BILL BEAVER INTERVIEW

   

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

We're visiting with Bill Beaver this afternoon at the

Sacred Mountain Trading Post.  It's Tuesday, January

25, 2000.  This interview is part of the United Indian

Traders Association Oral History Project.

   

   Cole:  Bill, we like to start right at the very

beginning:  when and where were you born?

   

   Beaver:  January 9, 1925, in a Lutheran hospital in

Los Angeles, California.  That makes me seventy-five.

   

   Cole:  What brought you to the Southwest?

   

   Beaver:  My father.  His parents and family were in

Oklahoma, and we used to go back and forth, and he

loved the area, and likewise I got into it real good.

I'm very hazy on dates.  I do remember the Grand

Canyon, being on horseback up there.  And I think that

was about 1930-31, somewhere in that neck of the woods.

We went over to Hopi country, and then I remember being

back.  I remember coming to Wupatki, I think, about

1936 or so, and there was no road, we just kind of

wandered around out in that area.  There was a guy

named Davey Jones, who was at Wupatki, and I remember

gettin' some early pictures of that.

   Then as a teenager, my first impact I think really

got to me was I remember the Gallup Intertribal

Ceremony, and being over there by myself, and some

Navajo guy, some old guy, couldn't speak English--I

couldn't speak Navajo--but he was showin' me around,

and then I stayed with a Hopi family who I ended up

spending most of the time with.  The reason that I can

pinpoint was because a war broke out.  (chuckles)  Not

while I was there, but shortly thereafter.  So in 1942

I was still too young to go in, and I went up and

stayed at Hopi for a whole summer, herding sheep,

helping farm, and stuff like that, and really thought

that was great.

   In 1943, somebody pointed the finger and said, "I

want you!"  (chuckles)  I don't remember his last name,

but his first name was Sam.  (laughter)  And I got back

in 1946 and went up and stayed the summer, and tried to

get into the University of Arizona.  They said, "Nah,

we don't want you."  Went over to Albuquerque, and

University of New Mexico said, "Any time--start."  So I

started that summer in Chaco Canyon.  I always point to

that time period as this is when I really saw Navajo

pottery.  And for some reason, here I'm in a canyon

with probably some of the most beautiful pottery in the

Southwest, working for the university for the first

month or so, going to school on the GI Bill the other

couple of months, and I fell in love with this pottery.

And I'm always trying to remember the guy that had the

trading post [that] was in the ruin of Pueblo Del

Arroyo.  He had Navajo pottery, but I didn't get any.

If it was fifty cents apiece, I couldn't afford it.

But I remember his name was Glenn.  He had a decided

limp.

   Later, I went back there, and the hogan and the

South Gap where the women had made pottery was gone,

they were dead, the trading post was gone, somebody

else was up on the Escavada Wash, and he didn't know

anything about any of 'em.  Years later, in the latter

part of the fifties, I was at Crownpoint, workin' for

BIA, and there was a woman came in there, her name was

Katherine Cly, and I remember her from Chaco Canyon,

and we talked about that, and she said those two ladies

were gone, just after that.  And it wasn't until fifty

years later I found out that was the last New Mexico

field school--Dave Wilcox clued me in on that--and that

they'd had a reunion, but I never heard of it.

   So that summer I returned back to Hopi.  When I was

staying up there, I learned silversmithing from an old

Hopi named Washington Talayumptewa.  I could say that

was when we first started trading, I started learning

about it, because he would make up silver, we'd go out,

and his niece made boxes--oh, huge boxes, of piki paper

bread, you know.  And we went off, always to the east,

trading bread, trading peaches, cots, dried cots, corn

meal, and he'd have his silver, and trading with

Navajos out through Greasewood and all the way down in

that country, getting sheep, coming back, putting the

sheep in the corral at Shongopovi, and then get started

all over again, and hit the road again.  So this [is

how] I got to understand the trading thing.

   The family also used to go to Gallup Intertribal

Ceremonial and set up a booth.  Gee, I wish there was

trading that way today!  So they wanted Hopi pottery to

take to the tribal ceremonial for there.  So we took

sacks of beans over to First Mesa, Polacca, and it was

fascinating.  How they would get their pot is they'd

take a bowl, fill it with beans, slice it off level,

pour it in the woman's apron, and then they'd keep the

pot.  They were trading beans for pots.  (laughs)  At

today's prices, you could buy a whole bean farm!

   That's where they taught me about how to tell a good

piki batter bowl, that it was all in the rim.  The

women are always taking the extra dough off on their

hands, by rubbing it on the rim.  And if the rim's too

sharp, it gets to the fingers.  If it's too rounded, it

won't take the dough off.  It's gotta be just right.

And they said, "Most of these young people don't know

how to make a good one."  And I don't know of anybody

today that uses that criteria, so they probably don't

even do it.  So the piki bowls I've seen at that

village now are older ones, probably coming from about

that time period.  I don't know if there's any new

ones.  So I learned all of that.

   One time we traded all the way into Laguna.  I

remember sleeping next to the truck on the ground with

the silversmith, at a village called Paraje, and those

ladies over there piled in to get that piki bread,

because they weren't making much of it there.  Then we

went clear on into Isleta and spent the night in

Isleta, and I got to know that town pretty well.

   So those are sort of my basic trading days.  Later--

I can't remember the exact date--1949 somehow sticks in

my head--I went to work at Walnut Canyon as a summer

temporary ranger.  That's 'cause you had to have a

degree, and I did.  I used to always say, �With this

degree and fifty cents, I could get coffee anywhere.�

Today I'd need a dollar, wouldn't I?  Okay, well I got

the same degree.  If you ever go to Walnut Canyon, go

to the old museum.  You'll see a beautiful sandstone

patio thing out at the overlook.  Well, I helped set

that.  There was a guy named Harper, he was from

Klagetoh, a Navajo guy.  We hauled sandstone from Ash

Fork up there, and he showed me how to set that.  We

did some of the stairs down.  And for that, I got paid

twice as much as I did being a dude herder in a Smokey

Bear hat.  (laughter)  So that's when I really got onto

stonework.

   From there, I met Mildred Heflin.  Well, I went to

work for the museum up here for the second annual

Navajo Show.  The first one, Catherine Bartlett was

trying to do it all on her own.  She couldn't do it,

because she had to be at the museum and she had to be

out in the field.  So I went out in the field at that

time.  The show was called the Western Navajo--not the

Navajo Show--and we went to the western stores,

starting here with Black Falls, Cameron, and on up that

way, up to Oljato, and brought stuff back to the

museum.  And that's when I ran into Navajo pottery on

this side, at Shonto, and I got to know the Heflins.

   And Mildred, after the show, wanted to know if I'd

go to work.  So I finished the work at Walnut Canyon,

and I went to Shonto.  That was my first so-called

trading post.  Did a heavy wool season up there in

those days.  Shonto was big sheep families.  We were

gettin' 'em down from Navajo Mountain, Inscription

House.  She was Stoke Carson's daughter, and they were

really into sheep.  Cleaned the shelves one time.

Mildred came out there and said, "Well, how's it

goin'?"  I said, "All that wool stacked out there, I

got nothin' to sell."  And then she wanted me to take

the boards down and start selling the lumber!

(laughter)

   So anyway, while I was there, I also did--there was

a guy up at Inscription House, Walt Scribner.  I

relieved him while I took time off, so I got to know a

little bit about the Inscription House.  Totally

different atmosphere, totally different situation at

that store than there is at Shonto.  And I always

thought I liked the little stores, but I left Shonto

because a friend of mine in New Mexico got a deal over

there on surplus commodities and welfare and stuff.

The state started taking over from the feds, and he

wanted me to come back to New Mexico and work for him,

and I told him I really didn't want to.  So he said,

"Well, I'm on my way to Phoenix.  Maybe we can get

Arizona to pick you up."  I said, "This I could live

with."

   So originally we were supposed to set up in Keams

Canyon; I quit Shonto, moved to Keams Canyon; they

weren't there; and then a phone call said, "Move to

Phoenix."  I spent five years in Phoenix, with my

territory up here on the reservation.  So I got lots of

per diem, driving back and forth.  Some days my per

diem checks were bigger than my paychecks.  But the

beauty part of that was I got to hit every trading post

or supervisor's office on the Arizona part of the

reservation, and went into New Mexico because a lot of

times we'd have to stay in Gallup to catch 'em on that

border between the two states; or we'd stay at Shiprock

to catch that Four Corners area.  So while I wasn't

working there, I would get to know a lot of that border

area.  And of course I knew something about the Chaco

area.

   

   Cole:  You were working for the State?

   

   Beaver:  Yeah, State of Arizona.  That came under

the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act, which was ninety-

eight cents on the dollar was federal funds.  And it

was a real good deal, and I heard a lot of people gripe

about it.  I said, "Look, Arizona puts up two pennies,

and somebody else puts up the ninety-eight pennies, and

the whole dollar is spent here in Arizona.  You can't

beat that, unless you got a stick in your hand!"

(laughter)  So why are they bitchin'?  And that

included the administrative costs:  my salary, the

gasoline, and all of this, because we were driving

State vehicles.  This was beautiful.  We just had aid

to dependent children, old age, and blind.  Child

welfare and all that kind of stuff, BIA still had.

   I remember at Shiprock, there was a guy up there--

doesn't matter what his name is--and he was the

government worker.  We drove out through the Sweetwater

area.  We had to go through the Four Corners to get to

Arizona.  His interpreter wasn't workin' that day, so

the two of us went and we got down there.  This old man

came up, and we were sittin' in the vehicle, and he

talked to me, and I listened to him, I asked him a few

questions, and then I turned to this--oh, Everett,

Everett was his first name--I said, "This is one of

your cases, probably general assistance."  So he said,

"Well, what's the guy's name?"  And I said, "He said it

was in the book."  (laughter)  That was all.  You asked

him, "Oh, it's in the book."  The guy said, "Open the

book up, find their case numbers and stuff."  So I was

surprised.  "Everett, how long have you been out here?"

"Fifteen years."  "And you still don't know how to ask

the man his name?"  "No."  "Okay, I'll interpret for

you.  And that just shows you, you have faith, 'cause I

could tell you anything."  (laughter)  Always remember

that when you're working with an interpreter--they can

make or break you.

   I remember being around Shiprock because of that.  A

lot of the records I needed to check out and stuff,

because Shiprock, some agency came in.  The feds

weren't worried about state lines, we had to be.  So

that was great, I really got to see an awful lot of

country, and got to travel a lot.  This is when I met

Art Lee up at Salina Springs.  So a lot of those

traders I remember kept telling me, "Anytime you want

to quit that, you can come to work for me."

   Well, politics always changes everything in this

state, so BIA said, "We want you at Fort Defiance."

And I hated living in Phoenix, so I said, "All right,

I'm your boy."  I checked into Gallup and they said,

"No, there's been a change.  You gotta go to

Crownpoint, New Mexico."  So I went to Crownpoint, New

Mexico, and that was my introduction to what they call

the checkerboard area.  Are you familiar with the

checkerboard?

   

   Cole:  Uh-huh.

   

   Beaver:  Okay.  It was so messed up over there,

because there was state land, federal land, which would

be, say, Indian Service land, and then Bureau of Land

Management.  And there were some sections that were

Santa Fe Railroad.  And the jurisdiction thing was

enough to send you up a tree.  If you found a dead body

out there, you had to bring in a surveyor to find out

what cop you called.  (laughter)  "Well, his head's

here, and his feet…"  (laughter)

   I think the most fun was tracking down--they have

what they called the individual Indian money accounts.

This was when the leases were getting real hot and

heavy out in there--coal, uranium, and stuff--and these

companies would want to lease ground, and BIA would

say, "Well, let's see, we've got an allotment in

there," or "we've got a block of allotments, and the

money will have to go to the heirs."  Well, the

ridiculous thing is, because it was federal, we had to

go bilateral.  We had to go down through the father's

side and the mother's side.  And the Navajo always

figured on the mother's side, and we were havin' all

sorts of problems there, because you'd say, "Well, we

got these kids, and we go to auntie and their orphans."

"Well, their mother was my sister, blah, blah, blah."

"Well, who's the father?"  "He was from somewhere over

that way, up toward Shiprock.  And after she died, he

moved somewhere else."  And they don't keep track of

that side of the family.

   And then we had some cases where BIA had not

probated the estates, going back into the twenties.

Now, we had to pick up a trail in the twenties and try

and sort it out.  It got real devastating.  I wasn't

involved in the money, per se--I was just trying to

find out who was who, because a lot of Navajos were

living on allotted ground that wasn't theirs--they

lived on somebody else's.  And that family was many,

many miles over the other way, living on somebody

else's allotment.  But they could care less.  In the

earlier days, they just, "Well, we've been movin'

around all this time."  So we ended up with many

allotments that were totally fractured.  We had quite a

lot of descendants, and they were getting like one-

fortieth of the proceeds.

   And then I had three girls who were orphans, and

tracing out on their father's side, there was a lot of

allotments going from their father into the

grandfather.  Same thing on the mother's side.  And

those gals were gettin' about--they were drawing off of

several allotments, and each girl was getting around

$35,000-$40,000 a year, and they're just schoolkids.

So what the superintendent over there was doing was

putting the money into government bonds and holding for

them.  And they were in boarding school since they were

orphans, so we'd cut checks off for like clothing

allotments and things like that.  I never did see 'em,

but that was very interesting how they ended up with a

piece of pie.  Seemed like every allotment that there

was some shirttail relative had oil on it.  (laughs)

And these other guys, on some allotments they�d strike

oil and on other allotments they�d drill a dry hole,

called a �duster�.  So I found that pretty neat, but I

found workin' for the government impossible.

   

   Cole:  How did that work when it came to leasing?

Would the people having the allotment have any say as

to whether they were going to allow 'em to drill for

oil or not?  Or was that a federal decision?

   

   Beaver:  I never knew how the releases were

negotiated--probably through a multitude of lawyers.

You can be sure of that.  (laughs)  The oil company's

lawyers, the government lawyers, the tribal lawyers.

Somewhere in there, the people are supposed to get the

benefit.  Just how they determine how much money was

coming in, I always wondered about, too.  I never saw

anybody out there checking to see how much oil those

clowns were pumpin'--how many thousand barrels.  "Oh,

we�ll pay you on these last ten."  I mean, I'm not

saying it happened, but I never saw anybody go making

checks on that.

   

   Cole:  I've gotta back up for a second and get the

names of your parents.

   

   Beaver:  Well, my father was a William, my mother

was a Dolly.  My wife's a Dolly, and my daughter's a

Dolly.  I can always remember that.

   

   Cole:  Is that D-A-H-L-E?

   

   Beaver:  No, D-O-L-L-Y.  And my daughter is D-O-L-L-

Y.  My wife is D-O-L-L-I-E.  I could never forget the

names.

   

   Cole:  You said when you were a kid you'd go back

and forth to Oklahoma.  Was that to visit…

   

   Beaver:  To see Grandpa.  I never knew my

grandmothers on either side.  They were both deceased

as far as I knew.  I vaguely remember my grandfather.

I remember my uncles back there--nice people.  We

didn't go back often, but I mean, you know, coming into

the area.

   Yeah, now that you brought that up, my grandfather

on my mother's side was probably one of the original

traders of the world.  You want to hear this?

   

   Cole:  Sure.

   Beaver:  All right.  He was born in Glasgow,

Scotland.  (customer enters, tape continues to roll

while narrator waits on customer)  I was starting to

tell about my grandfather.  That's on my mother's side,

and his name was Bush--that would have been her maiden

name--B-U-S-H.  Sometimes they called him Captain Bush,

sometimes they called him Admiral Bush--depends on who

you're talkin' to.  He left Glasgow--this is according

to my mother--when he was about fourteen, and sailed to

the east, the same time as a guy settled on a little

island off of Malaysia that now is Singapore.  Another

Scotsman went on and settled on a little island outside

of China, and that's Hong Kong.  He went to Bangkok.  I

don't know all the story on it on his side, but I went

over there.  My brother and I, it was sort of a family

reunion one time up in Colorado.  And incidentally my

father, they were at Lawton, Oklahoma, and he went to

Cameron High School there.

   And anyway, back to my grandfather on my mother's

side.  She was telling me stories and it didn't sink in

too much until after World War II, I came home one time

and I looked at some luggage sitting there, and I just

knew immediately it was Thailand, 'cause she used to

give me stamps, she'd get mail periodically, and she'd

give me these stamps, which I still have a whole bunch

of.  And I met my aunt for the first time, 'cause my

mother was born in Bangkok, spoke Thai, and then they

sent her brother--she had an older brother--and herself

were sent off to Scotland to go to boarding school.

Then World War I broke out, and then she met this Okie

who was over there as a GI for World War I, and they

got married and she came here.  She didn't like

Oklahoma, so they moved to the West Coast.  They moved

to Portland.  That was too much rain.  So then they

moved down to a little town called L.A. that had

potential to grow, and that's where they stayed.

   So the place she really liked and they eventually

settled in was a place called Laguna Beach.  My health

was never good at Laguna Beach--felt like I was

breathing inside of a bucket--a full bucket of

saltwater--and I felt better over here.  When I did go

to Thailand, I saw where she had spent her life as a

kid, and immediately saw the close identification--it's

where mountains come right down to the ocean.  I

realized that's why she liked Laguna.  So the cat was

out of the bag then.  Caught my brother totally by

surprise--why, I don't know.  I always suspected

something.

   You want to hear a funny one?  When the present wife

and I were going to get married, my brother said to me,

"Bill, what are you going to think when you see those

little half-breed children running around?"  And I

said, "Well, what am I supposed to think?  I've lived

with this all my life."  And he said, "You have?!"  I

said, "Good, God, John, you ever look at your own

mother?"  (laughs)  "Ohhh, yeah."  That's why I get a

kick out of my daughter.  See, I'd be a quarter, she'd

be an eighth, and then four-eighths Navajo, so she'd be

five-eighths minority…  No, 'cause four-eighths is a

half, isn't it?  So she'd be seventh-eighths.  I don't

know, you figure it out.

   And I decided to go back…  (someone enters)

That's a granddaughter, so that's a great-grandkid.

   So that's when we went to Thailand, was after my

mother died.  She wanted us to go over.  She went back

after World War II with my father, twice.  Of course I

was working and everything like that, never could get

time off.  And then the reunion, my brother said, "Why

don't I go to Scotland and follow up on that side; and

you go to Thailand and follow up on Grandma's side?"

And I said, "You're on!"  And he never did go to

Scotland.

   So anyway, my grandmother had…  Captain Bush

died, then she remarried.  So my aunts and uncles that

were over there were full-blooded Thai, but they

recognize that my mother and her brother were their

older kids, and they had always promised their mother

that they would find them.  And then after World War

II, the youngest one, who spoke very good English, came

over, and we all got acquainted again.  (someone

enters)  You want to be in a movie?  (woman replies

"no, no, no.")

   So anyway, I got a kick out of these guys talking

about fifth generation trader and this that and the

other thing.  And they were talking up there in the

auditorium, remember, about the language barrier and

stuff.  And I thought about that old Scotchman.  Talk

about a language barrier!  My mother said she thinks he

was born about 1812.  She always remembers he had one

eye.  And she said that one time her mother explained

to her that in those days, when he got there, one of

the assets working with the Thai people was he took on

the Chinese pirates that were raiding the shipping

there in the Gulf of Siam, and he lost an eye in a

sword duel with a Chinaman.  Those were Errol Flynn

days!  So that's where he got the "Admiral," because he

worked with the Thai Navy, as well as being

independent.  And he helped build the docks at Bangkok,

he helped put in the railroad, and helped do the

electric company.

   He married my grandmother--I'm not sure where or

when--he was sixty-five and she was sixteen.  A little

spread in age there.  The Anna and the King of Siam

movie, which is a new one I don't want to see--I saw

the one with Yul Brenner.  He  was the one that that

English woman lived with before she moved to the

palace.  I did see his property down what they call an

�Anettin� house, which was on the gulf, had beach

frontage and stuff like that.  Where he lived up in

Bangkok is gone.  That house now has the Sheraton Hotel

on it.  And we went to the Sheraton and stayed there,

because I saw it was on Number 1, Bush Lane, and so I

thought, "Let's start here."  And I found out that that

was his property, as long as he was alive.

   When he died, then the property reverted to the

crown.  Then the crown told the Sheraton that they

could build there.  But there was a very nice Thai lady

there who was their public relations woman, and she

just got a kick out of us.  They had a Captain Bush

Restaurant part in there and stuff.  And then she said,

"You may want to go out in front by the river.  There's

this big Bo tree.  Your grandfather planted that."  I

said, "They didn't remove it for the hotel?"  And she

said, "Oh, in Thailand you wouldn't cut down a Bo

tree."  And then we realized it was because of the

Buddhist aspect.

   So I told her I was there trying to find my

relatives.  The last letter that my mother had gotten,

we found that address through a cabby.  You know,

they've got these little tricycle-like cabs.  The wife

and I rode around in those--they were a kick in the

tail.  The hotel people were horrified that we'd go out

like that.  Then they got me a regular cabby one day,

and he and I went looking, and I saw a lot of

backcountry of Bangkok I didn't know existed!  But

everywhere we came to a dead end.

   So this P.R. lady said, "I've got an idea."  So we

had lunch, and she invited in some newspaper people,

and a television camera.  I had some old photographs.

They took those, one newspaper lady, and they ran it in

the newspaper, and they had this on television.  She

was sitting there with us to be the interpreter.  I'm

surprised that their TV people all spoke excellent

English, and I asked this one lady--she was the

moderator--"Where'd you pick up all of this stuff?"

"Oh, I went to school at UCLA."  (laughs)  [She]

learned all this television stuff in California, and

then came back.  That was fascinating.

   The next evening, the wife and I went out to eat,

and we came back, and she likes hot chile.  Boy! we ran

into hot chile in Bangkok!  Wow! I mean that'll roast

your molars out!  We got a phone call, and this voice

came on and talked to me.  See, one of the things they

were afraid of is somebody trying to trick us, and I

said, "No, because I'm not saying everything that I

know."  And I went down the elevator--we were just

getting ready to go to bed--I stepped out of the

elevator and I recognized my aunt, bingo! just like

that.  And of course that led to the rest of the

family, of which, let's see, another aunt and an uncle

are dead now.  That's why I hustled my young daughter

and we went over again, 'cause I said, "Time's running

out for you to meet 'em."  They were very old…  One

of the first questions was what did we do with my

mother.  And I said, "Well, we cremated her, and we

dumped the ashes in the ocean.  I hope that was the

right thing to do."  And it was!  Did the right thing.

   Anyway, I saw where the old boy had made an imprint

in there.  In the movie there wasn�t much said about

Captain Bush.  We went over to the palace, and they

showed us the room that woman taught the Thai kids in

the movie.  She made the statement to us, "The movie

was weird.  Why did they make it?"  And I said, "Very

simple.  Anything dealing with Hollywood, it's money.

(laughter)  That's the main thing--they made it for

money."  So I don't know [if] this new production's

going to be worth a hoot 'n' holler in hell.

   So that was it.  The last time I went over there, I

cashed out the very last of my mother's money in a bank

over there and gave it to her sisters.  I asked them

just how much she knew, and they said, very

interesting, they would translate for her, but they

never had to translate back.  She'd read to them in

English, and they'd translate into Thai.  But when it

was coming the other way, she didn't need a

translation.  She knew enough about the language.  She

left, she thinks, when she was around ten when she went

to boarding school.  Prior to that, her education was

Buddhist monks--they ran the schools.

   So this is a real long stretch from being a trader,

but it was great.  We're talking about making another

trip back.  I'd like to take my granddaughter over

there.  I've got a zillion--I don't know how many

cousins I got over there, and I'm not sure exactly how

they count cousins, but we were still meeting them when

we left.  So that was on Mama's side.

   On my father's side, the only thing having to do

with Indians, the oldest brother told me that when he

was a young whippersnapper there in Oklahoma, they

rounded up the last of the wild buffalo out on the

panhandle country and drove 'em into Concho, Oklahoma,

on the Cheyenne Arapaho Reservation.  And then he said

he also worked on one of the censuses down there,

taking census for Comanche and Kiowa--but I don't know

if he ever spoke any of that language.  They definitely

were not in the trading business there in Oklahoma.

   I was the first one that drifted into this.  Like I

said, sometimes I never quite think of myself as a

trader.  I know Navajo pottery was the one thing that I

really latched onto, and it was pretty well dead when I

went to Shonto.  And when I was working that welfare

thing, I chased it around.  I went to Chaco Canyon--

those ladies were dead, there was no pottery around, I

don't know whatever happened to it.  I don't know where

that Glenn guy ever went to.  Up near Cove, I ran into

a little old lady that made pottery.  She made probably

the last of the painted pottery.  I remember the date,

1955, and not being very flush with money, I bought

like six pieces, and I sold three of 'em to the

Southwest Museum in L.A. for the total cost of all six,

so I got three of 'em free.  I went back for some more,

and she had died, and her son said she used to sell

down in Shiprock, but I had no idea where it was.  They

didn't have any layin' around.  And I'd heard about

Tule Bia's [phonetic spelling] mother in Del Muerto.

So the next time I had a chance at Chinle, I found him.

He worked for the Park Service, and he said his mother

had died a couple of years before.  So traditional

painted Navajo pottery, which is not this--this is not

traditional Navajo pottery, painted.  That comes in

later, tourist item.

   And so he told me where to go down to their

farmstead, where she had fired her pottery, and I

picked up a bunch of sherds, which are now in the

Arizona State Museum.  Made it legal.  And so that just

left the Shonto people, and I started buyin' pottery up

there.  Well, have you talked to Mildred yet?

   

   Cole:  Yes, we have.

   

   Beaver:  Okay.  She was interested in it, and said

that they had some there at the store.  But I bought

quite a few pieces of it.  And her husband wasn't

happy, he didn't think we should be in the pottery

business.  So I said, "All right, Ruben, I'll tell you

what.  Take it out of my salary.  I'll take all of

these pots, and I want about three or four days off."

And he said, "Okay."  I drove straight to Tucson, went

in and saw Mark Bahti's father, Tom Bahti.  Have you

heard of him?

   

   Cole:  Yeah, heard of him through Tom Woodard.

   Beaver:  Yeah.  Well, Mark has done a lot of

publications.  Anyway, I walked in to see ol' Tom and I

said, "I've got about three cabbage crates full of

Navajo pottery outside.  Are you interested?"  And he

said, "I'll buy it all.  Now let's go look at it."  I

thought "This is the way I like to deal!"  But he did.

And that told me that it could sell, there was a

possible market out there for it.

   When they found out I came here then pottery started

coming through the doors.  One time I had boxes like

this under the shelves everywhere, full of Navajo

pottery.  The shelves were full of it, and the wife

said, "What are we going to do with all of this?!"  And

I said, "Well, we can always pave the road."

(chuckles)

   And in walked a guy called Grover Turner, whose

moniker was "the traveling trader."  He did all the

western states.  He said he had a problem.  He'd get

supplies and he'd go out to sell, it was like he was on

a short tether.  He'd get so far and they'd been picked

over, that he had diminishing returns.  So he had to

come back and go around and pick up stuff.  He said

that this is what's kind of holdin' him back.  So we

struck a deal.  We loaded him up, he gave me a whole

bunch of checks spaced about every two or three weeks,

and off he went with all this pottery, and we're waving

goodbye to him.  And after he disappeared down the

road, I thought, "I wonder if I'll ever see this man

again."  (laughs)  We can always use it for wallpaper,

you know.

   That started a real good relationship.  He started

movin', and it changed Navajo pottery in the fact that

he'd come back and he would say, "Lookit, this is

what's selling good.  This isn't."  So now the dollar

market came back to bear on these potters.  When I

first started, they were all older than I.  Now,

there's only one older than I--everybody's younger than

I.  But that meant when they came in I would say, "This

is what we need.  We need more of this."  And they had

something different, 'cause they'd only have one other

idea of what the public would want.  Of course I had no

idea either, but this was the first time there was the

input of the cash dollar market, and they picked up on

it, and it's still going on, a lot of them running off

to these shows like Santa Fe and stuff like that.  You

can feel the pulse a little easier than they do,

because I'm downsizing now.  These little horned toad

things right next to your elbow over there, there's the

little wedding vases with little horned toads on 'em.

Now, we used to handle those in big ones, maybe two,

three feet high.  And now, they're down to small ones.

It's just like corporate America, we're downsizing,

because the traveling public, more and more people come

in, they say, "God, I'd love to have that big one, but

we're on the plane.  We're going to take the rental car

back to Phoenix or back to Vegas."  And it's about

fifty-fifty now--we're getting as much out of Vegas as

we are out of Phoenix.  "And I gotta fit it in my

suitcase for the plane."  So downsizing we went, and it

worked.  So the dollar market's still workin' on 'em.

   Now the other story on this…  Could you hand me

one of those?

   

   Steiger:  Sure.

   Beaver:  That'd be perfect.  This'll be easier for

you to see.  Now the first ones this family made--see,

Betty doesn't speak English, or read and write, which

means I work with her.  A lot of these other ones are

pretty well educated and they're off runnin� around.

So she'd make this wedding vase and she put a horned

toad here, a horned toad there, maybe a cactus on this

side, and another horned toad or maybe some yucca.  And

I had a woman call me from Denver and she wanted to

know if I could get 'em to do storytellers.  Now, I

said, "No," I turned her down.  I said, "You know,

lady, I don't like Mexicans making Navajo rugs, I don't

like Filipinos making Zuni jewelry.  The storyteller

belongs to the Pueblos in New Mexico.  I'm not sure

these people know what I'm talkin' about.  So I'll just

tell you offhand right now, the answer is no."  So the

Navajos always have stories about Horned Toad--he's the

nice guy.  They don't like lizards on pots or snakes.

There are some Navajos now doing that, and the

traditional ones say it's taboo.  And I've stayed with

the traditional.  A lot of 'em out there now--and I'll

get over to that later--will stay with the horned toad.

So I thought, "Now, he's a storyteller."  So I asked

Betty, "Make me one of these and put a whole lot of

horned toads on there."  So she came in and sort of

timidly added maybe two or three more.  I had three or

four more than I had before.  And I said, "Now smother

it with…  Up here, over here, anywhere.  Just crowd

it up with these guys."  And it worked!  It took off

like a scalded dog, I'll tell you!  And of course this

is her daughter, who does very lightweight stuff,

beautiful work, and it's a winner.  And here is our

Navajo storyteller.

   So then the other wild call I got out of somewhere

east of here, wanted them to make Nacimientos--is that

it?--Christmas scenes.  And I said, "They haven't the

foggiest idea what a Christmas scene is."  But we got

'em makin' animals, and those worked too.  They're

really good.  And there's one old guy who does a good

pig.  I told him, "Make me some pigs."  And who would

have thought pigs?  There are tourists who are pig

collectors out there.  And I had a woman come in, she

went ape because there was rabbits, she was a rabbit

collector.  So, this is what works.  And it works for

them and it works for me.

   Navajo pottery's always been very kind to me.  I had

built up a sizeable Navajo pottery collection, which

now resides in the Arizona State Museum.  I started

collecting even before I had a store.  And I don't know

why, certain pieces grabbed me and I put it in my

collection.  And I had this humongous collection, and I

had it in that back stone house, and I always worried

about it.  I knew the collection was safe, because

nobody knew about it.  But then people started getting

to know about it, because I had various guys from the

university helping me here.  And so one day I went back

there, and here was a jar (swish) fell off--pieces all

over the floor.  Then I realized I worry about this.

We were also thinking of nailing chicken wire up, but I

don't know, somehow you can't get to it.  So I called

up this museum and…  Well, first of all, I talked

with the wife, and I had a Paiute basket collection, I

had a Navajo pottery collection, I had a doll

collection.  I was dealing with three tribes all the

time.  And so we decided to sell the Paiute collection

first.  It was the smallest one, the least amount of

money.  I said, "No matter how smart we think we are,

we're gonna make a mistake somewhere down the line.  So

let's put this least one up."  And sure enough, we made

a mistake.  That collection is now in Osaka, Japan.

Some guy in Tucson bought it.  And then I talked with

that Turner guy, and he said, "God! I wish you'd told

me about it!  I'd have given you double for it."  "Oh,

no!"  Get some smart pills out.

   So anyway, when I found it went to Japan, I still

have mixed feelings about that, 'cause I was down in

Tucson, I used to go in and see Emil Haury.  He was a

great ol' guy.  I walked in, the wife and I were

talkin' to him, and he said, "Well, what have you been

up to?"  I said, "Well, I just got rid of a Paiute

collection."  He said, "I never saw it, but if I know

you, it was a good collection.  I wish you'd let us

have first shot at it."  And I said, "Well, I talked to

the Museum of Northern Arizona, and they said they

didn't have enough money to buy one, much less the

collection."  So he said, "Why didn't you approach us?"

"Well, I didn't know you'd go for it."  He sounded

pretty unhappy.  And I said, "Well, I'll tell you what

I'm going to do, Emil.  I'm going to go back and I'm

going to put another one together."  And I did, and it

was really a neat collection, but there were still

missing parts of the first collection, because some of

the individuals had died of old age, and you can't put

it together.

   So when the Navajo pottery collection, we decided to

sell it, I did, I offered it to the State Museum, they

were interested.  They said they would get the funds,

and where they got it from, I don't know.  But they

sent two people up here to take a look, and both of 'em

said, "Go for it."  So when we finished the deal, I

said, "Well, it's your collection, come and get it."

(laughs)  They said, "No, you bring it down."  And I

said, "Fair deal."  "And stick around for about four or

five days."  What they wanted to do, was they wanted to

do what we're doing now, except we didn't have the

video part--we had the audio part--was to go over the

collection.  There was a woman, Jan Bell, and boy, what

a good interrogator.  She got stuff out of me I'd

forgotten!  We arranged those pots, we had a big room,

as big as this, with long tables, and I arranged the

collection serially by when I got 'em.  So we had the

older stuff at this end, the newer stuff at that end.

I'd go down and we'd talk about it.  They'd already had

their numbers on 'em, so we'd talk about pot number

such and such, and it could be identified.  The oldest

one in there--and I think it's a stroke of luck--at

Shongopovi there was gonna be a marriage in this

family, and they had a little cubby hole on the side of

one of the walls in the older part of town, and it was

sort of a crawlway/closet.  The woman said, "Well,

that's sand bottom.  Let's clean that room out."  We

started toting sand out of there, until we got to the

original room floor, which was probably about two-and-a-

half to three feet into the mesa top.  So this is gonna

be one of the oldest rooms.  And I got in there and it

just blew me away.  The beams had been cut by a stone

axe, and on three sides of the walls in there were big

old storage pots.  And the lady said, "Well, since you

guys worked so good, take what you want."  Of course,

the whole thing would be fine!  (laughter)  But I

didn't.

   

   [END TAPE 1, SIDE A; BEGIN SIDE B]

   

   Cole:  Okay, this is Brad Cole.  We're visiting with

Bill Beaver at the Sacred Mountain Trading Post,

Tuesday, January 25, 2000.  Also in the room is Bob

Coody from NAU, and Lew Steiger.  You were just telling

us about the Navajo pottery collection and where you

found the large storage pots.

   

   Beaver:  Yeah.  Well, this pot that we took out of

this house was probably about that high.  What's that?

Three feet, two-and-a-half, somewhere in that

neighborhood.  Very pointed bottom, grey, and it was

extremely light.  The walls on that vessel were thinner

than any of the Hopi pots.  It was in there inverted,

upside down, because you couldn't stand it on its

pointed base.  And I saw that and I said, "Can I have

that one?"  I got that one and one other one, which was

a typical Hopi culinary with the thick coil around the

rim stuff.  This had a zigzag around the rim of the

Navajo vessel, which fit right in, there was a break in

the pattern and stuff.  That had to be the oldest one

in the collection.  One of my best Navajo pottery

makers, we went over it, and she said, "You know, I

can't remember ever seeing anything like this.  My

mother taught me, and I remember my grandmother, but

they weren't making pottery like this.  I never knew

Navajos made 'em this big and this thin."  And I said,

"Well, I haven't seen any other than this one either.

I've seen stuff in museums that were dug up."  So I

always considered that a crown in the collection.

   

   Cole:  What age were you when you found [it]?

   

   Beaver:  This would have been probably around--could

have been 1948, 1949, which isn't too long ago, unless

you weren't born by then.

   

   Cole:  What brought you to the place where you were

cleaning out the room?

   

   Beaver:  Well, they were going to have a wedding

there, and we were getting the house cleaned up for it,

and I was staying at the village at that time.

Sometimes I'd end up staying there for a week or two

weeks.  I couldn't handle the outside world, and this

was a great refuge for me, shall we say.

   

   Steiger:  And how could you tell that the beams were

cut with a stone axe?

   

   Beaver:  Well, because a metal axe leaves a real

clean cleavage.  The stone axe looks like some rodents

had gnawed away at it.  It doesn't give you a nice

clean cut.

   

   Steiger:  And so what age would that have put that

at?

   Beaver:  Well, they moved to that location after the

1680 Pueblo revolt.  The village was down below the

mesa, they moved up on top after 1680.  Now, they could

have been cut then.  I don't imagine the Hopis had a

hell of a lot of steel axes in 1680.  They could have

been cut with a stone axe at that time, or any time,

ten years later or not.  Or they had pirated beams from

the old village.  They were dismantling the houses down

there and bringing the beams up for the new houses.  So

it could have come out of that sector.  They didn't

have pickup trucks, and I don't think they had any

wagons, so getting your roof beams is a problem.  So if

they stole 'em from down below, I can understand that.

   

   Cole:  And which mesa was that?

   

   Beaver:  Second Mesa, the village of Shongopovi.

That's where I spent most of my time there.

   

   Cole:  You'd mentioned that earlier.  What was the

name of the family that you stayed with?

   

   Beaver:  Lomahaftewa, L-O-M-A-H-A-F-T-E-W-A.  The

old man, Viets, is gone now; his wife's gone.  In fact,

she was gone before he did.  Not only did I participate

in a wedding, I also participated in a funeral, and

some Navajo funerals too.  Those are part of being in

the area.

   

   Cole:  What was your attraction to Hopi?

   

   Beaver:  I think because they were very nice to me,

and nobody hassled me.  And things were different then

than they are now.  You could live in a village and you

didn't have a bunch of people hassling you--mainly

because there wasn't any people that'd want to live

there.  They sure didn't have flush plumbing, I'll tell

you that.  No fast foods, no paved roads.  I just liked

it.  Herd sheep, planted, weeded.  But I didn't stay

there…  Like I say, I lived there for ten years.  I

lived there off and on and still go up there.  But now

it's different.  My daughter and I went up to the

village.  It's the same house, we found this old pot,

and we were eating, and in comes some punk, probably a

concrete Indian out of Phoenix, and said, "The dancers

are coming, you'd better leave the village."  (wry

chuckle)  I'll backhand him or what?  So the family

said, "No, just stay here, don't worry about it."  I

said, "If this is the new attitude up here, I'm outta

here."  So we did, we just left.  So much of that

garbage up there.  And like I said, most of these snot-

nosed kids were born and raised in Phoenix or L.A. and

stuff, didn't get their feet off of concrete 'til they

were out of high school.  But, you know, changes.

   Let's see, we were back to the pottery thing and Jan

Bell.  So we seriated it by time, and went over it.

One of the things she was very interested in--you know,

you handle several thousand pieces of pottery, and then

you take one out and put it over here.  Now, what was

the reason for picking this pottery… why?  And it was

fairly easy to answer.  Some of it was, "Well, I just

liked it."  Some was, "I've handled a whole lot of this

stuff, and it seemed pretty common, it seemed like we

oughtta set a piece over here as a representative piece

of this time period."

   Then we broke it out into individual potters, and

had the grouping by potters, explained some of the

difference between this person's work and that person's

work.  And then even seriated some of their work to

show change in time.  That's when I explained that some

of it, the impact of orders.  "This woman did something

that they liked real well."  Like the wedding vase came

in.  And it's still going on today:  "We want wedding

vases."  The earliest date of a wedding vase made by

Navajo potters is about 1972.  (several chuckle) What

got me, I was talking to those Hopi potters at

Moenkopi.  That's the earliest date they gave me of

seeing or doing a wedding vase.  And I'm kind of

interested now in doing an article on it, because the

earliest wedding vase that I know we can identify,

coming out of the Rio Grand Pueblos, is about 1905.

And the weirdest thing is, the Maricopa potters down in

Phoenix were also the early wedding vase peoples.  What

happened to Maricopa, and what happened to Santa Clara

that they both picked up this wedding vase thing?  I

have no idea where it came from.  But the new Old Age--

or is it the old New Agers?--they get absolute,

traditional, you know.  I've even had some Navajo

people tell me that they always had this wedding vase

for marriages.  Except I haven't found a potter yet

that can say, you know, pinpoint anything prior to

1972.

   So I was glad [to have] the collection there.  I

tell you, I really feel good.  I was really glad to see

it leave here.  For the first time I can rest easy--I

wasn't worried about damned earthquakes--not that I

really am today--but the point was, the fun of it was

puttin' it together.  That was the big kick in the

tail.  And now it's somewhere, and it's well-

documented.  Along with that deal, going over it, I

also told 'em that I wouldn't sign off on the

information on those tapes until I saw it typed out and

was able to make corrections.  And that is still

hanging fire, and Jan Bell has retired since then.  So

I don't know, maybe some poor student will have an M.A.

thesis, going over those tapes.

   

   Steiger:  And that was how many years ago?

   

   Beaver:  Oh, see, I have a problem with dates.  It's

got to be in the eighties.  Yeah, Bell would have been

there then.

   Now, another part of that project that I agreed to,

and Bell agreed with it, was we would do some

photographing of potters.  And I picked two potters:

one because Alice is probably the best Navajo potter

even today, and she spoke very good English.

   

   Cole:  And what's her last name?

   Beaver:  Alice Williams Cling.  The reason I

emphasize that was she got all of her blue ribbons

there for a long time as Alice Williams.  Then she got

married to Jerry Cling.  And I had a woman come up from

Scottsdale and say, "You should see such and such a

show!  If you see Alice, you tell her"--referring to

Alice Williams--"you tell her she'd better be sharp,

because this Alice Cling is catching up with her real

fast!"  (laughter)  This is the stupidity of the name

game.  And in Indian crafts today, the name game is

absolutely where it's at.  You know, is it signed?

   I remember being at a show in Tucson, and at that

time I was dealing quite a bit of Hopi pottery, and

this cajon comes in and he grabs some pots and he's

turnin' 'em upside down.  "What are you doing?!"  "I'm

looking at the names on the bottom."  And I said, "You

know, I got a piece of news for you.  One of these days

you're gonna turn a pot over and it's not gonna have a

name on there, and you're gonna walk away because the

original Nampeyo made a zillion pots with no name on

it.  And the same thing for Maria."  �No kidding?!�

(laughter)  I said, �You got it buddy.�  If you can't

spot the person's work, and you have to rely on what's

written on the bottom, you'd better back off from being

a collector, and start gettin' some smart pills.  I

might as well have hollered out the back door for all

the good it did.  But nowadays, that's it, boy, the

name game.

   I remember strolling into a place in Santa Fe, and

this woman, oh, she was really into it.  And it was a

nice rug, I looked at it.  And she immediately tells

me, "It was made by…"  I don't remember the name.

Anyway, let's just say Ann Begay.  And I said, "What?

Who's she?"  "You don't know her?!  Why I know her,

she's this famous weaver."  And I said, "You know Ann

Begay?!"  And she said, "Yeah."  I said, "Do you know,

all you've got to do is learn about 159,000 other names

and you'll have 'em all!"  (laughter)  Again, went

right over the head, 'cause it was flat.  (laughs)

   It gets real ridiculous.  One other guy and I were

talkin' about Nampeyos, and I said, "Just think how

lucky old Lorenzo Hubbell was, the old man, J. L.  He

only had to deal with one Nampeyo.  Now there's 200 of

'em out there (laughter) with the Nampeyo name!"  And

it's pathetic because we have some potters here at

Moenkopi, and not one of 'em can trace their lineage to

Nampeyo.  And that potter's dead, can't give it away.

But if it's got Nampeyo on it, oh, now, it's selling.

These dudes, gallery owners I hate.  Maybe that's not

supposed to be in there, but it's true, because what

they've done is they've created this name game, and

they've x-ed out all these poor people that don't fit

in the name game, and lionized these guys over here.

   I hear people talking about kachina carvers.  Piff

Guntz is the greatest carver from such and such a

village.  They never rank themselves.  And some of the

unknown carvers, as far as I'm concerned, are just as

good as some of the big-name carvers.  Same thing when

you get--for years and years it was Two Grey Hills, Two

Grey Hill rugs.  Now they're talkin' about Burntwaters

and stuff.  A good weaver is where you find her.  They

might not live in the Two Grey Hills district, but you

can find a lot of weavers in these other areas that are

just really outstanding.  There's some who are great

weavers, and they don't have a very good eye for

design.  And there's some that know design.  That's why

I got a kick out of 'em:  in the Hubbell area they're

taking some of the great weavers and some of the great

design people, and working them together on a single

rug (chuckles), which makes sense.

   But it's just atrocious what has happened to crafts.

And like I said, the putting together of the

collections was where the real fun was, and I realize

that.  The possession of the item was not it.

   The other big collection, the second Paiute

collection, some of it went to the State Museum.  I

worked with a lot of the weavers, and I ended up with

duplications.  When I told the State Museum what I had,

they didn't have the funds, and there had been a change

in the administration (laughs), so they weren't going

to be able to come up with the funds they tapped for

the pottery.  I have given the museum some individual

pots, just to keep the collection somewhat up to date.

I've been shirkin' a little bit here towards the end.

   The basketry, the School of American Research got

the bulk of the second collection.  I hate to say it,

but there's a third collection (chuckles) inadvertently

started.  It's 'cause I see a basket and I can't resist

it.  As far as when am I gonna retire, I don't know, I

don't think I ever will.  As long as I see a good

basket come through, I'm gonna make a bid for it--or a

nice pot.

   So the Paiute collection is all baskets now.  The

earlier part, I did have, believe it or not, rabbit

skin blankets.  Now, Bob Coody knows about them…

They get those rabbit skins and they twist them around

a cord--they were using a wool yarn, not the yucca.

And then they'd weave the--the skin is wrapped around

the cord, and it makes it like a piece of rope.  Then

they weave these ropes together, and you've got a

rabbit skin blanket.  There are two Paiutes that I know

that know how to make those, but I don't think we'll

ever see 'em.  They may abbreviate it, about four-by-

four and stuff.

   

   Cole:  They use either cottontail or jackrabbits?

   

   Beaver:  Yeah, it didn't matter.  There might have

even been a piece of dog in it for all I know.

(laughter)  And then there was other little things.  In

that first collection I had horn wrenches.  Now, what

these were, they were curved horns with different size

holes drilled in the horn, and they were used for arrow

straightening.  If you ever want to get a

demonstration, Bob can demonstrate how you use a wrench

versus a stone.  I don't think we'll ever see those

again.

   There were some bow and arrows, made the old style.

That guy's gone.  And I never got a flute.  The old boy

that was supposed to make me a flute died before that.

Bone gaming pieces, I knew one old-timer, I haven't

seen hide nor hair of him.  He's way up in Utah now

somewhere.  He was going to make me a pair of dice, and

didn't get that.

   They talked to me about pottery.  There was one

Paiute lady from North Rim that made a couple of pieces

of pottery, but she died before I got a piece.  I saw

the pieces, I was at her house up there at Kaibab.  It

looked like good Paiute pottery, which we just see as

sherds now.  I don't even think I know of a museum

that's got any.  Do you, Bob?

   

   Coody:  No.  I don't know of any examples.

   

   Beaver:  There's a lot of sherds here and there, but

that was something that…  Why the earlier

collectors, like Powell and stuff didn't pick 'em up, I

don't know.  I was trying to think of what else he

made.  But the stone axes that they made, they just

picked up the old axes off the ruins, and re-hafted

'em.  And then pitched water jugs, they're gettin' few

and far between now.  The last three came in, I decided

to keep.  Used to be I always had somethin' hangin' up

around here and stuff like that, but we're not seein'

that many of 'em anymore.  I'd say, probably in your

lifetime you'll see 'em go.  There'll be some young one

say, "Oh, yeah, my grandma used to make it, I remember.

I can do it."  But they won't ever do it.

   I have some shoes.  There's a funny thing.  I use

the term "shoes" because the Paiutes use the term

"shoes."  I have both the smoked buckskin shoes and

then they had a winter version which the hide was

turned in, so the fur was on the inside, and that was

just sewed up the seam.  Old Willis Mayo's the last

one--I think he's still alive--that knows how to do the

smoked hides.  And they made gauntlet gloves.  I find

one of the most interesting things about Paiute

beadwork is that they use a lot of floral design.  And

the floral design you pick up back East, or you pick up

among these people.  What the connect is, or how it

moved, I don't know.  I think the gauntlet glove moved

with the cavalry, but I'm not sure.  But it's always

Ute or Paiute that does those.  And of course I'm too

far out of the Ute area.  So I did have fun with those,

the Paiute collections.  It can't be done again.  It's

just not there anymore.

   Then the kachina doll collection.  I don't know if

you want to move the camera into that room or not, but

I started with the kachina dolls way back.  I've been

adding and adding.  There was a gap in there.  I was

selling an awful lot of dolls out of here.  I knew I

could get this from that carver; and get that from that

carver.  So there was blank spaces in the collection.

And there was one old guy who was born and raised, he

could remember the breakup of Oraibi.  When was that?

In 1906.

   

   Coody:  Right.

   

   Beaver:  Yeah, he had said he was about ten years

old when it broke up.  So he was making me dolls, and

his dolls, I saved a lot of them.  Now, they were

really, I don't know, I don't want to call them crude.

They were funky.  He wasn't one of the great carvers

like we have now, but I wanted his dolls because here's

a guy that I could say, "Have you ever danced this, or

have you ever seen this?" and the answer was yes.  Now,

these kids say, "Well, it's in the book.  I copied this

out of such and such a book."  Now, some of the books

are wrong, but they're right now, because if you repeat

a mistake often enough, it becomes correct, it's no

longer a mistake.  And this is what's happening in

copying out of the book, because so many gallery

guys…  I had one call me and say, "You sold me a

doll of such and such, but he's not in the book!"

(laughter)  I said, "What's that got to do with�who�s

book?!"  You know?  And it hadn't dawned on him that

there are a lot of kachinas that aren't in the book,

and maybe we should make a book of the kachinas that

ain't in the book.  (laughter)  And then of course now,

there's a lot of just made-up kachinas--there's just no

two ways about it.  They're creating some, simply

because there's always a demand.  A gallery owner will

phone up Mr. Gotbucks and say, "Oh, I've got this

terrific doll in.  It's the greatest thing."  Because

you've always got to feed into what they want.  I'd

heard--some guy in Tucson told me--he had seen an

avocado kachina.  How's that grab ya'?  I believe him.

   So some of the ways collecting is, I don't know,

maybe there should be a shutoff date.  (chuckles)  It's

getting absolutely impossible.  But the doll collecting

is still going on, because I do know that I had holes

in the collection, because I wasn't concentrating.  But

I never considered it as close to the edge as Navajo

pottery was when I started; nor as close to the edge as

I knew Paiute stuff was going.  I knew that was gonna

go downhill, and there was no reversing the situation:

First of all, because the potters can turn out so much

stuff, compared to a basket weaver.  Now, I've sat down

with some of my potters and just in an afternoon, BS-

ing, these gals would shape maybe five or six very nice

pots.  I don't mean little tiny ones--about that size--

and they can, once the clay is mixed.  They spend more

time digging the clay, preparing the clay, but once you

got a tub of clay ready to go, they can put something

together real fast.

   The same thing with the carvers.  I know some of my

best carvers that turn out dolls like that, because

they know what they're doin', they don't make a lot of

false starts, they don't make a lot of mistakes, and

they can do it.  Now, a basket weaver just can't weave

that fast.  It's a slow process.  And the same thing

with rugs.  And then the production of individuals,

like doll carvers usually have a certain repertoire of

dolls that he knows.  And if they're honest with you,

they'll say, "Oh, that belongs to this village over

there.  I don't know that one."  So there's no carver

that's going to be able to do the whole thing.  So

there again, collecting, you could spend more time

trying to find this stuff.  So when I appraised the

Goldwater collection, I explained to 'em that we can go

on a figure of "X" number of dolls times the wholesale

figure; "X" number of dolls times the retail figure; or

what it's going to cost you to replace it.  And there's

your third figure in there, because you may, if you

want to replace a doll that was picked up, say, in the

twenties, thirties, and stuff, you may look for a long

time before you find one of 'em.  You may have a new

carver turn one out tomorrow, copying something.  But

if you're trying to replace some of these older dolls,

you'll have to wait for an estate sale, if you can find

one.  So dolls are going to have a different value in

that time period.

   It's just like now that so many of the Pueblos have

shifted to what we call greenware, and making good

money at it, which is an atrocious thing of the

present, you go look for pots--or right now, anything

coming out of the forties, I imagine maybe it's moved

up to the fifties now, is considered older stuff.  By

the sixties, this, I would say--I don't know, would you

agree Bob?--this is the time of contamination.  This is

the hippie period.  Of course New Agers I think are

leftover hippies.  And this is when all of a sudden we

had avocado kachinas showing up and stuff like that.

   God, I'll never forget this woman that piled through

the door here a while back, a couple of years ago, from

California.  She said she'd been all over this desert

out here, can't find any medicine wheels.  I said,

"Medicine wheels?"  She said, "Yeah.  I don't think

these Indians are very religious."  I said, "You're

absolutely right, lady, they aren't."  She said, "Well,

I find medicine wheels all over the Mojave Desert in

California."  And I said, "That's where it's at."  She

was serious too.  We humor them along.

   

   Cole:  When did you come to Sacred Mountain?

   

   Beaver:  I've been here forty years.  I'd been at

Shonto, and I worked for Babbitts at Tuba Trading Post.

Those are the other two trading posts I worked at.

   

   Cole:  What was it like working for Babbitts?

   

   Beaver:  It was totally different than Shonto.  I

thought, "Well, I kinda like this backwater store

stuff, you know."  First of all, there'd be times like

we had today--very few people come in.  The one thing

about Shonto was, that I always liked, was we probably

had as many old-time long-haired people coming through

the door.  I remember this one old guy, he still had

the white pants with the slit down the side, wearing

the black footless socks.  You'll never see that now,

except in museums.  And everybody had long hair, pushed-

up hat, and of course that's gone now.  Tuba, of course

that is in the seat of federal power, you know?  But

the store was outside the compound, and I used to sit

out there at night, and you could tell whether the

natives were getting restless or not.  (laughs)  But I

liked that store.

   First of all, I liked Arlis Cornielson [phonetic

spelling] who was running it, and I was working for

him.  "Boy, you are always busy!"  I'd come in, in the

morning, the first thing I'd do is take all the charge

receipts--we had a big board up there, 'cause we had a

lot of payroll people--state, tribe, feds, public

health--and so they were running charge accounts.  And

so I'd post the charge accounts.  And then there was

all the different welfare checks coming in:  like I

said, old age, dependent children, blind, general

assistance, foster care and stuff.  So those had a

limit tacked on top.  In other words, this old-ager

gets a check for eighty-five dollars.  Well, you don't

wait for him to hit eighty-five, you start tapering him

off (laughs) so he won't go over.  I mean, how is he

gonna make up the difference?  And of course a lot of

the other people, they wanted to shut off time, so they

would come in with their check, clean up their account,

still have money.  You know, they've run down the

charge a little bit.  So the first thing, I'd work on

those tickets.

   Then I'd work on the orders that come in--that'd

mean the warehouse was full of stuff, and I would price

'em out and mark 'em on the box.  And then two Hopi

guys worked there, and they'd take it on out for

stocking.  Then always there was shortages, and I had

to write letters saying, "We were short such and such

on this invoice, blah, blah, blah."  Then Arlis and I,

in the evening after we closed, about once a week we'd

have to sit down and figure out how much folding money

is going in, and what we had to order.  "We need two

more bundles of ones.  We're runnin' low on ones."

Sending all our twenties in.  All the checks were going

in, and stuff like that.  So there were no banks at

Tuba at that time, so you had to keep track of the cash

thing.  I mean, did we pour out a whole lot?  No, I

imagine they're pouring out a lot of quarters--they've

got laundromats, which they didn't have then.  But you

had to stay on top of your change.  Usually had plenty

of pennies.  I don't know where some of this stuff

comes from!  (laughter)  So that was another thing I

helped Arlis with.

   Then there was always crafts coming and going, and

then skins.  In those days, they would bring in goat

skins and sheep skins.  I remember Old Man Baker

teaching me how to handle these hides.  So many people

fold 'em tail to nose.  They don't want 'em that way.

If you're gonna fold the hide, you fold feet to feet,

so it's down the backbone, the crease.  Otherwise, if

they go to do a chamois tanning, making chamois cloths--

which I don't think they do anymore, do they?--you'd

have this crease in there.  And then there was a

difference between goats, which was mohair, and then

sheep.  And so I would bale 'em, and I had to put 'em

on wooden pallets.  Most of the time, these traders

just threw those hides in the back room, which is

stupid.  You started throwin' those hides in the back

room, bugs start eatin'.  Gotta have 'em on a pallet up

off that floor.  They keep the bugs out.  'Cause

they'll take the hides there, and they'll reshear 'em

and hair--that's goats--hair brings more money than

wool.  I presume it's the same way now, I don't know.

   When you're buyin', you buy hair separate from wool.

And then black wool didn't bring as much as white wool.

But they'd take the regular one, even if the Navajo had

already sheared, they'd take those electric shears and

even cut it off.  I asked, "What the hell do they do

with that stuff?"  He said, "Felt.  Felt padding."  I

don't know if they do felt padding anymore or not.

   

   Cole:  I don't know.

   

   Beaver:  Maybe the Aussies and Zealanders do.

Whatever it is, it's probably plastic by now.

(laughter)  So that was one thing, I learned more of

that there at Tuba than I did at Shonto.  And then

Babbitts had a ranch back over here.  So if we bought

any lambs, we would truck 'em out that night and bring

'em over here and unload back this way.  We'd come

through here, go across that road, goes to 180.  The

pasture was on the other side of 180.  But so much of

that's gone now.  I could honestly say I was right in

at the ass end of it.

   

   Cole:  And how long were you at Tuba?

   

   Beaver:  Tuba?  About a year.  And then I went from

there to Crownpoint.  Then I said adios to Bureau of

Indian Affairs, came over here, had no job.  The

stupidest thing I ever did, because always make it a

point, if you have a job, don't quit that one until you

get a better one.  (laughter)  So on your resume,

always show, "I left this job because there was a

better one.  I got more money."  Well, I didn't--I just

quit.  And all these guys said, "Come to work for me."

Well, I came over here, and found I had as many excuses

as people to talk to.

   And so this came up for sale.  Then I added on here.

But the old wooden part here and the stone part you see

in there was the original structure.  And then I added

this vault, that vault, that wareroom.  I worked on the

house back there.  But by the time I came here, what I

wanted to do was just as little as possible, and I

wanted to work with the crafts.  It took me a while to

get in there.  We didn't have enough money.  Everything

I bought, I had to turn it within thirty days, or me

and the bank would have a go-around.

   

   Cole:  Who did you buy the post from?

   

   Beaver:  A guy named Willie Blevins [phonetic

spelling], known to the Navajos as "the dirty

brothers."

   

   Cole:  And why is that?

   

   Beaver:  Well, even the Hopis called 'em the dirty

brothers.  They were from Oklahoma.  Well, let's see,

they were the Blevins.  Their dad was the survivors of

that shootout--I think it was at Holbrook, wasn't it?

Commodore somebody.

   

   Cole:  Perry Owens, yeah.

   

   Beaver:  Okay.  So their dad was the one that

survived the shootings over there.  And then when they

were here, Willie told me about his brother and two

cousins involved in a shootout at Belmont, and they all

got killed.  And I take it Blevinses don't know how to

shoot too well.  (laughter)  He caught it in these

shootouts and lose.  He was infuriated.  He told me

about some big names in Flagstaff, what a bunch of SOBs

they were.  And that isn't son of Bush, it's someone

else.  He claimed that there was an unfair trial and

the guy that shot and killed his brother was able to

walk because a famous judge in that town was the

defending attorney.

   Anyway, that was the Blevins that had this parcel

and the one up there.  He put his sister here, and he

ran the gas station down there, and he…  Come to

think of it, I was trying to remember her name the

other day, and I almost had it on the tip of my

[tongue].  Anyway, the Navajos referred to her as "the

dirty sisters," 'cause she had another sister.  Gladys!

that was her name.  Anyway, they all wanted out.

Willie was about seventy-five then, and he had that gas

station and 800 acres, I think, up here.  And he got

his price.  Then he had this, was 100 acres, and this

building.  So he said, "Hell, I'll just let this thing

go now.  I want to retire off of that 800 acres."  He

said that he used to walk from this valley, through the

pass, over to those bean farms, to work over there.  I

don't know, I can't remember, I think it was after

World War I when they settled in here.  I can't

remember the shooting at Belmont.  When the heck was

that?

   

   Coody:  It was in the forties.

   

   Beaver:  In the forties, okay.

   

   Cole:  Were they running a full-service post then?

   

   Beaver:  Well, they had gas here and gas there, and

then the one down here opposite the state land down

there, which has got--on this side it's Sinagua, and on

this side I don't know what they're callin' it now.

Used to be Jim's, anyway referred to as Scum City.  And

he had a station there, and he said the only reason he

had that station, he said they always lost money there.

He said the only time they had a break-in and robbery

was there, and these two stations here never have.  And

Willie said that he got this one from Slayton and Fred

Langston.  Now actually it was Langston that

homesteaded this one.  And there's a door out there in

the junk pile somewhere that says, "Fred Langston,

Plumbing, phone 48" or 68 or something, at Flagstaff.

And Langston started this stone building here.  Willie

was up the road.  Then Willie started buyin' these

people out, as they started going under because they

started bean farming out here.  And then it got worse

and worse and worse, and then he just started pickin'

up the land.  I'm not going to say how much I paid for

this one.  (laughs)  I can't believe it.

   So anyway, I walked in here one night and he said

he'd sell it.  So I went out and talked with some

people, borrowed the money, and made the down payment.

Then I had to go talk to somebody, had to borrow the

money so I could have some change in the register.

   So a lot of the salesmen came in, like Coke or

Pepsi.  They said, "Well, Gladys used to take so many

cases of this, or so many cases of that."  I said, "All

right, but I won't pay you 'til the end of the month.

So did she sell this much in a month?  Otherwise,

you're not gonna get paid."  "Oh! Oh! Oh!  Maybe you'd

better take one less."  At that time I had two wet

boxes in there, because the pop was in bottles.  Used

to sell a lot of strawberry and orange pop.  That's

totally shifted out.  It's Pepsi number one, Coke

number two, Seven-Up, and the rest of it, who knows?

And people say they want a Seven-Up.  That's one you

can't substitute.  A person wants Seven-Up, he wants

Seven-Up--same thing.  But the red soda pop, you try to

find red soda pop today--it's gone.  That used to be

the big mover.  I used to come down here at night, put

blankets over it, so the bottles wouldn't freeze.  And

was I glad to see the aluminum can come.  You didn't

have all that broken glass out in your parking lot, and

you didn't cut your hand pourin' your pop out.

Bottlers would break a bottle and they never cleaned up

the bottom of their cartons.  You'd reach in there and,

"Oh, look what I got!"  (laughs)

   

   Cole:  Did you sell groceries, too?

   

   Beaver:  Well, they did a land office business in

hundred-pound sacks of potatoes.  There was a guy

comin' out of Utah, he had this huge truck full of

potatoes on his way to Phoenix.  And the weight station

was up there just the other side of Flagstaff.  It's

gone now.  And he was always overweight.  So he'd wake

me up at one o'clock in the morning and we'd unload

about fifty sacks of spuds here.  And the Navajos were

onto it, 'cause they used to do it for Willie.  See,

when Willie sold, he closed the station completely.

That there cabinet came out of his station right there.

And when we tore up the floorboards, there was all

sorts of interesting coins that had fallen down through

the floorboards.  These are close together, not was his

place.  So I was selling $3.95, a hundred pounds, and

moved a hell of a lot of 'em.  And then on his back run

a lot of times he'd stop in, he was loaded with

watermelons.  So I'd take some pallets and form a thing

there and put the watermelon in.

   And then we used to sell flour.  They don't buy

flour.  We sold 'em twenty-five-pound sacks, fifty-

pound sacks, and I told that guy from Hayden Flour

Mill, I could move a hundred-pound sack, if he'd had

one.  But now, I wouldn't put flour in here under any

circumstances.  Why should they?  You can go into

Basha's and buy in the bakery.  So that's all gone.

   And then I put in salt blocks.  I'd go down to

Phoenix on my own truck, I'd haul up several ton.

White salt blocks, reds, and yellows.  But I wouldn't

handle it now.

   

   Steiger:  That's for the livestock?

   

   Beaver:  Yeah.  Most of 'em don't have any

livestock.  I say the average Navajo family today does

not have livestock--that's people forty and under.  And

you're going to see it get even more so.

   

   Cole:  Were you strictly a cash business when you

started?

   

   Beaver:  Yeah.  I did not like credit.  Not only did

I not like credit--whoever started credit.  I was in

pawn to begin with, and then Arizona changed its rules

and here comes the deputy sheriff saying, "You gotta

pay this, you gotta pay that."  And I said, "Where am I

going to get the money to pay this?"  "Take it out of

the Indians."  And I said, "For you, fill in the

missing, because I'm not going to do it."  So I just

went out of the business, 'cause I thought that was

pretty chicken.  And whoever started the pawn business,

may he be having problems in Hell today.  (chuckles)

So one thing about stayin' on cash--and I hate to even

take checks--and I went out of the credit card business

because I found I had more trouble with credit cards

than I did with checks, believe it or not.  So when you

close the door at night, you look in that cash

register, you know what you did, and it's rock solid.

It's not "I promise to pay you tomorrow for what I'm

going to get today."

   But then see, we threw the groceries all out, and

stuff like that.  Then we got into craft supplies.

Basha's and Safeway aren't into craft supplies, and

that's fine, I won't challenge 'em in groceries.

   There used to be more wholesale groceries.  I hadn't

realized how far out of it was until I went up to

Navajo Mountain.  A friend of mine, who is now dead, we

went up to the mountain, we both always liked it up

there, and that store's dead.  We were talking about

maybe goin' for it.  So I said, "First of all, getting

gasoline up here is a pain in the tail."  'Cause I know

one guy down here, and I, as the gasoline thing got

worse and worse…  Remember the seventies?  That was

the end of that!  They charged him a penny a gallon

more between here and down the road ten miles.  So I

could sell it a penny cheaper than he could, just right

then and there.  Then they got so I could buy gas

retail in Flagstaff than I could get it wholesale.  I

mean, the gas thing, they're crooks!  Man!  (customer

enters)

   So that's when I said, "I'm gonna give up on gas."

And several other stores were asking, "What do you

think is gonna happen?"  And I said, "Well, I've made

up my mind, and we'll soon find out."  There was a drop

in the business, but then it came right back up.  First

of all, we're too close to other stations.  See, at

that time Richardson had Cameron, and I don't know if

you know it--Bob probably knows it--at one time Cameron

down there pumped the most gasoline in the whole state

of Arizona.  That station had the biggest gallonage of

anybody, and that was because it was the only station

on this Grand Canyon thing, and got the tudes.

   Now, Willie Blevins, he loved being in the gas

station.  Maybe that's why they call him "dirty

brother."  I hated gasoline.  I'd have a whole store of

people here, doin' good business, some idiot's out

there sittin' on the horn.  You go out there and he

says, "I've got about fifty cents' worth of change

here.  I gotta get that gas to get to town."  And so

finally I said, "Oh, you got that much gas in your

tank?  You can make it," and came back in.  So it was a

bigger pain than not.

   Now, when we were at Shonto pumping gas, it wasn't

all that big a problem.  You didn't have people comin'

in off a highway.  When you're on one of these

highways, boy, you earn your money, believe me, just

the stuff you put up with.  Doin' business with the

Indian people and stuff, there's no problem there.  We

wanted to put a sign out there one time:  "Dudes

welcome if you behave yourself."  (several chuckle)

There's some interesting little tales about that.

   Anyway, the gas thing was gone, some boys across the

street dug up my tanks for me, and I said, "Take those

concrete things and throw 'em in the hole," which they

did.  And the price was, they get to keep the tanks.

And when the road people came through, some guy from

Arizona Department of Transportation came, said, "You

used to have gas here."  And I said, "Yup, and the

tanks and everything were out of the ground before you

passed any laws."  He said, "God, you just made me

happy!"  (laughter)  So like I said, it didn't affect

the business at all.

   

   Cole:  How has the business changed since when you

first bought it to now?

   

   Beaver:  It changed a lot.  First of all, see, there

was no Page at that time.  There was no dam.  So we

didn't have a bunch of boat-pullers.  Boat-pullers are

the worst business on this road, as far as I'm

concerned.  We had a Grand Canyon travel, and that's

what Willie said he made his money.  He said he also

made his money on war, because he had certain

gallonage.  When war came along, they rationed gas.

Your ration was based on your previous gallonage.  So

he was gettin' more gas, and the Grand Canyon travel

was gone.  So he said, "Hell, I bootlegged gas."

(laughter)  Now, I guess you could in those days, I

don't know.  So he had plenty there.

   The other thing that helped him a lot, how he got in

this potato business, which he gave to me, was if you

go out here to Belmont, Camp Navajo I see they call it--

Navajo Depot.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, Navajo Ordinance Depot?

   

   Beaver:  Yeah.  And the sign says 1942.  Well, the

Navajos built that, and they come through here with big

cattle trucks, bringin' the labor in.  And there was a

bunch of 'em lived out there--there was an Indian

village out there.  And then after payday, they'd take

'em on home, and they'd always want to stop at

Willie's.  And he'd sell fifty or sixty 100-pound sacks

of spuds.  They'd throw it on this big truck.  I think

Willie also sold some booze--I just have the feeling.

And away they'd go.  So he did pretty good.  And they

liked him and he liked them.  They got along fine.  You

know, takin' over and havin' 'em talk to me, "Where'd

ol' Willie go?" and stuff like that.  Hastiin doo

t��d�gis�, "the man that doesn't wash."

   So there'd been a lot of Indian business goin' up

and down this road anyway, from the day they paved it.

Also, supplies going north.  I remember a couple of

times they had drought relief up there, and they'd have

railroad cars parked on the siding up there, and they

were trucking, and they gave Navajo truckers and Hopi

truckers so much a load to haul grain out to different

places on the res. for drought relief.  We don't see

that anymore.  And there was a lot of those Navajo

truckers couldn't speak English.

   Then there was the big ol' Flagstaff Powwow, and

they'd pile in here--especially after booze became

legal--and they'd come in and buy booze, buy whatever

goin' in, and we'd have wagons camped all around out

here.  And the Powwow guys would come down and meet 'em

out here at camp, give 'em a bale of hay, give 'em a

sack of flour, a pound of coffee.  I know they gave 'em

a watermelon, maybe two, 'cause they wanted the wagons

in the parade--that was a big thing, see.  So the

wagons would come in, mainly coming up from the river,

coming across from Black Falls, some from Grey Mountain

and Cameron.  And then the cowboys would bring their

horses through, they'd ride 'em in.  That's because

they could ride along the edge of the road and there

wasn't all that much traffic to give 'em a hard time.

That's gone, and it'll never come back.  Last weekend I

saw one of the old rubber-tired wagons out there.

There's a real collector's item.  I don't even know who

owned it.  The people weren't home, I should have

stopped and left a note saying, "Do you want to sell

that wagon?"

   

   Coody:  (inaudible)

   

   Steiger:  Yeah, you could buy that and double your

money _________.

   

   Beaver:  Well, no, it was rubber-tired.  I don't

know if it's a Paul Knee frame.  "Hungry Boy" used to

be down there at Black Falls.  He had a welding shop

there, and he made wagons that have a regular tire on

there, off a truck.  So it might be one of his.  No, if

I could find a Babbitt wagon, you'd better believe I'd

go for it!  (laughter)  Yeah!  We're selling this by

the pound!  And I'm standing on the scale with it!

(laughter)

   

   Cole:  What about rugs?  Did you ever deal in rugs?

   

   Beaver:  We dealt in rugs until all this darned

Mexican stuff came in.  And old Chief Yellowhorse down

here--this is interesting--I went down there several

times, and he was sellin' rugs to the dudes, and they

still had the HOM [made in Mexico] tag on the corner,

and he'd stand there and say, "Oh, my grandmother made

this."  And I heard that so often, that had to be the

busiest grandmother in the world.  Well, you can't

compete with that.  I mean, first of all he's buyin' it

dirt cheap.  And the Navajo ladies around here just

hated his guts.

   I had one woman come in here, plunked a double

saddle blanket down, I bought it, and she said, "That

guy offered me …" and she told me the figure and I

said, "That's half of what I'm gonna give you."  She

said, "I told him I'd just throw it in the garbage can

before he'd ever get it."  He's sellin' all those

imports.  But the dudes!  I had a dude lady come in

here.  "Where's Chief Yellowhorse?"  I said, "Chief?!"

She said, "He's a chief of the Navajos.  I have his

card here."  And she popped the card out, and there it

was, "Chief of the Navajos."  So I let all the Navajos

know, "You got a 'chief' down here now."

   So how can you compete with this?  I mean, here a

super-stupid dude comes in, and the chief…  He'd

stand out there sometime with his full-feathered war

bonnet on.  Can you handle that?  (several chuckle)

But they ate it up.  So that's gone, he's dead now.

Shouldn't speak nasty of the dead, but I'm tellin' you

a story.  But his descendants are all into it.

   So the crafts thing has been changing continually.

   

   [END TAPE 1, SIDE B; BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE A]

   

   Cole:  This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona

University.  It's January 25, 2000.  We're visiting

with Bill Beaver at Sacred Mountain Trading Post.  Also

present in the room are Bob Coody and Lew Steiger.

   

   Steiger:  And this is Master Tape 3.

   

   Beaver:  Okay, we were talking about weavings.  Now,

we got an awful lot of saddle blankets in--singles and

doubles.  Single measured thirty by thirty.  A double

is just thirty by sixty.  And there was a very good

business in saddle blankets.  There was one guy in

Tucson who took a lot from me.  However, that got shot

by the Mexican imports.  When we finish, I'm going to

give you a catalog that I get in the mail periodically

from 'em, so you can see what they're doing.

   Anyway, rugs I always did like.  The one pattern

that was over in this area that I always liked was what

we called the naturals--black, white, and grey--and the

grey was black and white wool carded together to make a

grey.  One woman had a real interesting grey.  She used

to boil flashlight batteries--take the metal casing

off--and that made the grey on her white wool.  It was

rather interesting-looking, but I preferred the

natural, the carded.  And those are still great rugs,

if you can ever find 'em now.  The saddle blankets, of

course you get any kind of dye you want in there.  But

they used to have nice corner designs or borders.  Then

it got down to where they were just straight stripes.

Well, in fact, that's what they call 'em, nood�z�g��.

That means "stripes."  They'd come in and ask if you

were buyin' stripes, and I'd say yeah.

   Warner Van Kuren took over the Kerley's store in

Tuba.  We'd work together, because he'd call me up--in

fact, there was about three or four stores that worked

together--and he did the big shipping out of Tuba.

He'd phone up and say, "I've got an order for 200

singles, 100 doubles.  I'm short 20 on each one.  What

have you got?"  And I'd say, "Well, I can fill you in

on there, 20 singles, but I only got 10 doubles."

"Okay, I'll try Inscription House," or something like

that.  Then he'd come by here on his way to town to

ship, and he'd pick 'em up.  Then when the check came,

he'd send me mine.

   The saddle blanket area went clear on down through

north of Winslow, too.  And that's all dead, that's

ancient history.  The last really neat one, a little

old lady I bought from for years came in, plopped a

beautiful double on the counter.  It had a real nice

fret design around the edges and stuff.  She told me

what she wanted for it.  I can't remember offhand what

it was.  And I told her, "I'm gonna buy it because of

you.  I've been buyin' from you."  She said, "Well,

it's the last one I'm ever gonna make.  I took it to

town, and I showed it to 'em, and they just [said] 'no,

no, no.'"  I said, "Do you know why they were sayin'

that?  They didn't even know what they were lookin'

at!"  (laughs)  There's nobody in that town left that

knows a good saddle blanket.  So I got it over a chair

in the house.  I'm glad I got it, 'cause not another

one's hit since then.

   The same thing on some of these baskets.  I used to

have a basket that I used for change.  You can barely

make out the design--it was an old one.  One of the

interesting things about baskets is, you sell a new

one, it goes out, and then the medicine man or a member

of his family comes in and you buy a used one back.

And then you sell a used one out.  And this basket goes

back and forth, until it's so beat up.  That's when the

collectors want it!  (laughs)  So I kept it in there,

and some guy from Yosemite, actually--he was a park

ranger, anthropologist--he wanted it.  I said, "Okay,

I'll sell it to you.  Don't want to.  And I'll keep the

next one that hits the counter."  And I waited, and I

waited, and it never hit the counter again.  And I had

to ask one of my Paiute weavers to make me one.  It

cost me a heck of a lot more (chuckles) but I still

have it.  And I still haven't had one hit the counter.

It was what they used to call trail baskets, where the

radiating lines come out of the center swirl.  You

never see 'em anymore.

   Then I had two baskets that hit one time, and it was

something like this design that we see today.  You want

me to hold that basket up in front of the camera?

   

   Steiger:  Sure!

   

   Beaver:  Hand me one of those.  Actually, this we

should call a ceremonial basket.  So many people in the

area refer to it as a wedding basket.  Ceremonial is

probably more appropriate, 'cause they use one in a

wedding, and that's it.  They use 'em more and more--

this is a new one, incidentally--more and more for

ceremonies.  This basket was something like this.  It

had a few of these clouds, a little line of clouds

around there, and that was all.  The other one sort of

had this V-like thing.  There was four of 'em.  Had the

red in the center, but everything else was plain.  I

thought this was a very interesting thing, so I chucked

it in the back like I usually do.

   Old Percy John came in.  He was the one medicine man

that told me a lot of stories about those.  Maybe I

ought to have it back--I'll tell you a story.  So

Percy, I asked him, "What was this used for?"  And he

said, "I know of the sing, but I don't know the sing.

They used to make special baskets for special sings."

Somehow or another, we've gotten down to just this

design.  But he said, "There used to be a lot more

designs."  So he told me the sings that those two

baskets were used for, and the last guy that knew that

sing was from Kayenta, was married into Leupp, and

during the drought he had a sing there, and they got

rain.  He's gone now.  But he said that's what that

basket belonged to.

   Now, he said�this basket here��You got the opening

in the bottom.  This was where the people came out of

the underworld into this world.  And when they came

out, there was the mountains around the edge of their

world."  And as you know, the Navajo are surrounded by

their sacred mountains.  And this here, now I've heard

stories where this is the rainbow, or this is just the

light on the horizon as the sun's coming up.  Both of

'em are correct.  You ask one Navajo medicine man if

this is a rainbow, and he'll say yeah.  Ask another one

if this is the light on the horizon, "Yeah."  And you

ask a third one, "I've heard both stories," and he'll

say, "Yeah."  They're both correct.

   Now these mountains here--they look like the

mountains, but they're clouds on the rim of the earth.

So then you have the opening.  Now, this opening comes

right up to where the basket ends.  When it's in the

hogan, in the sing, and this is full of cornmeal or

yucca suds and stuff, this opening is supposed to point

to the east, for the doorway, and you can't see it.

But you just run your hand around there, and you can

find it.  So that's why that's always there.  Now, this

opening has got to be there.  Some people say it's to

let the bad things out.  Some say it lets the good

things come in.  And again we're faced with the same

thing.  Both of these answers are correct.

   Now, the other thing they do with these baskets,

they turn 'em upside down and use 'em as a basket drum,

beat on it with a weaving stick.  He said then these

triangular pieces that you see in between here, these

are the points of harmony that you're trying to get

across to the patient, to get them back in balance.

That is a long story for one little basket!  But

there's still some more.

   This full braid rim, or herringbone rim, a Navajo

lady was finishing up her basket when she thought, "I

ought to be able to put a nicer finish on there."  And

Talking God was there, and took a sprig of cedar,

juniper, and tossed it in her basket, and she looked at

it.  If you look today at that evergreen piece sticking

out of the cedar, you will see this herringbone finish.

And that's how that got started.

   There is a question as to who learned from who.  Did

the Paiute learn from the Navajo?  And the closest I

can get, a lot of Paiutes say theirs is a direct

finish, they don't have this herringbone--that they

learned from the Navajo.  That's a good question,

because you can go back into B.C. times and find that

on Basketmaker II  stuff.  But you'll also find the

direct Rim.  The foundation of these baskets is the

same.  The Southern Paiute, the Ute, the Navajo and the

Jicarilla Apache all make identically same.  I mean,

the construction's the same, and the material's the

same, and I don't think we'll ever know.  It just goes

back too deep in time, and there's too many conflicting

statements.  Do you remember anything on this, Bob?

   

   Coody:  (chuckles)  ____________ statements of being

taught by the Pueblo.

   

   Beaver:  But now one time the Papago traders down

there decided to get in on this market.  They had this

design made.  Navajos wouldn't use it.  They'll use a

Jicarilla Apache basket, they'll use a Navajo basket,

they'll use a Ute basket, or a Paiute basket--and

that's it--'cause the Hopis here is basically the same

design.  They call that jakoovetah [phonetic spelling].

They use that in their Havasupai dances.  You can see

the black clouds.  But there you see half of it's

yellow, and half of it's red.

   The interesting thing is, around here the Navajos

want--if you've got it on the shelf or hanging up, they

think this should be upward.  Now, the funny thing is,

I talked to a guy in Chinle and he says, "No, it's

supposed to be this way," with it facing east, or I

guess this way, that way.  And it's very interesting,

because there was a Navajo industry who didn't do so

good, and they had this as their logo.  They had it

like this, to the east.  Some Navajos told 'em, "The

reason you went under was you didn't have this in the

correct position."  So even they have two ways.  And I

asked one of the Hopi weavers, "How come you always

weave it with the opening pointing down?"  And she said

that's how she learned.  And I talked to another woman

from Second Mesa, same village.  She said she was

always taught to finish the opening so it's to your

right.  It's a very clever basket.

   This is part of the fun of being in this business.

If you didn't get into these neat little things, it

would be boring.  You'd be stocking tin cans on a

shelf.  Who gets into that?  Not me!  That's why I said

I don't know if there's any traders left--it's just a

bunch of stock clerks.  Or if you're on the road, a

bunch of damned postcard purveyors.

   So this is the fun of it, and when it stops being

fun, hey, I'm outta here.  No, I'll just close the

door.  But the dolls are another story, the beads is

another story.  The beads came in with the jewelry boom

in the sixties.  Art Lee and I crossed trails.  One

time I went into the Bloody Basin area, after

turquoise.  It was interesting, I found the mountain, I

found the blue stone, but it wasn't turquoise, it was

chrysocolla.  I talked to Art one time and I told him,

"You been in there?"  He said, "I went in there, and

it's all just chrysocolla."  I said, "God, it's a

wonder I didn't trip over you."  So he come down here

one time and he said, "Why don't we go in together?

I'd rather work with you than work at cross purpose."

So we agreed, and we went into the turquoise and the

silver business in the sixties.

   At that time, if you could get an Indian to glue a

piece of turquoise on a piece of silver, you were in

the business!  (laughter)  You could sell it.  It got

so damned ridiculous I told him, "You know, maybe we

ought to have some of these old boys blow up balloons,

and we'll sell hot Indian air!"  (laughter)  What was

it?  I can't remember the terms.  Everything was

"groovy" then.  Now it's "cool," I guess.  That's

what's changed between the hippies and the new hippies,

or the leftover hippies.  I like that term.  Some

Navajo woman used that:  "Oh, they're a bunch of

leftover hippies in Sedona."  (chuckles)

   We even went up and got a lease.  Well, he went up.

I never did see the mine.  Nevada, we were leasing,

getting Red Mountain stone.  We had a guy doing the

lapidary.  In fact, I've still got some of that stone.

When we broke up Turquoise Nugget in 1979, that's when

the silver thing went crazy.  That's also when a bunch

of Arabs moved into Gallup.  That's also when they

decided to do nickel silver, which has no silver

whatsoever! German silver, that's what they call it.

And I keep tellin' people, "There's no Germans and

there's no silver in the stuff whatsoever."  (laughter)

I just told Art, "Hey, just throw it in before we deal

that stuff."  So we just shut it down and he retired.

Frank Faulkner carried on up there, and I just stayed

down here.

   The wife handles the jewelry business now, but it is

changed something fierce.  We were looking at a bunch

of old jewelry in one of the museums in Santa Fe, and

the really old stuff is beautiful.  It's really got

character.  Oh, you remember when we were talking about

mouse rugs?  Well, one time I came in the office up

there…  We started that thing here, and then we

realized our police protection, because you've gotta

have--I don't know what the figures would be now--but

you've gotta have over $100,000 in silver alone, and

that is just wire, triangular wire, half-round wire,

bezel, different gauge sheets.  See, none of that can

be identified.  You can snatch off one of those sheets,

there's no way you can say where it came from.  So

you'd better have some police protection.  So that's

when we put the whole thing uptown.  Same thing with

rough stone.  If you've got a sackful of rough stone

here, before it's cut and polished, anybody can walk

out with that.  You can't say, "Hey, that's…"  How

do you identify it?

   So anyway, I'm sittin' there, and Frank says, "We

got an order [that] came in for some clown back in the

East, wants a hundred coke spoons."  I said, "Coke

spoons?!  What the hell's a coke spoon?  Why doesn't

the son-of-a-bitch drink it out of the bottle, for

chrissakes?"  Then Frank told me what it was.  I said,

"Boy, I think we've hit the end of the line.  It's time

to close the door and get the hell outta here."  I

don't think we ever filled that order.  But we learned

something.

   So the jewelry thing, we were in it hot and heavy,

but I don't think it was quite the same thing as the

pottery and the baskets and the dolls were for me.

That's when I did get into the glass bead business,

because these stands were set up on the road, and

they're set up at the point overlooking Oak Creek

Canyon, and stuff.  They utilize a lot of that--rocks

on string.  A lot of it's, you know…  Hematite,

different agates, stuff like that.  And they get their

supplies here, and I say they're shifting more to the

glass beads, they're doing more of the earrings, the

barrettes, the buckles and stuff.

   And then they're doing the cedar berries.  Cedar

berries has always been steady and good.  You'll hear

people refer to 'em as ghost beads.  That took off

somewhere in the Four Corners area--I think in the Ute

country.  Navajos don't want 'em to be ghost beads!

(laughs)  That doesn't sit very well.  But I can

remember Grover Turner leaving, oh, I would say at

least a dozen Budweiser or Schlitz or whatever, quart

bottle boxes full of those.  He said, "Well, I bought

'em all up, and I'll just leave 'em here and I'll come

by and pick 'em up now and then."  I thought, "God,

he's gonna pave the roads with that!"  And within a

summer, he'd sold 'em all.  And don't ask me where

they've all gone to.  I've often said, "Where in the

world is all this stuff goin'?!"

   It's just like I got from a friend, a couple of old

Fred Harvey silver.  And then out of Hugh Lee's

collection, Hugh died, and Art said, go ahead, handle

what's left.  And I went down there to see.  My God,

there was a lot of stuff.  And I've gone through it and

pulled some obviously old pieces.  And one of 'em says,

"Made with coin silver."  And I don't know to this day

who was stamping that on there.

   

   Cole:  Coin silver is--my grandparents said that

during the Depression it was kind of a poor-man's

silver, really thin.  My parents still have some really

thin sterling silver spoons that are stamped as coin

silver.

   

   Beaver:  Well, I wonder if that was comin' out of

Fred Harvey, or bein' made for Fred Harvey.

   

   Cole:  Yeah, it might have been, because the stuff

my parents have would have been from the East Coast.

   

   Beaver:  Of course there might have been somebody

else doin' it at the same time, but didn't have the

name Fred Harvey back of it.  Now I understand they're

going to start faking some of that.  But you wonder,

where did it all go?  There's some poor museum guy

gonna hafta excavate the basement someday.  (laughs)

   I'm surprised even the amount of Navajo pottery I've

moved out.  I've never made a count of how much…  I

made a count of these baskets, and it's something like

3,000 or 4,000 I've probably handled in the forty years

I've been here.  I didn't start taking count, I just

figured how many was I buyin' a week?  Of course I'm

not buyin' as many now as I used to.  And it isn't

because I've backed off buyin' it, it's just they ain't

comin' in.  Some of my best weavers aren't weavin'

anymore.  And some of the best ones aren't weavin'

much.  I mean, their production is down.

   

   Cole:  How do you see the future of the crafts

business?

   

   Beaver:  I think good crafts will always have a

market.  I think there's been too much of this pushing

for experimentation.  In other words, "let's do

something wild."  I don't particularly think that is

necessarily good.  I think they should stay more close

to the traditional.  Greenware production I think is

bad for pottery.  And I'll explain to you what the

greenware thing is.  Some of those factories up near

the Four Corners.  One of my best potters now used to

work there, because it was steady work, and said the

semi-truck would pull up with racks of this pre-cast

pottery.  I've had dudes in there tell me, "Oh, we were

up there and saw 'em making the pottery."  And then in

close questioning, no they didn't see anybody.  They

were all sitting at these tables with about five

different colors with a brush in each pot, and all the

pots looked the same, and they were painting.  And I

said, "They were all painting the same design, weren't

they?"  "Well, now that you mention it, yes."  And I

said, "Did you know the design is stenciled on that

pot, and they're just filling in by the numbers?"  And

what they want to sign on there is "Susie Begay,

Navajo."  And then they go into these racks.  I've seen

one of the kilns at Taos.  It's about as big as half

this room, cinder block number.  They put these trays

in, in carts, into that kiln, close the door, turn on

the butane.  And the clock automatically sets.  In the

morning they come and they take 'em out, they're all

done.  And they can fire coffee cups, plates, wind

chimes.  Are we going to have genuine Navajo-made

Tupperware?  (laughter)  So they painted!  I know a

Navajo boy who sits up here and paints Chevys.  He

works in the body department of the Chevy agency.  Now,

are we getting genuine Navajo hand-painted Chevys?!  Is

this marketable?  This is why I said there's a point of

ridiculousness.

   So I would say…  Well, let me put it this way:

the Hopi lady that made those pots up there.  She now

fires with an electric kiln, so she's not totally

manufacturing.  But she does it handmade, she hand

paints 'em, but she does fire 'em in a kiln.  The

reason is that they don't get fire cloud.  And she

said, "Nobody'll buy a fire-clouded pot."  And the best

potter I've got is Alice Cling--that's one of hers.

She was in here one time and said some gal from

Southern California was in here and told her that she

could handle her pottery if she didn't have the fire

cloud.  And Alice said, "What should I tell her?"  And

I said, "You tell her, 'don't let the door hit you in

the ass on the way out,' because Alice, we don't need

her.  And there's no sense sacrificing one more part of

the business, because she don't like fire clouds."

   At that time I was selling an awful lot of Navajo

pottery to an Isleta Pueblo lady, and she was in here

one day--this woman was from upper California.  I don't

know where that breaks off, but she was from 'Frisco.

(customer enters, tape paused)  Anyway, we were talking

to this Isleta Pueblo lady, and this gal from

Cali'frisco was looking at Alice's pots, and she was

ooo-ing and ah-ing, but she just didn't like those

black smudges.  Mary Frances was out here, and she came

around the corner here, and talked to that lady.  She

said, "I'm a Pueblo Indian, and we've been making

pottery for thousands of years.  I'm going to tell you

something.  We believe that the fire talks to us, and

when we fire our pottery these smudges tell us stuff,

and we're very reverent of it."  That woman just wrote

out a check for that pot, went out of here with a smile

on her face.  And I said, "Mary Frances, you're

wonderful!"  I said, "Thank you!"  She said, "Well, I'm

just so sick and tired of this stuff.  For hundreds of

years we've had smudged pots and nobody cared one way

or the other.  And they eat that up."  I said, "I know.

I could have never sold that game.  But you just made

her tickled pink."  (customer enters)  Must be closing.

(tape continues to roll on customer, no interview going

on)