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Show HOWDY FOLKS Looks to me like that around here, Indians In-dians are sorta looked down upon as second class .citizens and I doubt that most folks would admit any Indian ancestors, ances-tors, even if they knew they had some. And this bigotry is not reserved to be applied only to the Indians. There are many races and nationalities of people peo-ple who are denied a place to hang on some family trees. Why? As for myself, I am a des-cendent des-cendent of the Cherokee Indian Tribe, to some extent anyway. If I'm not particularly proud of that small percent of Indian lineage, then certainly I am not ashamed of it. I don't reckon I had very much to do with who my forefathers were. Fact is, I was already here before I realized I was. And my mama tells me that the first thing I did when I arrived was bawl a protest, so I reckon I didn't like it here and didn't want to come here in the first place. But I don't remember any of that. All I know is, I'm here. And didn't have a chance to select se-lect my ancestors. But now that I am here, I intend to stay just as long as I can, whether some folks like it or not. But down where I was jerked up. Indians were a respected people. Maybe it was because most of them were rich from the oil royalties paid them from the sale of the crude that was pumped from deep within the Osage Nation. The Osage Tribe benefited most from this and there were some of the Oklahoma Okla-homa tribes who were poor as the proverbial church mouse. The Cherokee Tribe fell in this category, and because of this, were not especially catered to. Neither were they outcasts and herein lies the crux of the matter. mat-ter. Money, or the lack of it, sometimes make all the difference differ-ence in the world. Why does one group always have to take the attitude that "We are better than that group." Why? Seems like that's the way it is, whether we like it or not. John Stink was a full-blooded Osage Indian, (Oklahoma gallon, add gun powder, tobacco tobac-co juice, sulphur, black pepper and tobasco sauce. Then water it up to the level." John would always stand to take a drink and would drain the cup with one swallow as if it were water or cold coffee, tilting his head so far back, his plug hat would fall off. Hie drink was already down his gullet before he altogether comprehended the nature of it. And you might say that simultaneous sim-ultaneous with that recognition, he became instantly drunk, his eyes swimming in liquid like two raw eggs. He would always fall over backward on the sidewalk and kick his feet so hard that sometimes some-times his moccasins would come off. Meanwhile passersby would politely ignore him and pass on, for after all, he was rich, wasn't he? But I always stayed and tried to get him in an upright position again, sometimes crying cry-ing tears of frustration for I liked old John Stink. In his sober moments he taught me much Indian lore and his philosophy phil-osophy had an undercurrent of wisdom that I have never heard the like of since, and maybe should be applied to our society of today. It doesn't matter of what tongue, kindred or color one happens to be, discrimination is heaped upon someone, somewhere. some-where. Right after the so-called Civil War a group of freed slaves went back to Africa and founded the nation of Liberia. They were proud that their new country was being run like America, yet in a short while they were selling one another into slavery. Recently, in 1967, there were about 175 American Ameri-can Negros went to Liberia to find the good life. They were not made welcome by those who were born there and already, al-ready, at least 25 have returned to America. In Japan, Koreans are despised des-pised and d i s c r i m i nated against. Indians are discriminated discrimi-nated against by the Mexicans, and the Mexicans by the Spanish Span-ish and cn and an. Canada would seem a likely place to go to make a new life, but even there, they are having all kinds of trouble among themselves. them-selves. The Province of Quebec even wants to withdraw from the British Empire and the Dominion of Canada, mostly because they are a French speaking people and "different" from the rest of the Canadians. And so it goes. Yeah folks, when we get all these people who's skin is a different shade than ours, and don't think like we do and bent to our will, the whole problem will be solved and there'll be no more trouble. Yeah, man. SEE YA'ALL LATER Indian History). He sat on the sidewalks, when the weather permitted, of down-town Paw-huska, Paw-huska, Oklahoma. He was surrounded sur-rounded by his pack of dogs of which there were always fifteen fif-teen or twenty. I rode a bicycle there for the Western Union Telegraph Co. when I was a kid, and every chance I got I sat with him and hung on to his every word and gesture. He came in for his share of the oil royalties which was paid every three months to all members of his tribe. He must have been a millionaire but this meant nothing to him for his wants were simple. His financial affairs was handled by a government appointed ap-pointed guardian, since he or any other full-blood was assumed as-sumed not to be able to handle their own affairs. They were all appointed one of these guardians guard-ians who looked after their charges to prevent them from being cheated by unscrupulous characters. But they kept their own interests in mind too. Any purchases made by the "protected "pro-tected one" must be first approved ap-proved by the guardian who paid all the bills periodically. It mattered not to them whether wheth-er the item purchased was overpriced, ov-erpriced, be it a new Cadillac or a pound of cheese, for it was common knowledge the guardian guar-dian got his cut. John Stink didn't want much, just meat for his dogs, jerky and crackers for himself and whiskey to wash it down with. It was a gross violation of the law to sell or give an Indian whiskey, but John would send me to the bootlegger for his whiskey. The guardian would pay the liquor bill along with the rest, at the rate of thirty dollars per gallon, then charge it to miscellaneous iitems. I have sat with John Stink many times, and what with his few words of English, my few words of Osage and the universal univer-sal sign language, we were able to converse. He was very old and wrinkled and didn't know his exact age. When asked, he'd say; "Many moons." He said that he didn't believe be-lieve white people were crazy, or fools, and that they didn't drive the buffalo away by mistake, mis-take, or accidently set the prairie afire with their fire-wagon. fire-wagon. Nor kill the Indians because be-cause of a misunderstanding. He said they wanted to do these things. At this point, he might have a drink. The bootlegger's whiskey was pretty potent and his standard recipe was: "In the barrel I use a pint of whiskey for every |