CLARENCE WHEELER INTERVIEW

   

   

   [BEGIN SIDE 1]

   

   This is Brad Cole from Northern Arizona University.

[Today is March 10, 1998.]  We're with Clarence Wheeler

in his house in Farmington, New Mexico.  Also in the

room is Lew Steiger, running the sound and camera

equipment.  We're here to ask Mr. Wheeler some

questions about his years as an Indian trader on the

Navajo and Hopi Reservations.

   

   Cole:  Clarence, if you could tell us when and where

were you born?

   

   Wheeler:  October 11, 1927, at Red Mesa, Colorado.

When I was born, the blood that come into my heart and

system and through my veins apparently had "Indian

trader" written all over 'em, because that's the only

thing I really ever wanted to do in my life.  My

grandmother started the thing off, and my grandparents,

and then I picked it up from there.  Out of high

school, I went to Smith Lake, close to Crownpoint, New

Mexico, was my first trading post.  I worked for my

brother-in-law, Charlie McGee, there at that trading

post.  I was there ten months, and I learned a lot

about buying lambs, issuing credit, buying rugs.  In

those days, you bought rugs by the pound.  You put 'em

on the scale and you give 'em a flat price of $1.75 a

pound, regardless of how good or how they was, that was

the way you bought rugs then.  We even started with the

old SECO money.  It had the Smith Lake Trading Post

SECO money that was trade money.  That was a type of

credit that you let out--if you bought a rug or

jewelry, you give 'em that.  They traded it back, and

you accepted it against merchandise or anything in the

store.

   Then from there I went to Keams Canyon, Arizona.  I

worked there, and I went there in 1948, for my brother-

in-law, the McGees--Bill McGee and Cliff McGee, and

C. A. Wheeler.  They all owned the trading post

together.  So I worked there and [I was in] that

trading post about twelve years.  And then we bought

the Piñon Trading Post, which is a very famous post

that used to belong to Lorenzo Hubbell and his brother.

But before that, I was at Polacca Trading Post with the

Hopis.  Now, we did have Navajos and Hopis together

trade with us, but the trading post at Polacca was the

old Pom Bobatia [phonetic spelling] Trading Post at the

bottom of the mesa.  Here I found a real friendship

with my Indian people.  They called me "the magpie" and

I learned the Hopi language.  How I picked it up, I

don't know.  They called me Magpie, and I was called up

on the Mesa a time or two for using some bad words, but

they said, "Well, we'll excuse you, because they taught

it to you."

   And then we bought the Piñon Trading Post from

there.  It was a great experience, a great, great area.

   

   Cole:  You said the trading was in your blood.  Were

your parents or grandparents traders also?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, my grandmother was really the trader.

She was what they called the same thing as a medicine

man, with the Navajos there.  She doctored with herbs.

You couldn't just go right down here to Sandborne

[phonetic spelling] Hospital and get a shot, or for a

cold, or whatever.  You know, it was doctored by herbs,

and that's why I say she was a doctor through herbs and

natural medicines.  When I went to Lukachukai, a man

come in and he asked me in Navajo, "Are you Mósí?" or

the Cat Clan, and I said, "Yes, my grandmother was

called The Cat," because she had been doctoring those

people all the time, and that's how she got in the

trading business.  And he said, "Yes, we went all the

way from Lukachukai Mountain, over to some white lady.

She was a Mormon lady.  She doctored us and got us over

the impetigo."

   And then one young man come in that had blood

poisoning in his arm, and it had swelled double it's

size and [he] was about to die.  My grandfather said,

"Well, you can't save that young man."  And he was

nearly dead, and she took some pine pitch gum and some

herbal medicines and put it in there and made a

poultice and drew all that poison out of that boy's arm

and saved his life.  So that's how she got involved in

the trading business, is that they give her gifts of

rugs and livestock, and so she started a trading post

from there.

   

   Cole:  What was her name?

   

   Wheeler:  Harriet Adelta Bingham Wheeler.  My

grandfather's name was Joseph Edward Wheeler.  He

didn't do much of the business end of it.  He helped

her clerk a little bit.  He done the freighting from

Durango--brought goods in from Durango.  They had a

railhead up there, and they brought goods in for the

store from there--cloth and merchandise, such as that

they needed in there.

   

   Cole:  Where was that store that your grandmother

[had]?

   

   Wheeler:  [following edited (Tr.)]  It's about a two-

and-a-half miles from the original Hogback Trading

Post, and they started their store there.  It's down in

the fields there.  It's right along the highway, right

diagonal from the Fina station down at the hogback

there.

   

   Cole:  [I'm] sort of curious, coming from a

background, a family of traders, are there any family

stories that particularly stand out that maybe your

grandmother or parents might have told you?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, the one is where my grandfather had

a large beard, and the Indians come across the only

crossing--you had to swim a horse across the San Juan

River.  And they come across and they borrowed all his

guns to hunt rabbits.  There was a lot of rabbits, and

they gathered 'em, you know, and then they'd kill 'em

and have a feast.  Somehow, they got into the alcohol--

wine or something--and they come back, and then they

tried to rob my grandfather's trading post.  They

pulled him over the counter and pulled half of his

beard out.  There were five of them.  He was a

blacksmith, and he had awful powerful arms.  He hit

them with the branding iron and he had blood all over

him because they were bleeding profusely from the head.

He was only protecting himself.  And there were five of

them, and he was a pretty stout little guy with them

blacksmith arms.  If he got ahold of you, why, he could

put a hurt on you.  He got 'em out, finally, and they

left him alone.  But he had to shave his beard from

that time on.  He no longer wore the long beard from

then on.

   

   Cole:  So when you were at Smith Lake starting as a

trader, what was the trading post like?  What did it

look like, and how far away was it?

   

   Wheeler:  It was a bull pen type trading post,

everything was behind the counter.  You served them out

everything.  We carried all kind of groceries,

everything--watermelons in season, and all canned

goods, kerosene.  We had gas there, [for] those that

had cars.  When I started, money wasn't in abundance.

It was all on the barter basis.  You charged their

account for it, and they returned it in either wool,

mohair, [or] lambs at the end of the season.  They

brought in pelts.  As I had said previously, we used

pelts as a loss leader to bring people in.  You saw

very little money in those days.  It wasn't an

abundance of money, it was through the barter system

that we had.  Sometimes in a day you'd see less than

ten dollars take-in, but your credit accounts were

drawn beyond that, and that's how we done the trading--

and also jewelry.  Very good area at Smith Lake--there

were some fantastic silversmiths in that area.  We also

bought their jewelry and re-traded it and sold it to

recoup our monies.

   

   Cole:  Did the store sell any of the supplies needed

to make the jewelry?, or did they have it all made when

they came in?

   

   Wheeler:  We sold very little of that.  We did have

some, but they mostly got it in Gallup at Kirt

[phonetic spelling] Brothers Trading Post was one of

the large--and Tobe Turpin [phonetic spelling].  Tobe

Turpin was into that, and they would get silver and

turquoise from him.  Those were the two main traders in

that part of the jewelry business in those days.  Now,

this is in the forties.  The late forties we're talkin'

about.  I'm the late forties.  We have the traders that

is the 1870, 1900, the 1920s and then up to the

thirties, and then the thirties up into the sixties.

And I'm probably the last of those traders that dealt

with the Indians on the barter basis.  After 1950, then

it kind of more or less became a greater cash business

you had, and you didn't have to rely so heavily on

that.  However, we had a two-way system.  We had the

cash business, also the barter business, and it

continued on up into the late sixties, up in 1969 and

1970, and then the barter system kind of went out from

most trading posts.

   

   Cole:  And then from Smith Lake, then you went

to....

   

   Wheeler:  Keams Canyon.

   

   Cole:  What time period was that?

   

   Wheeler:  I went there to Keams Canyon December 15,

1948.

   

   Cole:  You said you were a partial owner of that, or

you just ________.

   

   Wheeler:  No, I was just a clerk, and I hired on as

a clerk in the trading post.  My brothers-in-law hired

me, and my uncle.  My uncle was the other partner--him

and my brother-in-law had started it.

   

   Cole:  And your brothers-in-law, what were their

names?

   

   Wheeler:  William A. McGee and C. F. McGee.  The

uncle, C. A. Wheeler, was the other partner.  They

later bought him out, and then that was just the McGee

brothers.  I was supposed to stay and work, and then I

would have a right to buy-into a fourth of the

business.  But it didn't work out.  I went to Polacca

to work in about 1950.  Then in 1955 we bought the

Piñon Trading Company.  We bought it from the Navajo

Tribe.  First, it was William E. McGee and C. E.

Wheeler.  C. F. McGee decided he didn't want to go into

it, but later bought back into a fourth of it.

   

   Cole:  When you were at Keams Canyon, what was that

like?  Was it still pretty isolated? bull pen? barter?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, it was still the bull pen type

thing, and then they changed it later.  But while I was

there, it was a bull pen.  We had both Navajo and Hopi

people trading.  We had the coal mine there--had a good

coal mine there, and that supplied a lot of work.  They

traded with us there from the coal miners.  There was a

boarding school there.  Peterson Zah, one of the later

chairmans, he used to come down and buy candy.  They

come down in military style in groups, the boys and

then the girls.  They were allowed to come down and buy

candy on Saturdays.  They usually come around eleven

o'clock.  And Peterson Zah was one of 'em.

   In fact, Peterson Zah's grandfather was the first

one I waited on when I stepped in the store December 15

at noon.  And that store was packed.  His grandfather,

Fatty [phonetic spelling] Begay was the first one I

waited on there, and we become very close friends.

   

   Steiger:  What year was that?  December 15....

   

   Wheeler:  December 15, 1948.

   

   Cole:  It sounds like Keams Canyon was a fairly

sizeable trading post at that time?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, Keams was very large, because they

had the agency hospital there, and it was a very busy

store.  The other thing that I'd like to bring out is

that we had the railroad retirement.  The Navajos would

go out and work on the railroad, and then when the

winter months come, they laid 'em off, and then they'd

do unemployment, and then we signed 'em up.  We had a

large payroll comin' in from that, and that really

helped us.  But there's where the big rugs come from.

I want you take a picture of these large rugs.

Peterson Zah's mother sold--I bought three large rugs

from her--sixteen by twenty-two.  That's a very large

Navajo rug.  There were three sisters that done rugs

there, too--large rugs.  I think the largest one we had

was sixteen by twenty-four.  Incidentally, we did have

one of the coal miners--I couldn't believe it--he was a

weaver himself.  He was at, they called it Low

Mountain-Jeesáá’ deez’á in Navajo is the name of it,

which means "low mountain."  He was a weaver.  They

kept telling me he was a weaver, and I didn't believe

it.  I thought the Indian ladies done all the weaving,

but he was an excellent weaver, a man.

   

   Cole:  Was he a Navajo man?

   

   Wheeler:  Navajo man, yes, and he worked in the mine

as well.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever buy any of his rugs or see any?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, yes, we bought 'em at Piñon and

Keams Canyon.  Then we later bought the Polacca Trading

Post, and then I went there.

   

   Cole:  Were you an owner of that?

   

   Wheeler:  No, I never became an owner.  We did buy

one, Na-ah-tah Canyon, down towards Holbrook area,

Indian Wells area.  That was the first store I owned,

was that Na-ah-tah.  We bought it from the Hubbell

Company.  Well, it was sold to another person,

Mr. Bales had bought it, and then he got discouraged

with it, and we bought it from him--Na-ah-tah.

   

   Cole:  When was that?, what year, if you can

remember.

   

   Wheeler:  I can't remember the exact date of that.

It had to be--I think it was in 1953.  The McGee

brothers purchased the old Tom Pavateeah [phonetic

spelling] store at Polacca, which is burned down now,

but it was at the bottom of the mesa as you went up.

They bought that in 1950.

   

   Cole:  Did you learn to speak Navajo and maybe Hopi

also?

   

   Wheeler:  I learned both.  I think I'm--well, like

they always say, I'm fluent in Navajo, yá’át’ééh, I

know it all!  No.  But I have been able to do very well

with the Navajo language.  And Hopi, I'm one of the

very few men in the world that knows that language.

They didn't like you to learn it, the Hopi language.

It wasn't something that they liked you to do.  They

didn't like that.  But those people did love me, and I

still have friends among them, and I still go out and

see them out there at Polacca.

   

   Cole:  Why would they not want you to learn the

language?

   

   Wheeler:  Hopis are so different than Navajos.

They're light and dark differents.  They don't want

nobody gettin'--they're very personal, they keep it

within themselves.  I don't know, I just picked it up.

The first man I ever saw was Ashton Nebiker [phonetic

spelling] at Keams Canyon, before we had moved down to--

I bought the store down there--and he come back to

visit.  He was from Moenkopi at Tuba City.  He come in

there, and as a boy he learned the language.  But he

talked the long brogue like the Texans, you know.  It

was more vocal, you know.  I saw a crowd of people

gathering around him, and I couldn't figure out

what....  I looked out the window at Keams Canyon, I

couldn't figure out what they was doin'.  They had a

large crowd, and here was a man speaking this Hopi

language, and it just floored me that those people

followed him, just like a throng of people around him,

like they was havin' a riot!  And I thought that's

maybe what it was, and it was him talking.  They

couldn't believe it, the people would look in awe.  And

he come on in the store and they brought the whole

bunch in the store, as many as they could get in, and

he was talkin' that, and I said, "I'm gonna learn

that," right then and there.  And fortunately, I did.

   The Hopis are a very different people.  Their

traditions are totally different than Navajos.

   

   Cole:  At Polacca, was it mainly Navajo business, or

Hopi, or a mixture?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, we had a mixture.  I would say about

60/40--60 [percent] Hopi and 40 [percent] Navajo,

because we had the railroad retirement, and they come

down there to sign as well.  But there was trouble, we

had several fights there.  It looked like we were going

to--and finally we did have to give up the signing of

the Navajo.  The Hopis didn't go out--in fact, I think

we only had one sign that went on railroad.  But the

Navajos would come in there and sign from the Low

Mountain area and in there.  And there always was bad

blood.  We had several fights there over the Navajos'

problem, you know.  And drinking was always at the base

of most of it.  It wasn't a good mix.

   

   Cole:  What types of arts and crafts did the Hopis

trade?

   

   Wheeler:  The Hopis had kachina dolls and done

pottery.  I bought over 8,000 pieces of pottery there.

I sold it.  One company back East come in and we packed

it up.  But the ladies would bring their pottery in and

lay it on the floor, and then you'd average it out

there, and then you'd bargain, like we did with rugs.

And they made kachina dolls.  I bought the first

pumpkin kachina probably known to anybody, and that was

taboo.  I thought I could get by with it, and I didn't.

Somebody let the word out--up the mesa I went, and I

was chastised for it--almost expelled from the trading

post because I had bought it.  They told me never to do

it again, I promised I wouldn't.  But other dolls, they

didn't like to even sell them, but they had to have an

income, too, and they allowed it.  But certain dolls

was not permitted to be sold.

   

   Cole:  Was Polacca actually on the Hopi Reservation?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes.  Well, and so is Keams Canyon.  Keams

Canyon is, too.  See, adjoining Navajo areas, and they

lived at Jeddito, Low Mountain, Piñon, Salina.  We

drawed from a big area.

   

   Cole:  Did you have as much Hopi business at Keams

Canyon as you did at Polacca?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, yes, because the employees worked at

the agency.  Very few Navajos worked there--they didn't

let many Navajos work at the agency, it was strictly

Hopi preference there--at the hospital and the school.

The white trade was there.  We had some teachers and

stuff like that.  It was a good business, it was a

strong business, it was a strong trading post.  And,

too, the fact that Mr. Keams had--his name was famous.

That, and then we kept it goin', and the McGees still

have it today.  They bought it in 1942.  Gee whiz,

that's quite a lot of years, fifty-some odd years it's

been in the same family.  The boys is carrying it on.

   You had to be two type[s] of trader.  That seemed to

fit me better.  The Hopis clung to me more than they

did anyone.  Of course, I had my enemies.  You're never

scott free.  They still respect me out on that

reservation.

   

   Cole:  Did the Hopi trade much in livestock?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, we did do a good business with

livestock.  They were mostly cattlemen, but there were

a few in the sheep business.  And they were very good

herdsmen.  They had quality stuff.  And in those days,

we could buy meat.  We bought our meat direct--you

didn't get it from the packing house.  And it was just

as clean.  They used sheets, it was pretty well done

nice.  We bought all our meats that we sold back

through the stores, right there from the Hopi people,

and it was very clean meat.  They done a good job of

butchering.  You know, as clean as it could be under

the circumstances of the time.  Probably they stopped

it because the federal government come in, and you had

to be federally inspected and so on and so forth.

   

   Cole:  Did you then buy cattle and take 'em to

market?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, we bought cattle and we bought sheep

there at Keams, and at

Polacca.  In fact, the two places in, I think it was

1955, we bought 7,000 head of lambs between Polacca,

Keams, and Bidahochi [phonetic spelling].  My brother-

in-law, Bill McGee, owned the Bidahochi Trading Post

down at Indian Wells.  We had a herder, we drove 'em.

We put 'em in sections--so many head--500 head here,

800 head here--you know, we cut 'em up in three

sections.  We had an old man by the name of Ch’ah

dit»’ooi, which means "fur cap," and he directed them

sheep all the way from Keams Canyon to Holbrook,

Arizona.  That was the shipping point.  I got a

picture, too, that we need to take a picture of, of

where the shipping point was in Holbrook.  So we done

extensive business.  But it ebbed out.  The Hopis had

much better quality cattle and sheep.  They had bought

better stock, and their care of that stock was better

than the Navajo.

   

   Cole:  At the trading posts you worked at there, did

you have any involvement in trying to improve the herds

at all by bringing better animals in?

   

   Wheeler:  No, we didn't much.  Some trading posts

got into that, but in later years they stopped it.

Now, at Red Rock and them places, they brought in sheep

and tried to build up.  And it was a good idea, it

helped the Indians.  I'm all for that.  But the BIA

come in and stopped that, because some guys--you always

have guys that's a rotten apple in a barrel--brought

the wrong kind of sheep in, and that deferred the

quality of the sheep.  But some traders were very

successful with that--I know there was a number--but we

didn't get much into that.

   

   Cole:  How many cattle would you buy, do you

remember?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, because of the Hopi Association

finally come in and had their annual sale in October.

So that stopped it.  But we'd buy a few during the

year.  And then they would pay us with cash, rather

than bring the livestock in that way.  However, we did

do several accounts that had cattle that we bought and

cleared the accounts up of livestock that way.  But it

began to dwindle.  Everything moved towards more of a

cash basis.  They sold their product, and then they had

[the] Association, and they did get better prices for

their livestock by doing that.  They could pay a little

more, the auctioneer could get a little more out of it.

   

   Cole:  Did you have any business in horses at all?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, that we really got in.  At Piñon is

where we really got into the horse business there.  The

horse business really become....  We sold $5,000 worth

of horses there at Piñon.  Also at Greasewood, I done a

bang-up job with livestock there at Greasewood, 'cause

that was a cattle area because of the mountain area.

   There's one other thing I want to go back on, on

Polacca.  The Nampeyo pottery.  All my kids are named

Hopi names, and they all have a name.  We were the

White Corn Clan, and this is the Nampeyo pottery.  See,

the Tewas come from over at Pawaki [phonetic spelling],

to help the Navajos [does he mean Hopi? (Tr.)] fight

the Utes and the Navajos.  So you got two tribes in

there.  You got the Tewas and the Hopis.  They brought

that famous pottery, Nampeyo pottery.  I've got

pictures of it, I'll show you, and you can get a

picture of it.  It's very, very beautiful.  The other

pottery was ordinary pottery.  They put it in kilns,

and then they done it in clay, and then they put it in

sheep manure in kilns and fired it--put tin or whatever

they had around it.  They had a lot of breakage, but

boy, there were some very good potters there at

Polacca.  Those pots are fetching a great price.  I was

working here at Citizens Bank about five years ago, and

I noticed one of the pots up in the president's office,

and I said, "That's Fanny Nampeyo pottery."  He didn't

know what he had.  I said, "You've got a very valuable

piece of pottery."  He had bought it somewhere.  The

Nampeyos, they're world famous.  And the Frog Lady,

hers is a white pottery with the red in it.  I was good

at pottery and kachina dolls.  In fact, we used to sell

some of the pottery and some of the kachina dolls to

Gallup Mercantile.  See, that was a source of our

merchandise.  It was a big merchandising outlet,

wholesale outlet, and they delivered stuff, and

sometimes they would barter with us, the same as we did

with the Indians, and take our pottery.  In fact, we

went down to California at Knotts Berry Farm

(chuckles); we walked in there, and here was that

mudhead.  And I'll show you what a mudhead is in here

in my room in a minute.  It stood about this tall.  But

this joker, this Hopi--I mean, they are the most

innovative people--he took a--Bill McGee had brought a

bunch of Christmas toys up, and he had put a bear in.

And this bear would move this way, and then he would

move his head.  Well, he took the parts out of that,

and put it in that kachina, and the eyes would roll and

the head would move.  And it ended up in Knotts Berry

Farm, and we went down there--it was in 1955--and we'd

sold it to Gallup Mercantile, they were accepting it

against our account with them.  And I said, "Hey, wait

a minute, that come from Polacca."  And the guy said,

"No, we got it from the Gallup Mercantile."  I said,

"Yeah, I'm the guy that bought it."  You pull it

around, and you'll see on the back of it he'd cut it

out and put that parts in that darned mudhead.  He was

a character!  They later run him off--Edward Hotto

[phonetic spelling].  Later they run him off because he

had sold masks illegally to New York for a great sum of

money.  So he's banned from the Reservation now.  He

also broke in my store, and I'd have got a knife in my

back that night.  Something just wouldn't let me go

down in that basement.  But my boning knife that we

boned meat with was gone, and it was down there.

(chuckles)  We knew it was him that stole it.

   

   Cole:  Did you have a Hopi nickname?

   

   Wheeler:  Curly, Chee-nok-toh [phonetic spelling].

I don't know how you spell it.  I'm illiterate in

Navajo in writing and reading.

   

   Cole:  So that's your Navajo nickname?

   

   Wheeler:  No, no, that's Hopi.  My Navajo name, they

first called me "Mexican," Naakaii.  I said, "Wait a

minute, I'm not Mexican.  I'm Cherokee.  My mom has

Cherokee blood in her."  That picture over there that I

showed you, the grandfather, that coal miner.  He's

about half Cherokee, the Cherokee blood.  So they

started calling me--my hair was kinky in those days,

very, very curly--so one of the ladies said, "Yeah, you

look like that goat out there, you hair's all curly."

So that was the name.  First they called me

Giishchilii.  Then it was Giishchilii yázhí.  They

always add it, so it's "Little Curly," is what the

interpretation is.  They always add something.  I don't

know why they do that, but first it was Naakaii, 'cause

Mr. Garcia at Chinle was Mexican, or Spanish, whatever

you want to call it.  They wanted to call me [Mexican],

because of my dark complexion.  But that's Giishchilii

yázhí.  They still call me that, to this day.  I answer

pretty good, too.

   

   Cole:  When were you married?

   

   Wheeler:  Married December 17, 1946.

   

   Cole:  So then your wife was in the trading business

with you also?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, we went to Smith Lake, and that's

where we started our life together.  Her people, like

we talked, the grandmother was at Tuba City and worked

in the Tuba City Trading Post.  And her brothers owned

these trading posts, and that's who we went to work

for--her brother at Smith Lake we went to work for.  So

that's how we started.  But I knew a long time ago that

was what I wanted to do.  Just like a NBA basketball

player or football player, you see that, and that's

what you want to do.  It's one of the greatest things

in the world.  Many things you done, the options you

done, trading and exchanging for wool and mohair and

creating money out of that, it was the most fascinating

thing in the world--until the BIA and the Navajo Tribe

got so hard on it.  They ruined it all.

   We pawned also.  Pawn was a great thing on the

reservation.

   

   Cole:  As far as pawn, did the Hopis pawn also?

   

   Wheeler:  No, Hopis never pawned--I never had one,

anyway.  They were more affluent with cash.  They had

the means.  The Navajo was a little less affluent--that

is, some of them.  The Hopis, they worked and they had

money, and they sold their livestock.  We didn't do

much bartering.  We done a little, like I say, but it

eventually went totally out.

   

   Cole:  Did you have a chance to take part or be

involved in any Hopi ceremonies?

   

   Wheeler:  No.  They wouldn't let you do that at all.

I've been to a lot of them.

   

   Cole:  I guess that's what I meant.

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, I went to 'em.  (chuckles)  The one

thing they had is the So’yoko.  That's where they train

the kids.  They disciplined their kids by fear, you

know.  They call it the bean dance, and it starts in

February.  (chuckles)  When this dance starts, why,

they come around and tell you, "All right, the boy is

supposed to hunt and bring the meat in.  And the girl's

supposed to bake and do that sort of thing."  And then

when the dance comes, then the So’yoko come.  They're

all with masks on and all of this stuff.  They come and

they ask for the meat and the boys produce the meat, if

it's mutton or whatever it is.  But where they didn't

have 'em in them days, it was deer or rabbit or

antelope or whatever it was.  And then the girls bring

up their cooking, there, and then they put it together

and they all eat together.  But it was a discipline

thing.  The children was disciplined by the So’yoko,

and they'd scare 'em to death, you know.  The only

thing is, I had two little girls.  They come and they

told 'em, "You're going to participate in this, but you

gotta mind."  So the mother cooked all the cake and

cookies up for 'em, and when the So’yoko come, why, oh,

you know they had them masks on like that, and the

girls, [it] scared 'em to death.  Those girls were

pretty good for six months or so, because them So’yoko

would eat 'em.  That's the tradition, is to eat 'em.

Anyway, they thought they'd all gone, and they run back

in the house to hide, and after they went around the

corner, and the girls run out to see where they was at,

and they jumped at 'em!  They never forgot that!  I've

got a picture of the house I lived in, in Polacca, too,

by the way.  But anyway, that's as far as participation

that way.

   But the one thing, the Hopi man, he come at Polacca,

and I'll show you the picture in here.  There's a

couple of pictures of meat in here, but he says, "Let's

trap some mice."  We had mice down in our basement.  So

we trapped 'em and kept 'em, and when they come, they

asked for the meat.  [yells in Hopi]

"____________________________________."  And Glen says

to me, "Get those mice, and when they come...."  You

know, they have a trap here, and it's a big--I'll show

you in there--but their mouth will open like that, and

then close, and they have strings to pull it with.  It

looks like an alligator, this way.  (laughs)  And then

I threw them mice right in there.  They were dead, you

know.  And, oh, boy, that was the wrong thing!  He knew

what he was doing.  They roped me and dragged my tail

down the steps.  I'll show you, you can take the

picture of Polacca Trading Post in there.  (laughs)

Those people never forgot it.

   Here's another one that'll get you, too.  When I was

learning this Hopi language, you know, I picked it up,

but a lot of things sound the same.  And we were having

payday, and this lady come in, and I said, "Do you want

to pay your bill?"  I thought that's what I told her,

in Hopi.  And the store was plumb full--you can see the

picture of the trading post, they can get a lot of

people in there, and they're jolly.  I thought I asked

her if [she wanted to pay her bill], and I [actually]

asked her if she wanted to go to the bathroom.  It went

quiet, and then everybody busted out laughing!  And I

went out the back door, my face must have been as red

as....  And I knew I'd said something.  I came back in,

I asked my Hopi clerk, "Lyn, what did I say wrong?"  He

said, "You damned fool, you asked her if she wanted to

go to the bathroom!  It goes this way...."  They sound

the same to me, you know, and I got 'em mixed up.  (in

Hopi) __________________.  That means, "Do you want to

pay your bill?"  (in Hopi) _____________________, "Do

you want to go to the restroom?"  (laughter)  And I got

'em mixed up!  They still tease me about that on top of

that mesa.

   

   Cole:  You mentioned your two daughters.  How old

were they when you were at Polacca?

   

   Wheeler:  Let's see, they're three years apart.

Well, when we went there, she was just barely eight

months old, just walkin'.  I've got a picture of the

old store at Polacca, the original.  We changed it, but

I've got [a picture of the] original.  And the other

daughter, she was just a baby.  I was there at Polacca

for eight years, I think.

   

   Cole:  So did the kids go to school there once they

were old enough?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes.  I drove one daughter to Keams

Canyon.  They wouldn't let 'em go to school.  We had to

send 'em at the boarding school at Keams Canyon.  Just

the one daughter went, the other one didn't.  I had to

move up [to] Piñon for a while, and I had to take it

until we got a manager set up, up there--Buddy Tanner,

which is of this Tanner, Jewel Tanner's outfit.  I

didn't know it, but my wife said that my second

daughter went to first grade up there for about a month-

and-a-half, two months maybe, 'til the manager come in,

and then I went back to Keams.

   

   Cole:  When you mentioned you changed Polacca, how

did the building change?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, we added on to it.  We didn't change

it, we just added on.  I've got two different pictures

of it.  We went there in August of 1950.

   

   Cole:  I was trying to remember, did you say you

owned Polacca, or part owner?

   

   Wheeler:  No, I was just the manager.

   

   Cole:  On the leasing system, does that differ on

the Hopi Reservation versus the....

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, we leased direct from the Polateyas

[phonetic spelling].  We submitted a bid, and a number

of Babbitt brothers were involved in it, but we outbid

'em.

   

   Cole:  And how long of a lease would you get from

the Hopi?

   

   Wheeler:  I think, as I remember [off hand?], it was

direct with the people.  It was a little different than

it was with the Navajo Tribe.  You had a twenty-five-

year lease, or at least you tried to get it, with the

Navajo Tribe.  I think ours, with them, was a twenty-

year lease, I think was all they would allow us to go

on that.  But McGees still have that lease, and they

still carry a note.

   

   Cole:  And then you mentioned that Polacca finally

burned down at some point.  When did that happen?

   

   Wheeler:  I don't know.  I had left there and I

bought the Greasewood Trading Post then.  It burned to

the ground.  I don't recall what year that was.  But it

was a sad deal, because that Mr. Polateya was a very

shrewd merchant.  He done the barter stuff, he traded,

he issued credit.  He was extremely sharp.  But his

family just absolutely ruined him.  After he died, the

store just totally--they couldn't manage it, because

they didn't have the managership.  The old man was the

brains.  Old man Dom Polateya was a very....  The

mother, she was alive yet, but she couldn't handle it.

   

   Cole:  When did he have the store?

   

   Wheeler:  I don't really know exactly when that

store was established, but it was made out of rock,

beautiful masonry work, as you'll see the picture in

here.  Very beautiful masonry work.  I really don't

know.  It had to be in the twenties, because from the

stories that were told, he started that store somewhere

in around the twenties.  And then he passed away, and

the boys got in serious financial trouble, and they

lost it, they had to close it up.

   

   Cole:  And then from there I guess you moved to

Piñon.

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, well, then we bought Piñon.  From

there I went back to Keams and managed Keams.  And then

in 1955 we bought the Piñon Trading Post in September.

   

   Cole:  Did you buy all of it?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, we bought it from the Navajo Tribe.

Paul Jones was the chairman.  He was [our] very good

friend.  He knew my uncle at Lower Greasewood.  So we

had strong connections, and we had no problem with the

community accepting us, because we had traded with

those people.  It previously had been run by the

Hubbell Corporation.  I got some pictures out of the

old store there.

   

   Cole:  How far is Piñon from Polacca?

   

   Wheeler:  We went to Polacca and then up over the

mesa and up the wash.  Now, you can go through Low

Mountain and that way.  It was about forty-seven miles

the way we had to go, but now you can go down from

Keams and then cut across.  They got a paved road in

there now.  All mud!  When it rained, it was terrible

in there.  But there was an airport there.  The school

and the BIA had one, and my brother-in-law had a plane,

so we done some flying in there--he did--I had to go by

pickup.  We all had pickups and we carried stuff back

and forth.

   

   Cole:  How about the native customers?  Did they all

have pickups and stuff at that time?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes.  You know, when I first went to

Greasewood--I bought Greasewood September 1, 1961--they

had mostly wagons, the customers come in wagons.  There

were pickups, yes, but we had dirt roads, too, in 1961.

A lot of our customers come by wagon.  And then 1962,

that fall, we had--I've got a picture of it--we had

twenty-two inches of snow on the level.  That's the

level, right at the store.  And back farther, it was

higher.  See, we're right in Lukachukai Mountains.  And

we had barns.  I want to show you the picture of the

barns.  We had three hay barns, and we had 'em full of

hay.  They raised alfalfa hay, and we bought the hay

from 'em, then we'd sell it back to them.  The chapter

bought our hay.  And they come in on sleds--they made

sleds out of pole, and that's how they got the hay.  I

wasn't able to get to my store for ten days there, and

we couldn't get merchandise in.  We had to rely--in

fact, Mr. Kennedy, he kept a large supply, and I

borrowed some stuff, you know, on a pay-back basis.

But he was good that way.

   

   Cole:  And that was in Lukachukai?

   

   Wheeler:  Lukachukai, yeah.  The snowdrifts got up

in there to, oh, I imagine four or five feet--the wind

drew it.  But see, twenty-two [inches of snow] on the

level, and then higher back towards the mountains, see.

Lukachukai's right in a mountain area there.

   

   Cole:  So what year did you buy Greasewood?

   

   Wheeler:  September 1, 1961.  I took over the first

day of September.  I bought it from Pratt Nelson

[phonetic spelling].  He had had it.  But the

Schillingburgs [phonetic spelling] were related to the

Kirks in Gallup, which were famous.  And I brought that

up about the Kirks and their silversmith.  All right,

the Schillingburgs had married into the Kirk family,

and one Schillingburg guy bought Greasewood.  The other

brother bought Rough Rock.  We're involved way back

into those people there, the Schillingburgs had a

store.  But the Taylors here in Farmington--now, that's

the one that owned this furniture.  This was their

wedding present here, when they went to....  There were

three people that owned the store, primarily the

Taylors, but there was another person in with them.  I

don't know what his name was, I don't recall it off

hand.  But they bought it.  McAdams [phonetic spelling]

had sold it to someone else, and I don't know who was

in between there.  But there's no store there now.  I

was the last owner.  It burned completely to the

ground, and it's never been rebuilt.

   

   [END SIDE 1, BEGIN SIDE 2]

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  Clarence, tell us, we were

talking about the Greasewood Trading Post, when you

bought that.  I was curious, you said one winter you

couldn't get into the post.  Did you not live there?

   

   Wheeler:  I lived in Holbrook, my family was at

school there.  And then when school was out....  But my

wife, we hired a lady to take care of our kids, and she

helped me in the trading post.  She used to work side-

by-side with me.  In fact, she, on occasions when we

had there, we had a two-ton Dodge truck, and we got our

stuff from Orange Empire.  That's a big wholesale

company out of Orange County, California.  They'd only

deliver to Holbrook, and then we'd put it on a truck

and take it out.  And sometimes she'd drive the truck

when I was tied up, but she helped me most of the time.

And then in the summer the kids helped me.  In fact, my

oldest son worked in the trading post, and then from

there, when he grew up in Holbrook and married, why

then he finally become the head, the manager, for A. J.

Bayless Store.  And then they went bankrupt, and then

Basha's picked it up, and then he went back to work for

them, and he's now presently the manager of the

business in there for Basha's.

   

   Cole:  In Holbrook?

   

   Wheeler:  In Holbrook, Arizona, yeah.  He learned

his trading right there.

   There's one other thing that I'd like to bring up.

We changed from the bull pen to checkout counters.

   

   Cole:  Did that happen in Greasewood?

   

   Wheeler:  It happened in Greasewood.  I had went

out, we'd had some trouble with the butane tank, and

some gas was escaping.  Somebody didn't tighten the

valve.  And I was out there taking care of that, and I

told 'em, "We're not gonna change the store."  And I

couldn't get the fitting, and I had to look up fittings

and get it in there.  It was escaping and it was

dangerous.  And finally I got it shut off.  By the time

I shut it off, I went in and I told him I wasn't going

to do this.  He said, "It's too late, we already

started."  They started tearing out the counters and

everything.

   

   Cole:  And who was "they"?

   

   Wheeler:  My manager, Bill Laubel [phonetic

spelling].  He said, "You're too late now.  We gotta go

with it."  So we went ahead and put in our self-

service.  And it worked out real good, it was a lot

better.  It worked out, it was much better--rather than

the old counter-type service, why, we put there, and we

reconstructed and put in another vault, and added onto

it, and it was nice.  And it really brought us

business, it really worked good.

   

   Cole: Were you still running a credit system at

Greasewood? [Tr. Edited]

   

   Wheeler:  Yes.

   

   Cole:  Explain to us how somebody would trade with

credit.

   

   Wheeler:  Well, they'd come in.  We'd had accounts

there for years, and we just picked up what Mr. Nelson

had there.  We could tell by the way that they paid

their bills, and who was good and who wasn't.

Ordinarily, they were very good about paying their

bills, unless they got in a bind.  They weren't

dishonest.  Some of 'em couldn't pay it, but they'd pay

you later--maybe a year or later down the road.  But

very few dishonest people.  They were good.  I have a

lot of accounts out that never have been collected, but

it was due to the economy change that caused that.  We

done a large amount of credit, and pawn.  When [their]

credit limit come, then they'd pawn for it.  Then we

got into trouble with the pawn.

   DNA--and I go on record--is the (raps table for

emphasis) damnedest thing that ever come to the Navajo

Reservation.  They didn't know diddly squat about that.

They was gonna change the whole Navajo Reservation in

one year what we knew for many years.  And I and

Mr. Blair were sued for the truth in lending law.  We

couldn't get a local attorney or anybody else didn't

know what the truth in lending law was, so therefore,

how in the hell was we supposed to know how we do the

truth in lending law?!  The Association had to hire a

lawyer clear out of Los Angeles to fight this thing.

What we found out, it come down that they found out

that my uncle was a pretty wealthy man, C. A. Wheeler,

and they thought they could get a wad, and they thought

it was me, and it wasn't.  My finances wasn't all that

great.  His was great.  Even the attorney that

continued it on when we took it to court said that he

didn't want to be involved.  The guy left by night

because he was threatened by the traders--he went to

Alaska.  Somebody was going to help him out of the

country with some buckshot or something, I don't know.

   But anyway, we went in this truth in lending law,

and we had to go to court over that.  It was over pawn.

I used the same tag that Jack Manning used at Shiprock,

the truth in lending law.  All it was, when we got down

to it, was an argument over an account, a thirty-five-

dollar account.  Mr. Blair was the same way, it was

over an account--argument over an account.  They asked

us for credit, and then when we pressed them, this gal

didn't want to pay her bill.  And she said, "Well, I'll

pay next time."  I said, "Okay."  Then she come in and

then she went to DNA, and they were already workin' on

Mr. Blair, and his was also the same thing, over a

credit account--measly lousy credit account.  So we got

through that.  That stopped pawn.

   

   Cole:  What exactly is the DNA?

   

   Wheeler:  DNA was a bunch of young whipper snapper

lawyers that come out in here that were spoiled kids

that come out in here and tried to raise a bunch of

heck with traders that had been here.  There was a few

bad traders--now, we'll put it that way.  There were

some that were crooked, but they were nailing

everybody.

   

   Cole:  What time period was that?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, 1974, 1975, 1976, I think.  Well,

there were other people other than I, but I'm using the

two from the Chinle area.  They pulled us in, Mr. Blair

at Round Rock.  That was before I had bought Round Rock

from Mr. Blair.  See, we charged it on pawn.  If they

pawned it for ten dollars, why, we charged them eleven

dollars to take it out.  The way they took it, that's

only ten percent.  And then after we took it out, it

was an annual rate of 24.2 is the way it worked out.

But the way the federal government done it, they done

it as one right after another, a repeat would be 120%

we were charging the Indians.  That's asinine.  But

anyway, we got through it and paid it and then it

stopped pawn--except for Tuba City.  Tuba City,

Mr. Gurley, the Gurley Trading Post down there, he

continued on, and I think he still has it.  But, too,

that's again, in Hopiland.  But I think most everybody

quit it, had to quit pawn, stopped the pawn business.

And I think Blair was the last two on the list.

   Those guys, the FTC got into it, Federal Trade

Commission--they brought them in.  (chuckles)  We

caught that poor boy over there at Window Rock

(chuckles) looked like a coyote in the middle of a

bunch of dogs.  I mean we all, you’d come out here and-

-everyone took a shot at him.  There were two of 'em,

and they come from San Francisco, I guess.  "Did you

guys come out here in one day and two days and think

you can change the whole damned Navajo Reservation over

in thirty days?!  You can't do it.  You don't even

know."  Now, there were crooks, but I don't think I

[was] one.  My Indian people still love me, and still

like me and still respect me.  Sure, there's always a

little argument over things.  It was a natural thing,

but you bargained it out.  I'll put the truth in

lending up again--I had an operation for a hernia, cost

me $5,000, I'll grant you, and I didn't even stay in

the hospital!  If that isn't killing the truth in

lending law!  I'm not even considered Jesse James

according to this hospital deal.  You talk about rip-

off!  And prices was one other thing that they claimed

that we were, that way it was done.  And there were

people that changed the pawn ticket, too.  We had an

incident where they related one, had a $3,200 bill in,

and the guy enticed him to pawn it, then he changed the

date and the guy lost his slip, and then he changed the

date and made it come dead quicker and then sold it.

We never done that.  We tried to give 'em a chance,

we'd hold it and say, "Hey, wait a minute, it's here."

And I said, "Well, we ain't goin' anywhere, we're gonna

be here."  So we never hardly sold any pawn on 'em.  It

was that one bad apple in a barrel of apples that cause

the whole thing--maybe was about a half-a-dozen.  And

you know, it cost the federal government, to put it on

the records back in Washington, millions of dollars on

the records back there, and all they had to do was

cancel the license of those Indian traders that was

abusive, and doing crooked things.  I don't think I was

a crooked Indian trader, I think my Indians right

today, if you went out there....  Why would they invite

me back to a fiftieth anniversary and welcome me in at

Saylee [phonetic spelling], and a group of 'em all come

up and give me a hug and accepted me as one of their

own in there?  I don't think that's abuse to [do?].

   

   Cole:  I'm sort of interested, at Greasewood, you

were talking about buying the hay.  How did the Navajos

put the hay up?

   

   Wheeler:  They had an old-time, walk-in baler, you

know.  You pulled it by horse.  They weren't very good

at it.  Some of 'em were pretty good.  The trouble was

that they baled it, sometimes, too green.  But I bought

as high as--that year I bought about 4,500 bales of

hay, and this is on the barter system.  I didn't pay

much cash for it, you know, because they had an

account, and they'd say, "All right, take that off of

my account."  Then when they paid that account, why, we

started, they got a load of groceries again, then they

come in again with a load of [hay].  But it was good

hay.  In fact, I sold some to Polacca and Keams Canyon,

a truckload.  It was that good a hay.  That was a good

income for 'em.  But we got into relief and they got

lazy, and they wouldn’t raise it.

   

   Cole:  What do you mean by "relief"?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, some of 'em went on welfare, and

there you go, again.  But we had a good hay business.

And I understand those hay barns were built in 1917,

1918.  There were three of them there, great long, oh,

I'd say thirty by sixty feet.  They were poles, peeled.

   But it was a unique business.  I loved it.  It was

an addiction.  Trading was an addiction, it was fun!

It was fun, it was just--you was addicted to it, it was

fun to do!  And the people were fun to trade with, and

joyful.  But the last years, the tribe and the BIA got

so cocky that you couldn't do anything.

   

   Cole:  Was there ever any gamesmanship or anything

that went into trading?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, yeah.  Well, yeah, the game we had

was, I and Buddy Tanner started this first sales deal.

You know, six calves for a dollar, or whatever.  Mutton

was the thing.  I really got in a bunch of trouble with

that, because I'd buy the mutton, you know, and then

take it out and sell it for 99¢ a pound, when everybody

else was selling it for $2.00 a pound.  It was a

drawing card.  And then the hides, again, was the thing

that everybody [said], "Oh, what's that crazy guy doing

out there?"  And I'd get all the pelts in the country,

but it also brought people in.  It all worked in there.

That's the kind of games we played.

   And then Social Security had that one fellow on.  He

had been a farmer, and so we went back and had him pay

his taxes, Social Security taxes, on his gain, and so

he [paid] on Social Security, and done that for a

number of years, and then when he became of age, why,

then he drew on his sheep and his hay and his cattle

and it give him a good Social Security.  He thanked me

for it.  There was things we helped people with.  We

were there to help them, even though the outside world

said that we were robbers.  That's just false,

erroneous as it can be.

   

   Cole:  Did you have a post office at Greasewood?

   

   Wheeler:  No, we did at Round Rock, but the mail

that was addressed there, why, we put it up, you know,

and we had little pigeon holes, and we'd give it out to

'em.  They'd have it come in care of Greasewood Trading

Post.

   

   Cole:  Did you trade a lot of rugs at Greasewood

also?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, that's the other thing.  I've got some

beautiful rugs, and like I say, I built a rug business.

When I first went there, that was the sorriest rug

country I....  I built the second-best rug business on

the Navajo Reservation.  I'm not braggin', but it took

some time.  And when I come there, the rugs were

crooked as a dog's leg.  And they were using black and

white yé’iis, you know, and you step on 'em and people

would--dust would get on 'em.  Anyway, I started with

saddle blankets.  That was a big market.  And I got a

bunch of yardsticks and cut 'em off thirty-one inches

and give 'em to 'em so they could measure.  And they

brought some of the sorriest saddle blankets I ever

seen.  See, we were used to Keams and Piñon and other

areas, buying saddle blankets--double and single saddle

blankets--that was thirty-by-thirty, or thirty-one-by-

thirty, or sixty-two-by-sixty-two for a double.  Well,

it didn't work.  It didn't work, I could see it.  So I

told 'em, "Stop, I don't want 'em."  So I started

workin' with them on rugs.  And I'll show you some of

the fine rugs I got.  But I stopped this crooked rug.

Here's how I done it.  One gal brought this rug in and

I give her--well, on this particular, it was pretty

good size--I give her $100, but her rug was narrow.

And I said, "You got too much--I want you to do it this

way."  And boy, she jerked that rug back and said,

"That's all right, I ain't sellin' it here."  And I

said, "That's fine.  Remember, I give you $100."  And I

went to the till and I happened to have a hundred-

dollar bill that day, and I said, "Here's what I would

give you for the rug.  Two hundred-dollar bills.

That's what it'd been worth if you'd have done it my

way."  See, she thought I was taking over her ability.

I wanted her to improve the rug, and all I showed her

was by the economic thing of a hundred, and she could

have got....  "Oh, that's fine.  Oh, I see what you

mean now, by keeping my rug straight and by doing...."

But I paid for a lot of rugs.  Once you told 'em,

"Bring your rugs," you was obligated.  "You asked me

for that rug.  Now you gotta buy it."  Well, I lost

some money on that end of it.  That's nothing that

nobody else....  How about DNA thinkin' about that?!

No, they didn't worry about me losin' $50 on a rug, but

what I done was build a rug clientele.  And you had to

be careful what you said.  And I hurt one lady's

feelings, she didn't sell me a rug for three years.  I

said something about it, and you don't do that.  You

gotta think it, but you don't say it.

   

   Cole:  Why do you think the rugs were so much better

at the Keams Canyon area versus Greasewood when you

[first went there]?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, nobody took the interest in the

rugs.  See, over there at Keams, they built the big

rugs, and then the saddle blankets.  Of course they

made the other ones, but their rugs were straight over

there.  And maybe the previous, maybe Mr. Keams, when

he was there, probably done a good job.  This is what a

good trader--like at Two Grey Hills, they built that

up.  It wasn't the trader--he helped and he worked with

them, is what I'm saying.  (emphatically) He helped

them, he encouraged them to do, and that's what I'm

saying.

   Oh, there's another thing.  I had a girl, a lady,

Asdzáán Chile Begay [phonetic spelling] at Wheatfields

that could weave.  Her daughter was mute, and they

could weave a rug with 100 threads per square inch.

I'll show you the rug.  I brought it over here and

Mr. Stocks over here, Darrell Stocks [phonetic

spelling] said, "Oh, you're full of thwwppt!"  I said,

"I'm not!" and I showed him, and he said, "I can't

believe it!  This didn't come from--it had to come

from_______."  I said, "Darrell, you know it come from

my trading post."  Nine-by-six, 100 threads per square

inch.  Now, that's the only one on there, but that's

tapestry.  That's taking micro deal and countin' the

thread, 100 threads.  The rug is up at the University

of Utah.  They put it on display on a rotation basis.

So he was really upset that somebody else had rugs in

his quality.  I mean, that's just paper thin.  But she

was an expert weaver, and the old lady, her father come

here during the Long Walk to Canyon de Chelly, and his

mother was pregnant, Dogas Chile [phonetic spelling].

He had a great big moustache and his mother was

pregnant on the Long Walk, and he was born in Canyon de

Chelly, and this is his daughter and his granddaughter

done the weaving on this rug.

   

   Cole:  At what point did you buy Round Rock then?

   

   Wheeler:  I bought Round Rock in 1976.

   

   Cole:  Did you own both Greasewood and Round Rock at

that time?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, I bought it from Raymond Blair--he's

passed away.  This is Elijah's brother.

   

   Cole:  Right.

   

   Wheeler:  There's a lot of history there.  See, that

war....  Oh, I knew I'd forget this!  Oh!  He was the

tribal chairman.  Gosh dang.

   

   Cole:  Peter McDonald?

   

   Wheeler:  No, no, way back there.  Anyway, they had

a war there, over the school, and old Black Horse....

They were under siege there for two, three days, and

they tried to burn it down and kill Anada [phonetic

spelling] there.  Then they finally got a runner out at

night and went up to Saylee.  They had the Gallup army

up there, and brought 'em in and saved 'em there.  But

Round Rock, he'd started a war there.  They were inside

the trading post, shootin' in, and they were in, but it

had a dirt roof on it.  And I guess they tried to burn

it down and kill 'em outta there.  Oh, boy, he was a

half-owner.  Chee Dodge [phonetic spelling] was a half-

owner of Round Rock.  All them stores I had, had lots

of history in 'em.

   

   Cole:  How were the stores supplied?  You mentioned

that you hauled some of it yourself.  Did you have

deliveries also?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh yeah, we also had deliveries.  (break)

   

   Cole:  You were telling us a little bit about how

the trading posts were supplied.

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, in the early days it was hard to get

any merchandise.  You know, you nearly paid the retail

price.  However, in the earlier days, Gross Kelly

[phonetic spelling], then it become Kimball in Gallup.

The building still stands there.  And I think Gallup

Merc. is totally....  These Jewish people up in Las

Vegas, New Mexico, mercantile--they called it the

Gallup Mercantile.  It was a big outfit, had produce,

had hardware, had groceries--everything you needed.  In

them days there, I joined Orange Empire, then later

Associated Grocer out of Phoenix.  And they delivered

right in to us, which give us a better price, and we

could manipulate some prices and run some prices [does

he mean run some sales? (Tr.)] because we were getting

the stuff at a price we could make a profit and run

those prices.  Yeah, in the forties, why, in the late

forties, even into fifties.  Gross Kelly also bought

your pelts, too.  They took pelts in, they took wool.

Like I said, those kachina dolls that went to

California, they bought some of the stuff.  They didn't

pay us cash for it, it was just a matter of ledger

transactions, was what it was.  And they bought a few

rugs.  They used to run quite a rug deal there, too,

you know, wholesalin' 'em throughout....  In fact, I've

got one of the old books.  I don't know where it's at,

but I've still got one of the books that their hardware

and their stuff like that you could buy--collars.  In

them days, we sold quite a few collar pads and stuff

like that, you know, because they still had the horse

situation.  But tubs, buckets, stoves, and all that

sort of thing, you know.  Nails, hammers, roofing

nails, roofing.  All that sort of thing.  Charles

Ilfeld, they were out of Las Vegas, Jewish people out

of Las Vegas.  They had quite an establishment and

served nearly every trading post.  In fact, they were a

bank, so you had to qualify.  They would sell to you,

and you had to pay 'em up.

   

   Cole:  How often would they come by the post?

   

   Wheeler:  You mean to deliver?

   

   Cole:  Yeah.

   

   Wheeler:  Well, they had salesmen, ordinarily.  Or

you could go in and take your truck in and just drive

up and buy your stuff out of the old--because they had

the railroad track right there, and you could just hook

in right there.  A lot of 'em done it that way.  And

lot of 'em send their salesmen and send 'em once a

week, and then you had a truck once a week.  A lot of

people worked that way, from their wholesale places.

They were just as needed--we were as dependent on them

as the Navajo was on us for their supplies.  They were

appreciated.  Sometimes we badgered back and forth, but

then in the later years, then Associated Grocer and

Orange Empire got into it.  Well, they had one here,

the old Ilfeld deal right down here--a breakoff of

Gallup here in Farmington.  In fact, Roswell Nelson, an

uncle of mine, was the head man down here.  And then

the flour company, the Tanners, see, started the flour--

White Rose and Blue Bird.  He was my brother-in-law,

both the Tanners.  The others were traders and one was

the flour milling.  But two of the Tanners married my

wife's sisters.  We were brothers-in-law.  (laughs)

Again, traders and flour millers, that worked in there.

But his flour has been famous for a long time.

   

   Cole:  I'm going to switch gears here a little bit

and ask you some questions about the Traders

Association.  When and why did you join United Indian

Traders?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, it was the natural thing to do, but

mainly for protection.  You was dealing with leases.  I

become a member in 1955, when we....  Long-associated

member with my brother-in-law, Bill McGee, when we

bought Piñon, because there was a lot of hassling with

the BIA and the tribe needed to have this worked out,

and we needed an association to mandate.  At one time

we were very strong.  C. A. Wheeler was a past

president.  This Lee here--I showed you Lee's book--

Hugh Lee was the president.  Walter Kennedy was under

there.  I was a member on the board of the Indian

Traders Association.  It's through Walter--Walter got

me on there, I'm sure he lobbied for me, and I won a

position on there by vote--by one lousy vote!  (laughs)

I won it by one vote, but one's a win, isn't it?

Seventy-five [1975] I was there.  It was a very good

thing.  It fought this deal with this truth in lending

law, and our leases.  It was a good thing.

   We had some good things until the last end of it,

and then we got in some fights.  These younger guys,

after we got out, in 1982 there was a war come up.  And

Walter Kennedy and myself and Bill Palmer, we filed a

suit against 'em, because they treated us very badly.

In fact, one of the meetings they come to, the lawyer

told me, he said, "Hell, you ain't even paid your

dues."  And he made a jackass out of me right there.  I

mean, he embarrassed me.  So I found my canceled check

and showed him that I had paid my dues.  He was

absolutely wrong.  Got an apology and all of that.

They kind of took over, went another way, these younger

guys.

   But the Traders Association was a very good thing, I

was glad to be a member of it.  I think I was a member

in 1955 on through.  So that's quite extensive, and

[when I was on] the board of directors it was quite a

lot of work.  But I got on for the small trader.  Now,

see, they had some traders that were pretty strong

financially.  They were strong traders.  And the change

had come, too, from barter to cash, and there were a

lot of things.  And that was why I wanted to--my main

reason for wanting to be a board member is for the

small trader, because I was a small trader myself, and

I wasn't as big as some of the other traders.  And the

other guy needs to be watched, as well as the large

guy.  There's some difference there.  You see what I'm

talking about?

   

   Cole:  Yeah.  Who were some of the larger traders?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, you take some of the Foutzes--Eddie,

for one; the Babbitt brothers.  Now, see, that was

another thing, we brought up Babbitts.  But Babbitts,

you know the western side--we call that the western

side, over on Tuba and that side.  Most of the traders

come right out of this area, the biggest share of 'em.

Now, the Babbitts, and there's a few others over on

that other side, but some of these westerners come

right out of this area.  See, these Lees and these

Foutzes and these Tanners, and the McGees and so on and

so forth.  The Curly brothers down at Tuba City, yeah.

But the biggest part of the Indian Traders Association

come out of here.  But there were some large traders:

the Curly brothers at Tuba City were big.  I don't

think Garcia ever--I don't know whether he ever joined

or not.  He was a large trader, he made a bundle of

money.  He was the one that first started this self-

service.  At Keams, my brother-in-law sent me over to

check out Mr. Garcia's operation at Chinle, and see if

it was feasible and if we wanted to do it.  I think

he's probably one of the first that done the--

Mr. Garcia at Chinle went in there, and I went over and

spent an entire day with him, and went from stem to

stern.  And they had walkers.  He had a lot of trouble

with pilferage, and it continued on, and we had to do

it that way.

   I was glad to be a member of the Association, proud

to be a member of the Association.  They helped me.

That suit that we had for me and Blair was very

expensive.

   

   Cole:  Did the Association pay the legal expenses?

   

   Wheeler:  They paid that, because it wasn't really

our fault.  What they called it was sandbagging,

because of these accounts.  We weren't the only ones.

Mr. Tanner, Morse Tanner had trouble over here.  They

had it all over.  The McGees had it at Piñon.  You

know, it was a stirring of the pot.

   

   Cole:  What do you mean by "sandbagging"?

   

   Wheeler:  Sandbagging means that they tricked you

into assuming that it was truth in lending when it was

just merely a damned battle over accounts.  And most of

'em were that very thing--that very thing.  That was

the attorney's [feeling].  He told us, he turned to me

and to Mr. Blair and he said, "You've just been

sandbagged."  In other words, these guys used this to

get you in court over an account, rather than really

the truth in lending law.

   

   Cole:  What other big issues did the Association

deal with during your tenure as a member?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, leases.  They got real touchy with

leases, our re-leasing, and continued leasing.  See,

all these leases run out, and then we run into there.

We had the truth in lending fight.  Oh, there was a

number of issues that I can't recall.  It was a very

good thing, and we needed to be an Association and work

it together, you know.  But like farmers, Indian

traders, the interfighting was just....  And I just

told you that, because we interfought amongst

ourselves.  (chuckles)  Indian traders, just like

farmers in a crop farm, fight over this and that,

instead of there.  But we done pretty good.  Walt done

a good job when he was in there.  I think Blair done a

pretty fair job when he was in there.  Of course in the

thirties, there was trouble in them.  When my uncle,

C. A. Wheeler was [the president] then.  Hugh Lee was

the chairman.  (laughs)  He went down and collected

some--went down and got some sheep for an account, and

that was a no-no, you wasn't supposed to leave your

premises to collect anything.  He got in some hot water

over that.

   

   Cole:  With the tribe?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah.  Well, and BIA.  See, BIA controlled

everything.  But he got in hot water over it.  Then we

had some trouble with regulating jewelry and stuff like

that--this imitation stuff and crap like that.  You

know, Mexican rug deals.  (sigh)

   

   Cole:  You were talking about Smith Lake, you sold a

lot of jewelry.  Did they have one of the Indian

Traders Association numbers there?

   

   Wheeler:  I don't know.  Al Titchen [phonetic

spelling] was the owner of that store.  Mr. Titchen, he

was a great big man.  They called him Shash bi

doolgha», "the bear's gonna eat you."  That's a word he

always used, which you're not supposed to say that in

Navajo.  But Hastiin Nééz was what they called him,

"the big man."  He was a large man.  But he owned the

trading post.  And I don't know, really, whether he was

a member of the Indian Traders Association.  There were

several that wouldn't join in with us.  Then when they

got in trouble, here they come runnin', you know.  And

then we had some associate members like, oh, this

Taylor.  He had been a member, I suppose, when they had

Greasewood.  But he had a store here, just a hardware

store here, and he paid in the Association as an

associate member, not a real member, you know.  And 7-

Eleven, I think they done it.  Several companies did,

you know.  We finally did, in 1975, when I was voted

in, we did have a Navajo lady that had a store--her and

her husband had a store--he was an Anglo--at Grand

Canyon, at, oh, before you go into Grand Canyon--what

is that store there?

   

   Steiger:  Cameron?

   

   Wheeler:  Cameron!  All right, thank you!  Cameron.

I oughta knew that, because I went to Cameron to try to

buy....  Oh, I can never think of that store!  Well, in

fact, the guy that owned Greasewood Trading Post,

Mr. Richardson, that's his nephew that was at Cameron.

[previous sentence edited by Tr. for clarity]

   But the Association was a good thing.  I was glad to

be a member.  I think it served its purpose, yes, I

really do.  I think it helped.  Any association isn't

any better than its members.  When we got in trouble,

it bolstered, and more come in, and wanted to, you

know, find out.

   

   Cole:  How would you describe the annual meetings,

social events, things like that?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, it was great!  It was a good time to

get together and enjoy yourself and meet with your

fellow competitor.  We were competitors (chuckles) take

one another's trade if we could.  But it was good to

join in, and we had a good time.  There was some heated

discussions.  Sometimes some guys lost some tempers in

those meetings, but they were usually pretty well under

control.  I think it was a very necessary thing.  I

think it really started in Gallup over there, and

that's where the original started there.  But I think

it was a good thing, I was pleased with it.  And now

we've dissolved it and I’m more pleased.  We’ve got

$500,000, $600,000 that we put into AT&T stock, went to

this thing here [the oral history project (Tr.)], which

is a good thing, and preserving, and some to the

college up here and to this museum here.  That was what

we were arguing and fighting about.  I think some

people had some ideas to take it and use it for their

own benefit, but they couldn't do that to begin with.

You know, it had to be a nonprofit organization.  I

wanted heavily to put it up here and let those Indian

traders that had posterity that really had a trading

post, and if they had kids, grandkids, great-grandkids,

or whatever, that they could come along in there.  That

was my suggestion.  And that was the crux of it to

begin with, and then it got into all these other

things.  But it ended up all right.  I'm pleased the

way that it ended, the way they delved it out and put

it into there.  You know, it was settin' there and we

were fightin' over it, and which way it should be done,

and we finally resolved it.

   Anyway, they ended up payin' our attorney that we

had, so that was....  And then we told 'em why, 'cause

they degraded us--they degraded me, they degraded

Walter, and they did Bill, too, right in a meeting.  It

caused a problem.  They thought we were out in left

field, but we brought 'em back into the mainstream of

the water, I think.  That's my opinion.  (pause)  Eddie

might not agree with that!  (chuckle)  I think it ended

up right, is what I was sayin'.

   

   Cole:  What do you think separates a good trader

from a poor one?

   

   Wheeler:  Do you mean spiritually, or do you mean

financially?

   

   Cole:  Probably....

   

   Wheeler:  Let's take both.  All right, take me.  I

ended up unsuccessful, I think, but I wouldn't trade

for all the Association's money, or all the money in

the world, for the experience I had and the friends I

got with those Indians on the reservation.  I have

friends, I can go to the grocery store and I'm talking

to 'em in Navajo, they know me.  "Hi, Giishchilii!"

And we converse in Navajo.  They are my friend.  Now, a

white man, we'll get mad at one another, and we won't

deal with one another, we write 'em off.  With the

Navajo, it's different--you're a friend forever.  You

have your differences, but you come back and reconnect

again.  So for that experience, I wouldn't trade it for

anything in the world.  My friends still call me at

Lukachukai.  Walter's friends still call him at

Dinnehotso, (in Navajo) "Daa’ ditá niteel."  They call

him "thick lips."  "Come on out!"  And he goes to the

funeral, and I go to Lukachukai to my people.  And

they're still my people.

   I was at a funeral, there were five people that were

suffocated--they were having a barbecue and it rained

out there, and it was stormin'.  They took it inside,

enclosed with the charcoal--suffocated and killed 'em,

five of 'em.  So I went to the funeral.

   Stand for just a minute, I want to show you the

Navajo handshake.  Okay, you approach me here.  Now,

you put your hand out this way.  Now, don't close.

Now, we just barely touch, but you look this way, and

I'll look that way.  This is the Navajo handshake, you

touch this way, and you look the opposite way.  But on

that occasion, it was hugs from the people.  It was a

time of sadness, because a great tragedy had happened.

And here them old ladies come up, and they hadn't seen

me, and my boy, my baby, that's, (in Navajo)

"________________."  See, that's what they say, you

know.  And the thing was, it wasn't a handshake, it was

a hug--the men, the women.  And up on the hill there

was the schoolteacher at Lukachukai.  He was from Keams

Canyon, and he knew me and he said, "I'm amazed at you

going through these people this way."  And I said, "Man

(chuckles) I've been here for thirty years!  These are

my people."  I said, "I sold my store."  "Oh," he says,

"you're rich!  You got millions of dollars!"  I said,

"I can't even write a check for $100 without it

bouncin', yet am I rich?"  He said, "I didn't mean that

at all.  I meant I seen the millions of dollars that

you had in love from this people here.  That's how rich

you are.  You can't even count your money--I mean, in

terms of friendship."  So, you know, that makes one

feel good.  So that's how I, the friendship.

   Where'd I put my paper?  I lost it, doggone it!

(looks for paper)  What was it MacArthur said?

"Country...."  Oh, I knew I'd forget it.  "Country,

honor, and corps."  Navajo country, honor the Indians,

and the corps of the business, the friendship I made.

And then MacArthur said one other thing as he turned it

in.  He says, "Old soldiers never die, they fade away."

Old Indian traders never die, they fade away.  That's

it!  (chuckles)

   

   Cole:  What should the Anglo understand about Navajo

culture, religion, philosophy?

   

   Wheeler:  You mean generally?

   

   Cole:  Yeah, like if you were gonna teach Lew and I

what we should learn from the Navajo.

   

   Wheeler:  I think patience.  The thing in this

particular area, they see the Navajo as the drunk on

the street.  They see his condition here on the street

as a drunkard, that he's a low life.  That is not true.

That particular thing hurts my soul terribly.  I wish

there was something we could do, I wish we could have

put some of that money into doin' that, gettin' these

people here.  They'll always drink, because they love

to drink.  Those people are human beings, they have a

great culture.  I went to the reservation as a young

cocky kid.  I got in quite a few fights, 'cause they

always will challenge you.  And I said, "These Indians

can't teach me a damned thing."  Brother, let me tell

you I learned a-plenty from an Indian!  They got it on

us on taking care of the land, nature, the animals,

stuff like that.  They're close to nature.  And I

learned a lot.

   One time we were fixin' a pump, and this Navajo boy,

he's just like my own son, he worked for me thirty

years, and we were tryin' to fix it.  We had red water

because the water out there at Lukachukai was red.  And

we had filters, we had to thin it out.  And I was

having a devil of a time.  I couldn't get anything done

right, and he didn't want to overstep his bounds.  He

said, "Giishchilii, how about doin' it the Navajo way?"

(laughs)  And I said, "Okay, let's do it the Navajo

[way]."  He fixed the darned thing!  I would have had

to went to town, but we done it the Navajo way.  It was

what you call temporary, but he fixed it the Navajo

way, and we didn't have to go to town until I needed to

come, and then got the part, but he fixed it.  He knew,

he saw that I couldn't do it, and he seen a way to do

it.  You can learn a lot from Indians.

   The one thing I probably should have learned was the

word dooda, "no."  But I didn't.  I had a son that was

a good trader.  He come and he had a way with Indians

that I never had.  He had his dad skinned (chuckles)

two ways.  He could tell them Indians "no," and have

'em happy about it.  I could tell 'em "no," and had a

fight of it.  But he knew how to do it.  But they are

good people.  I've learned a lot.

   I think you'll find a lot of traders....  Some are

prejudiced, some dislike 'em; some don't even go back

__________.  I still like 'em.

   One of my boys mentioned one time he didn't like it--

my youngest son did not like the trading business.  And

he says, "Them damned Navajos!"  And I said, "Wait a

minute!  What did you say?!"  He said, "I don't like

these damned Navajos."  I said, "I don't ever want to

hear you use that again.  See that pair of shoes you

got on?"  "Yeah."  "See that pair of pants you've got

on?  See that shirt you've got on?  And that nice

sports coat you've got on?  That come from the Indian.

So don't let me ever hear you disrespectfully say

anything about [them].  You respect [them]."  I never

heard it again.  But he was disrespectful, and

sometimes white people are disrespectful to Indian

people.

   

   Cole:  What changes did you see in Navajo culture

over your forty-plus years on the reservation?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, education, a better way of life.  The

sad thing that comes with that is some of the bad

things--the alcohol.  They had that before, but not as

bad.  There's some animosity, still some hatred towards

the white man--not all white men, but there's still

some hatred there for the white men and their ways.

Words are said that indicate it.  Same way with the

Hopi people, in sayin' the white man way.  They've

progressed quite well, I think.  I think they've done

well.  Some of them are working in jobs here in this

town that are very adaptive, they're smart people.

They're a quick people.  Of course they learn the good

and the bad both ways.  I wish our chairmen would get

their act together.  We've had trouble with these

chairmen--they can't handle prosperity.

   

   [END SIDE 2, BEGIN SIDE 3]

   

   Cole:  [gives tape ID]  Clarence, how would you

describe the difference between how traders interacted

with Navajos, than, say, other folks that were on the

reservation, like missionaries or school teachers or

medical personnel?  Were there any differences?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, yeah, there was quite a difference.

They were there, the religious people were there for

religion, and their welfare, too, you know.  I'm sure

all religion did, regardless whatever religion was

there.  The traders, there were a lot of us (chuckles)

that had the idea to get rich quick, you know.  But

that ain't the way it worked out.  My brother-in-law's

riches were made off the reservation.  Of course, this

was a good stepping stone for him.  I went there

because I liked it, and that was the thing I wanted to

do.  I thought, "Go out for a while and be back," but

it ended up about a year or two, four or five years,

and I'd be back over here.  No, it didn't happen.  It

happened forty-five, forty-six years, somewhere like

that.

   But I think the two differences is that we were in

with our business.  Like I said, we tried to help 'em

with this rug deal, we tried to show 'em a better way

to make money.  When they made money, we made money.

It was, they're gonna spend it.  We kind of had a two-

pronged deal out there, the traders and then the

whites.  A lot of teachers went out.  I'm sure they

went for--they learned to love and enjoy Indians and

still go back.  Others didn't like it, and left, they

hated it.  Doctors the same way.  At the BIA hospital

there in Keams and other places, and Ganado.  Ganado

was a great example of Dr. Clarence Salisbury [phonetic

spelling] went there many years ago, in the late

twenties, I guess, and early thirties.  I guess he was

a missionary, but what help he give those Indians.  He

was a great doctor, and he helped 'em.  And I think it

was all for the build-up of Indians.  They may not

agree, but I agree that it certainly helped.  There

were a lot of good people that were interested in

Indians themselves, but also, their change in way of

goin' to a hospital has changed a lot over the years--

the same way as the trading has done.  (sigh)

   

   Cole:  How has technology changed trading?

   

   Wheeler:  (chuckles) Could you believe that the last

few years I was in business that I even thought of

putting in computers?!  My goodness, unheard of!

There's so many uses of 'em.  When we went there, we

had no light, you know.  We had to provide.  We had old

Whittey [phonetic spelling] diesels, you know.  One

place we had at Smith Lake, we had a wind charger, and

just give us lights is all we had out of it.  But if

the wind blew, where the wind does blow on the

reservation.  But it's played a great part--technology

has been a great advance--for good and for bad, too.  A

lot of 'em, the older people don't want it.  "We want

to be the same as we was.  New ideas brings bad

medicine."  But no, it's been good for everybody.

   

   Cole:  How about transportation?

   

   Wheeler:  (chuckles)  Oh, that's it!  I mean, it

went from zero to 100 percent right away.  Like I said

at Greasewood, I would say 70 percent of our people

came in, in wagons, when I first went in 1961--wagon or

horseback into there.  And then it just went--the

wagons became obsolete.  When they went to squaw dance,

you saw wagons on the road with a tarp on 'em.  Now

it's totally....  Vehicles all over the place out

there.

   

   Cole:  Were you involved in any Navajo ceremonies,

or did you attend ceremonies?

   

   Wheeler:  I attended only.  I never was involved.

The yé’iis always come for handouts during the winter

months for their yé’ii.  In November, December, I

think, that's where they, you know, for the mating of

the storms so they'll have storms.  There's a practical

joke we talk about in Navajo.  It'll be snowin' real

bad, and I'll say, "Yeah, the yé’iis caused this," and

they'll laugh, you know.  The yé’iis were strong, or

they weren't strong, you know, when we had the drought.

The yé’iis were not strong.  And a laugh will come

across their face.  But no, I went to their squaw

dances and their yé’ii bicheiis, but never

participated, just as an observer.  And I always

respected their ceremonies.  Some people don't respect

'em, and you should show full respect when you're at

those ceremonies, because they're sacred to them.  I

happen to know quite a bit about what they mean, and I

sort of believe in 'em--you know, up to a point.

   

   Cole:  As the trader in that community, were you

expected to contribute anything to the ceremonies?

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, we helped out at their squaw dances

and stuff like that a lot.  It was a good

advertisement, and then we wrote it off as

advertisement.  So we helped 'em with flour or various

things, you know.  They make fry bread and so on and so

forth, like that.

   

   Steiger:  What kind of ceremonies do you kind of

believe in?, if you don't mind my jumping in here.

   

   Wheeler:  Well, I like their concept of yé’ii.  I

also happen to know one thing:  I had a sing for me in

my store.  I was threatened by a Navajo, and he told me

in Navajo--he got very angry at me over something, I

don't know.  And he come in and he'd been drinking, and

he was a big, tall man.  In Navajo he says, "I'm gonna

kill you."  And I told him, "Well, go ahead, help

yourself."  And he was mad at me, and things kept goin'

kinda haywire.  I had a flat tire on my truck, and this

and that.  The boy I showed you that worked for me for

thirty years there, he said, "I think they put the

chamby [phonetic spelling] on you and hexed you."

"Well, maybe you're right."  So we had a guy come in

and do a sing right in the store.  My family was there,

and we sat around in this ceremony.  His name was

Tacheeney Manelly [phonetic spelling] from Saylee.  And

he come in and you had to pay him first.  It ain't like

the doctor, you pay after--[in this case] you pay up

front.  I had to buy a blanket, and I think I paid him

$125.  He come in and done this sing.  He had some

crystals.  Now, you can laugh and call me a damned liar

if you like, but they had crystals this tall.  He had

three or four of 'em, and they were clear.  This Navajo

boy, Johnson James, I raised him as a foster son, he

always called me "Daddy," and he was, I guided him all

the time.  He was there, and he held these crystals up.

And this is before the ceremony started.  Then he

started his sing and chant, and I was unable to do it,

but I done the best I could--Johnson told me I had to

do one sing with him, and I done it, but I done it very

poorly.  But Johnson nodded his head and he said,

"Well, that's acceptable.  It's good enough that we can

accept it."  Anyway, when he got done singing, he held

this crystal up.  You've seen 'em, I don't know where

they are, but it's a Navajo crystal, about that size.

Held it up, and there was a horse and a man on a horse,

and a man leading a horse.  And I couldn't hardly tell,

and he told me who it was--Perry Ness [phonetic

spelling].  He said, "Can you see it?"  He held it

around and I looked, and then I recognized him.  And he

said, "That's the one that's giving you the problem."

After we had that sing, I had no more problem with that

family or that group of people.  Now, you can laugh if

you want to, say, "That's a fairy tale!" but my family

saw it, I saw it, and I swear to God it was on there--a

guy leading a horse, and a man on the horse.

   

   Steiger:  The man on the horse was the same one that

had threatened you?

   

   Wheeler:  Yes, the same one.  It took me a while to

recognize him, but I finally got to where I could see

it good enough to do it.  If somebody else had told me

that, I'd say, "You're a damned liar."  But it

happened, and my family were the ones that were there--

my wife, and my daughter.  There was just three of us

there, and my foster Navajo son, which worked for me.

But he's the one that....

   And I'll tell you something else, they can tell when

you're cheatin' 'em, too.  The medicine man can tell

you with that crystal.  You do it right, or you get

caught.  So it taught me a lesson.  You square deal

with 'em.  But them old medicine men are very strong.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever have any other dealings with

medicine men there?

   

   Wheeler:  No, that was the only case, other than the

Táchééh when they have the sweathouse.  I been to them,

where they heat the rocks and put it in, and it's a

little hogan and you get inside, and it's a cleansing.

It's a cleansing of the soul and the spirit, supposed

to be from it.  I've seen that.  And I've got in that

sweathouse.  Boy, I'll tell you, it gets hot in there,

with them stones.  You know, they put 'em in and then

they pour water on 'em, and the heat comes up.  It'll

make you sweat, all right.  They call that Táchééh.

And the Navajos know what you're talkin' about right

quick when you do that.

   

   Cole:  Did you have any similar experiences in

viewing the Hopi ceremonials?

   

   Wheeler:  No, the Hopi ceremonies is very sacred.

The one I told you about, this....  Can we hold?  I

need to get a picture.  (break)  This cowboy and I had

an on-going battle.  It was friendly.  You know, a

brotherly love type thing.  You know, harass like two

brothers will harass one another.  And he was a cowboy

and we were always in--he's one of the guys that taught

me a bad word and then I had to go to the mesa.  Well

anyway, he got killed up on top of the mesa.  He got

drunk and somebody hit him over the head with an

object, and then they threw him off over the side of

the mesa.  You can see the height of that mesa, you'll

see it.  And then, so when the next morning they found

him, and then they come down, and this is a snake

chief.  Nah-moki [phonetic spelling] is a snake chief.

On him was a very personal close friend, this man right

here.  And he come down and he told....  Ari Chaka

[phonetic spelling] was a Hopi clerk I had, and we had

a basement down underneath the Polacca store where we

kept our supplies when the trucks brought the groceries

in.  We'd put 'em down, and then bring the cases up and

put 'em up.  Well, I was down there markin'

merchandise, and he come down and says, "The old man

wants you to go up to the mesa, to the funeral."  And I

said, "No, I'm not goin'."  He said, "He didn't ask

you, he's tellin' you, you're goin', because you were a

real friend, and the parents want you to come."  So

upon demand, I went with him.  He's a snake chief, and

I think since his family's died, there's no more snake

dances at the First Mesa.  Anyway, we went up and I

showed you that spot on that deal, where I went in, at

Walpi.  They had a house on this end, and went in

there.

   

   Steiger:  Maybe while we're here, is it okay if we

just put that picture in too?  (break)

   

   Wheeler:  Okay, just for a second, can I turn this?

Will it throw you?

   

   Steiger:  No, no problemo.

   

   Wheeler:  Right here is that house that I went to.

And they had the funeral, they had the body laid out,

and the mourning went on.  I was told to keep my mouth

shut.  I haven't told anyone about it yet.  I saw that

entire ceremony of the Hopi funeral, and gentlemen,

it's something to behold.  I cannot reveal it, I

haven't even told my wife about it.

   

   Steiger:  I gotta stop here.  Sorry.  (break)

   

   Wheeler:  I left off at the ceremony.  That, I never

have revealed it, not even to my wife.  But it was one

of the greatest ceremonies I have ever....  Being

young, I didn't realize it, but now that I'm older, I

realize that I was into something that was very sacred,

and [to] be carried on.  Now, you heard me tell you

once before that I let my hair grow long.  My wife cut

it, and then she's put it in a plastic--what do they

call these bags you seal up?

   

   Cole:  Zip lock?

   

   Wheeler:  Yeah, a zip lock.  And I have two cuts of

hair.  One will be buried after my death, at the

Greasewood Trading Post, because that's still my

people; and the other one will be buried right by this

gentleman's grave at the foot of the mesa.  But that's

the extent of the ceremonies I saw there--except for

the bean dance, which I told you about.

   We talked about the kids' discipline deal.  Well, we

went up to the dance, and it's very beautiful, it's

inside a kiva.  There's kivas in the backside here,

down under the ground.  They're all sealed off in

there, and they have what they call the bean dance.

And it was the most beautiful dance I've ever seen.

And my brother-in-law was wearing his hat.  He'd just

got a John B. Stetson, a real fancy one, and boy, he

left it on, and you don't do that.  That showed non-

respect.  And boy, that old Hopi boy took a whip and

whipped that right off the top of his head.  He put it

up.  He got it back, but he put it up.  You show

respect in the kiva.

   So that's the size of the ceremonies.  With the

Hopis you don't--it's very sacred, and they're very,

even with the language.  Nowadays I guess they're not

as bad as they was, but that's been, what forty-some

odd years ago, Jim.  Forty-eight years, or forty-six

years, or forty-seven years.  They've changed a little

bit, they have electricity up there now.  There's a few

changes, but you don't involve in their ceremonies that

much.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever know Fred Kabotie [phonetic

spelling] when you were....

   

   Wheeler:  Fred!  I'm glad you brought it up!  Fred

and I were great friends.  Did you know him?

   

   Cole:  Just of him, I've never __________.

   

   Wheeler:  Oh, he used to come and listen to me talk

Hopi, and he loved it.  Yeah, I and Fred were great

friends.  Yeah, he's an artist, too, and a silversmith

as well.  I think he taught silversmiths.  Yeah, Fred

was a very fine friend of mine.  I'm glad you brought

that up, that you knew him.  Yeah, I and Fred were

great friends.  He used to get a bang out of it.  He

used to come and set and listen to me talk Hopi back

and forth.

   

   Cole:  Did you ever sell any of his silver or art?

   

   Wheeler:  No, he was mostly into teaching then.  He

come in later on.  I think he's dead now, I think he's

passed away.  But some of his family is left.  I'm

gonna go back out and visit with 'em, 'cause we were

close friends.  He enjoyed comin' to the store, trading

post.

   We also need to get a close-up of the trading post

as it was, and then after we rebuilt it, if I can find

them, too, gentlemen.

   But no, the Hopis are very tight there.  They will

allow you to take no pictures.  Most of the pictures

are taking 1905, 1906.  They're very staunch about

that, and I respect it, in that respect.  I've always

been respective of their ways.  And I guess that's why

I've got along with 'em.

   

   Cole:  What are some of your favorite memories of

bein' a trader?  You've told us some.  Can you think of

any others?

   

   Wheeler:  They come and go now, oftentimes.  I had

forgot how they said "potato."  And one night I went to

bed worrying about it, woke up in the middle of the

night, and it come to me, just like that--tumna.  And

stuff like that.  You know, I have a video here in my

mind, and it just goes on and on all the time, of the

times.

   Piñon--they were ornery people up there at Piñon.

They were mean people.  An Indian got drunk (chuckles)

and I threw him out of the store.  He come back in, and

I took him back out again.  I just bodily picked him up

and took him out, and he tore my shirt clear off me.  I

didn't have a shirt left on me.  Those Indians up

there, they'd attack the police.  If they got in a

fight, you let 'em alone, you let 'em fight it out on

their own.  They didn't want nobody [interfering].

   I don't know, the friendships I made out there, and

the respect that they have for me, is the thing

that....  And they've held it all these years, even

though I've been over here twenty-six years, and away

from there probably--1962, all right--thirty-some odd

years.  And yet they still respect me.  I took my

daughter out--and I hate to bring religion into it, but

the thing is that she was going on a mission to

Tennessee, and she said, "Aw, Dad, you can't talk

Hopi."  So I took her out there, up on the First Mesa,

and they just mobbed us.  And one guy brought his--the

old man, he said, "Wait a minute.  You stay right here.

I knew who you was, when I heard you talkin'.  There's

nobody's voice like yours.  I knew that was you."

Right away he come and he says, "Wait a minute, I'm

gonna go get my kids."  They were little kids, oh, six,

seven years old.  And then they come to talk to me.

Then they went and got their kids.  (laughs)  So they

knew who was this white man was that talked Hopi.  It

was a real experience.

   Yeah, there's many of the times and life on the

reservation was good--was good to me, very good to me,

and I enjoyed the people.  And I guess that's why I've

always kept in contact, even with my Navajo and my Hopi

people.

   Oh, one experience I had, the Hopi man that worked

for me, his name was Harry Chakka [phonetic spelling]

and he was a long-distance runner, like these marathon

runners.  And he used to run to Winslow, which is

seventy-some miles from--well, sixty-seven.  Used to be

seventy, but they cut off some, from Second Mesa into

Winslow.  Anyway, he was a great runner.  So my

grandson was running for the high school, and he was

running the 400 meters, down at Winslow at the track

meet.  So I went by way of Hopi, and I visited with all

them, and then I went in and he run his race, and he

won the 400-meter race that day, by quite a distance.

He had to run three different times in three different

trials, but the finals, he outrun.  And there was some

black boys from Boys Ranch, and they were fast, and he

beat 'em.  (laughs)  The coach said to me, he said, "I

can't understand that grandson of yours, why he won so

easy today."  And I said, "Well, I brought all the Hopi

spirits in with me from Polacca when I come."  And he

said, "Well, you must have, because he beat some pretty

good boys today."  I guess that's all I can think of

right now, on that part.

   

   Cole:  Do you see a future for traders on the

reservation?  Or is there any future?

   

   Wheeler:  All in a different way, all in a different

way.  I suppose there's still some out there, like at

Piñon now, they've had to change theirs.  They've got a

car wash, gas station.  Basha's supermarket put a brand

new--I mean, downtown shopping mall down there.  So

they had to go out of the grocery business.  They're

into the service business, like laundry, car wash,

gasoline.  And they put in a Spanish café now, and

they're doin' well with it--and a hardware.  So they

went another route, and they're still maintainin' the

store there, and doin' well with it, I understand.  So

I suppose that's what most all these other guys will

have to do.

   

   Cole:  If you could change anything about your life,

would you do that?

   

   Wheeler:  No, not one thing.  Not one thing.  I wish

I'd been a little more successful.  I had too big of

ideas for the amount of financing I had.  I tried to do

too big of things, and it got me in a little trouble.

But no, I wouldn't change a thing.  I wouldn't change

my profession, I wouldn't change the friendship.  And

like I say, I wouldn't take anything for the

friendships I had those years with those people.

   

   Cole:  Is there anything else you'd like to add?

   

   Wheeler:  Not anything that I can think of at this

time.

   

   Cole:  Any questions, Lew?

   

   Steiger:  I've got just one.  You mentioned--and I

don't know if you want to get into it or not--but you

mentioned a trading post where there'd been a guy who

was real shrewd who ran it, and then his sons took over

and they lost it, they went belly up.  I was wondering,

just what were the things you had to really look out

for, and what were the ways?  How did you have to be

sharp in the business?  And what were the ways that you

could lose your shirt?

   

   Wheeler:  Well, you could extend way too much

credit, and that could get you in trouble.  That

happens, yeah.  And, you know, we had a change when

Ronald Reagan was in.  He cut off a lot of work on the

railroad--the railroad stopped a lot of our work at

that time.  And I mentioned that a guy paid me a year

afterwards.  It wasn't that he was dishonest, it was

that he didn't have it to pay, and when he got it, he

come in, slapped her down there and says, "There you

are.  You took care of my family while I was out there,

and now I'm repaying you."  But he had lost his

railroad job, and that sort of thing.

   That was a little expensive with that tomfoolery

that the DNA done with us--the harassment they give us.

That cost me quite a lot of money.  And that sort of

thing can happen.  And then, too, you gotta stay up

with the times.  You gotta change.  You can't simply

stay the way you are.  Like I was, "Hey, I ain't gonna

change the bull pen."  "Ha!  It's too late, we've

already got the counters out!"  So, you know, it's with

the times.  The cars is come, the transportation's

come, these modern facilities in town brings 'em to

town.  And we had that, too, we still had competition.

We started sales.  That was never heard of on the

reservation, to cut a price:  eight cans of pop for a

dollar.  You know.  Those is things that you had to do.

(sigh)  I just don't see that....  I think a guy could

do it if he had the backing.

   I was disappointed in that the tribe--I told the

tribe once, I said, "Here, back us!  We're the people

that's helped your people here.  We've given 'em

credit, we've been the one that carried 'em."  "Well,

you made money."  "Sure we made money!  We paid you a

percentage of our profit down at Window Rock to run

your Navajo Nation with!  It ain't all free, it works

two ways.  But let us build new stores and get the

financing to build new stores, and put the type of

stuff in that you want."  My laundromat, I started to

put a laundromat, and I was financially unable to

finish it.  It would have saved my bacon.  A car wash

would have saved my bacon.  See, it's all changed into

services.

   The other thing that I would have liked to done very

much was put these Kentucky Fried Chickens, or the

McDonald's, or what have you.  Would have been a great

deal.  Some of 'em, that one at Chinle was the top

chicken seller around in this country here for quite an

area.  Now, that's taking in pretty big for Albuquerque

and everywhere--and down to Farmington, it outdone it.

They said it was the top store, so that thing, tourist

business was good.

   Mr. Goulding [phonetic spelling] come to Greasewood

and got up on the counter.  That was the thing to do,

is your competitor friend would come and set and shoot

the bull.  He got up on the counter and he said,

"Wheeler, I know your uncle, but Wheeler, you're makin'

a mistake.  You need to start these tours.  There's

money in it.  I have it at Monument Valley."  And I

said, "Mr. Goulding...."  Harry Goulding was his name.

He said, "I'll go to Phoenix with you.  Walter Bimson

is the head of the Valley National Bank and I can get

you the financing, put you in a deal here.  I'll go and

I'll assist you and I'll back you as the wisdom to it."

And I said, "Harry, I'm not interested in taking

tourists and touring and doing stuff like this."  I

lost a gold mine.  I let a gold mine go away, it was

right in front of my nose.  But I wanted to be like my

uncle.  We seen the book over here with, what was it,

eight stores?  I wanted to be king of the reservation,

I wanted to have eight stores--the most trading posts

on the reservation.  That was what I wanted to be.  And

that was poor vision.  If I had listened to old Harry,

I'd have had her made.  (sigh)  That's my idea.

   

   Cole:  Well, thank you.

   

   Wheeler:  Thank you, I appreciate it.  I hope I've

enlightened you somewhat.  I don't have a $10 million

pawn deal, and $10 million worth of Navajo rugs, or one

of the best collections, 'cause I had to sell 'em.  I

do have a watch, and my wife has a little bit of

jewelry, but we had to sell it to make a living.  But

like I say, it was the best times of our life was when

we were with the Indian trading business.  It did

become hard when my kids did get in school.  I'm an

avid sports fan, and I love sports--just like they love

rodeos.

   In fact, four of the girls at the Navajo Mission, I

knew their grandparents, their parents, and the child

that was state champions down here--Gwen Hobbs

[phonetic spelling].  They said she was from Ganado--

she wasn't, she was from Lukachukai.  Her grandmother

was from Lukachukai, and I knew her.  We were busy at

the store.  My wife said, "We're going to adopt this."

And the parents said, "No, no, you ain't gonna!  Bring

our baby back!"  She was five years old, and she went

on to be a third-string all-American in high school.

That's pretty good for a Navajo girl.  And then she

played here at Mission, they won the state

championship.  And four of those girls I knew, that

played on that team.  I knew the whole family.  So I've

been with sports highly all my life.

   You think you got her?

   

   Steiger:  Oh, yeah, we've got a bunch of stuff.

   

   Cole:  We never have it all, though.  (laughs)

   

   Steiger:  Usually, we turn all this stuff off, and

then you're drivin' down the road and you think, "What

about this?" or "What about that?"

   

   Wheeler:  Well, I tried to make it interesting,

because my life has been very interesting.

   

   Cole:  Uh-huh!

   

   Wheeler:  It's been a very interesting life, and

it's due to the Indian occupation that I took as a

young man.  And I told my bride that was what I wanted

to do, and she was agreeable because her side of the

family and her mother [were traders], and so it worked

out all right for us.  Two of my kids become merchants,

and one hated it--he just despised going to the

reservation.  He hated....  That's the one I

straightened out.

   But it was a good life.  It was.  I just picked up

from where my ancestors went on, and carried it on in

my life.

   

   [END OF INTERVIEW]