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Open Poetry #36
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CHIEF QUANAH PARKER
| Open Poetry #36 |
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CHIEF QUANAH PARKER |
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Abe Senior Member
since 2003-05-28
Posts 694Looks like Vero Beach, FL until the end! 
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Born around Eighteen forty-five In what is now Oklahoma To captive Cynthia Ann Parker And Father, Chief Nocona. Raised in Ancient Tribal ways Learned to ride by three or four His Band following the Buffalo Trading with other Tribes and more. While avoiding Army Troopers He was taught of weaponry The lance, knife, bow and arrow The choice of the Comanche. Although they had some guns, too They didn’t trust the aim While galloping on horseback Into a Battle’s deadly game. His Mother, taken as a child Could not teach, the white man’s way Learning from Braves of their conquests And longing to join them one day. His Mother and Sister were stolen And when his Father was killed In the raid by the Texas Rangers His hatred of the white was instilled. Eager to seek out his revenge On the scourge of the white man Who wreaked death and their disease With their ethnic cleansing plan. He saw the killing of the Buffalo That once covered the open plain Slaughtered into near extinction Never to return to roam again. During his youth warfare was constant Treaties were made, only to be broken Lies told in the form of promises When the white man’s word was spoken. Time and again, Peace was made With other Tribes and with the whites While all the while they were provoked And stripped of all their Human Rights. After his Band lost many members He joined the Quahada Comanche Of whom his Father had been Chief Back when they had lived Free. He refused to accept a treaty To confine them to a reservation As he became the last Chief Of the whole Comanche Nation. He remained on the warpath Raiding Texas and Mexico Outwitting the Army and others Wherever he made the blood flow. He was almost killed in Texas When he attacked Adobe Walls Against some Buffalo Hunters That’s what history recalls. By Eighteen and seventy-five The band was starving and weary The Army asked for their surrender And to sign a Peace Treaty. Quanah rode out to a mesa And saw a Wolf coming his way Then turn and trot to the northeast Towards where Fort Sill lay. Overhead an Eagle glided lazily Then, towards the Fort took wing Quanah thought this was a sign The kind the gods would bring. In June, Eighteen seventy-five He surrendered with his Band To travel down the white man’s road Into a strange and unknown land. He learned the English language And lobbied Congress for his Nation He invested in a railroad Was made Judge on the Reservation. He learned of the way of politics Became friends with the President But older Chiefs thought him too young And his white blood, they did resent. In Ninety-two they split the Tribe One faction on his side, one not Those who thought he’d sold them out And all those with whom, he’d fought. He was a great Chief and Warrior Who never forgot old traditions But still able to bend enough To survive those new conditions. He was beloved by his People And respected by old enemies Whose word could be trusted And who lived by signed treaties. He passed in Nineteen eleven But leaves a Great legacy Which lives on in every member Of the Tribe of the Comanche. Today the bodies of Chief Quanah and his Mother lie side by side at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Comanche reservation was closed in 1901 with 10,000 or so surviving members, half of whom still live on their own property in Oklahoma. A bit of trivia - My Granddad knew the Chief. Here's some interesting responses I rec'd > Del, how ironic.. I am related to the great chief on his white side. His mother Cynthia Ann Parker was the niece of my gt gt grandfather. Lois Abe, When I was 16-17 years old, I worked at an amusement park north of Cache, Okla (Craterville Park) owned by the Rush family. The elder Mrs Rush was very close friends with Mrs. Birdsong, Quannah's daughter. The two little ladies, way up in their 80's would spend many a slow afternoon, sitting behind the counter at the skating ring (Mrs. Rush, even at that age, worked a full day, selling tickets for skating and also for the bumper cars next door) gossiping and laughing much to my delighta as I went about my work there. Mrs. Birdsong was neat as a pin and always well-groomed, carrying herself like the princess she was. She had been sent off to boarding school as a child and was well-educated. Mrs. Rush told me once that Quannah had married her off to Mr. Birdsong, a white man who worked for the railroad, a marriage that didn't last, I believe. They had at least one daughter, a beautiful woman who sometimes came with Mrs. Birdsong. I would have liked to have asked Mrs. Birdsong about her growing up years and what her father was like but, though she always nodded and spoke, she was very reserved, except with Mrs. Rush whose husband had been the first head of the US Wild Life Refuge which joined Quannah's home place. I have taken the liberty of forwarding on your poem to a friend who is married to one of the two last living grandsons of Quannah and also to another friend whose sister is married to one of Quannah's descendants. bob Below is something I found online just now. I had typed in Neda Birdsong/Quannah Parker at Google and it referred me to Thechronicles of Okla. 1934. This confirms my memory of 50 years ago! I also called my sister who worked at Craterville with me and she echoed my memory of Mrs. Birdsong, adding that she was "dolled to the nines" and drove her little green plymouth. I had forgotten that. I wonder if Mrs. Birdsong lived in Quannah's home ?(which was later bought by an individual and still exists in Cache). At the time we worked at Craterville, both Quannah's home place and Craterville itself were in the process of being bought by the government as an additiion to Ft. Sill which I believe was accomplished in '57 or so. I went off to college and dont' remember when Mrs. Birdsong passed on.Below is the exerpt from the Okla Chronicle. bob "The reasons why the Comanches have never denied any of these statements are twofold: The natural reticence of the Indian was for many years added to the fear of a captive people that bad consequences might follow any recital by them of details connected with the captivity of a white woman. In addition to this, the great Quanah Parker, eldest son of Nokoni and Cynthia Ann Parker, forbade his people to tell the truth about the matter for an entirely different reason. On one occasion he said to one of his daughters, the present Mrs. Neda Parker Birdsong, of Cache, Okla.: "Out of respect to the family of General Ross, do not deny that he killed Peta Nokoni. If he felt that it was any credit to him to have killed my father, let his people continue to believe that he did so." The magnanimous injunction was observed by his children until now. A recent statement made that Nokoni was a Mexican, has caused them to break the silence of seventy years. This statement is based on the fact that a man killed by Captain Ross at the time of the capture of Cynthia Ann Parker, and identified by him as Nokoni, was undoubtedly a Mexican. The story of the mistake in identification was told recently to the writer by Mrs. Birdsong, and corroborated by her sister, Mrs. Emmett Cox, of Lawton, Okla., as follows: While Cynthia Ann Parker was undoubtedly an unwilling captive at first, she later came to like the life of the Comanches, and lived it from preference. Shortly after she grew old enough for marriage, she became the wife of Peta Nokoni. The Rose story is written in a vein which would imply that she was not fully sincere in her statement about her love for her husband and her desire to stay with the Indians. Mrs. Birdsong, who is a Carlisle graduate, and a cultured woman, has made a close study of the history of the case, and she doubts that Cynthia Ann Parker ever made the statement quoted. If she did, Mrs. Birdsong says, she certainly did not use the words quoted by Rose, as by that time she had been in captivity, or rather had been living as a Comanche tribe member for nineteen years, and had forgotten how to speak English, certainly how to use such chaste and elegant phraseology as was placed in her mouth in the Rose account. That her negative to him—if given at" I would like to read your poem to my US History class. May I read it to them and also give them a copy to work with? Quannah is credited with spreading the peyote religion from the Huiichol Indians from the SW. Today it is called the Native American Church, and it has spread througout Indian Country. It is a blend of native and Christian beliefs. Quannah became a devout Christian later in life. We are friends with many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren today. My good friend Ernest Parker was making a doll cradleboard for me when he died, but I have several other things that he finished. He used to joke that he was a great-grandson from wife #5. When the missionaries showed up, they relented and told him that he could keep two wives, but that he was supposed to give up the other 3. He never did, really, just let them all think he did. Quanah was always my hero as a child, being a half-breed like me. Made me feel like being half was ok. Dear, dear "Abe" ..... what a wonderful history lesson I have just enjoyed. Am forwarding it to my children (seven of them) and their families. How interesting it would be if our school children were presented history in this fashion .... with the added lesson in verse. I so enjoyed this. Abe, I enjoyed the poem, especially since my adopted parents were raised in Cache, Oklahoma (12 miles from Fort Sill) with Quanah's children. I was raised in Spearman, Texas 16 miles from Adobe Walls where Billy Dixon did his famous shot. I just have one small correction in the poem words - The place in Texas was Adobe Walls rather than wells. I don't remember if I told you or not, but I'm about half Comanche. That's why I wrote A proud People. I love poems and stories about my people and how they lived. I've been trying in vain to trace my natural and official connections to the Comanche Tribe. My Natural Grandmother on my father's side (Sadie Cron) was full blooded Comanche and my Natural Great-Grandfather on my mother's side was full blooded Comanche as well. However, the trail stops there. Anyway, thanks for sending the poem, you do good work. Aye, Abe: My grandmother knew of Quanah and of his father, Nocona. She was a schoolmarm in the Arizona Territory, befriended the Apache-Comanches, Hopi, Western Navajo, Utes and Piutes. She attempted to translate and relate the "Heroes of the Bible" stories to those folk who sent their children to the schools in Yavapai County. As youngsters we could sit at her knee for hours at a time to listen to the tales she could relate. Her brother, Harvey could entertain the grandkids with his story-telling, but grandmother's stories appeared more genuine. Not only did we hear the stories of the Indians, but the stories she would tell those children who attended her school, about the heroes of the Bible. I have inherited these precious things, and most of the "Indian baskets" her friends presented to her when she left for California with her four eldest children. My dad was the fifth of seven, born in California after the family relocated back to the home of my grandad's birth. The heritage of the warrior continues around Ft. Sill in Western Oklahoma, as the National Guard carries out its duties of defense and assistance HELLO, HELLO, HELLO I will forward this to Ricky Lynn Gregg who was adopted into Quanah Parker tribe as he played the part in the movie. Ricky Lynn Gregg is a performer on our Native American Dance Theatre at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville every year. www.NativeAmericanDance.net Thanks for sharing the poem. Del "Abe" Jones Mankind's greatest accomplishment is not the revolution of technology, it is the evolution of creativity. |
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sweetpoetess Member
since 2005-02-27
Posts 428Florida |
Awesome story about indians. I really enjoyed the poem.  Poetry is beauty in words. |
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