Ed Walkinstik-Man-Alone Oral History Interview, February 27, 1986

Karen Mason: Okay, we're gonna start with - her topics are family heritage is the first one.

Ed Walkinstik-Man Alone: -cause I have a little trouble hearing.

KM: Oh, sorry! Family heritage, that's the first one she wanted to start on - talking about.

WMA: Yeah. My family heritage?

KM: Yeah.

WMA: From the Choctaw Nation? Uh, I'm not exactly sure what she means.

KM: I think, as far as inherited. Is there anything left from your family? Your heritage.

WMA: I'm the last living member of my family. In fact, I'm absolutely the last living member, uh from a family of medicine people. Particularly herbologist. I still practice and still utilize Native American medicines, herbal medicines. Examples are - use aspirin. Aspirin's accumulative to the body so, uh, it is not good for you. Where you can use, like catnip. And make tea out of that and that 00:01:00acts very similar to an aspirin. Only thing is, it's healthful to the body. It also helps the blood.

KM: Can you get that around here?

WMA: Catnip - catnip grow wild. It's a member of the mint family. Now not - you can't use all mints. Cause some mints are poisonous. You have to know the how do you use it. A lot of herbs, even in a poisonous class, once you know how to use them, you can use them safely! Now of course, AMA has uh- hair stands up on the back of their neck - and that's fine. Course AMA is the authority, but they don't turn around and tell ya that most of the patent medicines they have right now, in one way or another, came directly from Native American resources. And this has been proven time and time again! Uh - I'm from the Bear Clan. Bear clan is like a family. Your last name is what?

KM: Mason.

WMA: Mason, okay. So you and your family would not marry any of the Masons of your family. O.K. - Bear clan means the same thing. We do not inner-marry. We cannot marry into the Bear Clan. We have to marry into the Wolf or the Eagle or the Snake. But uh, cannot marry into Bear Clan. It's forbidden.

KM: Is it - but it's not related like Bear family is it?

WMA: Oh yes.

KM: They're all blood related?

WMA: In one way or another. I mean right on down to distant cousins and everything else. You wouldn't marry your cousin. Well this is how we maintain separation. And it was formed into clans. We adopted the animal that most represented us and our feelings. In our case, uh, the Bear. The power - the strength - the cunning, and it can eat anything! (both laughing)

KM: Well aren't they vegetarian? I thought they were vegetarian.

WMA: Well - I don't know it you can call it vegetarian or not. Great-Grandfather now, when I was very small - I, like a lot of other kids, you know modern today, throw their nose up at food. You know, spinach or something like that. Well let me try this one for a diet! Great-Grandfather got - he was one that raised me when I was VERY small - until the - your government came and took us off reservations, and sent us to this nice, Christian schools. We'll discuss that later! Uh, anyway, I guess it's inherent in children - I don't know - for them to throw up their nose, and get picky about stuff like that. It happens in most of our people to. Well Great-Grandfather had a great way of settling these problems. Seems that I got a little bit out of hand over the food that was being fed. Course you know, we weren't strangers to hamburgers either, that particular 00:04:00era, because some of the garbage that was shipped to us down on Indian Row in Oklahoma. In fact we got to the point you know, we got into candy and things like that. Course, that's normal. And uh, we started getting pretty damn picky. I and other kids. And then uh, well I'm part of a, of seven children, part of a triplet and the only living one.

KM: Of seven?

WMA: Of seven. Of seven child I'm the only one living. And uh, they used to make a joke about Father - they called him Fertile Turtle, 'cause he started it at - having his children when he was sixty-three.

KM: Was - you were only eight years old when he died? Weren't you?

WMA: That's right. Yep.

KM: Was your Mother around?

WMA: Mom - Well Mom, like me, breed, except that she suffered a much heavier 00:05:00hell for being a Breed. And the fact that you know, when was out of the Kwakiutl up in Canada - and uh, already a Breed, cause it was either her mother or grandmother had been married to a Russian fur trapper. And uh, that broke the Great Law up there. You know, she married outside the people. And then, uh my Father was full blood - broke the Law. He married her. In fact, he was banned from every returning. He could never, you know, in fact to this day, we do not even know where he's buried.

KM: How do you feel about that? Do you - are you unhappy. I mean you're happy that he married your Mom, but would you rather have him not being banned - being apart.

WMA: No. Well I have to go with the feeling of my people. Uh, he broke the law. And that was wrong. I am not happy about it, unfortunately. I don't make a 00:06:00statement of malice or anything else like this but, I think he insulted me by giving me the other bloods that are in me, and uh because now I have to live with that stigma. From you know, my own people, and other Native Americans. I'm looked at even as less, and it's bad enough in the white world to be debased, but we are debased by our own people. Uh, you know, you're a man without a country.

KM: Are there many full-blooded Indians left? It doesn't seem like-

WMA: No - there are not many full bloods left.

KM: Of any nation? Choctaw-

WMA: No, no. Uh, I would say under 200,000. Under 200,000, and those that are full-blood, are either dying out, some are becoming simulated into the system, and have left the traditional aspect - or have been forced out of the 00:07:00traditional aspect. Or uh, or are totally protected! Such as in our people's case, you'll find most of the breeds we have are in Oklahoma. It's a little game that Jackson played back in the 1830's. I think you call it - well you know it as the Trail of Tears.

KM: Yeah, it was 1832.

WMA: 1832, or 1836. But Mr. Jackson, his liars now, where he made promises to us, and then turned right around and invariably turned right around and stuck us in the back. By turning around and saying "We want to move all tribes with the letter C", how the Seminole got in there I don't know, but I guess it sounded like the letter C.

KM: Uh hum.

WMA: So. (chuckles) The Choctaw Nation, well I don't know whether you want to call it Nation, we were a Republic. Very democratic. Agricultural. And we were 00:08:00the largest tribe east of the Mississippi. And, in fact, were right on the Mississippi. We weren't the meanest, but we were the largest, which took care of the meanest! And uh, we were responsible for teaching the weihoch, the white people and the French and the British, stuff like that, to navigate the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes all the way down to the gulf.

KM: What did you call em? Wa-ho?

WMA: Weihoch.

KM: Weihoch.

WMA: White Spiders. It's a Cheyenne word. My native lived around the Cheyenne and the Sioux, Arapahos, and those, and picked up terms like that. You know, the stick because we were so invariabley stripped! Not only of our heritage, but our language, our religion, everything. Including our names. We'll talk about that later. But anyway, we were responsible for the teaching of the navigation of the 00:09:00Mississippi River, which was passed on, and passed on, and passed on! The Choctaw Republic was a kind of a commerce tribe. Traded inner-tribally. Very much up and down the river. Okay. And the origin of the Choctaw are the mounds. And particularly one specific mound. I don't know where it is. Great-grandfather told me when I was very small, but uh, like I been pushed so far away by, almost beyond my control, that I have never been able to get back. Sit down and really learn that, okay - you were asking about the "Bloods". Now the Bloods are in Mississippi, still down on the delta. There's a small group of em. And they're very, very protected. I mean I can go down there, and I can visit, but I cannot stay overnight. And I do not blame them. I figure it's a curse my father left! And I know, honor thy Father, honor thy Mother, but that's your white man's 00:10:00book. Okay. The great comic book. As we'll find out later.

KM: Okay. Let's see. Well what kind of communities have you lived in? While you've been growing up?

WMA: I gave you a paper on one of 'em, the other day, and that was the Indian Schools, which were - Okay - born in California, down in Sacramento. And I shortly after I was born, Dad, you know back in Oklahoma, his family with him, and we were there for a while. And then the De-Indianization program, the 1920's and 30's. This is a Federal program to take the Indians off the Reservation. And make 'em white. And uh, you know, it's tragic, as the more I learn about it even 00:11:00today, that some of the ways they did it. Such as threatening the parents, that uh you will not get your per diem, whatever it is the government gives, so called money the government is supposed to give us, us if we were not good little Indians. You know, and if we didn't relinquish the children. Things like this. And uh, they took us off the reservations and shipped us a good distance, the schools you went to were never close. Where you could run away and go home. They, most times, shipped you over 2,000 miles. They shipped us from there, up into northern Washington.

KM: How old were you then? When they sent you to the schools?

WMA: Oh - (pause) imagine around seven years old.

KM: And that's - were you living with your Grandfather then?

WMA: Great - well, Great-Grandfather and Dad. Dad was killed a year later. Mom had already - well Mom was in and out, just put it that way. And any time she'd come in, she'd have a baby, and uh - she'd go away! (laughing)

Well it, it, it was a rather tragic thing to see, because uh again, it was the blood issue. And since she was not Choctaw people, and vice versa you know, I'm treated the same way as when I go to Kwakiutl. I go up to Kwakiutl - I've been up to the reservation in Vancouver, in British Columbia, and uh, it's as if the name never even existed up there. Her name. I can't get any information on her or anything. It's just as if she was never born! She must have been - I'm here (laughs).

KM: Do you know anything about her history?

WMA: Very little. I know some of the Kwakiutl history. I've attended a couple of potlatches.

KM: Is she still alive?

WMA: No. No, no. She's dead - as far as I know. From what, like I say, it's awful hard to get information when information is not as you probably have already found out - that most Native American don't even want to talk. And I can tell you later why they will not talk. But uh, it was based on mainly blood issues. In, as I was already at the government school about a year when I received word that my cousin had killed my Dad. My cousin was kind of, you know, well, he wasn't playing with a full deck. He was typical - atypical - totally debased individual that, uh, suffered a very heavy drinking problem. And a very very heavy psychological problem. And uh, I guess him and Dad got into it one 00:14:00day and the cousin decided to go ahead and skin him. So - that pretty much left it there. Well anyway, the government schools - they still exist. They are still, as far as I can determine, what happens at 'em is still suppressed. I find them revolting to say the least - debasing - counterproductive.

Give you an example. They sent me there to strip me and make me white. Now, in 500 years of fighting, no Indian has turned white! Let's fact it - I mean. You might shoot a gun and your skin turns white. Great! Okay. You'll find something 00:15:00out about Indians, as you go along here. But anyway, the government school created a great deal of psychological problems when I was young, and uh, there are still lingering elements of it. There is a very, very deep inset mistrust of uh, of promises. More or less, you will hear the term if you've been around Native Americans, that uh, "Well when I talk to him, I'm gonna stand sideways." And what it means is that, that man's honor is hobbling down. I'm not gonna face him. You know, it's like talking to a liar's mouth. It's not good. So, you take it with a grain of salt. Stand sideways, you know.

KM: When we went to the native longhouse that's the way - they were real uh, leary. Most of the people we talked to.

WMA: Well, I'm excited that your instructor has sent an individual like you out 00:16:00to feel what debasement is like. And distrust. More or less, you're sitting here - and you're maybe in your mind think "Does he trust me? I mean he's gonna talk to me, but does he really trust me?" Well that's something that you're gonna have to decide. It's something that you have to decide. You have to earn the trust. Your eyes are good. See, Mouth talk all it want. Eyes talk more. Your eyes are good - because if your eyes weren't, I wouldn't - you couldn't pay me enough to talk.

KM: My Mom says my eyes are really expressive, sometimes that's scary. Cause sometimes I don't want people to know what I'm thinking.

WMA: That's okay, that's okay, until they turn around and say they're bedroom eyes, or something like that. But, there's nothing wrong with that either. But, 00:17:00anyway - the Government schools were a lesson in horror. Absolute horror.

KM: In this one paragraph, you used "I was trembling so badly I puked. And then a white fellow slapped the hell out of me and made me eat the mess that came from my fear." That really happened?

WMA: Oh yes! Yes. Yes, uh I puked, and he made me get down and lick it up.

KM: Is this when you first went? At seven, eight years old?

WMA: I asked to recall everything that happened then, in California when I was attending college down there, strange - I hated the individual for making me do this, this was an English course, and he gave me an ultimatum. That you write about first person, singular, the thing you hated the most...or flunk the 00:18:00course. But if you wrote the paper, that would be the only paper you have to write in in the course. It, you know, if it was grammatically correct and everything like that. He just wanted to know if you could creatively write first person singular. And uh, he kept harping at me, and harping at me and uh, I finally reached a point where, you know, I started standing sideways. And I turned around and faced him once, and I said "Under protest I will write this paper - but if I ever hear of another student being forced to write it again, I will advise them that they are entitled to their rights of privacy, and this - what I have to say is private."

KM: Could you have gone around him - I mean could you have done something else? Not told him?

WMA: Why? And uh, be like the white people? I'm sorry. You know, but you know, you can't go around and practice what you hate! We, you know, I have a lot of 00:19:00very, very dear white friends. I do not see no color with them. And then I know a lot of white people, and I get in trouble every once in a while cause somebody'll do something or pull some kind of stunt or something like that. And I'll turn around and say "Well that was very white of you." And uh, now occasionally you'll hear me call somebody a weihocha.

KM: And that was not a compliment...

WMA: That is anything but a compliment. It is about - see there is no profanity in the Native American languages. Profanity is a Latin-based piece of garbage. You go to Asia, you know, amongst the Orientals or anything else. There is no profanity in their languages. Same thing with the Native American languages... There is no profanity! But there are references to (chuckles) a wahohotcha is uh, I think probably the lowest that that could be called upon other than white 00:20:00person, and then you say the person's a White Spider. And do you trust spiders?

KM: No.

WMA: Okay. Saying what that means is that the white person spins the web that tangles the Indian's feet. The Indian is free - or was - and uh, so he cannot move his feet. So he cannot dodge the new weapons that the white man is throwing. Because he cannot move quick enough. So that is the lowest element in Native American language which you could reach. Wahoo hotcha. And the term is Cheyenne, and a very good - Cheyenne being human being - and you'll hear words from a lot of different Native American languages. Well I've gone in and worked on Reservations all over the United States. Now there are no reservations in Oklahoma - it's now called Indian Row. It's just as sure what the government is doing - they have taken everything! We have nothing left. The last of what we 00:21:00had which was taken, you know, forty years ago. And that's it! That was shortly, you know, shortly after we went to government school. But from the government schools; we were forbidden to think Indian; forbidden to practice any part of our language; forbidden to speak any part of our language; we were beaten, physically beaten for it. We were handcuffed over a bench and beaten. To fraternize with other Indians, particularly the opposite sex, uh - any time that we were to talk, we were to talk in English.

KM: Did you learn those rules quickly, or were you kind a rebellious or-

WMA: Well I'll put it this way. Now I have been through many of your colleges out here. Because I'm tired of being called a dumb you-know-what Indian. And uh, the only way I can describe it is - the Pavlov's Dog effect!

KM: What do you mean by that?

WMA: You know what Pavlov's Dog is? It was an experiment done by Pavlov, a psychologist who turned around and had a dog respond more or less - you rang a bell, he'd go get some food. And then um, but if you didn't want him to go get some food, then you would shock him. See? You'd get him to do things, or get him not to do things. Like this, and then after a while, it became that he'd been hurt so many times, or rewarded so many times - after a bit, uh, it was not so much what happened to the dog, but the secondary effect is that the bell would ring - the saliva would come up. But what would you so, see? So it's, it's total control total control of an element, or total control of thought, total control of action, for fear of being hurt and the, you know, the anticipation of reward. 00:23:00It's all based on the bell.

KM: How were you rewarded? Just by not getting beaten?

WMA: I don't think we were rewarded. Beating was so common that I can be hit in the face today, and just smile and laugh at you. I can be physically slugged and just stand there and smile or laugh at ya, then I'll go from there. That's what has scared a lot of fellows that I have run into. And particularly in is, is that somebody'll punch me, and I'll turn around and smile at him, and then clean him up with a beer bottle. After a while, you go beyond what they call pain. Insult is only so deep, that pain is not even a question!

KM: How long were you at the Christian boarding school?

WMA: Well it was supposedly run by Christians. (deep sigh)

KM: Doesn't sound like it.

WMA: It's, it was very, very tragic. We were there until they were closed. And then we were sent to orphanages, but to give you an example: we had the white religion crammed down our throat, and were told we were filthy, and we were dirty. And we were Godless, and we were this - and in fact some of your religious books today even, turn around and say that of another color is, you know, Godless, something that I could never understand! Which also reminds me about the - Jane and Tom books that we had in the school. But uh, it was so tragic, you know, that to say we were Godded this and we were Godded that, and God wouldn't accept this, and well we were just totally told that we were even 00:25:00less than animals. And uh, we were convinced of it. I mean, by starvation, by physical beatings, by uh being locked outside in the cold. Inclement weather, various things. We were handcuffed to the bed. Things I don't even like to remember. Because I cannot believe a human being would do that to another human being! I mean killing is okay, you know, don't let him suffer - but this here, you wouldn't even do to an animal. And uh, the people did - and they were sanctioned to go ahead and do it - and in any way that they chose. Well the young lady that I had come up with in the Government school, we had both wound up in the same orphanage. Down in central California, and uh, well - she was I 00:26:00believe she was nine years old - and the same animal that beat hell out of me and everything else, raped her. She was nine. But see, we had no recourse! Had nowhere to go! You can't turn around and say "He raped me" cause they'd turn around "Aw..."

KM: How old were you then?

WMA: I was seven. And uh, he didn't make any bones about hiding it or anything else - he just hauled off and raped her. And it was, you know - up to that point, she was pretty, how do you call it, pretty fragile as it was, but that took the total, total wind out of her sail. Uh, it, it took that spark of life that you see in people. Hers died right there. And then, when we went down to 00:27:00the orphanage down in central California, the person that headed that orphanage turned around and said, after they explained everything else to us, he said "And also, you will become Christians" And she committed suicide the next day. Citing she'd rather be dead than be Christian! And we were, she was about - she was twelve years old then. So... these are memories that I have to live with. And then people ask me "Well, how do you come out here and trust?" And the only thing I can say is that "I trust - yes -but not like you." We cannot be at war forever. I think it is time for you people to understand us. You have asked, in fact demanded, that we understand you - all the way down to the point of total 00:28:00debasement, slavery, anything else that you want to call it. It's not right. I'm left with a funny taste in my mouth. And then - I still see it go on today. I want to be out here, but now I'm asking myself a lot of questions. Maybe I want to go to the hill. Go away from you people all together. It's um, (sigh) it's hard to live out here - and be what I am - or what I'm supposed to be.

KM: Out here in the N.W.? Is that what you mean?

WMA: No. In the white world. And be what I am. When everything you have out here is in total contradiction. I feel like all of me is missing. I have no identity. I mean it was just a few years ago that I got my name back. Twenty-two years in 00:29:00court to get that name back. I was stripped of it, and I, you know, when you were just finding out what your name was, you know! And uh, I'm not the only one. There's thousands and thousands of us that were stripped! Stripped of everything, you know, and it's, it's hard to go back and think about these things. I think now is the time that it should be put down of paper. Because, it is a consistent psychological battle. I mean, it's discriminatory all the way down to the university level. In higher education - I should say all the way up! In fact, flagrantly discriminatory! Just in requirements at the university. In 00:30:00your Bachelor of Arts degree, you're required foreign language -and to this day I cannot understand, I cannot understand it, you know it does not work upstairs as to why I should be forced to go take a language in the name of Humanities, you know, Spanish, Latin, French, German - when I was so brutally stripped of my Native tongue, thoughts and ideas. It's a double standard! It's, you know, well what is the word you use when - it's hypocritical. I mean, here you've stripped the Indian, indigenous, sacred people of everything they have, then you turn around and saying "For one more insult, I'll just let him study German - he can 00:31:00become German." Did you ever ask a German what they felt about that? You ought to talk to a German some time, and ask them what they think about what has happened over here and is still happening with the Native Americans. You're liable to get an ear full! Ask the Japanese. Ask the Koreans.

KM: You travelled all around the world. Did you travel in Japan and Korea?

WMA: I spent two and a half years in Japan. And uh, have threatened very, very thoroughly frequently, and even to this day, of returning. Become a "bamboo Yankee". I learned a lot about life there, and I learned about you know, my feelings, in Japan. I was collecting what is called Minyo. It's Japanese folk music. You know, tunes like Hakatubushi [?] all different tunes like this. And 00:32:00uh, I, I'm interested in other people. Deeply, deeply interested. I guess that's the only reason I'm still out here. 'Cause it's that I can't learn enough. I want to know more - I want to know why they act like this. As far as the white race is concerned, I don't know if there's any more to learn. I think we've seen enough. Now it's time to know more about the people. About the [unclear] because, you know. Sure there have been wars and this stuff like this, I see more of a kinship amongst the Japanese, and amongst the Polynesians, and the Mexicans, the Greeks and even the east Indians, than I would ever find amongst the Waho. It's you know, if there's a religion I would stand to out here, it 00:33:00probably would be Jewish, but no, I belong to the Native American church. And of course, right now the hair stands up on the back of their necks, they're gonna hear this, "Oh he's another one of those dopers." Well I expect that from the white mans' way of thinking. That you know, they got their and they, you know, they eat peyote, and they, you know, get all fucked up! Excuse the expression. The white man eats the peyote, and gets messed up. To us it is a very, high religious thing, is to go see the vision. And there's great preparation for it.

It is no, we just don't sit down and pop 'em in out mouth and say whoopee, here we go again. It's not that way. Even our religion is treated with dirt. A lack of understanding I think would be the thing, the breakdown in communication, the break-down in understanding. And I can't understand this because your people 00:34:00came to this, this great land, because of the same problems that you heap upon us today. Religion. Yours was in persecution. But I ask, then why do you come and persecute us? Our religion has gone back 25,000 years. It hasn't changed. It's beautiful! It works. Yours, barely 2,000 years old.

KM: What does the Government say when, I mean - they're not following in the Constitution, you know, as far as Indians are concerned. They just ignore it.

WMA: I think this Government is ashamed and when they get ashamed of something, 00:35:00what they do is ignore it - maybe it'll go away. But uh, what is happening is they are creating even a bigger battle later. They are creating their downfall, they are creating their weakness. Because another nation will see this weakness and they will work on that weakness. And you, as a government, will cease to be. Because your religion, your government, your ideas, are based on oneness of greed! How much can I get my hands on - you know. For me. Instead of the total outward, the, see...in the Native American world, there are two stark 00:36:00differences. The first one: is - it is not the individual's need - it is the need of the group combined. Not the individual's need, it is the group combined. What is good for the group - what is good for all of it. Okay. Your government talk, and that's all it does. It talk. It write fancy papers, and then I believe it also has amnesia. Because you can't get them to honor their paper. Their honor has hobbled down. It's a disgrace. Like I said, it's a liar's mouth.

I have hard time talking to anybody in the bureaucracy. I cannot stand and face 'em. Because I know when they open their mouth - it's the same thing that comes out the backside of a dog! It's the same thing, all the time. The other thing: that totally remains baffling to I and most Native Americans, is your innate demand that we must have a government like yours. We have to elect leaders, and they make rules and it's by majority vote - or, let's take this picture of majority vote. In your way, out here, majority vote means that the people will come in and vote. They vote "yes" or "no" and the numbers of "yes" or "no's" 00:38:00dominate and what is left to the abstentions go to a majority vote - "yes" or "no". That is so foreign to us - it's like having teepees and buffalos on a freeway! In rush hour traffic. It's something we cannot even comprehend. We do not have a centralized government! There is no such centralized government. It was the consensus of all - and we do not do things in a hurry. We take our time - go back and think about it -What is good for the all. Now, well let's get this piece of paper through and those that don't like it can suffer! We consider everybody.

KM: Do you have one leader? A Chief?

WMA: We have chiefs. In amongst the Choctaws, he's called Mingo. M-I-N-G-O.Mingo. Yes we have a Chief, but that's - again see, selected by 00:39:00consensus. He is an unofficial leader, just like the Medicine Man, is again is a form of unofficial leader. The Medicine Man, and the Chief are probably two of the loneliest of the people amongst the people. Because, they are, again, set apart. In fact, about the only person that would own his, own his own teepee or lodge, would be a Medicine Man.

KM: Your Grandfather was a Medicine man?

WMA: Yes. And my Grandfather, Great-Grandfather, his Grandfathers - uh, as far as from what Great-Grandfather says, uh, back all the way to the time when we were in the Great North. Where the skies were rainbows. So he always tells me the borealis - guess so that means back before the time, before we became what 00:40:00is called the "Disowned". Before we broke the Great Law and came south. And to not return. See we are Longhouse People, and as lodge tales have it, we had left up there and found hunting and comfort and everything else down here - so good that our people started migrating down, and staying longer, and longer and longer. Eventually did not return, and this broke the Great Law. So, uh, we became the Disowned, and later what you call the Five Civilized Tribes. The word Civilized Tribes does not mean, you know, how do you say it, ran around in Brooks Brothers suits of anything - you know - it means agricultural. We were farming Indians.

KM: Were you hunting and gathering before that? Have you always been agricultural, or were you a hunting and gathering - You just - Choctaw [unclear].

WMA: Uh I am not sure. I'm really not sure. See, I didn't have enough time with 00:41:00Great-Grandfather. Like I said, I'm so sorely hurt by being stripped of so much that I should have known - and that I'm trying to learn now. In fact, see, I'm going through an inversion of what has been taught! To go back and find out where I came from - and why I feel like I feel. Why is the taste in my mouth so bad all the time. I, you know, I will finish my degree here, and I have hopes-

KM: At Oregon State?

WMA: I hope to finish my degree at Oregon State, yes. Both my baccalaureates and my Masters. If I stay out here, it will be for only one reason. And that is a 00:42:00problem solver. I want to build a bridge - solve the problems. You know, build a bridge so that the future Native Americans that are coming out here do not suffer the culture shock that those up to this day have, and are still suffering. That I'm suffering. I want, I want them to be able to walk equally. But I want the people out here to understand to that hey, you know, you don't go out and catch a wild bird, and throw him in a cage! And turn around and say "Now, you will tweet." First off - the bird doesn't know what you're saying. Second off, he's in such foreign surroundings - you know, the shock - if he survives - you know, well, that's one point plus in your favor! Maybe. If he survives angry that is not a point in your favor. That means in time, there will 00:43:00be future trouble. And you are starting to see some of these troubles, that you have created already. In Wounded Knee, when this happened here a few years ago, and at Alcatraz -I was on Alcatraz. At the Nisqually fish-in. Back in the 60' s. Actually, back in the 50's. You're seeing it again right now. At Big Mountain, amongst the Diné and the Hopi. Diné - Navajo you know. I do not understand why, even today, as advanced and educated as you claim to be - and as, how do you say the word - Humanitarian - to all these nations in the world - that you 00:44:00deliberately come in and steal. Blatantly, openly steal. In the name of greed! You know, more money. Why -why - why rape the Earth so horribly?! Where you gonna go after you get done finishing what you're doing to this right now? Okay. Are there any more Plymouth Rocks? No.

KM: I think they're hoping for space.

WMA: Well the Indian is hoping that you will hurry up your Space Program.

KM: Yeah - and get out of here!

WMA: Yeah - cause um, that and you guys get done playing cowboys and niggers! We'll get my land back. See? But I don't know if we'd want it then! Unless we get those big bull-dozers to go with us so we can push all the garbage off into the water! Because it's unreal - what is happening! And that's, that's where I'm 00:45:00torn, because I'm torn between Earth Mother. I'm torn, you know, I have this small piece here that I live on. Alright. I'm nearly fifty years old! And I have broke a Law. Just so my family can survive, and has already been sanctioned, so there's no problem. But I can never sell this piece of ground!

KM: How did you break the law? By buying land?

WMA: I prostituted my Mother. See - I have to play the white game - called ownership - in order to survive out here, and that's ironic. I was surviving very well back then with my people. But you took their land away! And then you 00:46:00took everything else they had away. And stripped em down to hollow, nameless Indians. And then you buried 'em. So now, I sit here. But see, I cannot, I cannot go back and uh - I do not feel good about this, because we never owned - we were here as caretakers! Here to protect Mother. As she in turn would care for us! It was equal exchange. Always! [first recording ends]. And then White man came and he broke the Great Circle. And since the Circle has been broken, there has been nothing but tragedy! Wars - Famine - oh just...horrors beyond anything that can even be imagined, I mean - total disregard for the Earth, and 00:47:00what it provides. By the very chemical that they dump back into it, and then try to hide. And then when they get caught - they say "Who - me? No - he did it!" They do not even have the guts to own up to their own thing, and then go back and solve the problem. "NO - who me? No - he did it". Pass the buck again. Well anyway - then I'm asked to come out here and trust. You know, I'm asked to continue to trust - you're asking other Native Americans to trust - my question to that would be "Specifically what?" You know, what am I supposed to trust? I'm supposed to turn around and say "Oh, great, okay" Then why - after sixteen years - when I have all the evidence available - and I am still fighting with the 00:48:00Government over injuries that I received when I worked for them.

KM: It hap - now, where were you working and how did you receive your...?

WMA: I, well the work I was doing was classified. I can't tell you too much about that. Can tell you for the Department of Defense, and I worked for the Dept. of Transportation. The United Stated Government. For the Navy, and the Coast Guard. As a radar specialist and an electronics specialist. I, my hearing is over 70% damaged, with secondary acoustic trauma. That means I have severe tinnitus - and severe recruitment. More or less I got a fire bell inside my head that will not turn off. Hasn't turned off in sixteen years. In sixteen years I have fought and fought and fought to get help. The government knew the help was 00:49:00available but has ignored it. See? Here we go again! If you ignore it - it will go away. I'm not gonna let 'em ignore it too much longer. I'll tell you what I've been doing, but I'm, will not let them get away with it much longer. In fact, you'll probably be hearing about it nationally when I get done with it - because I think that this is not only an insult to myself but an insult to me as a tax-payer. To take, like in my case, born red - bring him out here -force him to be white, work him like white, and then when he gets injured, play him black. "Well, we used him up - throw him on a heap!" The object is that, you know, the ears are gone - not the mind. The mind is just as good, just as technical just 00:50:00as active, but they have authorities. People who are not disabled - sitting behind desks. They cannot even begin to comprehend what we can or cannot do, making the rules, saying "Well he can't do that!" How do they know? Ute Indian- Woman's voice in background: I'm going to the store. Do you need any - [break in recording].

WMA: You know, how do they know? You did not know I was deaf when you met me.

KM: I didn't.

WMA: Alright, now I have lectured at Universities all over this United States. I've lectured before large crowds, up to 63,000 people. I have taught for thirty-five years. Sixteen of those have been deaf. And still, most of my former students, to this day, do not know that I could not hear them!

KM: You taught for thirty-five years?

WMA: Yes.

KM: Where did you teach at?

WMA: Out of motor homes and vehicles like these. Because I wanted to go in and find out. You know, it's so strange, (cough) the sociologist, I call him an arm-chair sociologist - "arm-chair anthropologist" and stuff like this, read a whole bunch of books, form an opinion, and then write a book. But how many of 'em go out and find out? I mean, go there and stay there for any extended length of time, and find out just how, how good or how bad, or what is really happening. How many will go among screw up, among screw up, among screw up, among screw up and find out what is creating this. Like why are people dropping 00:52:00out of this, or why, you know, why is this change that's made nature change - this change in society? I read a lot of things that turn around and say - they hypothesize, on what they think may be the reason. I can say it in one word: bullshit. The people that are dropping out today, and in fact since the mid- 60's - or actually the mid-50's - are so tired of rhetorical bullshit that they don't want it any more. They're so tired of being, having to perform like seals jumping through hoops to get papers, which are called degrees, only to find out that they're useless. And here's the ironic part of it... In my case, I'm gonna be lucky - I have experience. But, like you, you get a degree - where you gonna 00:53:00go to work?

KM: Well I don't have any experience either. Hopefully a newspaper.

WMA: No - I say I have experience!

KM: Well, I don't! So, it'll be hard for me too, I think.

WMA: Okay, so you go out there, and you wave this fancy piece of paper (rustling sounds) And the first question they're gonna ask you is what?

KM: Do I have any experience?

WMA: That's my point! College paper! Big deal, you know.

KM: I've learned in a few classes, experience is more important to them than the degree.

WMA: Uh huh. Yeah, but now - try to go out there and expound any word of authority! To be heard - and the first thing they're gonna turn around and say "Well what qualifies you to make this statement? Where are your credentials?" Life is my credential! But I found out that, you see, that's not acceptable. That is not acceptable - it's not acceptable that I've traveled around the world 00:54:00twice. The first time I hitchhiked! Singing folk music, and exchanging folk music, for folk music. Ah - but see, that is of no value. You know, uh - where can they write this down. So - well, this'll satisfy this part of the degree. So - invariable, it is useless to the academic world. Because the academic world is not flexible enough, to take an individual, or individuals, that have been further than their back yard. That have seen more than say, a great many of the professors which they're studying under, and have offered to share it. I've got to the point where I don't even share it anymore.

KM: And you feel really frustrated that professors at colleges?

WMA: Ah, not all. Some. Others turn around and say "Yes, I can understand," but I have to fight with the bureaucracy. Here we go again, here's this authoritative nucleus that turns around and, you know, dictates the element, and they haven't even been out of their back yard yet. You know. How do they know what I had see?! I have documentation of everywhere I've been and everything I've seen. I have log books, but you see, they're not suitable criteria for uh, individuals quote, professors, for acceptable usage. So what they do is, they turn around and say well you must go through this mundane experience...to their 00:56:00satisfaction so that you can get a little letter on a little piece of paper saying "Well you did fair, you did good, or you did excellent." Huh? And then that follows you through the rest of your life! More or less, He was good in humanities, or he blew Humanities. You mean, the only Humanities on Earth are in a book? I'll give you a good, good, good - a breakdown of this. I have a massive technical background! Massive technical background. I've been turned down for jobs because I'm overqualified! And at three different universities, I will not say what three, and it was pretty close to home, they have turned around and said - here I got all these years working in technical fields -in electronics 00:57:00and mechanics and a combination of the both - they turn around and say "Oh, we can't accept that."

KM: Where did you learn this?

WMA: I taught myself, from the very books that you use in school and from experience - by doing, by doing. You can't learn to hitchhike around the world by book. I could write a book on it. But it'd be obsolete before it hit the press. It was obsolete before I even got back. Because what's happening in this world since then - you wouldn't want to hitchhike around it! See back then, it was very nice. But anyway - here they turn around and say "Well, we can't accept your technical background, uhm, you're gonna have to pay $400 to take the exams - or - you're gonna have to take the courses." You mean an individual that was sixteen years a professional in the field of electronics, that had to pass Civil 00:58:00Services exam - must go back and take basic electronics to satisfy what is supposedly to be a place of "higher education"? I mean this, this, this - I mean, look at the futility of it! They said to themselves that they're the Gods of the Authorities and yet they send the students out there and they can't get a job after they get their degree 'cause they got no experience? And you come in there with experience and they turn around and say "Well, it's not important." Is this higher education? KM: The places you went to, did you apply at more places before you - you found out from them that you had to have a degree, right? To work?

WMA: No.

KM: No?

WMA: No, No. I worked for years, and years before-

KM: Then why did you want to go to the University?

WMA: I'm being retrained because of the injury. Into a totally different field. More or less I'm going through my second professional occupation in life.

KM: And that's Journalism?

WMA: Well, communications. No Journalism's just a small part of it. Very, very small part of it. No, I'm interested into, specific media for educational purposes. Visual, for hearing impaired. I'm looking at three-dimensional teaching devices for those that can't hear, but can see - and vice-versa, those that can't see, but hear. So that they can physically touch. I'm looking for new teaching aids. But I'm also looking at another element that is totally untouched, and that it is, how do you bring this individual through that form of shock, where they - you know, I've lost my wife! You know, my home, everything! 01:00:00After this injury. It took a Congressional action to even get compensated, and that was three years after the injury! And three years - if I hadn't been brought up by Great-Grandfather, I probably would have been robbing banks! To survive. No, I went to the woods. And I lived in those woods. I went from commune to commune, to commune, to commune to organization etcetera, and I'm the historian of two of 'em. Two of the most well-known, in fact the one that started the total communal treck - Morning Star, which was down at Sonoma county in California.

KM: Where's the other?

WMA: Huh?

KM: What's the other one called?

WMA: Wheeler's. The Ahimsa Church.

KM: Where's that?

WMA: That's also in Sonoma County. One is between Occidental and Graton. That's Morningstar. And then the other one is between Graton and uh, what's the name of 01:01:00the place out on the coast? Bodega Bay. It's up on Sheep Ridge. Lou Gottleib over at Morningstar and gave that to God and Bill Wheeler owned Wheeler's, which was also known as Ahimsa Church, or Open-Land Church. And then, in total violation, again, of your loans and your religions - Lou Gottleib gave his land to God. State of California turned around and said "well to God under existing California laws, cannot own land because He's neither real nor artificial, so help you God". You want to see? I have it in there. I have a complete Morningstar case sitting in there. I'm doing a book on it, called Some Called It Sacred. Alrighty, what's that tell you about your religion? If God is neither real or artificial - then why in the Hell have they put, you know, such precious 01:02:00people - human beings - through assorted forms of physical Hell, mental Hell, in the name of that same individual? And yet, your laws specifically forbid making such a ruling. The Federal laws - no law - no Court in this land shall rule of what is, or what is not a church, what is not divine, or what is or what is not a religion. And yet, the state of California, and the Superior Court - the Appellate Court in the state of California - upheld this ruling! Not so much am I arguing with the element of the land - but what they said. Now you ask me to go into Court and swear on the Bible? How do I explain it to the Judge? "Well, you Honor, I can't do that! Cause California's already ruled that God doesn't 01:03:00exist! He's neither real nor artificial!"

KM: What year was that? When did that happen?

WMA: That happened in 1972. 1971! Yeah, I have the papers in there. Yeah, Judge Eiman - of California of Sonoma County - down in Santa Rosa. I was there when he made that ruling! I was there to see honor hobbled down again when, in California, it is mandatory to take judicial notice of English terms and phrases, more or less the Judge must turn around and interpret the English terms and phrases, or define - and the Judge blatantly sat right there and told us, when Lou Gottleib asked the Judge to take judicial notice of the word God - the Judge turned around and said "Mr. Gottleib, I refuse to take judicial notice of that term. And I refuse to take judicial notice of anything else that you ask." 01:04:00This is a flagrant abuse of the laws- mandatory laws in the State of California. Now you sit down and you talk about equal protection under the Law! There's only equal protection if you can afford it! You're lucky - don't ever work for the Government. Work for a private firm. That way, they're a private business. That way, there if you do get injured, you have help. The people like me that work for the Government - there is no help! Unless we make it public! Which I intend to do.

KM: Do you think that's just for Indians? From the Government. Or for everyone?

WMA: Everyone - I don't care who it is. I don't care who it is. I think my case it, I do find points of discrimination which are very flagrant in the case, and which I can prove, but see, no attorney will touch it! You have to get 01:05:00permission to sue the Government. Isn't that cute? They can injure you - but you have to get permission to sue them! I've spent tens of thousands of dollars pointing out - legally - the errors in my case. Which to this day still have not been corrected. And had to do it at my own expense. And they - the only thing that I can get from them is "Well we just have a difference of opinion." You mean, a shortage of $12,000 in compensation is a difference of opinion?

KM: You got that twelve - when did you get that $12,000?

WMA: I got that last April. That was after sixteen years of finding out that it was missing. And now we've turned up that there's another $4-6,000 that we know of, readily. Right now know of, can prove. And possibly another $30,000 that we 01:06:00have to dig further into. They arbitrarily turned around and said uh, loss of wage earner capacity - that means what other job could you do, so we can rate your compensation. So they turned around and said arbitrarily, went down the book and selected "Well he can be a guard - and they made recommendations for a guard". Federal guard must have perfect hearing and vision! And they turned around and said "Well he can be a guard". So they stand on that. This has been pointed out to 'em time and time again. So they just arbitrarily said "Well he can be a guard". That's it!

KM: That's after your accident?

WMA: After the accident. After the injury. So, I can go to work as a guard. Now let's put it this way - now would you hire me?

KM: For a guard?

WMA: Yeah. Say if you had a multi-million dollar business.

KM: Not without hearing.

WMA: Oh, well the Government says I can do it! Now who's right? You or the Government?

KM: Well if I'm the one hiring, then I am. But if-

WMA: But - you explain that to the government! But the guy can't hear! He reads lips. What's he gonna do after dark? Huh? Read lips in the dark? You know, I said that analogy goes like this: it's like asking a blind person to "view" a silent movie. And do a book report on it. It makes about as much it's that ludicrous! I have severe recruitment. That means I can't even get around a firearm. Because if it goes off - if you're anywhere near the area - you're in more danger than the person, the perpetrator. Because when a firearm goes off, I 01:08:00have a total involuntary response to noise - which I have hurt a lot of people already. Just working there. When somebody made a loud bang, or something like that. Okay. It is excruciating! The pain is so excruciating you can't believe it. It's all the way to the bone marrow.

KM: You said when the phone goes off yesterday, that's it's like an explosion in your head.

WMA: You hear telephone ring - I hear an explosion.

KM: What do you hear when I'm - the 30% of you that can hear, me?

WMA: Yeah.

KM: What do you hear?

WMA: I hear parts of words. And see, in the context of the conversation, when you're speaking, the words I can see I can form a sentence mentally of what you're saying. Now, I'm about 90% right. Every once in a while, we'll be talking, and all of a sudden I find I've missed a word or something. Or missed an idea. See, I have to run a theater up here all the time. And I have to, you 01:09:00know, you're a good looking lady - let's face it -and I'm not staring at you because you're good looking, you know, I'd rather stare otherwise, but the thing is - I have to see what you're saying! Alright, I do hear sound - that's does not mean I hear speech. See? People think deafness is, a person cannot hear. Everything is quiet. No. There are a great many forms of deafness! Mine is one of the worst. Mine is a noisy deafness. I have a ring in my head that is as loud as a fire bell! Right around a 105 DB in both ears that I cannot turn off. I have not slept a full night in sixteen years. Right now, I sleep on average maybe from a half hour to an hour-and-a-half a night, and the rest of the time is, you know, sit up and listen to the ring. Okay.

KM: Do you take naps during the day?

WMA: Huh?

KM: Do you ever take naps?

WMA: I took one just before you came in, but I didn't take a nap. I just laid there, because I am so exhausted - from mentally compensating for the ring that uh, you know, I'm physically being torn down by it. It's a living form of hell. Alright, you have that with recruitment - and nearly a 70% loss of the ability to hear, a ring louder - let me give you an example. A ring louder that this (cranks up loud radio). I hear something, I'm not sure what it is, cause the ring is still louder than that.

KM: That was even giving me a headache. That loud.

WMA: You ever hear a microphone feedback?

KM: Yeah.

WMA: Alright...picture that sound! Remember that sound. And not be able to turn it off. Well, that is what tinnitus is! It is debilitating as hell, but the Government doesn't recognize it. "Oh he got a little ring in his head -you know, that ain't gonna hurt him."

KM: Tomorrow you're going up to the Health Science Center in Portland?

WMA: Yes I am.

KM: What have they found, you said they've been researching it for years?

WMA: The Government has known about the research and everything else, uhm, yeah. They have found a way to, hopefully, in most tinnitus cases, to "mask" the sound, by adding "white noise" to, at the same amplitude as the ring is, so that is cancels out the ring, and then the hearing aid will allow voice to come through. They are concerned in my case that the ring is so loud, that it is at the point of, of - okay - eighty-five to ninety DB when you start having, when 01:12:00you start- that's the danger level, for ear da - hearing damage. Mine's at 105 decibels and they're gonna try and "mask" that noise at 105 decibel, no. That would totally deafen me. And then all I'd be left with is the ring! Okay. So, they were trying to find - I don't know exactly for sure what all they're gonna do. I just hope they don't do any more tests like Dr. Conkee just did! Cause uhm, since that test of two weeks, I have barely slept.

KM: Where's that at? Up there?

WMA: Hildebrandt. A clinic. Now he didn't do it intentionally to be evil or anything else. He wanted to find out something. Well - he found out! I have had little or NO sleep in two weeks, 'cause the rings in the ears are ringing ferociously. They are slowly settling down, but you know, normally after three 01:13:00or four days they'll settle down.

KM: What kind of test was it?

WMA: They had a white noise test, to match the tinnitus, to find out loud the tinnitus was. Here it's 105 decibel and stopped. Cause I could still hear the ring. And the noise he was feeding me was excruciating pain! See - my pain threshold, in hearing, is between seventy and eighty decibels. My speech threshold is at seventy and eighty decibels. So, uh, it's, you know, you're dammed if you do and you're dammed if you don't! Anyway, it's going-

KM: Okay, oh, I wanted you to talk about your shops here.

WMA: Oh, okay. This is part of what I believe I believe, and believe strongly 01:14:00that I'm here to be a teacher. Whether anybody hires me or not. I have taught for thirty-five years without pay. And without support! I'm, right now, you're sitting in what will eventually be a one part of a two piece mobile unit. That will be designed, as you can see, I'm building it - benches and everything else - to teach woodworking, metal working, crafts, sculpturing, auto mechanics, the whole shooting match. The benches are in the shop will hold the basic materials. The most of it will be done outside this vehicle. All the equipment rolls out, and we go to work out there. Will teach em how to build solar equipment, how to build steam engines - anything that they want. And we don't charge! We haven't 01:15:00charged. Not in all the time that I've had it.

Had the idea. This is the seventeenth unit or system that I've built to take on the road, and it's now - what has priority are this. Rural communities, people that are, you know, to the point of destitution, very poor, etc. have first call on this, education has second call on this, and anything left over after that, I don't care what the price is that they offer - has last call. Because they are not doing anything now to help those individuals out there. Then why should they have this there to gawk at, when it could be out there doing the work it was 01:16:00designed to do! It is designed specifically for people, with the idea of helping them help to become self-sufficient! More or less, it's a training aid on wheels. This part here, the shop, which is about thirty feet long, will contain, well it teaches everything from silk screening, sculpturing, batiking, anything in the area of arts and crafts. I'm certified through the state of California.

KM: Do you ever try and work with the arts and crafts from your - from your background? From when you were a child or that you-

WMA: I still do it today. I sculpture - that's how I've been supporting this insanity on wheels, as the bonsai sculptures that I do are bronze. I hand extrude bronze with a torch and make miniature trees that look like living bonsai trees. Only difference is, you don't have to water these. Okay, and they're just as fragile. The root work and everything else. And I sell those, 01:17:00you know, just to get fuel and needs going up and down the highway. The rest of it is handled by donations on-the-spot. You might get maybe two dollars in donations for the whole days' work, or you might get fifty dollars in donations for the whole day's work. It all goes back into this, and then the little bit of compensation that I get, a small part of that goes into this. More or less, I cannot ask those individuals that are out there, that are in so much trouble now to turn around and say "Pay $500 a day to bring this thing" to them - because that's what it costs, to turn the key on, these two vehicles on and move them down the road! Nearly $500 a day.

KM: I'll bet the gas mileage is horrible!

WMA: No, they're not really that bad, not for the size vehicles and the weight they carry. This one here carries 18,000, that one over there carries 22,000 pounds. Actual - that's actual weight. Uh, and they average between eight and a 01:18:00half and nine miles to the gallon. Now the thing is, how much gas would it take to bring all those people here? What kind of expense would be involved for all those people to come here? When it, when a local area or locale - I can bring it there, and they can come there. What makes more sense? Take people that are in Roseburg and make em drive all the way up here? In that small of a state and not - and do this here? Or take this to different areas in this state - and teach.

KM: Is that where you plan to use this one? In Oregon, or-

WMA: This one, this, the other chariots that I had, in fact the most famous one, the Solar Chariot, uh, which is no longer with us, we wore it out. 571,000 miles. Okay. Traveled coast to coast, forty-seven round trips. That's round 01:19:00trips. The hard way, sig-zag across the United States. Teaching. (cough) Teaching. Teaching at areas that you've only read about in books! Or only heard about back in the Appalachian. Back in the Pennsylvania gold country. The Smokies, the Adirondacks, up in the Upper Rockies. Uh, Sierra Nevadas. Near my home, all through - up and down through Oklahoma, Missouri, the Ozarks. Areas like this, into Reservations that I would dare say that the very person requesting this here would never even be welcome to enter. There are areas in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Tennessee & Kentucky, that I can 01:20:00readily go into, and not get shot. I'm talking about "shiners". The Government has threatened many a time to arrest m if I didn't divulge where I was getting the fuels for the Solar Chariot. And I've turned around and said "It took me thirty years to gain that trust, and I'll be dammed if I'm gonna, you know, divulge it to you. So that you can go in and hurt some of those people".

KM: You said - do you make your own alcohol, to-

WMA: Oh yes. Alcohol's simple. You know, any good country boy can make, tell ya make a little bit of "shine" Really! If you can distill water, honey, you can make the alcohol. I mean, well it's a little bit more involved, let's put it this way. You gotta get your mash started. But mash is just another way of forming you know, another form of yogurt.

KM: Do you make it here?

WMA: No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, we will not discuss where I make it. Just in case this goes the wrong direction, because there are some twits out there that are so interested in a couple of bucks, that they would be so vindictive as 01:21:00to go ahead and use a piece of paper like this, and turn around and say "Let's get that SOB, man. I want a couple of bucks. Let's turn him in!" Well - they're in for a real royal surprise. I have an experimental fuels permit!

KM: Good.

WMA: Yeah - Really! Uh, so, if they want to play that kind of game, that's great! The thing is, is that I do not make ALL of my own fuel, but I'll be damned if I'm going to turn around and tell them where in the hell I get it! Because, you know, the - let's fact it - the Chariot and I both agree on the same fuel! And the frequently our argument is whose gonna get the last squeeze! (chuckles) And the Chariot usually wins!

KM: What percent alcohol is it?

WMA: We run 140 to 160 proof. Now, bushel of corn'll make two and a half gallons of high proof. That's about 190-[female voice interrupts] Take the message! You 01:22:00know, its 140 - 160 proof. A bushel of corn'll make High Proof. Two and a half gallons. You do not dare run 190 proof in a car, cause it's too hot. See? So, what you do is add water to the alcohol! And you get more fuel.

KM: More for you to, huh?

WMA: Well - get it watered down, you know, the, the, the proof of the stuff that goes into vehicles is equivalent to, you know, 151 rum. Okay? And you could light a match and it'll burn! And burn beautifully, you know, if fact, well Wild Turkey'll burn. But this makes such beautiful flame, you know. And thing that is beautiful about alcohol fuel in vehicles like this is that lot of people "Hey, you know, I can't run alcohol in my car". You can run it in any car that's running around right now, you know, that's internal combustion gasoline, by enlarging the main jet in the carburetor 40%, because alcohol's heavier than 01:23:00gasoline. Not bad - Okay. So, and the other thing too is, it burns cooler and cleaner! And the one thing that is does above all is that, it dissolves carbon. The Chariot, when we finally sent it to Inspiration Point, you could have taken the head off and eaten off the inside of the head. There was not an ounce of carbon to be found anywhere in the engine! We did 250,000 miles just on moonshine. Then the rest we've done on assorted other fuels, we ran a little while on methane, ran a little while on pre-heated diesel to gasoline, kerosene, any time we ran on kerosene, people back in the hills would turn out and you know, dump their lanterns into the tank. And we had a variable adjustment on the 01:24:00carburetor, on the main junction so we can run different fuels. And the carburetor's no stranger. It was made during the Second World War. It's called a Zenith. In fact, I still have the carburetor. I took that off the Chariot before we sent it to Inspiration Point.

KM: Will you use it on this one?

WMA: I don't know - I may take that carburetor, in case that it's a rather interesting little carburetor, it's a multi-fuel carburetor, and see, we, unfortunately during the Second World War we had a tank division shot to hell because it ran out of gas. And the advent of that particular incident, this carburetor showed up. It was made by the Bendix Corporation and it was called a Zenith. And it started showing up on not only farm vehicles, but on military vehicles, and the adaption of that still exists today on all military vehicles that are designed for over-seas use. To run on kerosene, alcohol, gasoline.

KM: Is it still on farming equipment?

WMA: Oh yeah. You can still find it. There are two adjustments on the carburetor. One is for the main valve, the other one is for the air-fuel mixture. Or main jet. You know, it's no big deal, it's just interesting to have.

KM: You were referring, when you had your accident that you lost your wife because of it?

WMA: Yes. I lost my home, everything! Virtually everything I owned. Because of the molasses state of this government, in getting anything done. Most of it was just you know, hurry up and wait! Procrastination. I had no way to support the family or pay the bills, or anything else. I was totally out work. I couldn't 01:26:00get unemployment because the case was in litigation with the government for claim. I couldn't get welfare. I couldn't get anything! So - uh, what do you do? You know? You sit there and uh, fight off the bill collectors, and uh, and give the wife promises. You can't eat promises.

KM: Was you wife a Native American?

WMA: Huh? No. Not her. She was my second wife, and uh, it hurt awful, awful, awful deeply to uh, have to separate that. My first wife died. Two doctors made a mistake, they turned around and said "Well," she was pregnant, and they turned around and said "Well, she's pregnant. There's things that pregnant women have" 01:27:00stuff like that. Gastric problems. Turned out to be terminal cancer, so I lost her and the baby both! And uh, they turned around and kinda "Well, what could we say, you know? They fooled us too!" I wish to hell they could a gone to the funeral!

KM: You couldn't go to the funeral?

WMA: I wish they could have. See? So - that's, that was, other than the Government schools nothin would'a matched what happened at the Government schools! And the orphanages. I think that was, and the injury - I think uh, that was probably one of the hardest things I've ever suffered in my life! Even to this day, you know. It's just uh-

KM: You don't have any children?

WMA: No. No children, uh, I created two, neither one survived. And uh, I guess 01:28:00it's as Great-Grandfather says - the, this family, the Eskiyadokas, will end here. In fact, he prayed to die. That's how deeply hurt he was! And as it looks right now, the children you see, coming up here right now, are my wife's children, from another man, he is also Native American, and a total (whistles) I mean, he totally flipped out. And I can understand, you know, to a certain amount, but I cannot understand his total de-voidance of ever wanting to get around his children. So, that's not us - they are so precious! You know. I mean, 01:29:00I'm a mid-wife. I have delivered fifty-five children. And there's no secret about it - that in news article after news article, I've been in court several times over it, and my only question to the doctor is that, you know, I was not practicing medicine without a license. My only question to you is "Where were you when she was having the baby?" The last one I delivered was right here is Oregon. At White Horse Meadows, down is Southern Oregon. Yeah. I would say twenty-five miles walk from anyone of any authority. And I caught my ration of hell for that one. So - I have my other business now, and am staying out of it. I figure fifty-five children, they're all living - no complications - no problems - I do not push the luck. Okay. 'Cause I don't think I could handle it this time. You know, I'm internally afraid. Very very afraid. So, love the hell 01:30:00up [laughs]. They're so much fun.

KM: How many are here?

WMA: Two.

KM: Two?

WMA: Yeah. My daughters now are Danni and Sabrina. But anyway, you know, like I said, I think you know, I think the Eskiyadokas end here. I don't want it that way, but I am so confused about, you know, should another child have to go through what I've gone through? I think that would be an insult to the Great Spirit. I actually think that would be an insult. I think I would rather wait, 01:31:00and let them find a new world. I'm gonna do what I can about changing this one, but uh - until then, I don't know. It's just - you know -try and look forward - try to look optimistically and try not to, uh, remember back, [unclear] still goes on today, which is the greatest tragedy goin' on right now. Down in Arizona, in Four Corners, One of the most disgusting too, because it's not only political, but it's religious. They are moving over 10,000 people - forcibly removing them from their lands. The Navajo, the Hopi. The Navajo Dene. And relocating 'em! I mean, the culture shock alone of that! Cause those are traditional lands. Those are sacred lands. Their medicine is there. It grows, 01:32:00you know. And they want to throw those people off their land.

And you get -here's another thing - where the government's come in and set up a council, 'cause we have to have a government you know! Like your government - which doesn't even exist anywhere, in any form of our, you know in 25,000 years. It doesn't even exist. And even in our thought, and they go vote as to whether we move the people or not. Now your way of voting is, is those that abstain go with the positive vote. The Indian way is, is we abstain, that answer is no, 'cause we have not made a decision yet we are still working on it. So, what they did is, they set up a little cute vote down there, with the Traditionals, not the Traditionals but the oh, what we call the apples [?] the elected council, this government only recognizes, they do not recognize the non-nucleated 01:33:00Government in which the Native American has -and then, there were three votes yes, and one no. There were only four people voting, so they turned around and said the three yes's will speak for the rest of the people! The people don't even recognize the rest of the Council. But the government's turning around and saying, "Well, we're only going to recognize the Council." And again - see, this is in violation of your own laws. Okay, so here you got this mess going on - What they want the land for is, so they can strip mine 'em. It's got coal on it. Well this is the land they put 'em on, and let 'em stay on, 'cause it's sacred, back then - and it wasn't of any use to the white man.

KM: This was the Dakotas?

WMA: Well the Dakotas - the Dakotas are coming up very shortly. After you know, this one here, after Big Mountain, I think'll be pretty much a shoot-'em-up war. Very, very similar to Wounded Knee, except I think it's gonna be a lot more 01:34:00vicious! And then - Wounded Knee is gonna crank up again! I - - -