JACK MANNING INTERVIEW

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

It's March 12, 1998.  We're in the home of Jack Manning

in Kirtland, New Mexico.  Also present in the room is

Lew Steiger, who is running the sound and camera

equipment.  We're here to do an oral [history]

interview with Jack on behalf of the United Indian

Traders Association Oral History Project.

   

   Cole:  Jack, could you tell us when and where you

were born?

   

   Manning:  I was born in Farmington, New Mexico,

1931, March 2.

   

   Cole:  So you went to school, grew up in Farmington?

   

   Manning:  No, sir, I was just born there.  I moved

to Shiprock.  It was the only hospital in the area.  I

was raised in Shiprock 'til I was about eighteen.  Then

we moved to Kirtland.  So I went to school in Shiprock

'til the eighth grade--one-room schoolhouse and one

teacher taught all eight grades.  When I was in about

the sixth grade, they moved it up to two teachers and

two rooms.  We learned to read and write, and sometimes

that's all that counts.

   

   Cole:  Was that a BIA school?

   

   Manning:  No, it was a public school.  There was

about, oh, I don't think there was ever twenty of us in

school.  There was probably three Navajo children that

attended, and about fourteen, fifteen Anglos.  The BIA

schools, they had two schools there:  they had one for

the grade school and then they also had a high school

that were BIA operated.

   

   Cole:  What did your parents do in Shiprock?

   

   Manning:  My dad worked for Bruce Barnard Trading

Company.  He started to work there in about probably

1927, 1928, and worked there basically all of his life.

   

   Cole:  Tell us a little bit about the Bruce Barnard

Trading Company.  Who was the owner?

   

   Manning:  The owner was Bruce Barnard.  He was a

gentleman that'd come out here from back East, back in

Kentucky, and liked it.  If I remember right, he'd kind

of received an inheritance and he bought this trading

post at that time.  For that area of the reservation,

it was probably one of the larger trading posts.  He

built it up.  He did an awful lot for the Navajo people

in regards to their sheep.  He raised Rambouillets, and

they had so much trouble with the Rambouillet rams, of

their horns being so close to their head, that they

would get worms in their head, and they would lose

them.  Over a period of years, he bred them to where

the horns were three and four inches away from their

head.  And he had some beautiful, beautiful sheep.  If

they couldn't afford to buy one, he would just loan 'em

rams.  It certainly improved the wool off the Navajo

sheep in that area of the reservation.

   Of course the trading post, he just operated it like

any other--bought livestock.  Until after World War II,

there wasn't hardly any money, everything was the

barter system.  In the spring you bought the wool and

they paid their bills, and in the fall they brought

their lambs and calves and paid the bills again.  I can

remember my dad telling about one month, I think it was

the month of February, the whole month they did less

than $100 cash business.  In today's world, that's a

little strange.

   

   Cole:  Did your dad ever become a part owner of the

trading company?

   

   Manning:  Yes, Dad owned 25 percent of it.  After

Mr. Barnard passed away, and then his son also passed

away, it reverted to kind of a trust, and we tried to

buy it.  My brother and my dad went down to El Paso to

have the deal all made.  My dad already owned

25 percent of it, and we were going to pay for another

25 percent, and then they would carry a mortgage on it.

The lawyer said he wanted a mortgage on my dad's house.

(break for a phone call)  Their attorney wanted a

mortgage on my dad's house, and my brother, he went

right through the roof and said, "No way!" and that was

the end of the deal.  And we came back to Shiprock and

bought another trading post.  That was how we kind of

got in it for ourselves.  Then my dad wouldn't quit.

He stayed at Barnard's for still about six years after

that.

   

   Cole:  Was Barnard's when your dad ran a bull pen

type store?

   

   Manning:  It started, uh-huh.  Yes, it was, I don't

know the exact date, but it was probably into the later

sixties before they went to self-service.  And it was a

large store.  I can remember working in there, and

they'd walk you to death.  Everything was behind the

counter, and first they'd want something that was on

the north side, and then they'd want something on the

south side.  All they had to do was walk back and forth

across the bull pen.  The trader, he had to walk all

the way around.  And it was kind of a joke with a lot

of 'em.  They'd walk your legs off.  But Navajo people

have a sense of humor.

   In the early fifties, there still wasn't a whole lot

of money, and [we] didn't have natural gas and those

kind of things plumbed around in Shiprock that they

have today.  Used to have a big pot-bellied stove that

sat out in the middle of the bull ring, and in the

wintertime that thing would get just white hot.  A lot

of the Navajo people that lived close around there,

they'd come and just spend the day there, sitting

around the stove and staying warm and spittin' tobacco

juice on it.  It was different.

   

   Cole:  When did you first become involved in

trading?

   

   Manning:  I started working there in 1953 when I got

back from Korea, and I've been involved in it ever

since.

   

   Cole:  Was that at Barnard's?

   

   Manning:  At Barnard's.  I worked at Barnard's 'til

1970.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever have a chance to work in a store

when you were a kid?

   

   Manning:  Yeah, I worked in it as a kid, oh, from

1942, 1943, 1944.  Everybody was drafted and in the

war, and there wasn't any help.  I stocked shelves and

counted ration stamps and all those kind of things.

   

   Cole:  How did the rationing work in the trading

post, do you remember?

   

   Manning:  Just like it did anywhere else.  You had

to have your coupons to get sugar, and so many for

canned goods.  As far as the way the rationing worked,

it was there, same as it would have been in New York

City, I guess.

   

   Cole:  Did the Navajos have to get coupons?

   

   Manning:  Yes, they had to have coupons, too.

   

   Cole:  How did they do that?

   

   Manning:  It was just distributed there, and they

had an office there in Shiprock and they would go there

and get 'em.  Back at that time, their diet was pretty

much mutton, fry bread, and coffee.  Your trading post

didn't have the fifteen different varieties of the same

item, you know.  They had one kind of tomatoes and one

kind of peaches and one kind of flour, and that was

about it.

   

   Cole:  Where did the supplies come from for the

trading post _____?

   

   Manning:  Got 'em from Farmington Merc. [Mercantile]

and from Gallup Merc., those two mercantile companies.

They pretty much supplied us from the time that I was

there.  Prior to that, I think they bought a lot from

what they called Progressive Merc. that was here in

Fruitland.  The time that I was trading, started, it

came from Farmington and Gallup.

   

   Cole:  When you were a kid working in the store, how

big was Shiprock then?

   

   Manning:  Oh, Shiprock was very small.  The safest

place in the world.  Probably not any more place in the

world safer than Shiprock as I grew up.  I can remember

my folks would let us--down by the BIA high school they

had a lot of concrete sidewalks and lawns, and it was

nice.  We'd go down there rollerskating ten, eleven

o'clock at night, and be perfectly safe.  But it's

certainly changed today.  There was probably, let's

see, maybe ten or twelve BIA homes.  And other than the

trading posts, there was Shiprock Trade, and Barnard's,

and Bond and Bond.  That was the extent of the

businesses.  And [O. S. Sevens?], one garage--there was

one garage, one place to buy gas.

   

   Cole:  Did the Navajos at that time, what was their

transportation situation?

   

   Manning:  As a kid, most of their transportation was

horse and wagon.  In October, when they'd have the

Northern Navajo Fair, Navajo people would come from as

far away as, oh, gracious, probably Mexican Water;

south as far as Newcomb or Naschitti, and it was a six,

seven-day trip to get there and attend the fair.  And

then it was a six, seven-day trip home.  I remember the

whole area of Shiprock would just be covered with smoke

in the evening where they were building their campfires

and cooking their supper, and the same way with

breakfast.  Hundreds of wagons.  They'd be lined up to

go back over to the y�ii bicheii.  The heads of one

team would be almost in the back end of the other wagon

as they journeyed that way.  Of course there was no

paved roads--roads from Shiprock to Farmington was

nothing but gravel.  We didn't go to Farmington very

much--nobody did.  It was an all-day trip, and two flat

tires, and not a whole lot of fun.

   Cars didn't come in until after World War II, and it

was taking a while for them to get there.  If I can

remember right, I think Dick Atso [phonetic spelling]

was the only Navajo man that I knew that owned an

automobile in the early forties.  So if you couldn't

get there on a horse and wagon, you didn't get there--

you walked.

   I can remember one time a tourist lady come in from

back East.  They didn't keep the trading posts like

they keep 'em now.  I mean, I guess you'd say they were

kinda dirty.  The Navajo people didn't have the

opportunity to bathe like they [do now], and she made a

comment about it.  My dad told her, "Lady, if you had

to haul your water twenty-five miles to have a drink or

whatever, you wouldn't worry too much about bathing

either."  She got offended and left.  But you think

about it, they came to the river to get water.  And

where you only got a team and a wagon, maybe you could

get four barrels at the best, and then you headed back.

So you respected water pretty much.  As in our home,

the only water we had was a cistern under the house,

and it probably held maybe 6,000 gallons, and you

filled it in the first of October, and you had no water

until maybe the middle of April.  And you didn't waste

any water.  When you bathed in the old number three

bathtub, you put a little, and then the next one bathed

and added a little bit of warm water, and that's the

way you did it.  Water, as far as being into your

homes, was very little bit of it.

   

   Cole:  Did you have electricity and those kind of

conveniences in the early forties?

   

   Manning:  Let's see, maybe I was nine, ten, when we

first had electricity, so that would be the early

forties, yeah, 1941.  But prior to that we had kerosene

lamps and Coleman lanterns, and that type.  The

Barnard's Store there, they had a generator that they

run.  They had like one little meat box, and then some

lights, and they run that off of that gas generator.

But in our homes, no.  We had coal stoves and kerosene

lights.

   

   Cole:  Tell us maybe a little bit more about the

fair.

   

   Manning:  The fair was the highlight of the year.

The Navajo people, they liked to visit and enjoy it.

And of course it had a religious significance to 'em,

with the y�ii bicheii.  They would come, and if the

weather was good, they were happy and they really

enjoyed themselves.  But it used to rain more here in

the forties and fifties than it does now, and sometimes

the first of October it'd be just rainin' ugly.  Then

they were kinda grouchy.  The mud was up to the hubs on

the wagons, and it just wasn't a fun time.  They'd come

and the trading post would be just crammed with people

coming to get in out of the rain because they were just

camped in their wagons and used a tarp to protect 'em

from it.  But they did enjoy the fair.  They'd have a

little livestock.  Basically, it was a social event

then.  It wasn't so much as it is now with livestock

displays and produce and vendors and all of that.  It

was more or less of a social thing.  They would get to

visit with each other.  Business was good during that

week that they were there, because they would…

Barnard's and Bond's and Shiprock Trade carried a lot

more merchandise, they carried a lot of dry goods that

some of the trading posts farther out didn't carry near

as much of.  And they'd buy pants and coats and shoes.

[We] bought an awful lot of rugs at that time.  It'd be

just a process of trading.  Lots of what they called

trade slips.  Probably in today's world it's illegal as

heck, you know.  They'd bring a rug in that was worth

$35.  Well, they'd get maybe $3 cash or $5 cash, and

then a trade slip for the remainder.  And trading out a

trade slip was always fun.  In twenty minutes you could

trade out the $25, and then they were down to the last

$3, and you'd take twice that time to get the last $3

spent, because each one of the kids would want a

lollipop or a bottle of pop or something like that, and

it took a lot of time to get the last $2 or $3 off a

trade slip.

   

   Cole:  Did you remember much jewelry coming in at

that time, too?

   

   Manning:  Barnard's did a lot of pawn.  They didn't

have jewelry like they have today.  Back then they'd

have maybe a good belt and a good string of beads and a

bracelet and that would be about it.  Today they've got

four or five belts and six strings of beads, and all

kinds of bracelets.  They still kind of like to put

their money in jewelry.  They like turquoise and

silver, and many of the Navajo people are like I am--

they can't hold onto a dollar, it's just fun to spend.

So if they put it into jewelry, well then they could

always go pawn it.

   There at Barnard's they used to buy an awful lot of

alfalfa hay that was raised up and down there on the

river.  They'd bring the hay in, in wagons.  They

didn't have balers that went into the fields like they

have today.  Barnard's had a big stationary baler with

the poke-type that you pushed the wires through and fed

the hay in with a pitch fork.  And they would start

lining up like six o'clock in the morning with

wagonloads of hay to bring in there to bale.  Then they

would sell it to Barnard's, and then they would buy it

back during the winter, which to a lot of people, that

didn't make any sense.  So they'd been asked by some of

the BIA officials, "Why are you selling your hay to

Barnard's for 50� and then buying it back five months

later for 65� or 70�?!"  And one of the gentlemen I

remember one time telling us, "If I take the hay home,

when I need it for my stock, I don't have any, because

my brother comes from Red Rock, and he wants ten bales,

and my wife's sister comes from somewhere, and they

want ten," and they can't say no.  They've never been

able to say no.  So when it come time he needed to feed

his horses and cows, he didn't have any hay, he'd given

it all away.  Barnard had a huge barn and then stacked

it outside even.  Bought lots of corn, lots of Indian

corn.  He had a big stationary sheller and would shell

the corn.  It was kind of the same process.  They would

buy the corn, and then during the winter they'd sell it

back.

   

   Cole:  Did they just keep the corn dry and then

grind it?

   

   Manning:  Yes, he also had a mill there that they

could…  They loved blue corn, and they'd make it

into blue cornmeal, and they'd charge 'em so much to

grind it into flour for 'em.  In the fall and early

winter, that old mill ran all day.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember how many bales of hay you

could get out of wagonful of hay?

   

   Manning:  I really don't remember exactly.  I would

say they could put maybe 700-800 pounds of hay on those

wagons, and then bale it.  And they baled probably

seventy-pound bales.  So ten, fifteen bales.

   

   Cole:  And what kind of hay was that?

   

   Manning:  Alfalfa.  They would cut it with a horse-

drawn mowing machine and rake it with a horse-drawn

rake, and then they'd pick it up with a pitchfork.

They'd put it in shocks and then pick it up and put it

onto the wagon and haul it in and pitchfork it off.  It

was pretty much physical labor.

   I guess one of the things that I remember my dad

telling about, was when they built the bridge across

the river.  They had the money for the bridge, but they

had no money for the approaches.  So now they got a

bridge sitting across the river, and on one end it's

twelve foot high.  You'd have to climb up a twelve-foot

wall to get onto the bridge.  And so the superintendent

there, they had a police force of two Navajo people,

and the BIA superintendent, he told these two

policemen, "You go out and you go up and down the river

and you arrest every Navajo that's not working.  If

he's not working, you arrest him and bring him in

here."  And they did that, and they built the approach

with wheelbarrows and shovels.  (several chuckle)  That

would be interesting today!  If the guy wasn't hoeing

his weeds, if he was leanin' on his hoe, they just

hauled him off.  They had a compound there that they

kept 'em in, and they kind of slept on the ground.

That was the way the approach got built to the bridge.

   

   Cole:  How long did the hay business continue like

that, do you remember?

   

   Manning:  Oh, it continued up into the, oh, late

fifties, early sixties.  And then maybe one or two

pickup balers.  If I remember right, I think the

chapter bought a tractor and a baler, and on the baler

it had its own engine--had an engine that you'd start

to run the baler.  And then they'd go around into the

various fields and bale the hay.  But even after that,

they would load it up and bring it in, and Barnard's or

Shiprock Trade, or one of the trading posts would still

wind up buying it.  It just made it a little easier,

took a little of the back work out of it.

   

   Cole:  Do they still grow quite a bit of hay down

there today?

   

   Manning:  Yes, they do.  They still grow quite a

little bit of hay.  Most of it they sell themselves.

They have like a farmers' market I guess is what you

would call it, and they bring it in, pick up loads at a

time, and just sell it on the road.  An awful lot of

hay through this whole valley is just sold down the

road.  There isn't enough raised to really bring in

large commercial haulers and haul it out.  They don't

farm like they used to, they don't do near as much, but

the ones that are farming are probably working at APS

so they can afford the farm.

   

   Cole:  (chuckles)  Were there other crops besides

the corn and hay?

   

   Manning:  Oh melons and squash.  They really loved

watermelons and raised lots of squash.  Corn, alfalfa,

a little oats and a little wheat--not a whole lot,

because they didn't have thrashing machines to thrash

it.  That was basically their basic crops.

   

   Cole:  How did the Navajo in the Shiprock area water

their crops?

   

   Manning:  BIA had built an irrigation ditch, and

they got the water out of it.  I remember they'd work

out their assessment by cleaning it.  And they would

clean the ditch with teams and a slip or a scraper, and

they really cleaned the ditch.  There would maybe be

seventy-five or a hundred Navajo people with teams and

scrapers, and they'd clean that ditch from one end to

the other, and it was a clean ditch.  Of course, back

then, ten acres was the maximum ground they could own.

I remember a gentleman by the name of Jim Johnson was a

very energetic individual, and he'd have his ten acres,

and then he'd keep working, he'd get another ten acres.

Then when he'd get up to about forty-five or fifty

acres, somebody would go down to the bureau and tell

'em, "This guy's got too much land," and they'd come

and take it away from him.  And they didn't pay him,

they just took it away from him, that was it, "Here's

your original ten acres."  And he'd start all over

again.  In four or five years, he'd be farming up to

fifty acres, and the same thing would happen over

again.

   

   Steiger:  Would he be trading other people for their

land?  How would he get that extra?

   

   Manning:  He would trade for it.  He'd give 'em a

cow or a horse, or make some kind of agreement with

'em.  Then when he got up to doing too well, somebody

would go down to BIA to the superintendent and tell

him, "This is what's going on," and they'd come take it

away from him.

   

   Cole:  Why did they have that regulation of ten

acres, do you know?

   

   Manning:  I don't know.  I know it's kind of like

the reservation's been forever--why they have a lot of

the regulations they have.  That was just the thing.

Ten acres was the maximum you could have.

   

   Cole:  And that was a BIA regulation?

   

   Manning:  Uh-huh.  The tribe, in those days, had

practically no authority of any kind.  It was all under

the bureau.  They did everything.  They did the school

and they'd just go out and I guess you'd literally say

kidnapped kids.  They'd start across the reservation,

up in that area, and here was a child that was six,

seven, eight years old, they just picked him up and

hauled him into the boarding schools.  It wasn't, "Do

you want to go?" or "Does Mom and Dad want you to go?"

It was, "You know, we've got you, and you're on your

way."  They run pretty strict schools, they were quite

abusive.  And the Navajo people would hide out the

oldest boy, so that they'd have somebody to help herd

the sheep and take care of things at home.  And most

always, the oldest son did not have any education,

because they would hide him out when they were out

roundin' 'em up to take 'em to school.

   

   Steiger:  That was in the fifties they were doing

that?  Sorry to interrupt.

   

   Manning:  No, this would be--let's see, I graduated

in 1949, so it was in the late thirties and early

forties.  No, by the fifties this was not going on, no.

They still had the schools.  BIA still pretty much had

control.  I don't think the tribe really got too much

involved until, oh, gracious, into the sixties.  And

then they gradually begin to turn almost everything

over to the tribe.  The tribe took over the irrigation

system and those kind of things.  In the early days,

just like I say, the superintendent told 'em, "Go out

and arrest every guy that wasn't workin'."  Today that

wouldn't fly very high.  But then the superintendent

was it.  He was judge, juror, and the whole nine yards.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember what his name was?

   

   Manning:  (sigh)  No, I don't.  I really don't.  I

know probably some of these older--not really older--

but guys that are ten years older than I am, they'd

probably remember.  I can remember one they called John

Collier.  I think he was the one that cut their

livestock down so drastically.  I didn't ever know him,

knowing who he was.  Trading posts pretty well stayed

to themselves, and they tried to avoid the bureau as

much as they could.

   

   Cole:  Did the bureau have any involvement with the

traders?

   

   Manning:  They would check on you if there were

complaints of dishonesty or something.  But they

weren't really involved very much.  You had to have a

license with them to have a trading post--you were

licensed through the bureau, and those kind of things.

   

   Cole:  You were describing for us earlier kind of

the living conditions that you lived in as a young boy.

Could you describe what the living conditions for the

Navajo were at that time?

   

   Manning:  They were very tough.  Today they talk

about some of the Navajos being poor, but there weren't

some of them poor, they were all poor then.  Most of

them lived in a hogan with a dirt floor.  Of course

that wasn't anything unusual.  We had dirt floors in

part of our house.  There weren't any mobile homes and

those kind of things.  Water, especially if you got

away from the river, was a real rare commodity.  Of

course you have to have water, and that was a great

need.  But they basically lived in hogans or small one

or two-room houses.  They were an energetic people, as

far as I could see.  Loved their kids and wasn't a

whole lot on discipline.  Like I say, in Shiprock in

those days, there wasn't a safer place to live.  But

there's been an awful lot of change.  Of course,

there's been that in all of our lives, due to

prosperity, I guess.

   

   Cole:  Would you consider, or do you know, were the

Navajos that lived in the Shiprock area maybe a little

wealthier than ones further out?

   

   Manning:  Those that worked for the BIA, they got a

regular paycheck.  Those that farmed and had stock, it

would just depend on what the stock market was.  Hay

was 25�-50� a bale.  Lambs, oh, gracious, I can

remember lambs even in my trading time being at 7�-8� a

pound.  That's not much money.  I can remember my dad

telling about buying lambs for 25� a piece.  Back

before they had the trucks, they used to drive 'em.

There was a railhead, the train come into Farmington,

and they would drive their lambs from as far away as

Red Rock.  They would drive 'em and take 'em to

Farmington and ship 'em out on a train.  One year they

got to the wash up here, and it was running, and they

waited, and they waited.  It just kept rainin' and they

couldn't get across it.  Finally each one of 'em picked

out so many head of lambs, and they just drove 'em into

the wash, made a bridge, and walked the others across

'em.  They put hundreds of lambs in there and just used

'em to make a bridge so the others could walk across.

My dad said it didn't really matter, I guess, a whole

lot, they were only worth a quarter.

   

   Cole:  Do you remember about when that might have

been?

   

   Manning:  It was in the thirties sometime.  I

remember him telling about that Reuben Heflin had got

across the wash before the rain came.  And when it

comes down those washes, maybe they hadn't run for six

months, and then you get a heavy rain--well, it's just

a wall of water because there's so much trash in 'em,

tumbleweeds and stuff.  So you're runnin' maybe an

eight or ten-foot wall of water.  And he had got across

with his lambs, and Dad said he can remember him

standing on the other side just laughing.  He thought

that was the funniest thing in the world, that he got

across, and all of the rest of 'em were still on the

other side when this came, and it just didn't let up.

They had a deadline to meet.  I mean, that train was

gonna be there, and they had to get there.  So that was

the way they did it.

   

   Cole:  And these were the traders that were driving

the lambs?

   

   Manning:  Yes.  And there was probably, I imagine

there was lambs there from probably twelve, fifteen

different trading posts.  And in those days, there was

lots of lambs.  The sheep that they have today, it's

just a drop in the bucket to what they used to have.

And of course when there was more rain, they had better

rains and had more grass--had all those kind of things.

It's gradually dried up.  There in Shiprock, up where

the hospital is now, all that mesa up there they used

to--I can even remember 'em cutting grass.  When I was

a little kid, my dad tells me that the grass up in that

area and all the way towards the state line would be up

to the stirrups on a horse.  And today you have a hard

time finding some grass that you can even call grass--

it's just dried up.

   

   Cole:  Do you speak Navajo?

   

   Manning:  Very little.  I spoke better Navajo twenty-

five years ago than I do today.  My dad didn't want my

brother or I, either one, to learn Navajo well enough

to understand a sad story.  (chuckles)  That was his

comment.  If we got to gettin' too good at it, he'd

back us off.  So no, I do not speak Navajo well.  I can

get along in a trading post, but as [far as] talking

politics, no, I don't.

   

   Cole:  Did the Navajo in the Shiprock area speak

English, most of 'em?

   

   Manning:  Yes, and then that was one reason that I

don't speak any better than I did.  They spoke English

there probably a lot quicker than they would like at

Teec Nos Pos or Red Rock or Dinnehotso or those places.

They just spoke Navajo while in Shiprock.  You could

get by--even when I was a kid, you could get by without

speaking Navajo.  There was lots of pointin' and

guessin', but in a trading post you could get by.

   

   Cole:  Were there particular items that like the

women would buy, versus the men?

   

   Manning:  Oh, there would be in dry goods.  They all

liked the velvet blouse.  The women all wore long squaw

skirts and maybe two or three of 'em at one time, if

they had 'em.  In the early parts, they just had to

have the basics.  They just didn't have money or income

for anything else.  They worried basically about having

food to eat, and maybe a pair of Levis and a pair of

high-top shoes.  And the women wore about the same, the

shoes.  The Navajo women did not wear pants.  I mean,

it was, oh, gracious, when the Navajo ladies first

began to wear slacks or pants, it was kind of strange.

You just wasn't used to it.  But they all wore dresses.

   

   Cole:  When did that clothing change begin, do you

remember?

   

   Manning:  Oh, let's see … in the latter part of

the sixties it began to change.  I know even there at

Barnard's, they began stocking blouses and skirts and

more up to what you'd call stylish items, instead of a

squaw skirt and a velvet blouse.  And shoes.  The early

part of it, they'd have maybe just two different styles

of shoes.  Then they were having fifteen or twenty

styles.  Then that's where the dry goods business kind

of finally went out.  They got to where twenty styles

wasn't enough.  So then you just quit the shoe

business, because the trading post wasn't set up to

handle that many.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever have a Navajo nickname?

   

   Manning:  They called my dad Tsiis ch�il� and I was

called Tsiis ch�il� y�zh�.  My dad had black, curly

hair.  Let's see, Bruce they called Bin�yol.  He'd been

in an accident and had been injured in the neck and his

head set like this.  They said he had his head towards

the wind.  Most everybody wound up with a Navajo name.

   

   Steiger:  What did Tsiis ch�il� mean?

   

   Manning:  Curly hair.

   

   Cole:  Did Bernard's do a fairly sizeable rug

business?

   

   Manning:  Early, the rugs were bought by the pound.

They really didn't pay a whole lot of attention to

quality.  Put 'em on the scales and weighed 'em, and

they were "X" amount of dollars a pound, and they

stacked 'em up, and there really wasn't any market for

'em.  When the stacks would get yea high, well, they

would trade 'em off to Farmington Merc. or Gallup Merc.

on their bill.  And then I don't know what Gallup Merc.

or Farmington Merc. did with 'em--it's not like today.

You know, today, a high-quality Navajo rug is worth

lots of dollars and in considerable demand.  It was

kinda like buying the lambs and the wool.  They did buy

quite a few of 'em.  And then as time progressed on

into the sixties, seventies, and eighties, well, they

began to make a lot finer rug.  They learned that if

they kept it straight and kept the pattern good, well,

they could get more money for it.  And then it

developed into an arts and crafts business.  Prior to

that, it was just kind of a way of having an extra ten

dollars income by weaving a rug.

   

   Cole:  So you went to work for Barnard's in 1948?

   

   Manning:  Well, I went to work steady in 1953.  I

got home from Korea in 1953, and I'd worked in the

summertime, going to school there.  But steady, I went

to work in 1953.

   

   Cole:  We were talking earlier, your dad owned a

quarter of Barnard's?

   

   Manning:  He owned a quarter of it, uh-huh.

   

   Cole:  And then did he try to buy the store?

   

   Manning:  He tried to buy it.  When Bruce Barnard I

[the first] passed away, it went to his son.  He had an

only son, and oh gracious, Bruce was probably in his

late thirties, early forties.  He had a heart attack

and was gone.  He had married a lady by the name of

Roderick [phonetic spelling].  Her folks owned half of

El Paso, Texas.  They had banks and shopping centers.

They were very, very wealthy.  So Bruce Barnard Trading

Post didn't really mean a whole lot to 'em.  Dad run it

for years after Bruce Junior died, and then they said

they wanted to sell it, and that was when we made the

offer.  It could have been a good deal for both of us.

I think the families--I think my dad and Frances could

have got together, had they not had the attorney in it.

But the attorney, he just wanted…  Frances, I think

she was pretty sure, knew that we would pay for it.

But when that attorney said, "I want a mortgage on your

home," well, my brother, he just, that was it, he went

right through the roof and it was all over.  And then

my dad stayed, even after that.  And we bought the

business and my brother and I didn't have any money.

Working trading posts, you don't make big wages.  I

remember I started at $27.50 a week.  That was whatever

it took.  I mean, you didn't worry about forty hours,

it was sixty and seventy hours, but that's what you

made.  So we bought out Chuck Dickens who I had worked

with for years at Barnard's, and then he went and

built, started a business, and then he wanted to move,

and so we bought that thinking that Dad was gonna quit.

Because the Navajo people have a great loyalty to a

particular trading post.  Bruce Barnard had the

customers they had, Shiprock Trade had theirs, and

there was a great loyalty there, but as far as the

Navajo people, basically, my dad was Bruce Barnard.

Then after we bought it and it came right down to it,

my dad couldn't quit, he wouldn't leave.  Well, the

business didn't leave either, and so that left my

brother and I down there.  We worked a lot of hours

'til we got that trading post paid for.  We'd be to

work at 7:30 in the morning, and by the time we got the

trading post cleaned up, and we had a self-service

laundry and got it cleaned up, we were coming home

anywhere from twelve to one o'clock in the morning.  We

did that for five years.

   

   Cole:  And when was that, that you bought Dickens?

   

   Manning:  We bought it in 1968.

   

   Cole:  And that was at Barnard's?

   

   Manning:  Uh-huh.

   

   Cole:  So you actually worked at Barnard's for about

fifteen years?

   

   Manning:  From 1953 to 1968.

   

   Cole:  How many employees did Barnard's have during

that time?

   

   Manning:  Oh, during that time, let's see, we had

what?  When they went to self-service we had two check

stands.  Had two check stands, two checkers, two people

in the meat market, two people in the dry goods, one

person in the pawn, and then my dad and one other

person just kind of did whatever.  So that's what?,

twelve?  Twelve, fourteen employees.  And then he had

two people outside that took care of the stock and took

care of selling hay and doing those kind of things.

   

   Cole:  How many of the employees were Anglo, and how

many were Navajo?

   

   Manning:  Let's see, there was myself, my brother,

and Chuck, my dad--I guess that's it, four.

   

   Cole:  And then the rest were Navajos?

   

   Manning:  The rest were Navajo people, very good

workers, very dependable.  They were to work every day.

   

   Cole:  And at that time period was everybody just

paid a salary?

   

   Manning:  Yes.  Yeah, they were paid a salary.

Wasn't a big one, but it was a salary.

   

   Cole:  Just for the record, what was your dad's name

and your brother's name?

   

   Manning:  My dad's name was Luther, and my brother's

name was Jim.

   

   Cole:  And we should probably find out about your

mother, too, what her name was.

   

   Manning:  My mom's name was Madge.  She was a Reid

[phonetic spelling].  She was raised in the Bloomfield

area.  She and my dad married in about 1929, I guess.

My dad wound up here just by accident.  He was raised

in Indiana 'til he was through high school, and then he

came to Denver, I think with a cousin.  And when he got

to Denver, there was a gentleman that needed to bring

two cars to Shiprock, and so he hired my dad to drive

one of the cars.  My dad just never went home.  He

liked Shiprock and went to work at Barnard's.  That was

how he wound up here.

   

   Cole:  Did your mom ever work in the trading post?

   

   Manning:  No.  My mom was Mom.  She took care of the

house and took care of the kids.  There were three of

us, I had two brothers.  But no, my mom never worked in

the trading post.  My mom never worked anything but

being a housewife.  She was always there when we got

home or skinned our knee or whatever we did, Mom was

there to take care of us.  Personally, I think that was

a real blessing to us.  Some kids today don't have that

privilege.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of wondering, in Barnard's in the

late fifties, describe to us what was happening to the

Navajo economy, and maybe what happened to Barnard's.

   

   Manning:  The economy, after World War II was over,

the economy was improving every year.  There was more

money, there was more jobs.  Roads began to get better.

The road from Farmington to Gallup wound up paved.  It

wasn't very wide, but it was paved, and you could

travel.  Business picked up enough that Barnard's

doubled the size of their building.  They put a large

dry goods section on the back, to the south side of the

building, and they were good times business-wise.  The

Navajo people were, like I say, they had a lot more

money to spend, and they spent it.  They pretty much do

today.  I know families that have $60,000-$70,000 a

year incomes and they pretty well spend the $60,000-

$70,000.  But I guess we all do.  (laughter)

   

   Cole:  What kind of jobs were being created in the

Shiprock area?

   

   Manning:  Well, at one time Kerr McGee came in and

had a big uranium mill there that hired a lot of

people.  Fairchild was there at one time, and hired a

lot of people.  Of course the uranium business, it just

kind of killed itself all over the country, and they

closed the mill there with the uranium.  Fairchild was

just an unfortunate situation.  I think they were from

the Dakotas, a gentleman was around, kind of raisin'

trouble, and they literally, physically took over the

building with rifles and guns.  After that happened,

Fairchild just pulled out and left.  But they were

hiring several hundred people, mostly women.  The

Navajo people, men and women, their hands are a

blessing to 'em, they can do anything with their hands.

It seems as one thing would come in, then they had a

helium plant there that hired probably--they probably

had, what, 35-40 homes over there.  And then it

gradually, they run out of gas for it.  But if the

tribe would just change their policy, Shiprock would be

a town of 30,000 in a heartbeat.

   

   Steiger:  What was Fairchild making?

   

   Manning:  They were a semi-conductor plant.  They

were making chips.  Quite intricate work.  I mean, they

weren't very big pieces that they had to wire a lot of

wires onto, but the ladies knew how to do it.

   

   Cole:  And during this sort of economic upsurge, did

pawn and credit still have a big part of it?

   

   Manning:  Pawn and credit was still there, yes.  The

BIA increased.  I don't really know how it works, other

than it seemed like what one guy was doing, now they're

hiring three guys to do the same job.  So now you got

three paychecks instead of one.

   They did improve their agriculture.  I think the

tribe was involved with this.  They had a farm training

area there that had about probably 400 acres, 500

acres, and they had Navajo people that went there and

were taught how to farm--you know, the technical part

of putting fertilizer, and what crops to raise.  And

then when they had finished this course, which was

probably about two years, then they were given 120

acres of ground and a loan.  I think the BIA was pretty

much financing the loans and what not.  A few of them

made it, and quite a few of 'em didn't.  Sometimes they

have a hard time working for themselves.  You gotta be

pretty disciplined, especially if you're farming.  I

mean, things have got to be done today, they can't be

done tomorrow.  Where the Navajo people were working

for wages, and knew they had to be to work at eight

o'clock and didn't go home 'til five, I mean, you

couldn't ask for more dependable people.  But some of

'em had a problem where they were working for

themselves.  You know, "Well, today let's go visit Aunt

Molly, and we'll do the farming tomorrow�."

   

   Cole:  How big of a pawn business did Barnard's do?

   

   Manning:  They had thousands and thousands of

dollars' worth of pawn.  And this was back when your

dead pawn, there just wasn't a market for it.  I can

remember them taking silver belts, and take the first

one and wrap it tight, then wrap the second one around

it, and put 'em in a bushel basket, and when the bushel

basket was full, Russell Foutz would give you $500 for

it.  Today's world, any one of those belts would have

probably brought $500.  Beads, they would take beads

and tie it with a quarter-inch cotton rope and when you

could reach around it like this, he'd give you $500 for

it.  And Russell was the only one…  In the Shiprock

area, in this area, he was kind of the first one that

went into the arts and crafts business.  He would take

those belts and beads and bracelets and things and go

to Denver or Phoenix or Scottsdale or wherever, and

he'd get rid of 'em.  But that was the market.

   

   Cole:  What time period was that, do you remember?

   

   Manning:  Oh, this was still in the sixties.

   

   Cole:  Did you have a lot of dead pawn then?

   

   Manning:  Barnard's pawned for a year.  They would

hold an item a year, and if they made any attempt at

all to pay on it, they would still hold it.  But yes,

there was still a considerable amount of dead pawn.

   

   Cole:  In your store--you purchased Dickens--did you

run a pawn business there, too?

   

   Manning:  Yes, same kind of thing.  We've been in

the pawn business all my life.  We're still in it.  My

daughter runs the pawn shop for us that we have here in

Kirtland.  The pawn business is changing, but I don't

want to change.  I just want to pawn Indian jewelry.

And so many of the other businesses that compete with

us, they pawn pickups and cars and trucks and tractors

and stereos and VCRs--and I'm not going to change.  As

I told my daughter, "Maybe here in a couple of years

you can just take this thing over and you can pawn

pickups if you want to, but I'm not going to."

   

   Steiger:  How come you don't want to change?

   

   Manning:  Just hard-headed, I guess.  I just don't

want to do it.  We have a decent pawn business, it

makes us a decent living, and we just pawn jewelry and

saddles and shawls, and that's all we pawn--baskets.  I

think my daughter's a better pawn operator than I am.

She doesn't have near the dead pawn I used to have.

She gets along well with the Navajo people.  She's got

a sense of humor and she knows when to joke about it

and when to keep her mouth shut.  She's doing very

well.  But they could do more business by going into

these other things.  So far we have not.

   

   Cole:  When did you open your pawn shop in Kirtland?

   

   Manning:  When the FTC got into the pawn deal and

said that one percent was the maximum you could charge

with no minimum fees.  Well, you know, you loan the guy

twenty bucks, in a month he owes you $20.20.  You can't

stay in business.  I mean, it's an impossibility.  It

was a detriment to the Navajo people, in my opinion,

because everybody left.  There was no way you could

stay in business in the pawn business.  You just

couldn't loan money at that way [i.e., rate (Tr.)].

Even if you went to the bank, they had a minimum charge

that would cover their expenses.  We left in 1975,

something like that--whatever year that they had that

ruling.  That was when we moved off and put a pawn shop

in up here at Kirtland.  And everybody else did the

same thing.

   

   Cole:  Did you continue to get a lot of your same

customers?

   

   Manning:  Same people.  One thing that maybe cuts

our business down a little, every year we lose another

couple of customers.  As I said, the Navajo people have

a great loyalty to somebody that they like and trust

and do business with.  And it isn't particularly me or

Eddie or anybody else.  Each one has Navajo people that

they want to do business with, and that's where they do

their business.  But I'm sixty-seven, and some of 'em

are older, and each year a couple more of 'em pass

away.  And the younger Navajo people don't place the

value on jewelry that their parents did, or their

grandparents--they just don't.

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  Jack, a minute ago we were

talking about the pawn business.  Maybe describe to us

how the pawn business worked in, say, 1953, when you

started in the trading business.

   

   Manning:  The principle was still the same, except

that everybody held pawn a lot longer.  Most pawnshops

now pawn under the state pawn law, which is that you

hold it for four months.  Many of us hold it longer.

Today we hold it at least eight months, but back then,

there was not--I don't even know if there was a pawn

regulation of any type, other than what came under your

trader's lease through the bureau.  But everybody then

held pawn for a year.  I remember back then that some

of that pawn would be in there for four, five, six,

seven years and never go out.  They would just renew it

or pay the interest on it.  Sometimes the beads or belt

would be so covered with dust when they did take it

out, that you'd have to dust it off good to find it.

Other than that, the principle is still the same.  The

dollars have certainly changed.  Probably at that date

the average pawn was probably $15, and today I imagine

the average pawn is close to $100.  But the principle's

still the same.  There's a lot more pawn today, there's

a lot more items than what there was then.  But of

course the population is a lot heavier today than it

was in the early fifties.  Most of the Navajo people

still have some turquoise and silver jewelry.

   One thing hurting the market today is they're making

so much imitation.  When that happens, it just hurts

you, because people that don't know it, they read about

the plastic turquoise and the nickel silver, and they

don't know how to tell the difference, and so you get

pretty leery of buying something.  I wish it had never

happened, that they begin to make this costume jewelry,

is what I call it.  But it's hurt the business.

   

   Cole:  Would women and men pawn equally?  Or was

one…

   

   Manning:  Basically, the Navajo society is a

matriarchal society.  The woman's the boss.  Even

today, we pawn maybe 85 percent to ladies and

15 percent to men.  A lot of times when they both come

in, husband and wife will come in together, she does

the business.  The amazing thing about it, if you run

into a family where the man's the boss, sometimes they

have some real problems--financially, marriage-wise,

the whole thing.  The old-time matriarchal society

still seems to work best.

   

   Cole:  Would that have been the case in the credit

business also?

   

   Manning:  Pretty much so.  They probably weren't as

forward with it as they are now, but they were still

the boss.  The husband may come in and make the deal,

but he made the deal that she told him to make.

   

   Cole:  How much of a payment would you have to make

on a pawn item before it would go dead?

   

   Manning:  Just the interest.  All they paid was the

interest.  The interest was one percent a month, it was

12 percent a year.  And they charged one percent a

month interest.  And you didn't have to do that on a

monthly basis.  All you had to do was pay the interest

sometime within the year.  So you could pawn the item.

Let's say you pawned it for $10.00, and a year later

you could come and pay the $1.20 and it would be

renewed for another year.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever loan out pawn?

   

   Manning:  To some people.  A lot of times the pawn

was pawned for more than it was worth--the actual item.

But you knew the people and you knew that they loved it

and they weren't going to lose it.  I think that

happens even today--or I know it does.  We loan to

people that we've loaned 'em a lot more than the item

was worth.  You don't do that in every case, but it's

good people that you know, and know what they're going

to do, and you can do it.

   

   Cole:  I'm kind of curious, why wouldn't Navajos go

to a bank?  Why would they do the pawn instead of

getting a loan from the bank?

   

   Manning:  Well, there wasn't any banks.  And banks,

years ago--they're still the same way today--they want

security.  The Navajo people didn't own anything.  They

don't own the land where their home's at.  And then a

bank, they couldn't repossess anything.  You went back

on the reservation…  Let's say they loaned money on

cattle or livestock or something, and I don't pay, they

can't come and pick 'em up anyway, 'cause the bureau

will see that they don't do that.  So banks weren't in

the picture very much.  Today a bank wants…  I'm

past my time.  I can remember the time you'd go into a

bank and they'd get you out a piece of paper about that

big, and you'd sign your name on the bottom of it, and

they'd give you $10,000 and you're going to pay 'em

back in a year or whatever the time was, and that was

it.  Now, you've got a stack of paperwork that high,

and it's government regulations.  It's very difficult

for 'em, even today.  If they live off the reservation,

then that's a different story, because they've bought a

piece of ground and they have a home on it, or they

have a mobile home on it, and they own it, they have

some equity in it.  But the reservation itself is still

pretty much protected.  They have a homesite lease

that's good for ninety-nine years that they can revoke

any time they want to.  And a bank just don't want to

do business on that.  I imagine, really, the federal

regulations wouldn't even let 'em do business on it.

So this is a detriment to the people living on the

reservation.  The reservation, in my opinion, should be

done away with.  They've gone past their time.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of curious, because as I understand

it, the trader also really didn't own his building.

   

   Manning:  No, we don't own anything at Shiprock.  We

have a fairly decent building down there, and if they

want us off, they just come in and say, you know,

"Adios, and it's ours!"  And you carry insurance, and

the benefactor of the insurance is the Navajo Tribe.

   

   Cole:  Why is that?

   

   Manning:  That's just the rule of doing business--

but it's always been that way.

   

   Cole:  So if your building were to burn down.

   

   Manning:  It's the tribe's building, it's not our

building.  We built it…

   

   Cole:  Could you insure your goods?

   

   Manning:  Oh yeah, you can insure your goods.

   

   Cole:  And that'd be separate.

   

   Manning:  That's a separate thing, yeah.

   

   Cole:  I'm sure the trader also needed to get

capital from a bank.  Did that impact how banks would

loan money to traders?

   

   Manning:  That was back to the thing of signing your

name.  Today, I don't

think--the way a trader had to get money in the

thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, he couldn't get it

today.  The regulations would not--the banks just

wouldn't loan it, because he doesn't own anything

there.  He owns his inventory, but that's it.  The

buildings, the lease, you have a twenty-five or a fifty-

year lease, but let's say you get crossways with a

politician, they can get that lease revoked pretty

quick.  It doesn't happen a whole lot, but it could.  I

mean, there's nothing to keep it from it.

   

   Cole:  What was the process of getting a lease?,

like when you bought your store in Shiprock?

   

   Manning:  Well, of course it already had the lease,

it was already existing.  But then we had to go to

Window Rock and explain to 'em, "Mr. Dickens is wanting

to sell, we're wanting to buy."  First we had to go to

the chapter.  Went to the chapter and usually that was

no problem.  I mean, everybody knew everybody, and

Chuck's gonna leave and we're gonna move down there.

Well, that's great, they'd sign the paper and you'd

take it to Window Rock, and then it would have to go

through their trading committee over there.  It was

maybe a forty-five to sixty-day process.  If you knew

somebody--it's like politics anywhere, if you knew

somebody, they'd hand-carry it for you and you could

get it through in maybe a day.  But through the normal

procedures it would take that long.  And then the BIA

had to approve it.  But if you had not been in trouble,

accused of cheating or stealing or being dishonest in

business, there was no problem there.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever, once you'd purchased your new

store, have to then negotiate a brand new lease, once

that lease had ran out?

   

   Manning:  We just got extensions on it.  That's what

we got today.  They'd just extend it for another ten

years or another fifteen.  I think the last one we got

was a fifteen-year extension.

   

   Cole:  Does the tribe get a percentage of the

business?

   

   Manning:  Yes.  On the groceries, they get

1� percent of the gross, on the laundry they get

4 percent, and then we have a carwash there, and they

get 4 percent of that.

   

   Cole:  Was that always the case, that they'd get a

percentage?

   

   Manning:  No, it wasn't always.  The Traders

Association was formed and worked great, and I kind of

stayed out of it pretty much, as politics, in the early

days when this lease deal came in.  Two or three

traders had got in trouble.  They had padded accounts--

dishonesty.  And so they made a deal.  To kind of save

them, they wound up making a deal with the tribe that

"we'll pay you 1� percent of our business."  And my

dad, he fought it as hard as he could fight it, he and

Bruce both.  They said, you know, "Those guys got in

trouble.  Get rid of 'em."  Anyway, they had the vote

and the whole thing, and they wound up with this, and

my dad said, "You guys are gonna be sorry about this."

And the comment was, "Well, we'll pay what we want to

anyway.  We're not going to worry about the

1� percent."  I think there was a minimum of $300.  And

as in any type of business, basically, most of the

traders were honest.  There were a few that weren't,

but that was where the 1� percent came from.

   

   Cole:  Was that also on the pawn business, too?

   

   Manning:  The pawn would just be on the interest,

not on the amount that you loaned--it was just on the

interest.  It was 1� percent of your gross sales, and

the pawn would just be on the interest part of it.  And

it run into several thousands of dollars in places like

Barnard's and Shiprock Trade would be where they were

doing a large volume business.  The tribe didn't even

have a system set up to come and check their books.

Years later they did.  But it was a "bail a few guys

out" deal is what it was.

   

   Cole:  How did the Navajo react to a dishonest

trader?  Did you ever get a chance to see that?

   

   Manning:  No.  You know, I really didn't.  I don't

ever know of anybody in Shiprock that got in trouble.

I think they were--the Barnards had that store, the

Evans had Shiprock Trade.  This is back in the, say,

forties and fifties.  Bonds had the other one.  And

they were honest people.  They made a profit, they

didn't give things away.  Their prices were probably a

little higher than they were in Farmington--one reason,

because they paid a higher price.  Where they were

buying from Farmington Merc., well, they had a price

that they delivered right there in town, 'cause they

only had to take it two miles.  But they had to haul it

thirty miles to Shiprock, or they had to haul it 140

miles to Greasewood or something, and the farther they

went, the more they charged, and that makes sense.  But

no, I've never…  I know they put a trust in you.

   I guess one of my most miserable times of being in

business, I had a person get into our pawn room.  After

we moved off and got in here to Kirtland, I went out to

pump some butane, and wasn't paying any attention, I

guess.  Anyway, I went out and left the door open.

Somebody got in and took twenty-six pieces of jewelry.

And they knew what they were doing, they took good

jewelry.  It hurt me.  They lost trust in me.  They had

brought their jewelry, I paid for it, most of it I paid

double what it was worth.  But that did not solve the

trust thing.  The fact is, two of the customers today

that I had done business with for years, I lost one

belt that I paid $5,000 to the individual for the belt,

but that did not replace the belt.  And we'll shake

hands, but there's not the trust.  If I could change

anything that I've ever done in the trading business,

that would be the one thing that I'd change, that I'd

lock that door.  And today, they'll come in and they'll

pawn something, and they'll say, "You know, I trust

you."  And to me, that means a whole lot.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever have any problems of robberies

or anything like that in the Shiprock area?

   

   Manning:  In Shiprock various times they had break-

ins, but it would be--oh, they'd take some Levis or

cigarettes or candy.  Generally, it was kids.  And this

was probably the sixties, seventies, eighties.  The

farther you come into modern times, the more often it

occurs.  As a kid, I left my bike wherever I got off of

it.  I had a bike when I was about seven, and I'd get

off of it, and it may be by the house, or it may be

fifty yards from the house, and it was always there the

next morning.  It's not the same today.

   They did have a few [robberies].  Barnard's did have

one major robbery, and it was an Anglo, or it wasn't a

Navajo.  Somebody got in and used--I don't even know

what they call it--they cut a hole that big in the

vault door that they could crawl through the vault.

This was a bank vault door.  All they were after was

money.  We didn't lose one piece of pawn, fortunately.

But that was done by professionals or somebody that

knew what they were doing.  I came out of the pawn room

that afternoon, and there were two men standing just

back behind the cash register, into the store area.

And I stepped back into the pawn room.  For some

reason, boy, the hair on the back of my neck just stood

up when I saw these two guys.  [I said to myself,]

"What the heck's the matter with you?  Go on out and

get your business done," and I did.  And that night was

when it happened, and I know it was those two guys, in

my mind.  And I couldn't identify 'em on a bet, but I

know that's what it was.

   

   Cole:  Did they ever catch 'em?

   

   Manning:  No.

   

   Cole:  Were you a member of the United Indian

Traders Association?

   

   Manning:  Yes.  When we purchased the Dickens

Variety Store--he called it Dickens Variety--Dickens

Trading Post, we joined the Traders Association then.

I think Barnard's, I'm sure they were in the founding,

you know, when they originally set it up.

   

   Cole:  Apparently, when they began the Association,

they actually had numbers they gave out for jewelry.

   

   Manning:  Yes.

   

   Cole:  Do you know if Barnard's had a number?

   

   Manning:  You mean the pawn ticket?

   

   Cole:  Well, actually, what I've seen is a number

that they would stamp in a bracelet or a piece of

jewelry to sort of authenticate it.

   

   Manning:  I see.  No, Barnard's, I never saw 'em

doing that.  I know that they used what they called a

pawn tag.  They had a brass tag with a number on it,

that they would put onto the item, but it was just for

identification, just a way--they identified the number,

and then the customer was given a corresponding number,

and when he wanted to get his item back, well, he would

bring that item [i.e., corresponding number] with him.

Back then, it was different.  Now, one transaction, if

you come in to pawn to me, and you pawn a $500 belt for

$20, you can't come in next month and get another $20.

You've got to take it out, and re-do a complete new

transaction.  In those days, they'd borrow $20 and come

in and pay $5, and then three days later they'd borrow

$10, and you had a paper and you just scratched it out

and wrote it down, and scratched it out and wrote it

down.  And this would go on endlessly.  There'd be

maybe pawn tags stapled to pawn tags.  You know, they'd

be that thick that you'd trace the history of this

thing back for a month or six months or two years.

Today you can't do that.  It was a lot simpler then.

   

   Cole:  What kinds of issues were the Traders

Association involved with that you remember?

   

   Manning:  Mostly just involved with, as regulations

began to come onto the reservation, they were involved

in that.  Basically--and again, I wasn't involved in it

that much, my dad was.  He'd go over and he'd come back

that same day and say, "All this is, is a social

gathering."  (chuckles)  He wasn't really sold on the

Indian Traders Association.  They stayed in it, and it

did help when DNA came in and began to think everybody

was a crook.  You were accused, and it was a benefit

then, because they already had an organization set up

that all the traders belonged to, and they were able to

get together and hire an attorney to kind of offset

some of this.  But in my opinion, that was one of the

best things that the Traders Association did.

   They also pretty much insisted that you stayed--

well, not pretty much so, they did--that you stayed to

authentic Indian jewelry, as you were dealing with it,

selling it, as arts and crafts came into it.  They

didn't want the junk, they wanted the true Indian arts

and crafts.  And I think that was a good thing.

   Those two things, to me, was the two things the

Indian Traders Association did, other than a chance to

get together twice a year and visit.  Those that drank,

drank, and they had to carry 'em home.  (laughter)

That was part of it.

   

   Cole:  Were there a lot of the traders that that's

the only time you'd see 'em?

   

   Manning:  Yeah, in the early time, back, like I say,

in the fifties and times like that.  But as roads

improved, as transportation improved, Jewel McGee would

stop in Barnard's maybe twice a week, and he and Bruce

would visit, "How much are lambs gonna be this year?

How much wool's gonna be?  Have you talked to such and

such a buyer?" and those kind of things.  Hugh Foutz

from Sanostee would be in.  As the roads got good, and

transportation was better, why then it was pretty close-

knit.  Early, early, early times, gosh, they'd be out

there for six months at a crack, you know--didn't even

leave.

   

   Cole:  Did the Association ever work on any kind of

group buying or selling, do you know?

   

   Manning:  No.  You mean like a co-op?

   

   Cole:  Right.

   

   Manning:  No.  I don't think the guys could have got

along!  (laughter)  They'd have had a hard time getting

those old-time traders…  Once they got ahold of

something, they…  Trading posts stayed in the same

family for year after year after year--you know,

generations even.  Just because, "I've got it, and I

don't want to sell it.  I'll let my son or my daughter

or something, take over as I get too old."  But great

people to hold onto something.

   

   Cole:  When they had the FTC hearings at Window

Rock, did you go to that?

   

   Manning:  No, I didn't.  (sigh)  I stayed out of

politics as far as I could stay.  The FTC thing was bad

information and a bad deal.  It hurt everybody, but it

hurt the Navajo people a lot more than it hurt anybody

else.

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of curious, too, on the livestock

business.  How did that change over the years, sixties,

seventies, eighties?  Is it as productive as it used to

be?

   

   Manning:  Part of it was.  It keeps getting less and

less in that climatic conditions have changed.  There's

not the range that there was, there's not the grass.

Another thing is, they can make so much more money by

getting 'em a job with the bureau, or with the tribe,

with APS, with New Mexico Public Service, with the oil

company, that just brings in so much more money than

the livestock business.  And so then when you do that,

you can't take care of 500 head of sheep.  You can take

care of twenty, but you can't take care of the big

flocks that they used to have.  And there's--oh,

gracious, I don't know what the percentage would be,

but it's drastic low to what it was years ago.

   

   Cole:  When would you say it kind of peaked?, at

least when you were involved.

   

   Manning:  As I was involved, probably from the

middle sixties on, it gradually was a downward trend.

Each year they'd buy less bags of wool and less lambs.

And it's almost, oh gracious, I think as far as the

livestock business, it's almost extinct on the

reservation as far as involved in their livelihood.

It's more or less just extra income.  And sheep take a

lot more work than cattle.  Those that are still in it,

most of 'em have cattle.  They have a few sheep, but

that's just so they will have fresh mutton to eat.

There isn't near the wool or the lambs.  In Shiprock I

don't know where anybody'd even hardly--other than

Shiprock Trade was buying lambs--Barnard's quit.  Down

at Bond and Bond, which is now Chuck Foutz, he doesn't

buy.  And with Eddie or with [Jed's Change?], I don't

know whether he'll buy, even.  They do go to the

livestock auctions:  there's one in Cortez, there's one

in Aztec, there's one in Breen, and they take their

livestock there and sell it.

   

   Cole:  Were you or your dad--did you buy and sell

many horses?

   

   Manning:  Not much in horses.  There were lots of

horses.  There's still too many horses on the

reservation.  (laughter)  They didn't buy or sell many

horses.

   

   Cole:  In your dealings as a trader, did you have

any involvement with working to improve arts and

crafts, the weaving or…

   

   Manning:  Not personally.  Even today I'm not into

the arts and crafts business.  I just never did get

into it.  It's a good business.  I know a lot of the

Tanners and some of the Foutzes that have done very

well with it.  But again, to do that, you have to

travel, and I'm a person that--you know, they could

chop the highway off three miles up here and four miles

that way, and I'd live forever.  I don't like to

travel.  My idea of an extended vacation is a day to

get there, and two days there, and one day back.  In

the arts and crafts business, you gotta move around.  I

have two or three good friends, Eddie and Joe Tanner,

and those guys that do very well at it, but they like

to move around and I don't.  I guess that's the reason

we did never get into it.  You've gotta go find a

market for it.

   

   Cole:  Could I ask you a question about something we

talked about a while back?  I've been wondering,

talking about the Shiprock Fair again, as a young boy

did you actually get to go out and wander around the

fair?

   

   Manning:  Oh, yeah, sure.  Yeah, my mom and dad

didn't worry about me being to the fair.  My brother

and I, we were four years apart, but we'd get to go

over there when we were yea high.  We were accepted.

We did not go to the y�ii bicheii.  My dad said,

"That's no place for you.  That's their beliefs, their

lifestyle."  But as far as--they'd have a rodeo, and

the rodeo stock would be the ornery cow up the road,

and the horse that the guy couldn't ride.  I mean,

that's what they used for rodeo stock.  But yes, we

went.  We ran [all] over Shiprock, just wherever we

wanted to go.

   

   Cole:  What other events did they have besides the

rodeo?

   

   Manning:  Oh, they had horse races.  There wasn't

really so many events as it was [to] just get together

and visit.  That was basically the thing.  They'd see

their friend that they hadn't seen since last fair

time.  There was lots of laughin' and Navajo hand-

shaking.  They weren't…  What's the word?  Outwardly

affectionate people--I mean, as far as hugging and

kissing or that.  That you just didn't see.  But they

were a concerned people.  But the fair was a time to

get together and visit.  And then of course there was

the y�ii bicheii part of it.  And that was what they

came for.  It was the ceremonial part, it was the

religious part, and they would be there for that.  As

we see fairs today with carnivals and lots of livestock

displays and produce displays and all that--there

wasn't much.  The fact that they now have, what is it,

like 4-H--kids raise a lamb and sell it--that probably

didn't come in 'til, oh, maybe twenty-five years ago,

they began to have that.  And that started out, I think

the first one we went over to, I think they had eight

lambs.  I mean, that was the lamb show, you know.  And

it's built up to where now last year they probably had

sixty or eighty lambs in there to the 4-H part of it.

   

   Cole:  So was your dad ever invited to Navajo

ceremonies?  Or did he go?

   

   Manning:  My dad was not a religious man.  My dad

didn't even go to church until he was fifty-something,

and he felt that was their tradition, and the white man

wasn't really that much welcome there.  A few of 'em

went, a few of 'em were invited, and probably my dad

was invited, but he never went.

   

   Cole:  Were the traders ever expected to contribute

to the ceremonies?

   

   Manning:  Oh, yeah.  I guess as frightened as I ever

remember being as a little kid is when they come around

in costume in the y�ii bicheii, with the mask and the

thing, and come out and hoot and holler in front of the

store and what not.  And they'd take out cigarettes and

flour and all that kind of thing.  And I don't know,

maybe I was five years old or something, and these guys

were comin', and boy, I know I really high-tailed it

home.  But yes, they were--basically it's illegal.  I

think with the bureau thing, you can't get involved in

politics or their traditions.  But you still made a

contribution.  Now, it's down to they almost kind of

tell you what they want, you know.  Then, it was flour

and mutton and cigarettes and candy, and that type of

thing.  Nobody had any money.

   

   Cole:  Did you eat mutton, too?

   

   Manning:  No, I'm not a mutton eater.  My dad didn't

like it, and we never had that.  I've got some friends

that, man, they still can't get by without good mutton

stew at least once every two weeks.  Ate a lot of beans

and potatoes.

   

   Cole:  Overall, how have you seen trading change

over time?

   

   Manning:  From being a very integral part of the

Navajo's lifestyle, down to the point now that it

probably--as I grew up with trading--non-existing.

It's convenience stores now.  That's basically what the

trading posts are across the reservation, they're

convenience stores.  In Shiprock it wasn't that much,

because you had the Catholic Church and the Christian

Reform Church, and if they had a family member die or

something, well, they would generally go to one of

those two places and they would help 'em take care of

it.  Out [at] Sanostee, Red Rock, Red Mesa, the trader

might be called to take care of it.  Death with them

was a very taboo thing.  They just didn't want much to

do with it.

   We had a man by the name of Tom Johnson that worked

at Barnard's as long as I can remember.  He burned down

three homes.  When a person would die in the home,

they'd burn it down, and take nothing out of it.  He

just literally burned it down, and he burned down three

homes.

   I can remember a lady one time having a seizure in

the store, and boy, Bruce just had a--I mean, he

couldn't get her out of the building.  He was trying to

be kind, but also in the back of his mind, "If this

person passes away in this store, I'm out of business."

And they got the lady out.  Of course they didn't know

whether she was having a heart attack or what.  But she

had a seizure is what she had.  But had she passed away

in the store, he could have burned it down and started

over.  I mean, that's how rigid they were with it.  I

know he was one scared man.  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  Did Barnard's or your other store have guest

hogans?

   

   Manning:  No.  Again, this is farther out they had.

   

   Cole:  What would you say you're most proud of as a

trader?

   

   Manning:  I guess of the trust that a lot of Navajo

people have in me, and that I've never been dishonest

with 'em.  I probably have--not probably, I do have--

more Navajo friends than I have Anglo friends, because

I've spent my life with 'em.  They're a good people.

They've adopted, I guess, some of our ways, and some of

'em haven't been good.  But the older people, I think

their word was their bond.  What they told you was what

it was.  Maybe we all do.  Race has nothing to do with

it.  I think as a country, we've become more dishonest

people--"don't hurt to lie about it a little," you

know.  That's just maybe a bad lifestyle that we've got

into.  I enjoy seeing my Navajo friends.  I'm not

involved at the pawn shop as much as I was--our

daughter runs it, and she's worked with us for probably

twelve years or fourteen years.  But when I am down

there, I go down on the first of the month to help, I

see 'em come in, we have a good time.  We visit and we

do it in English--we don't do much in Navajo.  I've

forgot most of the Navajo that I ever did know.  But it

is getting to the point where I wanted…  I was down

there maybe two months ago and a gentleman came in and

I asked him, "What can I do for you?"  He said, "Ach, I

don't want to deal with you, I want to deal with your

daughter, she knows what's going on."  I said, "I

finally got this thing where I want it!"

   In the early times I used to get so upset.  They'd

come in and they'd want to do business with my dad, and

they just wouldn't let Chuck or I do it.  I mean,

they'd wait all day.  My dad would get--he said, you

know, "Do something in here!  I've got 'em backed up."

I said, "They won't let me.  I've asked 'em, and they

just want to do business with [you]."  It was kind of

that way as my daughter first started comin' in with

us--they wouldn't let her wait on 'em, and I'd have to

tell 'em, "She knows what she's doin', she's my

daughter, she's okay."  Then when I got that, "I don't

want to do business with you, I want to do it with your

daughter," we're gettin' where we need to be.

   

   Cole:  What do you think you taught the Navajo, if

anything?

   

   Manning:  I don't know whether I really taught 'em

anything.  (chuckles)  Probably the only thing that I

hope they picked up was that my dad was an honest

person--honesty with him was an obsession, and he tried

to pass that on to Jim and I.  I don't think--I'm not

going to say--sure, you can find somebody that you've

had a little trouble with, or might say, "No, he's not

[honest]," but as far as the three of us are concerned,

I don't think they'd find very many that would say,

"No, they were not fair with me."  And these

individuals were fair with us.  There was a good

relationship.  I've lost thirty pounds in the last five

months.  I like to eat.  Grace Toglena [phonetic

spelling] had been back.  Her kids moved back to

Washington.  I hadn't seen her in five years.  And she

came in the store and I was down there at the shop, and

she come in and she looked and she said, "Jackie!?  Is

that you?"  And I said, "Yeah."  She said, "You are so

fat!  I can't believe how fat you are!  What in the

world's the matter with you?!"  So I took Grace's

advice, and I'm going to lose forty-five, fifty pounds.

(laughter)  And those things to me are kind of fun

things.

   

   Cole:  What would you say you learned from the

Navajo?

   

   Manning:  To be patient, don't get in a hurry.  Even

today, they still have patience.  If you don't get it

done today, it'll be there tomorrow.  And not to be too

loud-mouthed.  They were a quiet people.  I respect

their traditions.  I think that if that's what they do--

my dad told me this story.  He said there was a little

boy, he was probably eight.  He had impetigo all over

his face, all over his hands.  And impetigo can just be

a running sore.  It used to be very prevalent on the

reservation.  And they had him into the PHS hospital,

and Dad said this little kid, it was just pitiful to

see him.  And so the family went out to the mountain

behind Red Rock, they had a three-day sing.  He said

when the kid come back, his skin's like mine.  He said

there wasn't a blemish on it.  And he said from then

on…  It wasn't particularly for him, but anytime

they come in and said, "We need money for a sing," he

said, "If at all possible, we made sure they had it."

That I didn't see, but my dad did.  So I guess it comes

back to faith and what you believe.  But the doctors,

they couldn't touch it.  Whatever they did--he didn't

know, I don't know--but the little boy didn't have a

sore on him anywhere.

   

   Cole:  Did you stock any special items at the post

for any kind of doctoring or veterinary stuff?

   

   Manning:  Yes, they kept veterinary supplies there--

ointments and salves, and then when penicillin came in,

penicillin and syringes, and sheep dip, and those types

of things.  As far as for an individual, it was just

your over-the-counter aspirins and Alka-Seltzer and

Pepto-Bismol.  They used a lot of Pepto-Bismol.  I can

remember 'em buyin' Pepto-Bismol by the cases.  But

that was basically it.

   

   Cole:  If you were going to tell an Anglo about what

he should know about Navajo culture or religion, or

anything like that about the Navajo, what would you

tell them?

   

   Manning:  Oh, to respect their beliefs, even though

they'd probably be different than his or hers.  To take

time to get to know them.  I don't think you make

friends with the Navajo (snaps fingers) like that.  I

think it takes time.  It takes some trust.  All in all,

they're very good people.  I love to do business with

them, and live among them, and let them have their

room, and not try to change 'em particularly to my way

of thinking.  They'd be good people to know.

   

   Cole:  What would you say would be the difference

between the way a trader interacts with the Navajo, and

the way a missionary or a schoolteacher…

   

   Manning:  A trader was--not today, the old-time

trader--he was their source of livelihood, so to say.

He provided the groceries for 'em and took care of

their stock, or purchased it.  Missionaries--they [the

Navajos] don't like to offend anybody, so missionaries

come in and maybe it's a Mormon missionary, and they

accept it, it's great; and six months later it's a

Christian Reform missionary, and they accept him as

great.  They don't like to tell you no, and so they may

belong to four different religions.  Schoolteachers, as

I grew up and went to school, and even as most of our

kids grew up, they had a lot of respect for teachers.

Today in our school systems, it's a disaster.  There's

no discipline, they're scared to discipline.  In my

opinion, when you lose discipline, you've lost

everything.  With some of the rulings judges have

handed down, a teacher's scared to do anything, and

kids find that out.  They know that.  We've got trouble

right here, and this is a little quiet community.

We've got kids that are scared to walk down the halls

of our public schools.  And that's sad.  And to me, it

goes back to government rulings, to judges' rulings,

that you can't tell somebody "no," that you can't say,

"Johnny, you go sit down, and you stay there.  'Cause

if you don't, I'm gonna blister your hiney," or "you're

gonna stay after school," or whatever happens.  And

they're scared to do that.  You can go down to the

school board here and mention lawsuit, and they'll go

right through the roof, they'll give you whatever you

want.  And that's not right.  And so not only have the

Navajo people, I think, lost respect for educators, but

so have the rest of us.

   You know, the teacher used to be--that was the

choicest job you could have in a community, because you

were looked up to being smarter than anybody else--

especially if you'd gone to college and had a degree.

Those were rare things as I grew up as a kid.  The only

person I knew that really had a degree was the

schoolteacher, the lady that tried to teach me to read

and write and figure two and two.  If I got in any

trouble at school, it was minor to what [I got] when I

got home.  And so I'm not a quick learner, but it only

took about once for me to know that I'd better behave

in school.  We don't have that today.

   

   Cole:  What impact has technology, like television

and stuff, made on the reservation?

   

   Manning:  Oh, they love television.  It's made a

world of difference.  Television and an automobile has

changed their way of living tremendously.  I doubt

whether you can find a home that doesn't have a TV and

a VCR in it.  It would be so rare that it would be--I'd

almost gamble that you'll find a TV and a VCR in

practically every Navajo home.  And you find 'em in

your home and my home.  They like movies.  As I was

sayin' a while ago, they got five places to rent videos

right here in Kirtland, and we're a little tiny place,

and they do a good business.  Eddie's being wise,

pawning the VCR.  He pawns it for $40, that's $4 a week

times 52 is…  I don't know, what is that?  Two

hundred and some dollars.  And if you're doing that

with fifty VCRs, you take 40 times 50 is 2,000, you

take a $2,000 investment and turn it every seven days--

not bad--a lot better than I do with the jewelry or the

belts.  But not in my lifetime.

   

   Cole:  Maybe we should get you to just elaborate.

When we had the tape turned off, you explained that

they would get them out on the weekend, but I don't

think you have that on this tape.

   

   Manning:  Okay, as a lot of pawn businesses have

gone into pawning electronics, on Monday an individual

will bring their VCR in and pawn it to you, and then on

Friday they come in and take it out and watch movies

over the weekend.  And then on Monday it comes back.

Mike Lee has a pawn shop just about, oh, seventy-five

yards from us, and we're good friends.  He said, "I can

almost set my watch by people bringin' their VCRs in on

Monday.  This family's in by 9:30, and this family's in

at 11:30, and this one doesn't come in 'til four."  But

they come in on Monday, and they pawn their VCR.  The

same process takes place on Friday.  They come in and

take it out.  It's a good business if you're just not

hard-headed.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever trade with other Native American

groups other than Navajos?

   

   Manning:  No.  Once in a while we would see a Ute

that would either come from maybe Igracio or Towac.

Other than that, it wasn't like Clarence.  Clarence

[Wheeler] was over there in that area where he was with

the Hopi and the Navajo both.  And I think he speaks

both languages pretty well.

   

   Cole:  Do you have any favorite stories or humorous

stories that come to mind?

   

   Manning:  Oh…  (pause)  Not that really comes to

mind.  I know back in the horse and wagon days, the

biggest excitement is when a team would run away.

Something would frighten 'em, scare 'em, and they'd

take off with the wagon.  I can remember the Navajo

people just--if you heard a lot of commotion, you could

almost bet that you could go out and down that gravel

road you'd see a team goin' lickety-split and

everything flyin' out of the wagon, and it fallin' to

pieces maybe, but that was a big joke, that was lots of

fun, as long as it wasn't your wagon.  (laughter)  I

don't remember anything that comes to mind right quick.

   

   Cole:  Do you see any future in the trading business

on the reservation?

   

   Manning:  I see no future in it.  It's convenience

store.  I think it'll get more and more--I think the

time will almost come where even convenience stores

will have a hard time making it.  Shiprock, Kayenta,

Chinle, places like that, will get bigger supermarkets

in 'em, and with their ability to travel and liking to

travel, they'll drive there.  One thing that used to

keep them to a particular location was credit.  [Now,

there's] very, very little credit on the reservation.

I think even with anybody, maybe Red Rock out there,

but I would say their credit is almost nil.

   No, Indian trader's a thing gone by.  I had to fill

out�  I was having an interview here a while back with

an individual, and it said for "occupation," and I

wrote down "Indian trader."  And this guy said,

"There's no such thing as an Indian trader."  I said,

"Yeah, you're lookin' at one.  I was born an Indian

trader and I'll die an Indian trader."  He said,

(almost in disgust) "Indian trader!"  He didn't

understand it.  I think he thought it was a bad or an

unkind thing, that maybe I was trading Indians!

(laughs)  Anyway, it's been a good life.

   

   Cole:  What do you think the future of the

reservation is?

   

   Manning:  I don't think it's gonna change--it's not

a good future.  The Navajo people, more and more, are

wanting to get off the reservation.  Those that are

progressive, and have the chance, they're coming off

and buying a piece of land that's theirs.  As I said

before, in my opinion, the reservation has outlived

itself, it needs to be made into a state, completely

done away with--something.  But as it functions today,

it's not a good deal.  And you can probably find

somebody that would disagree with me, that it is a good

deal.  But as I've seen it all my life, it's not a good

deal.

   

   Cole:  Do you have any questions, Lew?

   

   Steiger:  I think I've asked 'em.

   

   Cole:  Okay.  Is there anything else you'd like to

add, Jack?

   

   Manning:  No, just I think it's nice you guys are

doin' this--not particularly on mine, but I may even go

over there and see if I can see what some of the other

traders had to say one of these days.  There's a lot of

'em, most of 'em I've known their dads.  I've got to

that age.  But it's been…  Bruce Barnard used to

say, "When you get a whole bunch of Indian traders

together, those that have got it are lyin' that they

don't have; and those that don't have it are lyin' that

they got it.  So," he said, "it's a heck of a lyin'

party!"  (laughter)  Anyway, that was one of the old-

time guys, that's the way he viewed it, as far as the

traders were concerned.

   

   Cole:  Well, thank you.

   

   Manning:  You're very welcome.

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]