Dyer: Now you were telling me about your father’s attitude in associating with the Indians;
Coleman: Yeah he always told us and preached to us that’s why my brother went bad because he stayed around the Indians too long.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Go and stayed with them months at a time, learned too much of their ways, and they lived like an animal in the woods and then he got involved with the wrong gang, you know.
Dyer: Your father was convinced then that the Indian way would have to change?
Coleman: Yeah that’s (___) (___).
Dyer: Were you brought up by your mother or father with a feeling for the Indian religion?
Coleman: Well we used to but then after we got on our own, we kind of dropped everything, see. We’re at visible Indian signs and beliefs and all that stuff and stammered into it when we were kids. After we graduated and got out on our own, we let it slide by; don’t remember too much about it, see.
Dyer: Did you have special schooling or was it handed down from your mother?
Coleman: Handed down by my mother…my grandmother.
Dyer: Your grandmother?
Coleman: Yeah my mother.
Dyer: What about someone like Captain Paul? Did he try to speak about the old ways?
Coleman: Well yeah he used to speak about the old ways and used to say that we’d have to live the white man’s way because it was coming to that, you know, and he always told us that we could (___).
Dyer: Did it bother him to think of changing from the life Indian’s have loved?
Coleman: Yeah it bothered him because he was a wild one and he hated to give in, see, he was a warrior at heart.
Dyer: There’s a museum at Mariposa that includes a few Indian buildings down there. Have you had a chance to see it, Frank?
Coleman: It was the Wigwams they got there?
Dyer: Yeah the…
Coleman: TPs and (___)?
Dyer: Yeah I think they use slabs of barge bark there. Well that’s the way they used to be made. That was the way…
Coleman: Yeah and they used lots of bowls you know, but they kind of fouled up on there, well I suppose, because they don’t use enough poles. One of those Wigwams, we call them, and they’re probably made them waterproof.
Dyer: Did they put any kind of a sealer on top?
Coleman: No, no just a sealer of the repellant that’s in cedar bark.
Dyer: Is that right?
Coleman: Yeah they waterproof that. I wouldn’t mind going to sleep in the wintertime right now. As my grandmother use to say, one (___) was really built right like the sand and God do you go in there and one little blanket and you sleep for (___) (___).
Dyer: What about the ceremonial buildings that you had; the round house or other…
Coleman: Well the round house has four timbers in it; uprights and it’s squared off you know, in there and they build their raptures out in there and straighten them out, you know, and make the curve, but each one of those…those posts was a kind of a (___) pole each one, each side come to (___) you like you’d have a gathering here and then say a “pow wow” or something like that; a gathering anyway. You’d come to Columbia and I lived here and I had my post over there and my friendly neighbor and house; she’d have another one and their tribe and then Tuolumne tribe would have it here, see. Well we always stayed to those poles, see. That was when our Captain got up to make his speech and everything, why, he’d bow and pray to our…to that pole which I think (___) that very superstitious and he believed in these religions. You can’t change him and he’s very superstitious; he superstitious of everything. And they had the poles but I don’t know what they…what the prayer was to the pole. I couldn’t tell you that, but each group stayed by their own poles in the round house. And they had their dances and they had their…they had their singers and they had their…were the ants getting in?
Dyer: I thought I had a mosquito.
Coleman: Oh maybe you did. And stuff like that, you know, but I don’t know what the pole…what the word was used in the prayer pole.
Dyer: Would they use the round house for then? Is it…
Coleman: That was a gathering place for them, you know, and (___). Around this pole (___) to get…they slept there.
Dyer: Men and women and children?
Coleman: Yeah everybody was right there; whatever crowd took up that space and move in next there. They spaced off of the pole circle.
Dyer: So (___)…
Coleman: Human bodies around the fire and they had the fire in the center around the fire.
Dyer: Communal living then?
Coleman: Communal living.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: You could live within or you could live out and that was only used for their meetings like that, you know their gatherings.
Dyer: Were there any special rituals, initiation ceremonies that they used in these places; when a boy became of age or marriage?
Coleman: Oh no, no *can’t hear* (6:35)
Dyer: What about the…
Coleman: The owner…the hunters and stuff like that where they trained the young, see, and they tell their Captain that he was progressing good and hunting; he was a good hunter and all that junk you know. That didn’t concern the tribe and it just concerned him and the group that he was out with and I’d grab him…I was a real (___) and an experienced hunter and I was catching all my praise and (___) you know.
Dyer: Yes, yes.
Coleman: …so that never bummed me.
Dyer: In song?
Coleman: In song and everything. A regular Indian customs and he was top dancing.
Dyer: When did a boy become of age and when did he become a hunter…
Coleman: Well…
Dyer: …or a man?
Coleman: Oh when he was about 18 or 17 or 18 somewhere in that little (___) (___).
Dyer: Oh it wasn’t a certain year?
Coleman: Oh no, no it wasn’t a certain year.
Dyer: Did you…
Coleman: It was just the ambition of us. Full of…when there’s pep and fire, why, he made a good under. Cover the…cover the mileage too you know, and become related to coyotes and trot right on and keep a trotting.
Dyer: Did you ever have any of the cleansing ceremonies where you go in through a…say a “hot house” and then jump into the stream nearby?
Coleman: Oh no they used to use that for medical purposes and then a raging fever they’d take him in and cook in the hot house or (___) go out and put him in ice, cool water. If he was real tough, he’d survive and if he didn’t, he died.
Dyer: Makes it a little bit easier if you’re doctor. What would they do just to keep…heat up a small house with a hot stove?
Coleman: They had it built underground.
Dyer: Underground?
Coleman: There wasn’t much oxygen down in there when you had a big fire going?
Dyer: Did they do this regularly if they’re going out to hunt animals?
Coleman: No anybody was sick they’d do it.
Dyer: What about the well people? Did they…
Coleman: No they would’ve done in the sweat house. If they get a bad cold or something, they’d put them in. Very seldom they went in unless they were sick in the sweat house.
Dyer: Indians are noted for their…
Coleman: Somebody (___) you know…grown people would’ve put taken on a little too much weight; they might put him in there and sweat him.
Dyer: Oh I didn’t realize they were interested in their diet then.
Coleman: Oh yeah, yeah. To be a good hunter, you had to be like a greyhound, you had to be hungry and lean, so you’d run a deer down if you had to.
Dyer: When the hunter ran it down, did he share the meat or was it just his own?
Coleman: No everybody shared.
Dyer: Did he get any choice cuts or…?
Coleman: No, no.
Dyer: What about (___)…
Coleman: (___) cooked on the coals; the same as the rest of them.
Dyer: Indian were all noted for the dances and chants that they had and it’s supposed to be a cheap (___) I guess and…
Coleman: Yeah….those kind of guys was like a Hollywood entertainer. They had to have that in their blood when they were kids, you know, but not everybody had done that. It had to run in their blood, see, and youngster, you know, and he’s seven or eight, ten year old or five year old when they’re interested is when they start teaching them by the (___) songs and the chants and the dances and what to dance to, you know, what to dance…like they want them to…think every crowd probably (___) for the dance to the corn; they dance for the berries and they danced to the increase of deer and all that junk you know, I don’t know whether they ever amounted to anything, but that’s…that was their belief. And before they danced for their headgear, whatever they had there for their beads, or their war garment when the medicine man had to…had to pray over them in a big speech, you know, bless your feathers and then you could put them on. Like if I had a set of feathers here and I didn’t have no medicine man or a (___), I’d wear them over and that sea had (___), he’d get sick instantly because I didn’t have my feathers doctored you know by the Indian doctor. I was *unintelligible* (11:40-11:43). I locked them in the toolbox in the running boards in the car so nobody would see them and he’s drunk. My brother locked them in and I got them out and I put them on and he…the old…these people like to die. It takes quite a few Indians (___) (___) (___) (___), so wearing these feathers that was even doctored to them.
Dyer: So they felt that it was…bad medicine
Coleman: Yeah bad medicine beware (___) expensive (___). They had all kinds of beliefs like that.
Dyer: Well did the Chief dance for Indians or for tourists?
Coleman: Oh he danced for tourists and Indians.
Dyer: And that was his profession I guess.
Coleman: Yeah he was an entertainer.
Dyer: Was he a good entertainer?
Coleman: Yeah oh yes. About as good as they had in Hollywood.
Dyer: I’ve heard some of the chants.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: I think Chief Fuller did some of that out here too.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Didn’t he use to in the Tuolumne Rancheria?
Coleman: But Chief Luner he was for dance right there in the park and he use to meet all those professors and guys from different colleges in Los Angeles and Berkeley and all them places. He met doctors and everybody and the Old Chief was good at, but he learned the care of (___) business pretty good.
Dyer: Did he live there in the Valley most of the time?
Coleman: Yeah most all the time. He was kind of a courage character in that Valley, but he…they draft him in the army and that kind of ruined him. He never went back to the Valley after that. He lost his whole in there. Different superintendents they wanted him to dance, they wanted him to dance for a day’s pay and he wouldn’t do it because he knew he couldn’t make anything and he moved out of the park then. He died out of the park. They…took his privileges away then, different superintendent.
Dyer: Were you, as a boy, aware of the gambling games that Indians used to play on the guessing games they used to play? Did you do any of this yourself?
Coleman: No, not really. I bet money, but I never got out and played though.
Dyer: What about the stories…
Coleman: They used to have some very tough games in Yosemite. They, you know, different size money, take the tribes and over them. In the Valley, now, used to be Mono Lake, but they call it the (___). They’d come over and they had some awful tough games.
Dyer: Did they have any ball games…
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: …between the two tribes?
Coleman: Yeah all kinds of sports, race horsing, ball games, penguin bounces. That’s where they used to kind of meet up you know. There was dances and girls and young fellas. I danced and I circled danced. You had to next to a chick you know.
Dyer: You mean like going out Saturday night?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah like going to a dance at night.
Dyer: Were the Mono’s and the Yosemite’s generally friendly?
Coleman: Well they were in later years…years before in (___) days they weren’t very friendly, but later years, they got pretty friendly. They’re different tribes, you know, the Mi Wuk tribe, Fuller’s tribe here they…they’re not so friendly with the Shoshoni and then that’s the one’s were up Pyramid Lake because it happened on that movie deal they had here that time. Oh and they scalded that woman (___).
Dyer: That was out in Phoenix Lake?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: That was when Shoshoni was killed?
Coleman: Yeah that’s when the Shoshoni got scalded.
Dyer: And Shoshoni has blamed the Mi Wuk?
Coleman: Yeah they blamed the Mi Wuk and short changed them on their pay. That made them unhappy, so…it’s really a little (___) and goes over and tells them now that he’s a Mi Wuk. (___) (___) (___).
Dyer: Hold a grudge.
Coleman: Hold a grudge.
Dyer: Long memory?
Coleman: Long memory like an elephant; terrified and no long memory.
Dyer: What about the story telling of the Indians? Indians are noted for lots of tales about animals and birds.
Coleman: Animals and legends of all kinds.
Dyer: Are these are things that were handed down to you too?
Coleman: Oh yeah like the salamander (___), El Capitan, the coyote watching the salamander crawl there in that meadow in front of the El Capitan and that’s why it’s padded with vodka. The guy that run there and he watched that salamander crawl that big rock (___) (___) (___).
Dyer: The salamander went up the rock and the coyote was running down…
Coleman: …running back and forth, get a better view, and he padded the meadow flat. That’s how she used to tell it.
Dyer: Are these stories that were kept alive and handed down..
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: …one to another? Well was there a…
Coleman: The old grandpas like old Captain Paul he’d tell us all that stuff and we had to lay in different positions if we…he used to tell us story of the lightning static and the thunder, you know, and the three little deer that’s supposed to be the thunder, you know, junk like that. The little one was…is the loudest and the strongest, you know, and the youngest had more kicking power and that’s when he’s kicking his feet and the frolic and the thunder get so loud and the static gets so bad…
Dyer: In that little deer then?
Coleman: Yeah that little deer.
Dyer: …big deer.
Coleman: You had to lie down flat on your back, look at the stars above because you (___) on your back (___) (___) your back. *unintelligible* (18:39-18:45)
Dyer: Were there people who were trained to tell these stories?
Coleman: Ah I guess they did train themselves in generation, you know.
Dyer: Yeah. What about keeping…
Coleman: They didn’t have any talk about things. They went out talking about hunting and killing white guys and running and hiding from white guys. They just made up those stories to entertain themselves.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Just like this talking to one another, you know, (___) (___) (___) bull you know.
Dyer: Bull?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Cowboys do a bit of that too.
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: Yep. Now this particular area at one time, we’re at the Chicken Ranch area now, but this was a reservation at one time?
Coleman: No it was an Indian Camp.
Dyer: An Indian Camp?
Coleman: I didn’t doubt any Indian regardless of what tribe he come here and take up residence; stay a couple of weeks, the rest years, six months.
Dyer: So it was like a stopping place, but you could stop for a long time.
Coleman: …(___) an overnight place.
Dyer: Was there a regular village here?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: And…
Coleman: I guess one time they…75 to 80 years ago I guess there’s 150 different families here. They all (___) up and down boarded the houses; all this yard in front of me a little round house right here a small one; over there…two of them by that house on the hill there.
Dyer: So there’s just…
Coleman: See where this (___) (___)?
Dyer: Just across the street?
Coleman: There’s the imprints of a big round house right there; and all through there and all through down here towards over to the prison camp all that has been Indians because you can go down there and find (___) and beads and everything in them rocks, you know, (___) rock.
Dyer: Are there good acorn trees around here for (___)?
Coleman: There used to be with the white oak tree. Indian didn’t prefer the white oak trees and much for acorn then they did the black oak and all that stuff. On the elevation of Twain Harte and Tuolumne is the black oak. That’s the super dish that black oak. The Indians survived on this particular “black” if you will.
Dyer: Is the people that lived here was there a special name that the Indian had for this particular site now?
Coleman: Yeah but I don’t know it.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Let’s see…it’s been known as the Chicken Ranch for years and years; I don’t even know how it got its name Chicken Ranch.
Dyer: But they were not as a tribe?
Coleman: No they were not a tribe they’re all (___).
Dyer: And people would come and some would leave…
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: …and move on then.
Coleman: And at these gatherings, they would make friends like we do nowadays we make friends over and gotta come and visiting. You was welcomed here, see.
Dyer: Were there any problems here and in the contacts with the whites in the area in Jamestown?
Coleman: Well just…just one that I remember. Oh they used to fights here where the whites and the whites used to really heck with the Indians here because there was only one particular one over this tunnel here…oh I’ll show you.
Dyer: That’s a tunnel on your property that goes under (___).
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: Under Table Mountain?
Coleman: Yeah there was a white man come here and he was gonna pipe this water from here down across the highway down there where his turkey farm is, you know.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: And this John Kelley I was telling you about this Indian is…his old grandfather his name was Tom Williams. They had a dispute over this and Judge Oakley was the judge in Jamestown. They all disputed it and the old man went over and got his gun and come down and shot the guy. (___) stopped working and shot him dead in his tracks. Well I had ole Williams in Sacramento, see, Oakley was his attorney. Oakley didn’t arrest him because he couldn’t it was his federal reign and had to go to federal court, so they took him away to Sacramento and all (___) cured him; cured him down there; and Oakley he was from over on Kingsley and (___) they call it.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Where ole Captain Paul was the head there and he married an Indian woman and when she died, he’d come over here and got to be Justice of the Peace over in Groveland or he stopped at Groveland, but he never stayed there. He come on over here to Jamestown and took up a residence here and then he married here. He married a woman of his own kind here and he then he raised these Oakley boys Jim and Joe. You know Joe Opie?
Dyer: The ones in downtown Sonora?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Now when was that?
Coleman: I don’t know just what year it was.
Dyer: Recently?
Coleman: Oh no, no…
Dyer: Long time ago?
Coleman: …it was back when…quite a few years back.
Dyer: Before you lived here?
Coleman: Yeah before I lived here and I’ve been up for 35 years.
Dyer: So that’d be before WWII then?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah, yeah it was all back WWI it was a little bit before that.
Dyer: Oh uh-huh early 1900s?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: What about the encampment out in the Middle Camp Road? Was that a tribal unit out there?
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: The other side of Twain Harte?
Coleman: Yeah it was all tribal.
Dyer: Were there men people out there?
Coleman: Yeah quite a number of them.
Dyer: Is that where Chief Fuller lived then, Richard Fuller?
Coleman: Well yes but he lived…you know where the Crystal Falls is?
Dyer: Yes, uh-huh, that subdivision?
Coleman: Yeah there’s an embankment there above the falls. (___) mountain out there pretty level with the falls right across?
Dyer: Yeah I guess…
Coleman: Well there was an Indian camp right in there and that’s where Fuller his parents lived right up there above that, see, where it dragged them over to get the old reservation.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: And I don’t know how he got it, but he…anyways he got it and sold it. He sold it to Mayfield and that’s where Fuller’s was. Raised an old man Fuller, but his father was a white, see, so he (___) to the Fuller Ranch. That’s up there…that’s where the rock below the road Twain Harte, you know, where they got the dam and the swimming pool.
Dyer: Yeah down…
Coleman: Down there’s a big blazed rock there on, oh, a couple acres I guess. Well that’s known as “Ball Rock;” right down below that is the old Fuller Ranch, so Fuller he’d done good there for years. He had a contract team and he had low line teams in to the eagle shallot down there hauling mining timbers or showing up the tunnels and timbers of all descriptions. And then he got smart afterwards and he mortgaged all that property and pretty soon (___) (___) and he had no place to go, so he went over to the (___) reservation and called himself “Chief” (__).
Dyer: Well why did he mortgage it? What did he do with the money?
Coleman: I don’t know what he done? He must’ve laid some money and in between I guess he wanted to get bigger and money drained the lost whole works.
Dyer: So that’s when he went out over the Rancheria in Tuolumne?
Coleman: Yeah. He took the title of Chief over there and he got in with this Crook Collette and he wanted to sue the government.
Dyer: Who is Collette?
Coleman: He was an attorney.
Dyer: Attorney?
Coleman: Yeah for the Indians.
Dyer: BIA man?
Coleman: Oh they didn’t have no such thing as “BIA” and I don’t know what he was.
Dyer: Oh if that was…
Coleman: I don’t know what title he had. That’ll go back in the ‘20s.
Dyer: Ok.
Coleman: Yeah it was in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Then he died and then (___) lost some keys and then he just stayed on the reservation and bought the rest of them there.
Dyer: Now that was about the time Pickering was beginning to move into that area wasn’t it?
Coleman: Yeah…
Dyer: It was 1920s…
Coleman: …shortly after that, yeah.
Dyer: Did they buy some of the land from the tribe out there?
Coleman: No, no the old lady used to live on the Rancheria; called it the Rancheria. Her name was Tibbets.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: And she sold the land to the government to make that Rancheria. She owned that land and then she was other words an agent over the Indians then. She sold her land to them and then made a Rancheria and then she was the agent.
Dyer: Was she Indian?
Coleman: No.
Dyer: She was white?
Coleman: White.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: But she sold her land. Then that’s what built the Reservation. There was an old, old man like Thompson and another Indian they used to call “Big John” and Jack Bailey and all different kind of old men like that would work down at the mills and they built that place up. They planted all that orchard and stuff around there.
Dyer: The apples?
Coleman: Yeah and an ace but (___) they called him old Peter and a number of them (___) (___) and then the old ladies they had a little money and they put up a little cabin and they buy that lumber at the Westside you know.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: And all that stuff. That’s the whole reason build up and then (___) (___) took ahold and he did the whole works and old lady died of and Fuller raised cattle and fooled around there and wouldn’t let this one move into that and then he was kind of homeless there and they drifted off the riverbank in different places, see.
Dyer: Let me flip this tape over, Frank. (30:16-end blank)