I was born in Goingsnake District in 1880 the son of Jack
BEAN, who was an old soldier of the Civil War, and Anna SPADE, a Cherokee
woman. My parents lived in the community now known as Fairfield, where I grew
to manhood without an education. My father and mother separated when I was a
small child, at which time I was taken by my mother, who had to work at odd
jobs in order to raise her small family. Besides me, Mother had two sons by
other marriages.
I was raised on a very small farm in the Fairfield community
and my mother took care of me until I was about thirteen years of age. Then I
left home and stayed with a family by the name of MANUS and while there I had
to work hard in order to earn enough to buy sufficient clothes, for this
family was not a rich family and everybody had to work hard in order to have
something to eat.
Mr. Manus did not have any horses at all so we had to swap
work in order to get a horse to work. The Manus family had a small patch that
they cultivated each year, corn and beans being about the only things raised.
I was raised among many Indian boys and the old people were interested in all
kinds of games, therefore, I became an athlete. I belonged to an Indian Ball
Club, and was a member of the Stalk Shooting and Racing teams.
Ball Club
This game was similar to the present day football. Usually ten men made a
team, but I have played in games where there were as many as fifteen men to
the team. The members wore no uniforms, helmets or leg guards; everything was
taken off except a garment similar to shorts. The ball ground was about a
hundred yards long and about eighty yards wide and in the center of this ball
ground there was a pole about thirty feet long driven in the ground, on top of
which was placed some kind of animal head.
The visiting team took the opposite side of this pole, and
when the ball was tossed in the air, every player was ready to get the ball
and try to hit the head that was on top of the pole. Players were not allowed
to use their hands in catching the ball - they had some kind of wooden spoons
that they used. These spoons were about two feet long and the ball was about
two inches in diameter. This ball was not made by just anybody; some old
person usually made it. In matched games the Indians usually stayed near some
creek on the day before the game was to be held. The Cherokees at that time
were strong believers in "Witching" and had much faith in their
Medicine Men. Early in the morning before the game and before the sun came up
the Medicine Man would tell them which team was going to win. To prepare the
players for the game the Medicine Man would treat their legs in order to make
them strong.
Stalk Shooting
This game was known to the Cherokees for many years and was a great gambling
game in the early days, according to the older Cherokees. The origin and date
of the game are not known but it is still a great sport among the Cherokees.
However, the younger generation do not shoot stalks as the Cherokees did forty
or fifty year ago. The stalk ground was usually about a hundred and fifty
yards long; smooth land and soft dirt. There was not any limit as to the
number of members in a team, and I have shot in games where there were fifty
men on a side. The stalks were piled just exactly one hundred yards apart;
these piles being three feet long, two feet thick and about three feet high.
The big games were matched weeks in advance, so that the event could be noted
throughout the country. Many people came from miles around to see the games
and betting took place when the games started. The members of the teams
usually represented two or more communities, as the best shooters were chosen
from several teams and made one team. After the teams were chosen the Witcher
was chosen by the Matcher. The day before the game the chosen shooters began
to come to the appointed place, often coming many miles. The Matcher of the
game and his backers or the gamblers furnished the food, which was usually
cooked near the camp grounds.
Every member of the team was not always allowed to shoot,
even though he had been chosen, for if the Witcher for the team discovered
that a member of the team was weak another player was chosen. The Witcher was
a smart man. He could sure tell if the team was going to win or lose, and he
would tell the gamblers in which game they would have a chance to win. I have
seen horses and saddles lost in the Stalk Shootings. They usually made
standing bets, for if they did not the better would back out after the Witcher
had told which team was going to win. The bows the players used were made from
bois d’ arc and the arrows were made from black locust. The spears were made
from wagon seat springs, the lengthy of these spikes being from eight to
eighteen inches.
Some of the old timers who shot with me are: Johnson TYLER,
George SOAP, Sam FOREMAN, Isaac HUMMINGBIRD, Henry WALKINGSTICK, Bill DOWNING,
Alex Downing, William SHELL, Riley RAGSDALE, Ben SQUIRREL, John RIDER, Tom
SWIMMER, Fixin BLACKBIRD, William ENGLAND and Toch KETCHER. The most famous
Witchers in these shootings were John HAIR, Ben Squirrel, Henry TURN and
Thompson CHARLES.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by Wanda Morris
Elliott <jwdre@intellex.com>
December 2000.