock, and James Elsberry, Osage Tribal Museum; Gerry Hendron, FOLIO, andTyler Merriman, O.S.U. Student. pp. 3-7, Timeline. Sources consulted: Talking to the Moon and The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters by John Joseph Mathews; Virginia Mathews; Osage Tribal Museum Staff; “Mathews, John Joseph” by John Hunt; “John Joseph Mathews” and “John Joseph Mathews: A Conversation” by Dr. Guy Logsdon; “Osage Oxonian” by Dr. Terry P. Wilson; “John Joseph Mathews“ by Garrick Bailey; The Life and Literature of John Joseph Mathews by Dr. Sara Jane Richter; University of Oklahoma Libraries, Western History Collections, Ms. Devon Yost; “John Joseph Mathews” Native North American Literature; “Mathews, John Joseph” Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series, vol. 45 [printed sources are listed on p. 23] pp. 8-16, “Introduction to Sundown,” courtesy University of Oklahoma Press and Virginia H. Mathews, all rights reserved. pp. 17-18, “My Father,” courtesy Virginia H. Mathews, all rights reserved. With assistance from Marsha Hayes and Lou Brock. pp. 19-20 Book Covers and Synopses, courtesy of University of Oklahoma Press, all rights reserved. p. 21 “Osage Nation,” official website of Osage Tribal Council, all rights reserved. http://www.osagetribe.com/main_culture_overview.aspx p. 22 “Osage Tribal Museum,” official website of Osage Tribal Museum, all rights reserved. http://www.osagetribe.com/museum/ index.aspx p. 23 “Further Reading” bibliography by Dr. Lindsey Smith and Karen Neurohr Image Credits FRONT COVER: Mathews holding Wah’Kon-Tah, his first published book* p. 2: Mathews by water* p. 4: (1) L to R: Alexander Moncravie, Barada Moncravie, & John Joseph Mathews*
p. 4: back row: John Joseph Mathews; front row: his sisters Mary I. Mathews, Lillian B. Mathews, & Florence Mathews Feighan Moncravie [print by B.B. Nichols]* p. 4: Mathews with shotgun and hunting dogs* p. 5: Basketball team photo, 1911–1912 (Mathews holding basketball)* p. 5: Football team photo, 1911–1912 (Mathews holding football)* p. 5: Mathews, Military photo* p. 5: Mathews in WWI military uniform, 1918; Ellington Air Force Base* p. 6: Osage Tribal Council, 1934–1938; l to r: F.N. Revard, Secretary; John Joseph Mathews; Lee Pappan; Dick Petsamoie; George Pitts; G.V. Labadie; Louis DeNoya; Chief Fred Lookout; Harry Kohpay, Assist. Chief; Charles Brown; Superintendent C.L. Ellis [Dec. 20, 1937; Andrew Kelley]* p. 6: Chief Fred Lookout, John Joseph Mathews, Julia Lookout* p. 7: Osage Tribal Council; Mathews (in jacket) is in back row on right side.* p. 7: l to r: Mathews’s sister Lillian Mathews, John Joseph Mathews, Julia Lookout, Chief Fred Lookout, Superintendent & Mrs. Daniel Murphy* p. 12-13: Mathews at his home, the Blackjacks [U.S. Indian Services]* p. 12: The Blackjacks’ interior today [courtesy K. Neurohr] p. 15: Autumn near Mathews’ cabin [courtesy K. Neurohr] p. 15: Coyote drawing by Mathews; published in Talking to the Moon* p. 15: Osage County [courtesy G. Neurohr] p. 15: Mathews’ final resting place at Blackjacks [courtesy K. Neurohr] p. 17: Mathews* p. 17: Mathews and toddler daughter Virginia [courtesy Virginia Mathews] p. 18: Mathews at typewriter* p. 20: Late summer at The Blackjacks. Restoration of the cabin and historical designation for the site is being considered. Hopefully it will be open to the public sometime in the future. [photo courtesy Ron Osborn and Marsha Hayes] p. 22: Osage Tribal Museum* BACK COVER: Seal of the Osage Nation* Literary Land mark plaque at the Osage Tribal Museum *Photos courtesy of the Osage Tribal Museum
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Booklet Layout and Design, courtesy of University of Oklahoma Press Booklets were distributed to over 3,000 high school junior English students and teachers in Osage and surrounding counties for the purpose of introducing John Joseph Mathews and his writing, encouraging literacy, and instilling pride in the Osage Nation and Oklahoma’s literary heritage.