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The fields are filled with the desire of bees and reeds and roots that move to waters and the sounds of rain -bell bronze, fields sing bright stalks of grain like tongues at Pentecost. The sumac is the first to turn when air burns amber as a tortoise shell and then, to the October ides, this fruit that's kinder for the frost -pale fruit and mellow frost and dry, gold day our mouths are filled with sun and sleepiness. -Katharine Privett What's a nice girl like me doing at the Grand National Quail Hunt? It sounded like fun! I was not aware that Wild Turkey Hunters leave their roosts at 3:30 a.m. so as to arrive at their destination points before the Grand National Endurance Test. Wild Turkeys leave their roosts. (Change "some" to "yours truly.") BY Everything at the Grand National It starts with Registration on Wednes- starts early. day then a Reception at Groendykes PE( Enid is headquarters for the Big Lodge. Thursday morning breakfast is Bird Bash. It is a contest of celebrities served at 7:00 a.m.- not 7:05! Nine versus celebrities. The superbowl of to five everyone is in the field. Back Red Carpet Country hospitality, and in time to dress for another Reception, outdoor fun and games. Oklahoma has Dinner, and New Shooters' Initiation. long been recognized as one of the Friday morning breakfast is served top quail hunting states and few thrills at 5:30 a.m. New Shooters traditional- equal the explosive rise of a covey of ly hunt Canada Geese at the Great Bobwhite quail. To bag one of these Salt Plains and the Past Shooters super fast flying birds requires quick hunt Wild Turkey. That afternoon reflexes and a sharp eye. the Enid Gun Club is open for Shoot- Quail usually travel less than 300 ers to try their luck at Skeet and yards a day. They feed early, and Trap. Friday evening is the Grand again late in the afternoon, roosting National Stag Dinner and Induction. on the ground close to their feeding Saturday breakfast is at 7:00 a.m. areas. Quail eat acorns, wild mulber- Hunting in the Championship Flights ries, blackberries, leaves of some nine to five p.m., scores tabulated, plants growing close to the ground, and the Victory Banquet and Awards weed seeds, small grain and various program scheduled for 7:30 p.m. bugs. They get much of their liquids Sunday the Shooters depart Enid. from dew. Club members spend more than $20,- During the middle of the day the 000 each year and donate many thou- quail stop feeding, coinciding nicely sands of hours to the preparation and with the hunters' lunch break. The hosting of the Grand National Quail hunters who compete in the Grand Hunt. They enjoy the sportsmanship National are invited by the Governor, and showing off some of the best quail who also captains the Oklahoma hunting in the world. They also enjoy Team. Approximately 20 new shooters persuading the guests to invest in are invited each year. All hunting is Oklahoma oil, industry, cattle, real done on private land owned by mem- estate, and banks. bers of the Grand National Club. Club membership is around 200, Contestants hunt in groups of 2-4, es- who pay sizeable dues and do the corted by members of the Grand Na- work. I help promote, register, and tional Quail Club, which also provides write hunting licenses. I don't have all dogs. to pay dues. That's not too shabby Some have even referred to the for a girl who enjoys the Red Carpet Grand National Quail Hunt as the Bird Bash hospitality once a year! Countryside near Optima: beneath which lie buried the remains of extensive, pre-historic human culture. Pottery sherds, flint, stone, and bone: tools found among ancient dwelling ruins beneath Optima earth. I , We first examined the buried living like a modest beauty, as one leaves the to the sixteenth century. On the complex under and around Optima in highway. Mesas and lovely hidden Stamper ranch twelve single unit pit- 1948. Students from my University of valleys are covered with stiff spined houses, kiva style, half underground Tulsa classes, with the inspirational yucca and buffalo grass, varied with and half aboveground, have been un- guidance of "Uncle Billy Baker," the ever-fresh greenness of sage. Along covered. Their foundations are of photographed pithouse remnants on the Beaver River vales of rare solitary caliche slab. Immaculately finished the Stamper ranch. beauty lie like jewels against the dis- floors contain fire pits. In the adobe Former Cimarron County agricul- tant escarpments. The prairie curlew and stick roofs were smoke openings. tural agent "Uncle Billy" was ab and the sandpiper flourish here, and The walls were either of clay and lute dean of Panhandle archaeology. the splendor of Western Oklahoma sapling construction or caliche adobe His residence in Boise City was a liv- envelopes one like a gentle mantle. structure. There were igloo-like entry- ing museum which overflowed on Into this area in 1886, in a cov- ways, serving as weather and snow lawn and driveway. He was a Rem- ered wagon from Missouri, came guards, and as an impediment to the ington figure, over six feet tall, wear- Charles Stamper. He established a six entry of predatory animals. ing his Stetson like a Westerner. Great hundred acre ranch on the Beaver These houses were random shelter white mustaches jutted out over a adjacent to present day Optima. as there was no townsite or ceremonial massive chin. Optima, latitude 36"45', longitude center. From the evidence we can He was gentle and kind, impatient 101°21', altitude 3020 feet, popula- gather it appears that these people with fraud, erudite, and thoroughly in- tion 103, covers an archaeological were loosely banded together, a semi- formed in his field. His remarkable complex which coils beneath it like a hunting and agricultural society. They collection is now in the No Man's huge serpent. It has been exposed at made exquisite coil baskets. They had Land Museum at Panhandle A. & M., two sites. the spindle whorls of an early cotton- in Goodwell, administered by a fine One is the Stamper site, excavated weaving culture. curator team, Dr. and Mrs. Harold in 1933-34 by Oklahoma University. Their unpainted globular pottery Kachel. On the north end of the figurative is cord paddle marked, and seems to The area which, prior to territorial serpent is the lkro Sisters site, un- be brush and dung fired with the days, was called the Public Land covered in 1972. These sites, with consequent black to tan colors. On a Strip, west of the Cherokee outlet, is others such as the Turpin site in the fragment embellished with loops? for a land which looks monotonous from Antelope focus and the Gate site, are hanging, there is some edge decora- the highway, but reveals itself, shyly dated tentatively from the thirteenth tion made with fingernail pressure. I AUTUMN 1976 SEVEN I was utilized as building material be- the Stamper site people added crushed cause it was abundant nearby, and quartz mica and scoria to the clay. OPTIMA easy to shape. Stone, bone, and antler Stamper site pots from the Kachel tools were found at the site, as well collection, now being studied by Vin- as fine chipped flint knives. Drills, cent Dale, are large utility vessels, The earlike loops indicate that these scrapers, and single-ended needles, as some with ears for suspension. One were meant to be suspended jars, well as flaking tools, were excavated. concludes that the Optima people serving either for water cooling, or for The type of flint found indicated the were good ceramists, architects, and rodent proof grain storage. The ware famous Amarillo quarries. Obsidian toolmakers, as well as hunters, agri- indicates superb skill in ceramics. It was obtained from the Capulin vol- culturists, and textile producers. Their is tempered with one part quartz pow- cano. environment was harsh. Of luxuries der to three parts of clay. Aesthetical- The type of pottery from the Opti- there were none. ly, the lack of effigy shapes and ma site is referred to as globular. It Credits: For Stamper material and in- paucity of decoration would seem to varies from a squat, roundish shape formation I am indebted to Mr. and Mrs. indicate a people who had little leisure with flaring lip, to a taller, propor- Zellner Glenn of Guymon, and to Dr. and Mrs. Harold Kachel of Goodwell; for Two time and lived a hard-bitten existence. tioned shape with a straight cyclindri- Sisters material to Vincent Dale, and the Bone awls, hammerstones, mortars cal neck. Vincent Dale, an extraordi- Kachel, White and Zunk collections. All and metates were found. Painted pot- archaeological sites are protected by law, narily resourceful archaeologist, sup- under the direction of the Oklahoma tery fragments from further southwest, plied me with slides of the Tbo Sis- Archaeological Survey. The Stamper srte as well as turquoise, indicate trade ters site. Through personal research, excavation is reported at length in the Virginia D. Watson report, Bulletin of the with the Pueblo peoples. A copious he learned the secret of the tempering Texas Archaeological and Paleontological supply of projectile points show bow of the Optima focus pottery. Society, Lubbock, Texas, Vol. 21, 1950. and arrow use. See also Robert Bell, Oklahoma In order to keep clay vessels from Archaeology, Stovall Museum publication, The ethnological name for these shrinking and cracking during firing, 1969. people is Anasazi, Navajo for "Out- sider from Old." Anusazi tradition can be divided into two epochs: the early basket makers and Pueblo dwellers made their first appearance at per- haps 50 B.C.

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