Oral history interview with William Harjo

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is [Sunday], February 12, 2017, and I'm interviewing William Harjo for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project, sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. William, you're a musician-in-residence at the Greater Tulsa Indian Arts Festival this year. You've been playing and making flutes for a long time, participated in many workshops and demonstrations, and you also make other cultural items. I look forward to learning more about your background and your career. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

Harjo: You're welcome.

Little Thunder: Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Harjo: I was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which leads me to my first Indian name, William. (Laughter) I was born in William Hastings Hospital. My mother thought William was a nice name, so that's where I got my first name. I guess that's my Indian name. I was named after an Indian hospital. I grew up in 1:00McIntosh County, in a medium-sized, small city by the name of Hanna, Oklahoma, population of fifty. (Laughter) What was the other question? I'm sorry.

Little Thunder: What did your folks do for a living?

Harjo: Mostly survive. (Laughs) My mother would do whatever she could to earn money. I was mostly raised up with my grandmother, and I guess she was pretty good at vending. Maybe that's where I learned how to sell crafts or sell my artwork at an early age.

Little Thunder: From your grandma?

Harjo: From my grandma. She used to take pullets and tie the legs together. We 2:00would get the wagon, and we would take the hens with us into town and trade it for groceries at the grocery store. Sometimes you might take a milk pail, put eggs in it, and sometimes eggs was what we had to deliver. I learned a form of trade at a very early age.

Little Thunder: That's a great background to have. How about brothers or sisters?

Harjo: I have [eight] brothers and sisters, whom I was not acquainted with until I was forty years old. I'm the eldest of that group. We have the same father and different mothers, but we're all culturally aware. We all speak our language, and so that's one fortunate thing. When we made contact, we all had a language 3:00in common. It's been great ever since I've met my siblings, or got reacquainted.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. You mentioned you were around Creek language growing up. It was your first language, I believe?

Harjo: Yes, that's the only language I spoke until I started first grade.

Little Thunder: What kinds of music did you hear growing up?

Harjo: As far as Native music, it was some of the church gatherings we went to, Indian church songs. Some of the other places I went was ceremony grounds. Your stomp grounds is what it's called today. At these gatherings, the ceremony starts at midnight, lasts until daylight. The children get to play and do 4:00whatever they want all night, so it's a lot of fun. Anyway, so I grew up with these songs. I guess my role models were your singers and your stickball players and so on. I used to attend as many as I could after I was able to go visit on my own, but in the early days, I would ride--. I remember my first few, I rode in a wagon because that's the only source of transportation my grandmother had at the time.

Little Thunder: Did anybody in your family or extended family practice any of the traditional arts in terms of, maybe, carving or basket making or anything?

Harjo: No, I would say we were handy with our hands to make tools. We knew how 5:00to farm, and we knew how to work with horses. My uncle was, I would say, a genius mechanic, for not having a fourth-grade education. He was well known as a mechanic all through McIntosh County, and so I learned a lot from him.

Little Thunder: What were some of your other childhood interests? I imagine you spent a lot of time outdoors.

Harjo: Yes, one of the things I did as a young boy growing up was I used to ride a bicycle, and it was nothing--. I used to ride forty miles, maybe a hundred miles a day, riding, going to different towns. I would ride from Hanna all the way to Wetumka, which is probably about twenty-five miles one direction, so 6:00driving to Wetumka and home in one day.

Little Thunder: Wow, you were getting good workouts. (Laughs)

Harjo: It was nothing. That's something we used to do all the time. Some of my friends and I, we would drive to Eufaula, which was twenty-four miles away.

Little Thunder: Where did you attend school?

Harjo: I attended school in Hanna until I got older. I attended Eufaula for a year and a half, and then I went to boarding school. I wanted to go to Chilocco [Indian School] because one of the professors or teachers from Chilocco was a farmer in Hanna, so I figured I could have a ride home if I needed to. I found out, at the time, they told me that I would not be accepted at Chilocco because 7:00that was mostly for Plains Indians. Being a Muscogee, (they're Southeast) I had to go to Seneca Indian School, which was located by Wyandotte, Oklahoma, at the time. It doesn't exist anymore. That's where I went to boarding school. My first roommate was Charles Wright. He was a Cherokee. No, he was Choctaw; I'm sorry. The other one was James Blackbear. Charles was from Antlers, Oklahoma, and Blackbear was from Pryor, Oklahoma. The purpose behind this was to interest us into using our English language rather than our own because there was other people there that were of the Creek Nation. We could speak the same language, 8:00but I was not allowed to be in the same dorm or same--. Well, we were in the same dorm. I was not allowed to be--roommates with them. Fortunate part about that is we made our own language. We had three languages to pick words from, so it was pretty nice. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You were teaching each other, a little bit.

Harjo: I used to have at least a hundred vocabulary words in Choctaw, as well as Cherokee, and then my language, also. Sometimes we would share stories. I might lead off in my language and tell a story, and then the Choctaw would lead off and tell the same story in his language, and also the Cherokee. We would all tell the same story but in three different languages other than English.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. You were going to be multilingual if you'd stayed there for a few more years. What were some of your favorite subjects at school?

Harjo: At the boarding school, it was trying to figure a way to run off. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You ended up at Sequoyah, too, right?

Harjo: Yes, I ended up at Sequoyah. I was going through the process of what was offered to me or what I had to do legally. At the time, you had to go to school. I don't know whether you had to pay a fine or what, or be sent off to somewhere, but I was trying to comply to what the state wanted.

Little Thunder: There was no arts offerings or wood working offerings or anything?

Harjo: At Sequoyah there was, but, as I said, my interest wasn't really--. I really didn't have much of an ambition at the time. What I did was I ran off from boarding school in my freshman year, which led to two things. One thing was it kept me out of the service later on. You've heard of dumb luck. (Laughter) I dropped out of school, and a couple years later when I went back to boarding school because I found out I needed an education, I wanted one. When I turned eighteen, I was still in boarding school. As long as I was attending school, the draft would not send me off to war. They would not draft me, and so I thought 11:00that was pretty good. Now that I look back, my reason for going back to school was that I was working in Kansas City at a real famous hotel called Muehlebach Hotel. This was right after a real famous English group had come through town, by the name of Beatles, and this was the same hotel that they stayed in.

I walked in an alley one day, and I really didn't know what I was doing. I just seen a bunch of people out there. Somebody said that they were offering jobs. I was looking for work, so I went back there. These were, you might say, homeless people that was looking for day labor. I stood in line with them, and they came out and made a selection. They selected me to come and work, so I went in. I told them I was eighteen. I lied about my age, and I got a job. I went up, and I 12:00washed dishes. It was the same kind of equipment I used to use at a boarding school, at Seneca. That's one of the things you had to do was you had to do some kind of a work. I learned how to use a dishwashing machine there, and I was real familiar with a kitchen. After a couple of days, they asked me if I wanted to work for two weeks because the lady that ran the dishwashing machine wanted a vacation. They had never had anybody that could come in and run it. When they found out I could, I got a job for two weeks straight, and I went to work. When I was working there, one of the chefs, he liked my work ethics, and he asked me to work for him as a chef's helper.

He had never had a chef's helper before, but he wanted to help me. I got my 13:00chef's uniform, and I went to work for him. (Laughs) I was learning a trade. I guess I was learning how to be a chef, pastries mostly. I was doing that, and I had worked there for a few months. This certain time, I had worked all day, and I was headed back home. I was using the Metro. I went downtown Kansas City, right in the middle of town, where I picked up my bus. When I got on the bus that day, there was some young people my age that was sitting on the bus, and they had played hooky. They had come into town instead of going to classes that afternoon. They were scheming, and they was making up a story to tell their parents. I was sitting a couple of seats in front of them, and I could hear all 14:00this. As I'm listening to this, I got to thinking of my life. Here I am, same age as these kids, and this is what they're doing. That's the age group I should be with because my youngest friend that I had at the time that I was working was thirty-five years old. I was probably, I don't know, I would say sixteen.

I came back, and I told my family, I said, "I think I want to go back to school." They said, "When?" I said, "I think I'll just go right now." I had a car. I went to call my employer up, told them I was leaving. I was going back to school. They said, "Good for you," and they offered to forward a check to me. I 15:00got in my car; I came back to Oklahoma. I went to my grandmother's house, told her I was back in Oklahoma and I was going to be going to boarding school. I had to come to Okmulgee and talk to people with the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs]. I told them I wanted to go to Sequoyah; I had been there before. They found my records, and they called Sequoyah. They said, "Yeah, he can come in Monday." Then they went on ahead, and BIA wrote me a check for fifty-five dollars to go to the store and buy some clothes. Already had clothes, but I bought some more. I left my car with family. I had someone drop me off, and I went to boarding 16:00school. I stayed there until I graduated. I was twenty years old when I graduated. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You had run off from Sequoyah one time and, as you said, went back. You, I guess, met your first Native flute player, although you didn't plan that. Can you tell us that story?

Harjo: Yes, when I was in my senior year, Sequoya was real accustomed to my behavior at the time. They were really lenient with me. I was one of the ones that would run off and come back all the time. Get my grades caught up, be at the head of the class, and then I'd go somewhere for a while and then come back. Then I'd have to start at the bottom of the class again because I'd be behind in my schoolwork. I don't think I could've got away with that anywhere else but Sequoyah. The people there was real--they were on my side. On this day, I ran 17:00off, and it was a weekend. I heard there was a powwow going on in Eufaula, so I went to Eufaula and attended the powwow and visited with people I knew and everything. When the powwow was over Sunday afternoon, I started walking back to the boarding school.

I was walking down 69 Highway, heading north. Before I got to the big bridge, (Laughs) Woodrow Haney stopped, and he offered me a ride. He wanted to know where I was going, and I told him, "I'm going back to Sequoyah." He started laughing. He said, "You know, I've given rides to a lot of boys running off from 18:00boarding school. I've never given a ride to someone going back." (Laughter) He says, "Let me feed you," so went over to his hotel. Him and his wife was there, Pauline. She's still alive today. I met her. He was into language lessons at the time. He had all kinds of information written out, and a cassette even, and he gave all of this to me. Anyway, we shared language, and he was happy that I could speak. When I left and went back on the road, I'm now hitchhiking with paperwork in my hand. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I don't know if that made it easier for you to be picked up or not. (Laughs)

Harjo: I kept all that information, and he had a lot of interesting points. He 19:00had a lot of areas he was covering which identified the Muscogee language really well.

Little Thunder: How did you happen to become involved with Native flute? When did you first hear your first Native flute?

Harjo: That's kind of another long story. (Laughter) Later years, much later, I was working in Kansas City, Missouri, as an alcohol and drug counselor. Also, I was working with young people in the area of prevention because my idea of prevention is stop it before it happens. I was working with--. I identified these young Indian children living in Kansas City as at-risk because they knew they were Indians but had no contact with any Native culture at all. We decided 20:00to start a youth group. A well-respected elder friend of mine who I worked with, Jim McKinney, he and I formed a youth group. I found out the number-one choice was powwows, so we started taking the children to powwows and so on. That's going on a different subject now.

Anyway, after many years of being a counselor, I had a heart attack and also had a--. It was turning out to be a real high-stress job. I'm sitting at home one day and didn't feel like going to work. I call my boss up, or the guy running the Indian center, and told him, "I got two weeks coming. I need to take two weeks' vacation. I need it now." He says, "I'll write you down. We can fill in. 21:00We can make it work." I said, "Okay." I sat around, relaxed a little bit. About ten minutes later, I got back on the phone. I said, "You know, I really think I'm going to quit. I want to use this two weeks' vacation time as a two-weeks' notice. When that's over, I'll come in, and we'll get things straightened out." He says, "Well, we can do that, too." I said, "Okay."

Little Thunder: You were, at this point, in your early fifties, late forties?

Harjo: Early forties. Then I call him back ten minutes later. I said, "You know what? I'll just quit right now." (Laughter) Then my wife, she worked for the state, and she was also going through a lot of stress. We sold our home, packed 22:00our car up, and headed south. Landed in Livingston, Texas, and we rented a house. On the house, there was a little creek with river cane growing on it. My son had a river cane flute which someone had given him, and so I started trying to reproduce those. As I was making them, a new friend that I had made, an elder by the name of Jack Batiste from Alabama-Coushatta Reservation, come by. He visited, and he says, "Are you making these?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do they work?" I said, "Yes." He played one for a little bit, and then he says, "You should take some to a powwow," because my son was a dancer, my youngest son. He was a well-known dancer and a singer. I said, "I guess I should." I took some 23:00with me to a powwow, and I would go around to the other vendors and peddle my handiwork. I met another man by the name of David Evening Thunder. He said, "Can you make one like this," showed me one. I said, "Sure can." He says, "How much would you charge me?" I said, "Twenty dollars." He says, "Well, I'll take ten of them, and I'll be over here at this show next week."

Little Thunder: Was he still talking about river cane flutes?

Harjo: Yes, it was a little longer model than the ones I was making, a little different. Anyway, I delivered my products, and I had extras. Pretty soon, I started setting tables up and selling Native flutes. Over time, people said I played real good, so to make a few extra dollars, I made me a tape. I would sell 24:00it with my flutes. Then I met some people from Europe that invited me to come over to Switzerland. It just happened that my wife, (I guess she saw things in advance) she said, "We need to get a passport." We had just got our passports when I met this couple. They said, "There's a group coming over, and we'd like to invite you to come over with them." I made plans. They wanted to put me on as a musician, so I had to mass produce my cassettes and made one that they could retail. I went over to Europe, and I started performing on stages. I went to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein.

Little Thunder: What a great experience.

Harjo: Zurich, Switzerland, that was the place that I liked the most. I've been to places like Berlin and most of your major cities in Germany.

Little Thunder: You have an interesting story about Zurich, too, I guess. Tell us about that. (Laughs)

Harjo: Yes, when I started performing on stages, they were introducing me to come out. I had my flute, and I was at the back, coming up the stage. There was a set of stairs I had to climb. As I'm walking up the stairs, coming in behind the curtain, I dropped my flute. I think I tripped, maybe. I don't know. Anyway, I dropped my flute. I'm standing behind the curtain, and my flute is laying at 26:00the bottom with a crack in it. It had broke. The audience were sitting out there, waiting. I'm introduced, and they said, "Here he is: William Harjo." I had to go out onstage without a flute. (Laughter) I had someone bring me one. I had to apologize and get the show going, but that taught me a lesson. Every time I perform now, whenever I go anyplace to play flutes, I'll have a handful with me, just like here. I'll probably be playing after a while, so I brought extra flutes with me.

Little Thunder: You'll be prepared. I want to go back to your first flute-making attempts. Were you happy with your first flute? You might tell us a little bit about a cane flute and the difference between five-hole flute and six-hole 27:00flute, maybe a little bit about other types of materials you can make flutes from. Starting with your first flute, were you happy with it?

Harjo: Yes, I made my first flute a long time ago, but I don't know if I want to get into that one. (Laughter) I made it out of a water pipe for my son. I said, "Let's see you tear that one up." (Laughter) Anyway, the ones that I made from river cane, I knew that was a traditional material. I had picked river cane up off the ground with woodpecker holes in it already that you could blow across and get a sound. Over time, I've perfected the story about the first flute, which I would like to tell right now. At the beginning, they say there was a 28:00young man who had strong feelings for a girl, and no matter what he did, she would not pay any attention to him. He went to an elder, or maybe the medicine man in this village. He was told, "If you really have pain in your heart for this girl, you should go on a vision quest." This is what the young man was doing. He was out in the forest for four days, and he heard a strange sound.

We don't know what the sound was like, but it drew his attention. He followed it, and it led him to a place where some river cane was growing. A tornado had come through and broke the river cane in half. As it was starting to lay over to the side and dry out and decay, insects moved inside and left larvae, which grew into little animals inside the decaying river cane. The woodpecker come along for survival, put holes in it, retrieved the little animals for food. Now the 29:00wind spirit was coming along, passing into, over, and through the holes to make the sound, so the young man knew it was something special. He took that piece of cane, and on his way back to his village, he was blowing into the holes, over it, through it, trying to make the sounds that he had heard from the wind spirit. As he was doing this, the young girl heard the beautiful sounds, came to him, and that was the beginning of the first flute.

Little Thunder: Thank you.

Harjo: Yes, and after I was making and selling flutes and I had my flute business going, which I didn't know it was a business until five years later, they said, "If you can make profit on it, it's a good business." They gave it a year or two years, and if it's still profitable, it's good. I'd been doing it for five, so I realized it was a pretty good business. (Laughter) My uncle 30:00[Toney Mitchell] came up to me, and he says, "You remind me of my grandpa," his great-grandpa. I said, "How's that?" He says, "His name was Nokti," and nokti is a word for hard-head, or people that don't listen to things, listen to other people. He'll go on ahead and go forward with whatever's on his mind, even if you tell him to stop. If he felt like it was a good thing to do, he would do it.

That's what that word means. That was his Indian name, but he was a healer. He was a medicine man, and he had lost his speech. I don't know how he lost his speech, whether it was harsh weathers or--. It was his great-grandfather, so it could have been soldiers. Whatever the reason was, he managed to continue his 31:00healing because he would sing phrases. He had phrases and songs to sing on medicine. He continued this by making a flute out of a hickory sapling. He used the sound of the flute as his voice, so he continued his singing and continued his healings. He told me that, so I guess flute making goes way back in my family.

Little Thunder: When did you transition away from river cane and start making flutes out of cedar or other materials?

Harjo: Honestly, it was to make more money (Laughs) because my cousin was 32:00starting to be a dealer, starting to sell Native crafts and Native jewelry and stuff. He had picked up a dozen flute kits from someone. Let me see if I can remember. I remember who it was; I can't think of his name right now. He's well known. His family has a well-known drum group right now. I'm thinking it's Scissortail. The man that put that drum group together, that's who my cousin got his flutes from. He asked me to put some together, and he asked my son to put one together. That's what he used for his sales is, "Hey, an eleven-year-old boy can put this together. Look at this!" I put some together, and I'm looking at it.

I used to work in a steel fab shop, way before I started--in my late twenties. I worked in machine shops and steel fab shops, and I knew how to set up equipment and so on. I'm looking at this, and I said, "Well, heck, I could run all this equipment. This is not a big thing." I looked at how they were made, and I said, "Well, I can do that." I started buying cedar lumber and making my own, and that's where I started. I've perfected it, and I have made a change. I claim it, but I guess there's no real truth to it. I claim it because I'm the one that started doing this. Originally, the river canes that I make, I would chisel the air passage out between the two holes up on top where the sound comes from.

The carved flutes that were being sold at the time had a brass plate up underneath the piece you put on top and the body of the flute itself, between the two holes, to make the air come out of one chamber into the other. In my case, I started doing it like a river cane. I started chiseling an air channel and omitting the brass plate, which actually made it more simple. When you have a flute, a brass plate, and a figure sitting on top, that's three items you have to move and adjust. To a novice, to a person that don't have the ear tuned into it yet, really don't know where to place it or how to tune the flute up. When you omit the brass plate, you got the one piece on top to slide until you hear a 35:00sound you like. Nowadays, even your big-time flute makers are all having it made the same way.

Little Thunder: Wow. Were you hearing any other flute players, like Doc Tate Nevaquaya, or were you hearing any other flute traditions? Are there any differences between flute playing traditions, between Plains and Southeastern?

Harjo: Yeah, I would think so. I know that there's two different designs. You have the style that I use, and also when you go out West, there's another style as to where--. You said the difference between five-hole and a six-hole flute. The placement of the off-note or the flat note is different on the ones out 36:00West. Once you learn that fingering, it's hard to get back to this other one. I guess if you play flutes long enough you can pick it up. The ones from South America are all based on your chromatic scale, and so those notes are totally different from your Native-American-style flutes. Ours is basically like the black keys on your piano, (three, the white space, and two together) so that's your five notes.

Little Thunder: Do you enjoy performing as much as you enjoy making flutes now?

Harjo: Sometimes when I get a good crowd that really seems to be enjoying my stories, I enjoy sharing. I think I enjoy camaraderie of people more than 37:00playing. Sometimes I like making a different flute. I guess I like both of them equally. I like being able to produce something that's pleasing to other people.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the flutes you most enjoy making, or type, or approach? You sometimes ornament. I know you do some decorating of your flutes.

Harjo: I think my favorite ones are the smallest ones, what I call a beginner's, 38:00because I can--. At the beginning, it used to take me several days to make a batch of a hundred. My first time I made a hundred of them, I took them to a powwow, and I was competing with a dollar whistle. I sold them for five bucks each, though. I said, "I got too much work in it to let it go for a dollar." My very first show, I brought them out. I sold all of them for five bucks each, and I thought, "Wow, this is amazing." All through the next week, I'm working and working and working. About three or four days later, I have another batch of a hundred. I went to the next show, and, again, I sold all of them.

About the third or fourth week of making a hundred of them, I said, "This is all I'm doing. This is starting to turn out to be work. I think I'm going to double 39:00my price. Even if I don't sell all of them, I've still made my money." I moved it up to ten dollars, and I sold all of them again. I said, "Wow, I've doubled my profit," (Laughter) so I made another batch. This time, I said, "I'm going to take it up to fifteen." I didn't sell out at fifteen, but I still made a good profit. I've been making them for about twenty years now, and I still keep them at the same price. That's my beginner flutes. I call them beginners because all the processes you need to make a flute play is what it takes to make this work. Once you learn this inexpensive flute, you can actually pick up a large one or pick up a more expensive one, and you're still able to make it work.

Little Thunder: Have any young people who bought a beginner's flute come back and bought something more challenging?

Harjo: Yes, they have, and I've had all kinds of interesting stories. Some of them will come back and say, "I bought my first little one from you. I got ten of them at home now." They buy from other people. The whole thing is when you learn how to play my little flute, regardless of who makes it, as long as it's a Native flute, you can play it. That makes me feel good. A couple came up to me in Nashville, Tennessee, and they said, "We met at your booth last year, so we're married now." (Laughter) They heard the flute. Both of them got attracted to it, and they met in front of my booth.

Little Thunder: It did its work, didn't it? (Laughter)

Harjo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That might be the answer to this. I was going to ask what the best compliment you've ever gotten on a flute is.

Harjo: Best compliment? I made a flute out of ebony. It wasn't in words. This woman, she wanted to listen to an ebony flute, so I said, "Here's ebony. Ebony wood is choice wood for wind instruments. Give this one a try." She put it in her hands. She put her fingers on it and breathed the first note into it. When she breathed the first note into it, she pulled it down like this, looked at me, and she had tears running down her face. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That's really a wonderful compliment. Do you very often make 42:00flutes from more exotic woods?

Harjo: I'm starting to not use as many exotic woods as I used to because one of the choice woods other than ebony--. I still use ebony, and I still use purple heart. I've still got some black palm left. I was making them out of cocobolo, which is really beautiful, but that's a toxic wood. When you start sanding into material, the fumes from it, it started making my eyes water, started making me sneeze. It was getting more drastic. At first, it was just my eyes would burn. Over time, it got to where my nose would start running every time I touched it, plus the eyes burning. I think I made my last one of those about five years ago, 43:00and I haven't made any more cocobolo ones. Some of the other hard woods have a little bit of toxicity to it.

Little Thunder: Have you been back to the old country, or the Creek homelands, very often?

Harjo: I haven't been--yes, I'll go back and visit. I haven't been to any ceremony grounds here in this area for quite a while, but I still have family there. I still have home grounds at our ceremony grounds.

Little Thunder: In Alabama and Georgia, have you been back that way for festivals?

Harjo: Yes, I do festivals back that way. I always enjoy getting up, telling people, "If you're related to Andrew Jackson, I want you to know, I'm back." 44:00(Laughter) Andrew Jackson, after taking our lands and force relocating us here in Oklahoma, he also made it against the law [for] Creek Indians to be in the state of Georgia. If you got caught there, you was either in prison or in hard labor, or you might even be shot because that was the law at the time. I can understand where a lot of people would not have claimed their Indian blood at the time. When there's a soldier standing there in front of you, asking if you're an Indian, with armed security behind him and asking you if you're an Indian, I can understand that it would be very hard to say, "Yes, I am." I'm sure there was some that was really determined to identify themselves as a Native.

Those, I have a lot of respect for because if it wasn't for those people, I would not have my last name of Harjo today because Harjo represents, it describes a behavior like a frenzied fighter. Somewhere in the history books, it was written down as meaning "no name," but where that comes around is that Christianity was coming to our Nation. When we accepted Christianity into our religion, we got recognized as one of the Five Civilized Tribes, meaning we had accepted Christianity into our religion. It didn't speak for the whole Nation because at the time, when you became a Christian, you had to take on a Christian name. You couldn't be identified as a Native through those names. That's how come I have a last name like Simpson from my mother's side, and there's last 46:00names like Thompsons and so on.

After the forced relocation from Georgia to here, the census taker, Samuel Dawes, he required two names on his census taking. Those that didn't have a last name, or as they say, "no name," (that's where that term comes from) took on names like Harjos. Harjo, at the time, "r" was silent. We didn't have the use of letter "r" in our language, and it was pronounced "Ha-jo." It's a well-respected, Red Stick Warrior word, indicating that he was a frenzied fighter, and we also have last names like Fixicos. Feke is "heart," and seko 47:00means "it's not there." Fixico, that means that those were the people that fought like heartless people. We have similar names like that all through the Creek Nation. You can tell the older names.

Little Thunder: Do you do a lot of commissions, or do you like to make your own things and then do--.

Harjo: So far this year, I've got five, spanning from January this year to the middle of May, so those are invited, paid performances areas. Cahokia Mounds in Illinois has invited me for a special program May 4, and I'll be presenting 48:00there. So far, I've done one in Florida already. I'll be doing two more in Florida at the end of this month, and then I also do one in Katy, Texas, coming up April Fool's Day. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Have you taught any workshops on flute making? What were those?

Harjo: Yes, I have. I had good response. I only had, maybe, two one-hour sessions to do. What I did was I took some blanks that I had already cut, had them pick out a blank, and then put the holes in it. Unfortunately, I didn't have any equipment, (it was a classroom setting) so I took drill bits and had people do it by hand. After they put the holes in and everything, (cedar is soft enough, anyway) I was able to glue it together for them, make sure it set up 49:00right, and they had a working flute when they left.

Little Thunder: That's neat.

Harjo: I did that with the Oneida Nation. They call it Woodland Indian Art Show, and it's the last weekend in June in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have that every year. I've also done it in--. I did flute-playing lessons and flute-making sessions at--. I've done it in Rancocas in New Jersey, but that show isn't available. They're not doing that show anymore. Then this is in Victor, New York, Ganondagan [State Historic Site]. [ganondagan.org/Support/Friends-Of-Ganondagan] is where you can find these. They have a museum there, right outside of Rochester, New York.

Little Thunder: How many shows--do you travel every month, or what is your schedule, your show schedule and your demonstration schedule?

Harjo: I'm slowing down. I'm starting to do, maybe, about two a month. That's what I prefer.

Little Thunder: That's a pretty good pace, though. (Laughs)

Harjo: Yeah, this is the only one I have. This and the one in St. Augustine, Florida, is for the month of February. That's two, and then March, I got one in Jacksonville, Florida, and Washington University [St. Louis]. That one, I won't be performing in. I'm just attending as a vendor.

Little Thunder: What kind of an impact do you want your flute music to have on the audience?

Harjo: I am not understanding the question.

Little Thunder: What kind of effect--what do you want people to feel when they hear your flute music when you play?

Harjo: I don't know. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Do you think about that?

Harjo: I want people to enjoy it. I think if people dislike it, they wouldn't listen, so I try to produce a pleasing sound that everybody's comfortable with. In that way, yeah.

Little Thunder: Do you practice very much anymore, or do you need to?

Harjo: No, I never--. When I leave a show, I don't touch it until I'm at the next show, (Laughter) except when I'm building and making. Then I'll make sure the notes and everything's working. As far as sitting around in my garage, 52:00playing a flute all day, I don't do that. (Laughter) That's too much like work. Most of my flute playing in front of an audience is the feelings that I'm putting into it. I'm not playing any special song, or I'm not playing any particular song.

Little Thunder: But you do have several CDs out now. You have about three, so that's a--.

Harjo: I actually had five out at one time, and what I've done is I've condensed it into two.

Little Thunder: Are they a mixture of your own songs and traditional?

Harjo: Yes, the first album that I had recorded was Seasons for the Heart. It has twenty-one songs, and fifteen of those are original songs by me. My second 53:00album, Peach Ground after Midnight, which I named after a ceremony ground in Hanna, Oklahoma, is thirty-two minutes long. It has twelve songs, and eleven of those are original songs by me. Both albums don't have any enhancements like your echoes and reverbs and other musical instruments, mythical voices, running water. (Laughs) It's just the sound of the flute as you would play it or as you would hear it.

Little Thunder: When your songs come to you, that's when you pick up a flute, some of your original compositions?

Harjo: Yeah, some of them come to me--. Like, one of them that came to me, I 54:00call it "The Dragonfly Song." That one was--I was performing in Memphis, Tennessee, at Chucalissa Museum. It was an outside venue with a small powwow arena, and I was onstage. I came between flute playing and telling a story. When I got to the end of my story, I didn't have anything in my mind to what I was going to do next. I finished my story all of a sudden, and I'm standing up there onstage with a blank. I picked up my flutes, and I started blowing notes into it, trying to get a little rhythm or something going until I thought of something else, what else I'm going to do. As I'm making these sounds out of my flute, dragonflies showed up, and they filled up the arena. They were all about 55:00head-high and flying all inside the circle area in that arena. That one, I tried to reproduce the sounds, and I call that song "The Dragonfly Song." Some of the songs probably don't even--like my "Strawberry Song." They say it don't even sound like it has anything to do with strawberries. After telling the strawberry story, that's what I felt, and that's what I played.

Little Thunder: You make other cultural items, too. What's your favorite thing to make that's not a flute, just cultural objects?

Harjo: Actually, I can do a lot more, which I'm not following. I should. I have a real good hand at sketching and painting, and this goes back to when I was in 56:00grade school. We were having an art class. I was in the fourth grade.

Little Thunder: Was this at Hanna?

Harjo: Yeah, in Hanna. Back in those days, someone would come to your school. You would go out, and you would sell all these craft things for church. This one was a picture of an angel. When you sell them, they would give you a Bible for bringing them money. In this case, I had one of those pictures of angels. During the art class, I found some colored chalk, which I had never used before. I sketched out the angel. It was on a picture. I used colored chalk. I tried to 57:00make it look as much as I could see on that framed picture, and I turned it in as an artwork.

The fourth grade, they had all their artwork, paintings, sketches, all along the school. There was a teacher from another school that knew me, knew my family, but she taught at another school, someone that I guess I respected. I don't know, but I was only in fourth grade. Here's all these children, taking her into our room and saying, "Look, this is mine." "Oh, that's nice." "Look at that!" "That's cute," going on and on. I told her, "Look at mine!" She looked at it, and she didn't think it was done by me. She thought it was a regular piece, a 58:00picture that someone had snapped, and it happened to be hanging on the wall. I made it look too real.

Little Thunder: It was so well done, she didn't believe it was your work.

Harjo: She told me that I shouldn't be--. It was like, "You shouldn't be storying like that," and really gave me a negative feeling on it. I've never got into--. I probably still could if I set my mind to it. I could sketch people, sitting here like this. That was in the fourth grade, but I don't do that. (Laughs) I like all other kinds of arts.

Little Thunder: You do make necklaces, medicine bags, and--.

Harjo: Yeah, medicine bags, I enjoy. I like wood-burning. I can sketch and 59:00wood-burn on my art.

Little Thunder: Right, you are using that visual art on your flutes, too. What's your creative--how do you approach your work? Do you get up and work a certain number of hours every day, or does it just depend?

Harjo: My age, we got normal, everyday stress (Laughs) or things that has to be taken care of today. When that's accomplished and then I've got time on my hands, I'll either go out to the garage, or I'll go out to my work area. Some days I get into it, and some days I don't. I'm working at my own pace.

Little Thunder: Do you like to work during the day mostly or later at night?

Harjo: I like working through the day mostly, and I like to get outside and get things done. Because of the drying process on some of the flutes that I do, I 60:00need to get them done and set up and put away before the dew gets on them.

Little Thunder: How long do they have to cure before you--.Harjo: The sealer I put on them--.

Little Thunder: You do it in--stages?

Harjo: It depends on the weather. If it's rainy, if there's rain in the area, it may take a couple days to dry, but if it's not, it may dry in just a few hours. -- Sometimes I sit around, and I think about my language. I'll think about where the words come from. A lot of the words back East, and a lot of the words in the English language comes from our language, even a city that's named after our Red 61:00Stick warriors: baton for stick, rouge for red, meaning Baton Rouge or Red Stick. Even our early word for foreigners, they call it Appalachian Trail, which was--. This side of the table is atvpalv, and the other side is [vpvlitv]. This side of the ocean is atvpalv; the other side is vpvlitv.

We were talking about the people that come from across the ocean. The trail they used to come in, they call it Appalachian Trail. It's Vpvlitv Trail, and there's even a community up there. They call themselves Apalachicola. Now, where "cola" comes in, and it's actually pronounced [vlki] (ul-gee), and what that means is "people." We're calling them, "the people from the other side," or you could say 62:00foreigners, vpvlitv vlki. We put the word vlki on the end of describing a whole group. Like Cherokees, we say [Tsalakvlki]. See, you can see the vlki on the end. Choctaw is [inaudible], vlki on the end, or Seminole is [inaudible].

Little Thunder: You're not doing a mentorship program or anything right now with language. You're not involved in any of the language programs that--.

Harjo: No, not here. I've invited people to my house to come and visit, and we try to--. I had some people come to the house and visit for a few days and try to pick up some words. I think I've come up with a process that would really work well, but I haven't--. I came up with it in the last few months, and that's 63:00for normal conversation for the cultural speakers to use the language first and then follow with English in normal, everyday conversations. "[Hompetv ceyacv]?" "Do you want to eat?" or, "[Vliketv]," "Sit here," and go with that mannerism. -- That would be, I think, almost like immersion. I think that's what we need because we don't have no process, a way to actually educate, as to where in the English language, you have an alphabet, and you have--. As far as the Native languages, since it wasn't written, some of your different households and different geographical areas will pronounce things a little bit different.

Little Thunder: I'm glad you're thinking about those things.

Harjo: Even in the Choctaw language, you can see a lot of Creek language in that.

Little Thunder: Yes, they're similar.

Harjo: Like the stickball game, they call it [inaudible], and actually in the Creek language means "busted head." Ega means head, and [inaudible] means "to bust," so it's [inaudible] . The Choctaws, instead of [inaudible] was what we would say, it would be [kapucha], which means the same thing. Even at the museum, they pronounce it [cukalisv], meaning "old house," and we pronounce it [cukoliskv], almost the same. Getting to the Miccosukees in Florida, their 65:00language is similar to ours, too. The word for farewell, we don't have a word for farewell, so we say, "We'll see you again." In the Creek, we say "[inaudible]," and the Miccosukees, they go, "[inaudible]" It's the kali and the kahe, so that's the only difference.

Little Thunder: We're going to take a look at your work here in a minute. Is there anything you'd like to add that we forgot to talk about that would be important?

Harjo: I'll probably think of it as soon as I leave here because there's still a lot. One of the things that I did in helping try to preserve our language was when I was working with the youth group in Kansas City. The children that I 66:00worked with was singers, and they wanted to sing. You could give them a cassette tape, and in two hours they could come back and sing you the entire album because they were soaking it up so fast. What made it hard for us was we would appear at a powwow; we would set our drum up. If they wanted a special song, even though we could sing a special song, if the drum group that has ownership of that song, if it was their song, we couldn't sing other people's songs at our drum. Out of respect, you can't be taking other people's songs, so we had to pass a few songs. We were limited on what we could sing, so I told them. Now, they're singing these songs in their language. I said, "I have a language, so 67:00why couldn't we make these songs with my language on it? That way, you've got a song for every category." We made our own songs, and we used the Muscogee-Creek language.

Little Thunder: Some Creek powwow songs.

Harjo: Yes, we were known as the Red Stick Singers. Twenty-five years ago, we traveled everywhere, and we were one of the well-known drum groups going across the nation. We was right up there with the Eyabay and Whitefish Juniors. We actually sat and sang with them. As far as I know, we were the only Northern drum to ever set up at Quapaw. I had a drum group that traveled, and those were 68:00some of the joys of my life.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. That's a really great thing.

Harjo: My objective was for these children to finish high school with a wanting to go on for higher education. I accomplished that with most of them, with the ones that I worked with.

Little Thunder: That's great. We're going to pause it, and take a look at your work. -- William, you want to tell us about your necklaces?

Harjo: Yes, these are necklaces I make from deer antlers. What I did was I cut the slabs on a table saw, and then I wood-burned the art pieces on there. This is a turtle, and the turtle is for good health and well-being. When I grew up, 69:00you would find a turtle shell underneath an Indian home on all four corners under the house, and what that was for was to protect you from tornadoes. That was for protection, so that's what the turtle is for. At one time, our people were not doing well with their health. The turtle came to us and said, "If you eat of my flesh, it will make you well." After we ate the turtle flesh and we got well, it come back to us and told us, "If you use my shell to keep time with your music, it'll keep you in good health," so it's also for good health.

This guy here in the Muscogee Creek myths, I call him Hotvle, which is "the wind." You can't really see it in this, but he has feathers around his ankles, 70:00like a Mercury god. He's a fast runner, and he was kind of like a trickster. What he would like to do was he would like to pick on people, make fun of them, get them angry enough to chase him down, and then he would have his foot race because he was always the fastest runner. This guy is for an athlete. They say that if you're not an athlete and you wear one of these, you're taking a chance of ruining your health, but this here is for athletes. (Laughter) Over here, I have medicine bags.

Now, this here is a little pony I drew. I wood-burned that with a wood-burner. It's not ink. I freehanded it. This one here has a little butterfly on it. Now, 71:00the medicine bag, when I make them, I put sage, cedar, tobacco, sweet grass, and a turquoise nugget inside each one when I sew it up. The story on the card tell you what each medicine is for: tobacco for protection, sage to purify the mind, sweet grass to protect you from bad influences, and the turquoise nugget is a protection stone and protects you while it's traveling. There's one already inside, and they're all handmade by us, my wife and I. It has my signature on the back. You wear it like a necklace or hang it from the mirror in your car.

Little Thunder: That's a neat idea, to put them on the cars.

Harjo: This here is my river cane flutes. This is my beginner, and I would say this is pretty much a standard size. To those of you that don't know what a river cane is, it's a plant that's indigenous to this continent. It's not a 72:00transplant from any other country, and it grows in the southeast part of the United States. Your Woodland Indians used it for arrow shafts, blow guns, atlatl handles. Choctaws used it to make baskets, and most of your Muscogee peoples used it to make baskets. I've picked them up off the ground with woodpecker holes in it already that I could blow across and make a sound. I feel like it was being real instrumental in being the first flute. It dates all the way back before BC; that's before Columbus. (Laughter) I can demo. Here's the beginner flute. (Plays flute)

Now, if you notice this other one has six holes, as to where this one has five. This five-hole flute, if you can see my fingers here, is like the black keys on your piano: three, a wide space, and two. It's the same setup as your piano keys. This one here, it's the same instrument. When you close this hole, you have five holes just like the other one. What you do is you close this one, and you got your same five notes. (Plays flute) Now, you open that one; leave it open. You got the same five notes but flat, (Plays flute) which allows you to play songs from your chromatic scale. (Plays flute) This one here is my 74:00top-of-the-line, elaborate flute. This is made out of cedar, and it's hand-built by me. It has a deeper, lower tone because of the bore and the ling. (Plays flute)

Little Thunder: Thank you.

Harjo: You're welcome. I hope you can use some of it.

------- End of interview -------