I know it started at Walker Lake [Nevada] and it spread from there.
Yes.
I hadn’t heard of it being done here.
Well, it was done here, but I don’t think there were very many advocates of the Ghost Dance. The conjurers, the medicine men, were losing their power at that time. There was somewhat of a measure to revive that power, but the missionaries were taking over the religious beliefs of the Indians here.
Have you been to Oklahoma to visit the Modoc residents there?
I’ve never been in Oklahoma. I have friends, Cheewa James, father, I think was in Oklahoma. And her father was quite an athlete.
I know that she worked for a park service at Lava Beds for a number of years.
Yes, she did. She’s not a very primitive Indian, to be honest with your. But she takes pride in her [ancestry]. I think she’s one/fourth Indian or something like that. I got a picture of her in one of these books. I can’t remember what’s in them.
Judd Howard got hold of Schonchin and took him down to the Lave Beds. He got quite a lot of information from Peter Schonchin. Peter Schonchin was the youngest of the warriors. He was about 15 years old at the time of the Modoc War, and he was in it. Judd would take him down there and get information from him about conditions there. I think some of that was in the book. I never did know Peter Schonchin or any other Indian who was actually in the war.
