The Journey of Navajo Oshley

Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2000 The Journey of Navajo Oshley Robert S. McPherson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons Recommended Citation Oshley, N., & McPherson, R. S. (2000). The journey of Navajo Oshley: An autobiography and life history. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Journey of Navajo Oshley Navajo Oshley in his later years sitting outside of his “half-a-house.” (Photo courtesy of Francell Blickenstaff ) The Journey of Navajo Oshley An Autobiography and Life History Edited by Robert S. McPherson Foreword by Barre Toelken Utah State University Press Logan, Utah Copyright © 2000 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah Typography by WolfPack Cover design by Michelle Sellers Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oshley, Navajo. The journey of Navajo Oshley : an autobiography and life history / edited by Robert S. McPherson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87421-291-X (pbk.) — ISBN 0-87421-290-1 (hardcover) 1. Oshley, Navajo. 2. Navajo Indians—Biography. 3. Navajo Indians—History. I. McPherson, Robert S., 1947- II. Title. E99.N3 O766 2000 979.1’004972’0092—dc21 00-008147 Contents Illustrations vi Acknowledgments ix Foreword xi by Barre Toelken Introduction 1 Genesis of the Project 3 The Autobiography 27 The Life of Navajo Oshley 29 Later Life 163 The Later Livestock Years 165 Daily Life in Town 179 Religion and Death 203 Index 217 Illustrations Oshley in later years frontis Oshley’s World (map) xiv Oshley in black hat 2 Navajos in the CCC 6 Navajos in Blanding, ca. 1930s 8 Bob Keith’s wife and children, 1930s 10 Bob Keith’s abandoned hogan 11 Oshley and son Wesley 13 Billsie hogan in Westwater 15 Translator Bertha Parrish 16 Ray Hunt, ca. 1930s 18 Oshley television interview 24 Earliest photo of Oshley, ca. 1930s 28 A Navajo camp 31 Hogan near Where Dynamite Made a Road 35 Bluff, Utah, and San Juan River, 1895 39 Utes in Bluff, 1915 41 Sheep and goats in Monument Valley 43 El Capitan 47 Cane Valley 51 Navajo riders in Bluff, early 1900s 59 Men in a trading post 67 Where Dynamite Made a Road 68 Chilchinbeto Trading Post 70 Trading post interior 73 Spencer Trading Post 75 Blanding, Utah, in the 1920s 79 Navajos gambling 80 May and Eugene Powell 85 A display of Navajo weaving 90 Sheep at Hookatow Wash 94 Wetherills’ trading post in Kayenta 96 Ray Hunt at Chilchinbeto Trading Post 101 Sheep crossing the San Juan River 104 Road in Mexican Hat, 1916 106 Girl with tuberculosis 109 Parley Redd, 1911 113 Transportation in Monument Valley, 1916 120 Sarah Keith 126 Bob Keith’s family in Blanding, 1940s 127 Mary Oshley, her mother, and Oshley children 129 Benallys carding and spinning wool 135 Bluff, Utah 140 Bob Keith chopping wood 145 Old sweat lodge in Westwater 155 Navajo woman from Westwater 159 Blanding in the 1930s 162 Navajo Oshley 164 Floyd Nielson 166 Butchering a goat 169 Norman Nielson saddling horse 170 Norman “Skinny” Nielson 173 Mary and Navajo Oshley working together 175 Norman Nielson and Oshley, 1985 176 Oshley and hogan 180 Mary and Navajo at new home, 1950s 182 Painting of Oshley camp 184 Oshley and children 186 Oshley in Parley Redd Mercantile 188 Albert R. Lyman 189 Mary, Navajo, daughter, and grandchildren 192 Oshley taking grandson to school 194 Sweat lodge in Westwater 196 Mary Oshley 197 Oshley by woodpile 199 Navajo wedding basket 202 Oshley in 1985 206 Oshley in nursing home 210 Mary Oshley late in life 213 Navajo Oshley, respected and loved 214 Acknowledgments Writing acknowledgments for the beginning of a book at the end of the process is enjoyable for three reasons. First, it is an opportunity to go back to the inception of the work and retrace the various steps that led to its completion. In this case, approximately ten years elapsed from start to finish. Perhaps that is entirely too long, but I hope it will prove worth the wait. Second are the people involved. There were many over the years who proved essential in recreating the events and feelings of Navajo Oshley’s life. The most obvious is Winston B. Hurst, who not only helped tape-record Oshley’s story, preserved it at the Utah State Historical Society, and provided a companion study of the growth of the Westwater community on the outskirts of Blanding but also encouraged the entire process of translating the tapes and writing the manuscript. His heart is buried deep in the people and places of southeastern Utah, and I admire him for that. Right beside Hurst stand Joanne Oshley Holiday and Marilyn Oshley, two daughters, who provided information, pictures, and memories of their dad. Amidst the laughter and the tears, they were able to paint a very human picture of what he was like as a father, grandfather, and friend. There were others who assisted in providing a closer view of the man. For instance, John Holiday, an eighty-year-old medicine man and relative of Oshley, was extremely influential in clarifying places, people, and events that otherwise would have been lost to the historic record. His perspective and intimate knowledge give a clarity to the past that will serve future gen- erations well. There were also members of the Anglo community such as Ray Hunt, now deceased, who worked in trading posts and with Oshley for years: William Riley Hurst, store owner; Norman Nielson, livestock- man and Oshley’s foreman; and Bill Redd, store owner and friend—all of whom contributed to a better understanding of him as an individual. Each of these men held Oshley in high esteem. Other people provided the “nuts and bolts” of the project. For instance, Janet Wilcox and LaVerne Tate, through the Blue Mountain ix x The Journey of Navajo Oshley Shadows Organization, secured funding for the translation of the taped interviews from Bruce Loutham, archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management. Bertha Parrish translated the interview from tape to text and from Navajo to English, while Marilyn Holiday read the rough draft and advised on content, assisting in maintaining accuracy and the proper “voice.” Without their guidance, much could have been lost. Garth Wilson, an excellent teacher of the Navajo language, spent hours helping with the orthography in the text. Appreciation is also expressed to Charlotte J. Frisbie, John Farella, Joyce Griffin, and Barre Toelken for their reading of the manuscript, with an extra thanks to Barre for his excellent foreword. A final thanks is given to John Alley, editor of Utah State University Press and enthusiast for the project. He has made the lat- ter part of this work both fun and rewarding. The third and final reason that writing this acknowledgment is enjoyable is that it prefaces a hope. Most authors think that their work is important and helpful, and I suppose I am no different. What I would like, more than anything else, is to have the people of southeastern Utah appreciate the life of this one man and realize that there are many other men and women in all of our shared cultures that have lived honorably under trying circumstances. If people grasp this one point, then Oshley’s life will have made us all better. Foreword Barre Toelken The force of this book lies in its insider’s portrayal of everyday Navajo life in one of the West’s most culturally dynamic areas: the so- called “Four Corners,” where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. While that distinctive spot—the only place in the United States where four states intersect—is clearly visible on today’s maps, the fasci- nating cultural forces that shaped the surrounding area’s human identities are not so well recognized. Not only did the Anasazi culture leave a mate- rial legacy of abandoned cities and cliff dwellings, pottery, irrigation sys- tems, and petroglyphs, but more recent arrivals over the past five to seven hundred years—Navajos from the far north, Utes and Southern Paiutes from the west, Spaniards and later Mexicans from the southeast—added their active presence to the ancient tenure of the Pueblo peoples. In this vast desert area, people once traveled by foot or horseback, and virtually every large stone, hillock, arroyo, and water seep had a name used for direction, comfort, protection, and survival. For the Navajo, the fading of a minutely articulated landscape probably started with the advent of cars, pickup trucks, and a more formal road system. Many of the old names and places have become obsolete, having been replaced by the names of gas stations, trading posts, schools, missions, and mines. To be sure, some old names are still there, many of them because they represent water sources: Oljato (Moon Water), Chilchinbeto (Sumac Springs), Mexican Water, Sweetwater. Navajo Oshley lived intimately in the older, intensely familiar Navajo world in which places like Teec Nos Pos (Cottonwoods in a Circle, or Whirling Cottonwoods) were common, not quaint puzzlements on a tourist’s map. He lived during a period many would consider the zenith of that cultural era, between the trauma of Navajo internment at Fort Sumner in the 1860s and the bureaucratization of the Navajo tribe in the 1950s. Make no mistake: the Navajo tribe did not vanish conveniently during that time, as many Americans supposed it would; rather, the people grew from an estimated twenty thousand to xi xii The Journey of Navajo Oshley about fifty thousand by the 1950s and over two hundred thousand today.

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