When we start going to school, we’re taught that learning is supposed to be fun. It can be and is but once we look deep into history it can be very disturbing.
The history of boarding schools for natives is not a rosy picture. They were used to take the “Indian out of the kids.” Through The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 schools were formed most through religious denominations.
History and people forget that some Indians were already educated like the Cherokee who had their own schools. They even developed their own written Language.
We know education alone didn’t help them but the resilience of who they were though did. True of all tribes.
History is full of stories and sometimes you run across one that opens up old wounds.
I met this woman in Canada while visiting one of the tribal reserves. This lady said “they didn’t call us by our name but by number.” She didn’t have a name just a number she said.
All tribes have stories and it is up to you and me to search and try to understand. While my own experience of boarding school is vastly different than theirs.
I can on truly about speak for myself.
My experience is of the 1970’s boarding school era. It was my decision to go and I have better memories of my time there.
I had my haircut and wasn’t forced too. We were more assimilated and school was for learning. We had sports teams, choir groups just as other schools.
We did hear the song “Ten little Indians” during a basketball game. It kinda fit us we only had ten players and we were shorter than the team we were playing. Even their shortest player at 5”11” was taller than our center. Our tallest player was only 5”10”.
There was, the usual fights between this tribe and that one but basically, we got along. There were some who had gone to other boarding schools during their grade school years and high school.
In Oklahoma for me it was about Seneca, Concho, Jones Academy, Ft. Sill, Riverside and Chilocco. There had been others during Indian territory days, statehood, and onto the present.
It was a different era I went through. While some carry scars of trauma from their experiences, there has been a little healing taken place.
We need to leave the past and move forward but always to speak out about injustice.
We didn’t learn about being Indian but recognized we existed but not alone.
Sequoyah High School still exists today. It has changed in format but to me it will always be the boarding school where I learned many things though not all of them good.
I thought long and hard about putting the following story on here but it shows what sometimes went on. It is a true story and the people are me and my friend PJ.
San-quoyah, that was what the kids called Sequoyah, a take-off on Johnny Cash’s song about being stuck in Folsom prison. It wasn’t that bad though. I didn’t know about how life was at other B.I.A. boarding schools just the one near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The students came from all over Oklahoma and some from other states. They represented many different tribes, foremost were the Five Civilized Tribes.
Philip, who I just called PJ became one of my closest friends. His tribe the Seminoles came from Florida.
We played on the high school Basketball team, ran Cross Country, and Track.
Teammates and as happens with high school kids drinking mates too. This meant after the games or races we’d would pool our money and make a Liquor run into the town of Tahlequah.
Too young to buy liquor, we had to find someone willing to get it for us.
You’d be surprised to find out that there are quite a few willing to do this.
There was one other thing we shared and that happened to be the paint sniffing we did.
More of sniffing then drinking, since, paint was cheaper than alcohol. A dollar a can back in the 70’s and you could get high for quite a while before, it ran out.
I was the designated runner for the alcohol and paint.
In our school paper “The Sequoyan” we had a section for some song dedications. The one they dedicated to me was a song entitled “The Pusher” by the group Steppenwolf.
The high school Golf course was also where our Cross-Country team ran and practiced. We’d run our, races there on Friday and the next day off to town I or we’d go to buy some paint. The Golf course became one, of the places where the sniffing took place.
We became pretty familiar with it and especially the 1st hole. On race day We’d run down
The 1st hole fairway trying not to go too fast it being downhill on past the creek and across the 2nd fairway and up the 3rd hole fairway. Next up was the 4th hole fairway a long par 4 not that it mattered. We were running cross country not playing golf.
We’d race across the bridge over the creek that ran by the 4th hole and the 5th hole tee area and up the fairway towards the 6th hole.
The faster runners had already separated from the pack by then and by now I wondered if I would be able to finish the race.
This one particular race I ran past the big Pecan tree and the water jug set out for the golfers. What or who should I see there under the shade but James and Dewey. They’re drinking water and standing under the tree in the shade. They were two of our teams’ better runners but not today!
I found out later that they had been out drinking the night before and weren’t feeling too well.
Everyone else knew that you only drunk after the races not before!
There comes a time in the race, when the legs feel heavy and your lungs are hurting and you just want to quit. You feel like slowing down and stop running and walking the rest of the way. You’re thinking last place isn’t so bad.
You hear footsteps and labored breathing as a runner is coming up fast behind you. That’s when pride kicks in and you’re not about to let this guy beat you across the finish line! It’s only a hundred yards or so! No matter how tired and heavy the legs feel from somewhere comes that burst of energy to kick into a sprint. Always happens during all the races and once you see the finish line.
I made it and beat the guy across not too bad finishing in 23rd place. Well, you know, at least it wasn’t last place.
It’s Saturday night we’re headed to the Golf course and the 1st hole green. We walk downhill over the little bridge that crosses the creek. It’s pretty dark here and the big Pecan tree blocks the view down to the hole.
Out here we can sniff paint to our hearts content.
At first, we’re very watchful not wanting to get caught by campus security.
Even though it’s dark still the thought of doing something forbidden is still risky and too much to resist. Though we went out of our way to hide what we did you could tell who the sniffers were. You could see them with this glazed look in their eyes and smell it on them. The paint would be on their clothes and their lips. We even had colorful names for each other like Copperhead, Goldfinger and Silver Lips. We even had a particular brand we favored which was Krylon.
On some nights and during the daytime too if you’re around the outskirts of campus you can hear laughter of both boys and girls amid the sound of spray cans. The rattle of the marble signaling the can is almost empty. We punched holes in the can to get more of the Freon out and get even higher.
We never thought about all the brain cells we might be destroying. Some say over a million cells are destroyed from sniffing paint or glue. That’s not counting the damage done to the lungs.
I remember someone saying in our writer’s group that it doesn’t take much brain power to write. Must be true I destroyed millions of ‘em with my sniffing and was still able to write this story.
This night PJ has his bread bag on the bag is a picture of a Bunny Rabbit. I have a rag which is actually a piece torn from a bath towel.
PJ huffs on the bag. Sounds become louder and we laugh at nothing. Later the paint takes over and we don’t know anything about what’s going on.
This becomes apparent as I start walking back toward the dorm.
Suddenly everything goes dark.
I don’t even realize what’s happened to me.
I come to and find myself crawling on the ground. I’m all wet too. I flopped over on my back and see PJ standing by me looking down at me. He’s huffing still, and the bunny on the bag seem to grin down at me.
With each inhale and exhale the Bunny’s grin gets bigger then smaller.
The paint is making me hallucinate.
PJ asks me, “what are you doing on the ground?”
It’s then I realize that I had fallen into the creek. That’s the reason everything went black!
I get up soaking wet and PJ hands me the bag and I start hitting the bag too. At some point in time the paint is all gone and we’re starting to come down. The high lasts a little while afterwards. We start walking back uphill towards our dorm almost reluctantly.
My tennis shoes swishing from the wetness and I’m shivering from my wet clothes. All this makes it uncomfortable to walk and to think straight. We’re still slightly high as we try to dodge campus security back to our dorm room, in Unit 98.
Stupid luck is with us tonight as we encounter just night and the cold.
Whatever the weather, sniffing became a habit that was hard to break. To this day I still can’t be around certain paints as I can feel the effects from the fumes. One thing I’m certain of is that I don’t miss getting high anymore. I also know now that drinking and sniffing paint didn’t help my running at all.
I wondered what had happened to PJ after Sequoyah. I’d been out of the army about three years and I’m sitting in mom’s living room when I see this big car pull up. I stepped out onto the porch just as the driver got out of the car. Out came this big guy in a blue suit. I looked and
thought no it can’t be! Yep, it’s PJ in a suit and he’s fat to boot! You can say that and not realize you’re, fat too.
We caught up some on what we had been doing since school. I found out he was on the tribal council for the Florida Seminoles. He was in Oklahoma to settle some of their tribal claims.
All too soon he was gone Today I wonder where, what and how he is?
You also wonder sometimes what might have been.
Friends and memories are just a thought away. I cherish the best but I also don’t forget the rest.
Too late you just go on and be thankful for what you have now.
The schools tried to change the Indian but only educated him in a different way. They reinforced who they were and some became leaders. Pain comes but dealing with it changes you.
Thank You Lord.