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Show SALT FLAT NEWS, MAY, 1975 those places, Italians, they seem to know exactly what it is. As you probably know, we had nine big lights here before. They were just so people in trouble , could find us, cause they didn't know we dont have anything to sell here we're not a business. And at night, you know, even if we had a museum, were not open for museum tours. But weve had those all removed now. Now its mostly older people, people on pensions or something else thats moving in. Although we still have some- - younger people here, too. SALT FLAT NEWS: Do you serve them meals? -- SALT FLAT NEWS: Slavery to whom? Thats a good question. That I dont know. But were headed right 'into intellectual poverty thats worse than being on any reservation or worse than being in any prison, because you cant break out of it Its a voluntary intellectual enslavement such as that federal barbed wire fence out there. This is supposed to be the white mans free land, and now theyre going to take away the white mans right to bear arms. And yet the ancestral memory, the tales my father told me, he told me that one of the reasons the white man wanted to come here was because he came from a country where everyone was a slave. And nobody had weapons like the Indian people always had their weapons. We were allowed to have them. But in their country, where the white men came from nobody was allowed to have weapons but the chief, and his special . Yeah, I kept track of them one summer, and we served 34,000 meals. . -- SALT FLAT NEWS: Where did you get all that food ? I dont know. It was amazing. It was like feeding' them on half a loaf of bread or something. Because we had just a very small tiny garden then and wed prepare food for the regular people here eight or nine people and that would be cutting the cook a little short And then theyd start dropping in, and then wed feed forty or fifty at that one meat But somehow it all came through, and if anybody got shorted a little bit, itd be the cook. But they could always come up with something else, you know. Just the smell of the food would' have to suffice. men. SALT FLAT NEWS: And you built this place entirely out of roadside materials? Material found here, yeah, except that weve bought an astronomical amount of cement, it all together. Now this building , here, in nine months, we put twenty-fiv- e tons of just cement in it And it didnt change the outward appearance of it at all. Well, the roof in all areas is at least five or six inches thick, reinforced concrete, and steel reinforced, and in some areas they're a foot and a half thick. Like the ceiling of the main monument there, the ceiling has got to be a foot and a half to two foot thick. to-gl- ue 1 . With emergency thing .here, too, and no matter what the call' for help is, we answer. If somebody asks us for help, why; we make every effort to do it You know, if SALT FLAT NEWS: Theres a theyre broke down on the road regimen of hard work here, then. or hungry, or if theyre out there The people who live. on the stranded oh. the prairie and qeed monument are not asked to do to be moved in, why, thats the any work. Nobody is asked to only thing well stop work. for. work here. One thing they can- SALT FLAT NEWS: I suppose not do is, theres no visiting beall kinds of people. attract you tween houses; each has his own Oh, yeah. We have one who lodge and hes expected to stay in it Nobody enters anothers has a doctorate and we have one abode unless its a real emer- who is an old Indian medicine gency. We work together all day, woman. Arid we have one whos blit at night, when the 'days engaged in the junk business, work is done, everybody goes to scrap iron, but theyre all wanttheir own rooms, . and thats ing something or they wouldnt where, theyre expected to stay. be this dose, you know? And we Now, we have other people have one whos an attorney, or a living here, like those who are female attorney, and shes buildliving in the canyon, but theyre ing her own place. Shes doing hot subjected to that Theyre some writing, and other things. not part of this medicine society On very special occasions she enof ours, either; This is pretty' ters this ground. But we dont rough, and the average person enter her place and she dont couldn't takejt But we don't enter ours. ask them to work; the only thing Well, this way, they can keep we ask them to do is that they their identity, and if they want don't interfere with those who to be part of this place, part of this medicine society, why then, are working. . got to accept my medi-dnSALT FLAT NEWS: It's Uke a theyve I never go looking for conmonastery, then. verts; though. ,.;;y It is. Its monastic Except SALT' FLAT NEWS: And you that you cad have a family here. say you're a full Indian? Now weve got children from two families playing here they : Well, Tm as frill as. I suppose . can play together all day, but you could be, although in. my when the sun goes down it ends. nation there were only ninety Everybodys in their own lodge. bloods when they were moved You've got to have time to re- from the Creek nation in Georcuperate, the type of work were gia to Oklahoma. And my father bloods. In fact, doing here, 'cause were in an was one of the . . . e. . try? Were going into slavery; And everybodys working hard at it, to get us there. Because I mean everybody. . tons of cement apd loads of leftovers . . . SALT FLAT NEWS: But in he was part of the snake rebelwant because he didnt the theory, anyone can? lion, Creek nation to give up its sovAnyone can. Because Ive ereign power.- And he said that a even I didnt until maybe a hundred sixty acres was big year or two ago but finally enough for a jackrabbit, but not through this thick Indian head big enough for a man. And thats of mine it came to me that very where the irony of this comes in, the white man had his because it seems that every bit of possibly ancients too, who worked with land that we fretted and worried the power. Before they got on about for years to buy up here this waste and material trip. has come in one hundred and sixty acre tracts'. But that land that he was . of- fered was considered a paradise compared to this. SALT FLAT NEWS: Bui the Great Spirit lives here? Well, the people out here, like some of the ancient ones like the Washoes and others; why, they lived entirely within' the power. But apparently, they left it pretty easily onpe the white man came. And maybe this is part of the learnings of the Indian people, and it could be that they will get' strong enough to come back and be one with the power. But as one of the old spiritual prayermen who lived here and was the son of an old Washoe chief and the son of a Washoe medicine woman said, In order to be one with the power, you have to get up every morning one with the power.- You dont want to ever lose contact- with it, or you lose the power. And this is essentially the only lesson we try to. teach here. Now, I dont know that any adult persons going to learn this lesson unless they're ready for it and want to. SALT FLAT NEWS: From your point of view, what does the fu- ture look Uke? And here, why, every man could carry a weapon. That-waif the chief got out of line, or the government got out of line, why, the people could petition the government and theyd change, and if they wouldnt, why, the people could just take their guns and they wouldnt even have to use em. Because there were so many people, theyd just take their guns and go down and roust the chiefs out and put in new ones, and restore it to the peoples control. Now in California, theyve already taken away the right to jury trial in tome cases. And this is what the white man wanted so . much; he wanted freedom, where he wouldnt be tried by just a - judge which was happening over in England and some of those other countries. They get tried by a judge and they would be found guilty almost one hundred percent of the time. And in California theyve already made this same law. There are some cases now where you can be arrested, and they dont call it a crime, they call it an infraction. But still, you can go to jail for it. SALT FLAT NEWS: Briefly, could you give us your view of the national economy? . Well, thats why were grow- ing gardens. SALT FLAT NEWS: Thank you. Oh, the future of this coun Chief Thunder. 0 f: te - Thunder builds a brave new world. |