Northwest Heritage Resources
Native American Women Elders and
Storytellers of Washington

Virginia Beavert

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The following interview was conducted with Virginia Beavert, as part of a grant provided by the Washington Women's History Consortium. The interview took place on June 9, 2008. The interviewer was Jill Linzee. (Access a pdf copy of the transcript.)
Listen to Track 1
Linzee	The date is June 9, 2008. My name is Jill Linzee and I am meeting with Virginia Beavert to talk about her life history. So Virginia maybe we could begin with you telling us where you were born and where you grew up.
Beavert	I was born in the Blue Mts. in Oregon. My father was half Umatilla. So he had hunting rights there. And they took annual trips over to hunt in Blue Mts. in Oregon. And I guess my mother was quite pregnant according to my father and he tried to leave her at home and she refused to stay home, she wanted to go. He said, "Your mother was SO stubborn." So he took her along and...[She switches into mode where she speaks as if it were her father speaking]: “We thought we’d just get our deer and come right back. 01:11 – 02:34 We got up there and we were hunting and a big snow storm came. And it was a real bad one and it killed our horses. And we got snowbound and we ended up seeking shelter in a bear cave, and that’s where you were born...in the bear cave. And as close as we could estimate it was on that old Thanksgiving day. The old one on November 30th. So that was the day we figured...your birthday was on that day.” Somehow that day seems to register in his mind you know. Finally one of the men I guess made some snowshoes and he hiked out to the Indian agency and they came up and rescued them. They took me down to the Indian agency for the nurse to check me – the government nurse. And I guess she registered me there without their knowledge. Well I grew up...they came home and I grew up in Toppenish. More like Zillah...a little town across from where our village was. Our village was called Si. Not exactly like the Hispanics say “Si,” but a shorter vowel like “C”. And that means very fine sand. And the sand there – from what I see over at the graveyard at Zillah – there’s a high cliff there, what used to be the old Indian grave. Now they have white people buried over the Indian people there. But the ground has that fine, fine sand, and it glistens. So if you’re from Zillah, if somebody asked you if you were from our village, you would say, I’m Siɬá. I’m from Zillah. So I always contended that Zillah was named after our village. But I’ve had some arguments from some historians who say that that was their great great grandfather’s name. [she laughs] But anyway, our village was called “Si.” 04:17 – 05:44 Well that’s where I grew up, and I didn’t go anywhere. I just stayed home with my great great grandmother. Her Indian name was Xaxísh. That was the only name she ever went by. And she married a man who was Sawyaɬíɬ who was grew up to be a shaman and she was an herbalist. He died before I was born, but I understand that he did some miraculous things healing people. My whole family was like that. They were all shaman. And I guess my mother wanted to groom me into being a shaman because she didn’t want me to go to school. But I grew up with my great grandmother – just going everywhere with her. She would put me on a horse behind her and tie me on with a shawl. And most of the time I guess I’d just fall asleep. 05:45 – 07:07 Traveling around she was always bartering. She was able to speak this trade language that’s a mixture of French and some other languages put together. They call it jargon. It’s a trade language that was spoken by all of the merchants in Toppenish, in Zillah. And the old timers that lived around there, they all spoke that jargon and my great great grandmother was very fluent in that language. So that was the only language she spoke other than Klickitat, she was a Klickitat Indian from the Columbia River. That was the lower Columbia, more towards Vancouver. But she spoke fluent Klickitat too. So I was learning Klickitat and Nez Perce and Yakama and Columbia River – my father spoke Columbia River language. I learned 5 dialects while I was growing up. Because everybody lived there together in that village.
Listen to Track 2
Beavert	Because of my great grandfather and I guess my great grandmother – who came there to be healed. Evidently my great grandfather used to heal – even people with mental problems. Like something traumatic happened to somebody and they couldn’t quite live with it. They would come there to get healed. And we had a sweat house there that was used quite a bit. We had a spring there that became a big lake. And it was pure water. It was the only water we drank. We always had perfect teeth. I guess it had a lot of calcium in it. Because we didn’t drink milk, you know. Most Native people can’t tolerate milk. But anyway, that’s the way I grew up. Jill: So, what was the year of your birth?
Linzee	So, what was the year of your birth?
Beavert	Well, evidently the way the nurse recorded it was 1921. So I’m 86, I’ll be 87 in November. 01:32 – 02:48 I just had a cousin that turned 90. And she used to live across the pasture from me – an 80 acre pasture. We celebrated the other day – April Fool Day. And talked about how we grew up. Her grandchildren and her children were all there around the table. So we were discussing how we grew up. And she had a grandfather who fought in that Sioux uprising, and he was shot in the head and he had a hole in his forehead and the bullet was still in his brain. And he lived to be over 100. We used to sit on his lap and he would tell us stories, you know. He couldn’t pronounce my name, Virginia, so he used to call me “Paselia.” We were talking about grandfather like that and the children are so modern that they just couldn’t envision us growing up like we did.
Linzee	02:49 – 04:40 Now your parents, what was their heritage?
Beavert	My mother was what she called pure Yakama. My father was half Yakama and half Umatilla. But his culture was dominantly Columbia River. When they were still young yet - She was 12, I think, and he was a lot older than her, about 16, 17. It was kind of interesting the way they became married. The Natives had a tradition – when a child became, you know, puberty, past their puberty...my mother must have been a little older than that. Like maybe she was 13 or 14. She didn’t tell me if she had her menses. But anyway, they had this dance that they did. They brought their child who was ready for marriage. They felt like – they were ready to raise a family. Well they would bring them out and the men’s side would observe...and select...they would bring their young man out and...It was usually an aunt or grandmother that danced with the girl.... 04:41 – 06:15 ...out on the floor. Then the grandfather or uncle would bring his boy out. The one they selected he would meet and he would put his arm on her shoulder. And if it was acceptable, they would let it stay there. If the person that’s with the young girl didn’t approve, she would turn around and dance away. So then they’d have to make another selection. But, a long time ago people watched how you raised your child. How that child behaved. If it was acceptable to accept that person into your family. And too, it had a lot to do with property...territorial property. I guess it’s like it is today, you wouldn’t accept just anybody to marry your daughter, you know. Well that’s the way it used to be...that’s how they made their selection and that’s called “Engagement Dance.” Well later on, the family would talk together, but the mother and father would have no voice in the selection. It was the grandfathers and uncles on both sides who made the decision.
Listen to Track 3
Beavert	00:00 – 01:31 So what happened was...my mother...they were practicing this. They said, “Let’s practice singing this for when it starts”...so they were practicing. Well she had a cousin who was, I guess, aggressive. And she told my mother, “Let’s dance out there, I’ll take you out there. They’re just practicing, so we’ll practice.” So she took her out there and I guess my father and his uncle or big brother or whatever or somebody danced out there and he put his hand on my mother. And they thought it was funny. But his grandfather didn’t think that was funny - that he put his hand on her. And her grandfather was a medicine man, he was still alive then. His grandfather was a medicine man. So my father and grandfather came to see my mother’s grandfather and said “We have to practice our tradition now.” And he said, “No, she’s too young yet.” But the uncles over-rode his decision. 01:32 – 02:52 They said, “We have to follow our tradition. She went out there voluntarily.” And they tried to say,” Oh we were just practicing.” But it didn’t make any difference. So what she had to do was to go to his village. But they didn’t live together. They lived separate. So she lived with his aunt because his mother had passed away in the meantime. So his aunt took my mother and taught her their dialect, taught her their own cultural ways because they were slightly different. And he had to come back later on and learn our culture. The Zillah village. And he was telling me, my great great grandma just spoke Klickitat most of the time and everybody understood her you know, but he didn’t. And she’d tell him, “Go get that____”, and she’d call it, you know....and he could interpret her motions, that he was supposed to go get something, but he didn’t know what. 02:53 – 03:52 Because he didn’t understand her, and I guess he really had a time [she laughs]. 02:53 – 03:52 Because he didn’t understand her, and I guess he really had a time [she laughs].
Linzee	So the village where you grew up is the one where your mother had grown up, is that right?
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	And your father had grown up in a different village that was nearby?
Beavert	No. It was quite a ways – Goldendale Ridge. It’s more over toward the Columbia River.
Linzee	And this engagement ceremony where they got together, where was that held?
Beavert	That was down on the Columbia River.
Linzee	Nearer to his village?
Beavert	Unhumm.
Linzee	Was that an annual event that they would have?
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	To bring all of the young people of marriageable age from all of the villages and tribes in that area? At a certain time of year?
Beavert	What they call the Sahaptin people – who understood – practiced the same culture.
Linzee	You mentioned that you speak Sahaptin. How does that relate to the backgrounds of your parents?
Beavert	03:53 – 05:26 Well they all spoke Sahaptin dialects, but they were all different dialects. That name was given to us by the linguists. So we have to go by it because when we say we speak Ichishkíin? Some say, “I-chish-keen”, and speak the Native language. We say, “Ichishkíin nash sínwixa.” “We speak the Indian language.”
Linzee	But you said that you’ve also learned to speak some of the Klickitat of your great grandmother and Nez Perce...
Beavert	That was my first language, but I don’t have anybody to talk to in Nez Perce, so I’m forgetting it.
Linzee	That was your first language? And who taught you that language?
Beavert	Uncles that lived there. I guess that was when I was starting to learn. I had some uncles who spoke Nez Perce and of course I followed them around I guess and you know, and I learned that language first.
Linzee	And you mentioned another language too...Nez Perce, Klickitat, and was the other language Sahaptin?
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	So you grew up with 3 different languages, and then different dialects of Sahaptin in addition to that?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	05:27 – 07:43 What was the name of your father’s village?
Beavert	It was called the edge of the timber – Tápashnak’it - that means edge of the timber. It was as far as the timber grew and that mountain – the rest was all barren sagebrush country.
Linzee	When they married then, did he move to your mother’s village?
Beavert	Umhmm. When they were old enough to get married then they had the big Indian wedding trade. And I guess it was quite a trade because they brought horses and cattle and on the women’s side they traded female things and my great great grandmother used to make those great big Klickitat baskets. And she said she had these huge Klickitat baskets. And buckskin dresses and of course those root bags they make out of corn husks. They had those filled with dried food. Like bitteroot and bread roots that they worked so many years to dig and fill all those up to prepare to get ready for that wedding. And they traded all that for the horses and male things you know. They brought robes made out of deer hides and all those manly things – they just traded all those.
Linzee	So the robes made out of deer hides were man thing?
Beavert	And buffalo robes...And cattle was coming in at that time.
Listen to Track 4
Linzee	00:00 – 01:26 So when they were traded, were they given to the parents?
Beavert	The parents traded with each other. Then there were relatives who had mock brides and grooms. They were trading with the uncles and aunts and so forth. But the father, well, on his mother’s side – his father and mother’s side, both his father and mother were gone, so his uncle and aunt traded with my father and mother – like that.
Linzee	So they gave those items to the family as a whole, not to your parents as a young couple?
Beavert	No.
Linzee	They were just given whatever the family gave them to start out with?
Beavert	Umhmm. They celebrated the birth of the first child the same way. They trade. But the first child was my big brother. So his family had to come and initiate the trade they called, “Diapering the Baby.” That’s when they give the child things. But they trade with each other again. It’s hard to describe the things that you do in an Indian trade. 01:27 – 02:32 There’s little things that are mixed up in that and I used to ask my mother if we couldn’t sit down and record that. Then she could tell me in Indian what each item meant. What those words that they used meant – but we never got around to it. She died suddenly you know, she had pneumonia. But she was rational, had a sense of humor. But we just never got around to describing the terms that were used in the Indian trade. There are words that mean something. I’m sorry I never got around to doing that with her because unless you actually participate in that, then you’ll know. But I didn’t. 02:33 – 03:53 I helped her – when she did that with her grandchildren. She did some trading on her grandchildren, but all I did was help. So I didn’t actually trade. And then, of course younger people, they don’t understand either, so I guess we’re all alike. All those that know those terms are gone now.
Linzee	So when your father moved into your mother’s village when they were married, did they then build a house for them? Did they have their own family dwelling – your parents?
Beavert	No, they all lived together. We had a huge house. Course I was too little to see what was going on. I guess my father was a good provider. He provided for grandmother and everybody. I guess my great grandmother grew to love him quite a bit. 03:54 – 05:00 I guess they all respected him. He was a good man. My mother said he was a good provider for her. He never abused her, he never used any abusive language toward her. He was gentle. Except that he went to work for a farmer who – I guess – started making whiskey and got my father involved in it and that’s what broke their marriage up. So she divorced him when he started selling things. She said they worked hard to earn a horse team, a wagon – a work wagon which would be a like a truck to us and then a regular wagon that would be like a car. And they worked hard to earn that. She was a worker too. 05:01 – 06:41 She’d go out and work out in the field and do things to earn money and they’d buy all these things themselves. Well he started selling harnesses, saddles and things like that. They had riding horses too. She couldn’t take that, so she divorced him. Then she married my stepfather who grew up in Leavenworth. And he spoke Salish, but he also spoke Sahaptin. But he’s the one who started this dictionary project in the first place. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would have gone to school. Because I guess when he first came around I was wearing a board on my head. And grandmother had a board on my head to flatten my head which was a sign of royalty over in the Klickitat tribe. And he made her take it off, because he told her that I had to live with other people, that it wouldn’t be acceptable in other societies. 06:42 – 07:33 Those ways were gone, going away and that I wouldn’t be just living with Indians anymore. I’d be living with other people. I guess he convinced her so they took the board off my head.
Linzee	Now had your great grandmother grown up with that?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And your mother?
Beavert	Not my mother. She didn’t have – she had a round head. So I do have a flat – it’s almost in line with my nose – my forehead.
Listen to Track 5
Beavert	Then later on he convinced them that I should go to school, but NOT to government school. He wanted me to go to a regular public school. So that’s when I started. I couldn’t speak English at all. And I had some very tolerant teachers who went right along with me. Because there were other ethnic people at the school who had difficulty with English. There was a German-Dutch girl who nobody even wanted to sit by for some reason. She was blond and very quiet. And there was a Japanese girl who had difficulty with English. And this Black who spoke her own Black language. So I had a team.
Linzee	Now was this a public school in Zillah?
Beavert	Toppenish. I had to run about 5 miles to school every day. 01:30 – 02:43 Even in the winter. No bus service. My great grandmother used to wrap my legs in burlap sacks. That was my galoshes. For a while there, when I first started school I guess some people used to donate shoes. These were grown up shoes, the kind that grown up women wore, and I had to wear those. Finally I guess my stepfather noticed that and he started getting some regular shoes for me. I hated shoes. I didn’t like to wear them. I went barefoot any chance I had, because I just hated shoes. I think it was because when I started wearing those grown up shoes with pointed toes and heels and they were laced up almost to your knees. The women used to wear a long time ago. They did hurt my feet. 02:44 – 03:49 That’s why I didn’t like them.
Linzee	So when you said your father was a good provider – what did he do to provide for the family? Were you doing a lot of farming and ranching kinds of things?
Beavert	Yes, he did own land. He made it productive, he used to plow and plant things, besides working for farmers. That’s where he was learning all this, from the farmers. Then he was a hunter and a fisherman. He was doing all those things. Course he wasn’t the only one. I had uncles who helped. I had uncles who involved in all this too. So it was all team work, you know, everybody was doing something. Nobody was lazy.
Linzee	Like you said, your mother was doing that too. So you would grow crops and vegetables and things?
Beavert	Umhmm
Linzee	Did you have livestock? Animals?
Beavert	Yes, we had work horses. 03:50 – 05:05 That’s when I started helping...feed the horses, water them. We had an orchard too. We had cherries and peaches and pears. I remember we had pie cherry trees. I just LOVED those pie cherry trees. I remember once – that’s when my stepfather was part of our family then, I guess. They finally took me on a trip somewhere, and when we pulled into the yard it was pouring rain and it was thundering. But I didn’t care, I jumped out of that car and I ran over to the orchard and I put my arms around this one pie cherry tree and I was just so glad to see it [she laughs]. I was just hugging the tree. I’ll never forget that. And that thunder was just striking. He told me, “Get in the house!” [She laughs again] 05:06 – 06:47 I guess I really loved that tree. I used to climb up there and sit around and sing the songs that I’d learned in school. I had cousins – they were all boys. I had another cousin, but she was way younger than I was. She’d come visit and I’d have to look after her, but my other cousins who were more my age – we’d go horseback riding and...We didn’t have saddles, we’d just jump on them bareback horse. We didn’t even have bridles. Because those horses were all trained. You could ride them without gear at all. There were some horses – they’d see me coming and they’d put their hock out like that and I’d just step on it and get on. They knew me. They’d put their leg out like that and I’d just step up there and get on.
Linzee	So you’d do that just for fun?
Beavert	A lot of times we’d be herding them into the corral. Sometimes I’d just do it for recreation. Nothing else to do, maybe I’d just jump on a horse and gallup around....
Listen to Track 6
Beavert	We had everything out there. We had deer wandering in the area. All kinds of fish coming into that lake – that cold lake. It was a spawning area for steelhead and other trouts you know. Grandma used to make traps out of willows – and the fish would come in, but they couldn’t get out. But they still had enough water to swim around in there. So she’d tell me – ‘Grandchild, go down there’... if there were just the 2 of us at home...She’d say, ‘Just get 2 fish and let the rest go.’ So I’d get 2 fish and string them on a little willow hook and let the rest of them go. Then I’d bring the fish home and she’d cook it. That was on the little riffle where she had that trap. That was away from the main river. That was on our little stream where the lake was. That spring that was there.... 01:22 – 03:02 ...that goes back, way back...I just don’t really know how far back that goes. When that man died and he rose again....and he brought that longhouse religion to that village.
Linzee	To your village?
Beavert	When he invited all these people he said...when he was able to speak – I guess he couldn’t speak for quite a while. When he was able to speak he asked them to invite all of those people who understood our language, who practiced our culture, to come. So they had runners go out....to find those people who were Nez Perce and Umatilla and Warm Springs and whatever... So they came and I guess there was a big ceremony where they went around and shook his hand. And he instructed them on how they had to do all this. And so they did that. Well his relatives were worried you know, how were we going to feed all these people? 03:03 – 04:41 How were we going to take car of them. They were outside I guess and...he called them in and said, “Don’t worry, He will provide.” Then that spring sprung up. See they were drinking river water evidently all that time. So that was kind of like holy water. Then we had choke cherries there that were just as large as the regular commercial cherries. And I never wondered about it at all. All of the things that were there were larger. Well I never looked around to see how the others were. I just saw what we had and there were roots growing. I used to run around all over the place and see the roots coming up in the spring – took it for granted. And all those fish I used to have to get for Grandma. Things like that were just accepted by me. And here later on I found out that food was different. Then he had a half brother who didn’t believe. Evidently this took a long time... 04:42 – 06:13 ...the ceremony and listening to him talk. So he brought the message back that he was told to give the people. And they’re just similar to any Christian teachings, you know, about values...It’s all in there. That’s what we have in our songs, and our chants. We have parables. All those teachings are in there – in the Native language. Today...our own people that are younger – they’re learning it by rote, but they don’t know what they mean. And it’s very difficult to translate. When I’m asked to translate those words, I don’t want to, you know. Because I feel like – well the people who want me to translate it already know what’s in the Bible. Why do they want me to translate it? So I don’t do it.
Listen to Track 7
Beavert	00:00 – 01:23 Now, if I have an intern...who wants to learn to sing, I will tell him what the meaning is....when he’s singing it. So that he’ll know what he’s saying. And that is he has to be a Native, you know, and I have a few who are already doing that. And they’re going to go ahead and start teaching their own children. And they’ll teach maybe some other young people. We have a few women now who are finally coming around and they’re teaching young people words that have meaning in their own dialect. I remember this young woman, she’s very aggressive and I guess she must have collected some songs from this one woman and then shared that. And it upset the original woman who gave that information to her, privately, for sharing that with everybody else. 01:24 – 03:02 Then I don’t blame her, you know. Those are sacred songs. So those are some of the things that I hesitate to share. I can talk about it, but I can’t share the deeper meaning of in the teachings that they give us.
Linzee	Except if you’re working with an apprentice like you’re talking about? That’s the context where you would share that.
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	When you spoke about growing up in a big house, was it everybody in your family or everybody in your village who lived in this house. Was it like a longhouse?
Beavert	It used to be a longhouse, before my time. And everybody lived in it. And the longhouse – remember – we had what I call the old time longhouse, with just a cover. It didn’t have any wooden floor or anything. But all around the wall there was enough space there for beds. And what they had were boards – sometimes they didn’t have boards. But some people had boards, just to have a line, you know. 03:03 – 04:35 The rest was all dirt floor. And then they would put straw there and cover it with canvas. Then put their beds on top. Then when they moved out, they would clean the whole longhouse out and it would be just dirt in there. So there wouldn’t be any rodents or anything growing in there. Because they felt like it was a sacred place....people slept there. I remember I had a boyfriend from Taholah. First time he ever came in there with me, he looked around and said, “Everybody sleeps in here?” I said, “Yes.” “All these people have beds in here and sleep in here together?” ‘Yes’ I led him over to where my family stayed – my bed was there. Then the leader, he announced in a loud voice, “It’s time for the celebration to start. Everybody start putting on your costumes.” They called him the whip man, he’d walk up and down and make everybody hurry you know. I said, “Oh I have to change.” Our costumes are all hanging on the wall. 04:36 – 06:15 So I took my dress down and started undressing. “You’re going to undress right here in front of everybody?” I said, “Nobody pays any attention. We’re getting ready to start the celebration.” Oh, he couldn’t get over that. Here I was pulling off my blouse, right in front of everybody. And after a while he got so used to that it didn’t even bother him later on. I went with him for quite a while. He was a real good boyfriend. And when he’d go home he’d tell his people. His father was kind of a big man you know. But he also practiced that winter dance. So when I went to one of his winter dances my boyfriend kept telling me, “Don’t get scared now, don’t get scared and run out.” And I said, “I know all about this. You haven’t seen our winter dance yet. It’s almost similar.” His father was a medicine man. But he practiced Christian Shaker Church, you know. And he always prayed for us, our safety, and we needed it. 06:16 – 07:15 We were pretty reckless [she laughs]. All of these changes now are different. We have modernized longhouses. They’re just like any other church now. With board floors. They’re some that open up their floors...but still, it isn’t the same.
Linzee	So when you grew up, you were actually living in the longhouse?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And you cooked in the house?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	But it was also where you had ceremonies too?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Listen to Track 8
Linzee	00:00 – 01:50 You were talking about the kinds of things your family would do...your father was a hunter. He hunted deer. Were there other things he hunted?
Beavert	Wild goats. We have quite a few around in our mountains. And we don’t eat bear, so he didn’t hunt bear. Well I guess anything that’s edible like elk and fish. People talk about salmon these days, but there are other generic fish we used to eat like whitefish. I don’t know the scientific name for it, but it’s a mild kind of fish. It isn’t fishy. And it only comes through in the wintertime. It’s what they call a winter fish. We even ate suckers. Suckers seemed to be my favorite when I was little because the sucker head has a legend. Every bone in the sucker’s head has a legend. And unfortunately I don’t remember them. Because my great great grandmother used to tell me those stories when I was quite young. 01:51 – 03:18 And that was the reason I always wanted to get the sucker head. I had to eat the sucker head and suck all the things out of the bones. And I’d have it nice and clean and I’d lay it down there. And she told me the story. And she would do the same thing. She’d have the same bone and lay it down. And we’d have all those sucker head bones out. And I’d have a story for each one. And one time I asked one elder lady – she was a relative on my father’s side. I asked her to tell me the legends and well,...it was the wrong time, it wasn’t sucker season. So I had to go to the fisheries dept. and I had to ask them if they had any suckers that they had in the tanks that they could let me have a couple. And by the time the two suckers were available, one of my other cousins got jealous and she went over there and told that old lady not to tell me those stories. That I would probably commercialize them. 03:19 – 04:49 And kind of scared her and when I went back there she was reluctant to tell those stories. But I had the sucker heads. And she said, well, so and so told me that I shouldn’t tell those stories. Then I respected that, I didn’t want to argue with her, so I let it go. But that was my last opportunity to record that. I know somebody else would probably be very aggressive about it, but I respected her. That’s the way I am, I never force the elders to do anything if they have even a little bit of a reservation about it....I’ll let it go. When I collected the legend book stories I told them....I did a legend book. I collected stories from several elders and they recorded more than one story...and the committee that was in charge, they picked those that they liked. Unfortunately the same committee deleted all of the lessons of the story at the end... 04:50 – 06:54 ...Where the elder will say, ‘If you don’t behave yourself, then you’ll be like this,’ you know... They deleted all of those and they just had the story. So when I went to see the storytellers and those that couldn’t read, I read the story to them and they said, “Where’s the lesson?” I had nothing to do with it. Matter of fact I did argue for leaving the stories in, but they said that sometimes it wouldn’t be acceptable in the academic world because this book was supposed to be used as a text book. Now it’s a collectors’ item and very expensive.
Linzee	Who published it?
Beavert	Churchill...they’re not [garbled]. The committee was composed of seven school districts Indian advisory boards, and a lot of them – the local on the reservation were very educated people. They were already teachers, and the younger generation – younger than I was. And those that lived off the reservation were traditional type of people. They did argue for the lessons, but they were in the minority.
Listen to Track 9
Beavert	00:00 – 01:31 Then a traumatic thing happened. See I was on contract. Then I got a grant to do research in Washington, DC and at the Newberry Library in Chicago. And it was due two days – right after my contract terminated. So what I did, I just locked all those tapes up in a file cabinet. We didn’t have a safe or anything. My contract was up and I told the director to write for another grant and see if we couldn’t work with some of the other legends that didn’t get selected. Then I left. I had to be in Wash. DC in two days, so...Well later on, somebody stole those tapes. They were all in the Native language, different dialects, and I translated those into English.
Linzee	Did they take them out of the cabinet or take the whole cabinet or what?
Beavert	I don’t know how that happened but, all those tapes are gone.
Linzee	01:32 – 02:57 Where were they stored?
Beavert	Right in the office where I was working
Linzee	Was this at Heritage College or somewhere else?
Beavert	It was a building that was set up by Central Washington University. It was for migrant education. It was mainly for Hispanics. And when the president of the university found out that I was working at home, in my mother’s kitchen, he was flabbergasted. He and another teacher walked into my mother’s kitchen and I was sitting there with cold cream all over my face, my hair up in curlers, trying to make the deadline on the typewriter – when we didn’t have any computers – no...And I was writing it on a typewriter, portable. And there were unwashed dishes piled all over because my mother just took off and went somewhere. Everything was piled there and it wasn’t washed, and they walked in. 02:58 – 04:03 They said, “Virginia, is this where you work?” And I said, “Yes.” They said, “You just go over to the Migrant Education Office and you’re going to have everything you need there.” Because I had just graduated from Central. It was a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. I had a hard time because I was older when I went back to school there. My stepfather made me go so that I could give some credibility to the Native language dictionary that he had started. And he said that’s the only way you can do it. And I said, I don’t like anthropology and I’m too old to go back to school. And he said, but you have to do it. So that’s what I did. But if it wasn’t for the president of that university, I probably wouldn’t have made it. 04:04-05:17 He encouraged me. I’d get so upset and...I was always thinking I was too old to be in school.
Linzee	How old were you then?
Beavert	I was in my forties....Well, I don’t remember....I don’t remember dates and things. I don’t keep track of things like that. I don’t have a journal. But that’s when I first started having an office there, and it just kind of grew and grew. Pretty soon we took over half of it.
Linzee	I want to step back a little bit and go back into talking a little bit about your family early on. You said you were raised by your great grandmother. Was that something that was traditional in your village? Was there a reason why you were raised by her and not by your parents?
Beavert	05:18-06:35 It was a tradition that people at that time practiced. You turn the girl over to grandma. Well, my brother too, but he went away to government school. He went to Chemawa. But I was the only one there. And there were other grandmothers that were raising granddaughters. Just like my cousin, the one who was 90 the other day. She was raised by her grandmother too.
Linzee	So this was traditional to do it that way?
Beavert	Umhmmm.
Linzee	And was that because your parents were busy working hard or...?
Beavert	Yes, they were out there. My mother was out digging roots. You have to dig those roots at a certain time, they don’t just grow all summer long. There’s maybe 2-3 months they’ll grow. And you have to be there and dig it and process it for later use. And each root has a different season and a different place that it grows, so you have to follow it. And if you don’t, you’re going to miss out on some food.
Listen to Track 10
Beavert	00:00-01:21 I guess it’s just like we have salads and things...Well first thing in the spring is the celery. Well sometimes the celery is used for certain things like teas. The leaves are used for teas. A lot of times they’re used for other purposes. The basic roots like the bitter roots and all the bread roots, those are very important.
Linzee	And were those gathered close to your home?
Beavert	Oh no, they’re up in the mountains. And my father of course at that time would go hunting. Then we also had filberts, you know, nuts, all kinds of nuts and fruits and things that....There are different Native fruits that grow in the mountains, and you have to pick those too and process it. Everything was dried, you know. We didn’t have refridgerators.
Linzee	So were they put out in the sun to dry?
	Umhmmm. 01:22-02:44 Huckleberries in the fall. So she wasn’t home. But everybody was home in the winter. And we didn’t have beds. We slept on the floor. I slept with my grandmother on the floor.
Linzee	But you had blankets or cushions or something...
Beavert	Yeah, she used to salvage old Levis and sew them all together and stuff it, and that would be the mattress. Everybody slept that way.
Linzee	Now you mentioned that all of your parents or the older generation were all shamans or medicine...Do you use those terms?...
Beavert	That was on my mother’s side. My father was also.
Linzee	But you use those terms interchangeably, medicine man and shaman?
Beavert	Those are the same.
Linzee	They’re the same in your mind? OK. 02:45-04:40 What kinds of things would a shaman in your community do?
Beavert	Well, see, when they go out to seek their power when they’re a child...whatever speaks to them givens them one power, to do one thing. You’re not given a blanket power, you know [she laughs]...You only have one specialization. So you use that. I know that... most of my family, evidently, had this power to excise ailments. With their mouth, they would suck the sickness out through the body. I saw my mother work. I was really surprised, you know. When I was growing up I used to see them working on somebody, but I never really watched them. I wasn’t right there because I was a child and I was supposed to stay away. But I used to dance for them – when they were practicing their power they were renewing their power in the winter time you know? And I used to dance for them. 04:41-06:24 But I never participated when they actually worked on people. Because I was too young to be involved, but before my mother died...I became apprentice to an elderly woman, accidentally, when...I was quite modern growing up. I was just like every other modern person. I wasn’t even involved in traditional ways. I was outside of the reservation. I worked at Hanford. And I came home when my aunt became ill with cancer and she was deserted by her husband. So I took care of her. And I took care of her until all of my leave ran out. And I had to make a choice. My employer told me, you have to come back to work or resign. So I resigned because my aunt kept living on and on....though she had cancer all through her body, her brain was becoming infected.
Listen to Track 11
Beavert	This woman...asked me to help her. A little tiny old lady. Very traditional. And I started helping her. Nice to see her blow water on my aunt’s body....when my aunt was just....the pain was so bad. She was just drugged all the time. Pain medicine. Then she didn’t want to take it anymore, but that pain was so intense, it would make her scream. And this old lady would take a mouthful of water and she would blow a fine stream over her body. It would turn to blood, and I would hold the water for her. I was holding a pan and towel. And that water would turn to blood, I’d wipe it off. Then she would blow some more and her pain would go away. She didn’t have anymore pain and she’d relax. So that old lady just lived with us. So I just kept helping her. 01:26-02:35 Well, when it came for her winter dance...she asked me to cook for her. She said there would be some people coming in, would you help me out? I said, Oh sure. So I was over there and I baked and cooked and I had all kinds of food ready. And sure enough, all of these elderly people started coming. And I fed them. And one night I baked all night, and I had pies and cakes and things all baked and after I fed everybody and washed the dishes I was quite tired. So she came and she said, “You can sleep on my bed.” And I was shocked because medicine people don’t allow anybody to sleep on their bed. Well I went in there and I lay down and I guess I went sound asleep. Then her son came in and he woke me up and he said, “She wants you out there.” 02:36-04:14 And we had to remove all of the furniture from the house and it was just bare. And everyone was just sitting on the floor because these were all old folks, you know. And everyone was sitting all around and he told me where to stand and I was standing right in the middle of the floor. I was half asleep and she was singing and dancing. And for a little old lady, jumping as high as she was jumping. She was really energetic. While I was standing there in the middle of the floor at this old lady’s house...I was really half asleep and tired. And she came and walked over and her son walked in with her. A box, a big box. I guess it had been in the cellar or something...or in the ground buried some place, and it was molded on top. And he brought that box and he set it there for her. He opened it and she went over there and she took this thing out of it and... 04:15-05:37 Unwrapped it....Her son came over and he said, Put your hand out. So I put my hand out like that and she laid this thing in my hand. It was like....it felt old...I didn’t really care what it was. And that’s when she really....the singers started singing louder and they were making some kind of noise with these medicine poles on the floor. And she really started to gyrate around. And this thing got heavier and heavier...and I was still half asleep, I’d shut my eyes and I’d kind of nod... it got heavier. I looked and here I was holding a gila monster. A live gila monster. You know those things are poisonous. And it was blinking its eyes and it was looking around at everybody and I saw those people just brace themselves back against the wall. 05:38-07:51 They were pretty scared you know. And I thought, well, if it won’t bite her then it won’t me. And it was funny thought, but that’s what I thought. And I kept holding it and it was so heavy, I was having a difficult time holding it up. Pretty soon she kind of wound down and she came over and took it off my hand. Took it back over there and her son wrapped it up, put it back in the box, and went out with it. And she purified me, and she told me, “You can go back to bed.” So I went back to her bed and went to sleep again. And that was her power. That was the thing that spoke to her – when she was a little girl. Well, then I really saw the power work....While she was at our house, this family came. They said their father....this woman said her husband was in the hospital in Tacoma and he had a sickness that the doctor said had to be operated on and he won’t let them. She wanted to know if she would help. And they talked to my mother and my mother was interpreting for her. And the 2 daughters were there – 3 women came. And they begged her to help them. And she kind of giggled and said – “Well I don’t know what to do.” Then she turned around and asked my mother, “Would you folks go with me?” And my mother said, “Sure, we’ll take you over there. We know where it is.” So we drove her over there.
Listen to Track 13
Beavert	00:00-01:23 And I actually saw that. And that’s the kind of power that they had – given to them on the medicine excursions that the children were sent out to do. But now there’s no privacy. You go up in the mountains, there’s hiking trails, there’s people hiking with dogs. I took a ride with some...well I guess they’re professors...at Gifford Pinchot National Forest we went up several trails and I happened to notice some of the platforms where they used to sit. I didn’t mention anything about it. But there were trails there that were just populated. And I thought, well nobody could have any isolation up here...[she laughs]...
Linzee	So that’s an important part of receiving the power?
Beavert	You’re all by yourself. 01:24 – 02:44 And I guess my great great grandfather’s was a condor, a giant condor. And he had an eagle, a feather, one whole feather. And it’s as long as that thing over there, and it stood up, way up. It must have been a giant. That was his feather. He used that for his staff, and that’s where he got it up there – Gifford Pinchot National Forest. And it was a funny experience we had...and I didn’t know about that until I came home. And this horse I was riding...I guess there was about six of us...anyway’s, a bunch. And there was a little stream there, and they were going to water their horses, and all of a sudden my horse froze and I froze. We couldn’t move. They kept yelling at me, “Virginia, bring your horse down here and water it.” 02:45 – 04:11 And we couldn’t move. The horse couldn’t move. Then they came back and we got released. And I thought, well there’s a meaning for this. I have to go along with all these things when I experience them you know. So I went on and I told my mother what happened. She said, “Where was this?”, and I told her. She said, “Oh, That’s where your grandfather got his spirit guide. It recognized you.” I said, “Well, what about the horse?” “The horse sensed it. It’s why both of you froze.” [she laughs] So that’s the way my family, I guess, grew up. They used to send me to the graveyard. They’d give me a stick with a feather tied on it. It’s about a mile and a half from where we lived. And everybody in that graveyard I knew... 04:12-05:27 their names. I knew who was here, who was there. So they’d tell me – my uncle’d hand me this. Here it was way past midnight sometimes. If there was something going on, they’d wake me up. “Take this stick and put it on so and so’s grave.” So I’d walk over there at night. Look for someone’s grave, put the stick in there and then I’d come back home and go back to bed. And the next morning somebody’d go over there and there it would be, right on that person’s grave. But I don’t remember anything happening to me. Course you’re not supposed to remember things [she laughs]. They’d say, when this things talks to you, it’s in your mind. Then you forget it. Then you grow up and you forget it. Then all of a sudden you reach a certain age...that’s when it starts bothering you. 05:28-06:55 All of a sudden things start happening to you. That’s when you have to find somebody to apprentice with. Then they’ll guide you. And your song will start coming into your brain. Then all of a sudden you have your song. And that’s what you sing in your Winter Dance. Your song. I was adopted by this medicine man. My brother and I both were adopted by this carver from Tulalip. He had a daughter – Harriet. Quite a famous woman, I think everybody’s heard about her over in this area [meaning western Washington]. His name was William, he adopted us in the Winter Dance.
Listen to Track 14
Beavert	00:00-01:13 And he gave my brother these songs to sing for me and his daughter taught me the dances. One of them is a Feather Dance, and the other one is a Welcome Dance. I don’t know how they used the Feather Dance, but I experienced how they used the Welcome Dance. She used to open the floor up, during the Winter Dance with a song and this dance. She’d go all the way around that whole longhouse, and open the floor for the activities they have in the Winter Dance. Those were 2 songs that I learned from that man – through my brother. Then my mother started singing it, and I was teaching – just a family member – girls to do the Feather Dance and the Welcome Dance. 01:14-03:00 Then some other girls got involved. They were calling it a Yakama dance, but they’re not Yakama dances. Then my mother’s mother-in-law, from my stepfather’s side taught her a Swan Dance song, and they taught us the Swan Dance, that came from Lake Chelan – it’s a legend. It’s a legend about Lake Chelan. But she couldn’t say the Salish words, so she put Yakama words in there. And I tried to tell those people, you know, don’t call those Yakama dances because these are not Yakama dances or songs. Those were borrowed, or given to us to use. And I remembered when that first happened we danced that in the longhouse. And the members of the longhouse spread blankets and shawls and all kinds of things that we wouldn’t trip on, and we danced on top of that. We went around and that old lady sang that song. And we did the dance. And everybody that was in the longhouse – at that time people were not so greedy. They would go out and take just one item. 03:01-04:37 Somebody would get up, walk out, take one item and go sit down – until all of that was taken off. We did that with veterans too, when veterans first came back, I was a veteran. World War II, I was in the Air Force. When I came back, they did what they call a Soup Dance. One man was raising buffalos in Union Gap in Yakama. He donated a whole buffalo, and they made soup out of the bones. And all these WWII veterans passed that soup, in cups. And I was able to join them because I had served through the European and also the Pacific war. I didn’t go overseas, but I was with the Air Corps that bombed Japan. The B-29 bombers that went over. That’s what I was working with as a radio operator. 4:38-06:43 Air to ground, ground to air. So, I got to dance the Soup Dance with those guys. That’s the way it was – the floor was all covered with blankets and robes of other kinds. And people able to get gifts – see they didn’t give gifts to the veterans at all. It was in honor of them. They didn’t get a gift, they were honored.
Linzee	So was this like a potlatch then...?
Beavert	Yeah.
Linzee	Where did this happen?
Beavert	In that old longhouse I was telling you about – where everybody slept in there.
Linzee	So it was in your village?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	Was it for the veterans from that area or all over?
Beavert	All over. See we had a lot of young veterans from WW II that came over there in the CC camps, and they were from all over the United States. And they liked the valley so much that when they got out of the Army, that’s where they came. To Toppenish [she laughs]. It was like home to them. Because evidently these were all displaced people? Young men. Just like the Job Corps. What they did was improve roads and worked in the forest.
Linzee	This was under the Roosevelt administration, the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps?
Beavert	Yes.
Listen to Track 15
Beavert	00:00-01:32 All those young men, some of them got married there...But most of them that I knew were all young bachelors. Some didn’t come back. I know I married one of them. The thing is, he was a very nice young man, polite. Matter of fact my stepfather actually trusted him with me. He’d say, You have to bring her back at a certain time or you’re not going to take her anymore”...to dances and things. So he’d have to really have to work to get me back on time. But he didn’t smoke, he didn’t drink. He was a clean young man and polite. But you know he was a prisoner of war over in Germany and he was tortured and I guess he was really tortured a lot. Starved. And it changed him completely. When he came back I thought he was the same young man that I knew before, but he wasn’t. 01:33-03:00 So after we got married I found out that he had changed a lot.
Linzee	Where was he from? This was your husband, right?
Beavert	Yes, he was a Chippewa from Minnesota. He came from a very good family. His uncle was a state representative...in politics. His aunt was the director of a big hospital over there. One of his brothers was also in politics and I guess there were two of them who didn’t quite make it that far. His father and mother had passed away, but his uncles and aunts were all alive and they were all...in politics most of them. But when he died, they were all gone. He only had one half sister. She was in California – but she was in a nursing home where she was unable to travel. So, I got to talk to her and I told her I would sign over all of his benefits to her. She really needed it – she was in poverty. 03:01-04:17 That’s what I did.
Linzee	His veteran’s benefits, you mean?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	So when he was in the military he was based in Washington state? Is that how you met?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And where was he based?
Beavert	In Germany.
Linzee	But when he was here in Washington where was he?
Beavert	Well, actually CC camp’s up in White Swan.
Linzee	And that was how you met?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And then he went into the military after that?
Beavert	Right from there. That’s what a lot of them did. That were from all states...gosh we even had some from New York. They used to talk about how there family was all gone – they all died. They didn’t have any place to go, so they thought CC Camp would be a good way to get employment and see the world, they thought.
Linzee	04:18-06:12 So when your husband came back from WWII he came back to Washington?
Beavert	Toppenish.
Linzee	You were married at that point?
Beavert	Umhmm. We didn’t get married right away...oh, a couple of years. But my mother sensed something about him. She had this ability to sense things and she didn’t like him. He tried to be as polite as possible and was trying, but then afterward he just started drinking and...We did our best to establish our own home, and not live with her. And my stepfather was in politics, so he was pretty busy
Linzee	Where was your mother living at that time?
Beavert	We lived right in town. They eventually moved into town so that I didn’t have to run so far to go to school. And they bought this little lot with my trust fund from my grandmother. She left a trust fund for both my brother and I. For our education she said. I don’t know who was helping her. Probably the superintendent.
Listen to Track 16
Beavert	00:00-01:21 The superintendent was kind of like my guardian too. He issued all my checks, he made sure it was supervised. If there was nobody to supervise it, since my folks would go fishing....well, he would supervise it. He had a sister who used to pick out my clothes. I was quite well dressed, after a while. Compared to the way I grew up, you know. Wearing other people’s clothes [she laughs]. So, I guess too, my mother always practiced this tradition of replacing me in place of one of my relatives who passed away. Substituting me in place of her – a first cousin who passed away. And this man was about 3 times as old as I was. 01:22 – 02:44 Well, to me, I would say he’s an old man. And I kept thinking, I can’t live with that old man. But because they had a family meeting, and several families came together, they all had daughters. They had a big meeting. My mother didn’t take me. She went by herself. So she said, everybody had an excuse. They felt like their daughter was too young or too...they wanted her to get an education and all that, and my mother said, Well, Virginia will replace her. My stepfather didn’t agree with that. He told me to run away. Well, I didn’t know what to do, and I had some friends from Tulalip who were pretty close to my age. And their parents were from Tulalip, they were picking apples in the Yakima Valley, and hops and things.... 02:45-03:46 A lot of people used to come over from the coast to do that. I was crying and telling them my predicament. They said, Maybe you could come home with us. So they went and told their parents and their mother said, We’ll have to talk with Mr. Saluskin. So they talked to my stepfather and he said, “I want her to run away. Her mother can’t read or write. But she can write to me. But she has to go back to school. Stay in school. And stay some place where she’s safe.” And they said, “We have a grandfather and grandmother who would just love to have her there with them because they need someone to be their runner. To help with the chores and things.” 03:47-05:01 And they live right close to the road where the bus stops...to go to school in Marysville. So that’s where I went to school.
Linzee	How old were you at the time?
Beavert	I don’t remember.
Linzee	Was this in high school.
Beavert	Yeah, I was in high school.
Linzee	So you were a teenager? If I understand correctly your mother had been setting you up to be married to this much older man?
Beavert	To replace my cousin, yes.
Linzee	I see.
Beavert	That was an old tradition, you know. They used to do that. So he didn’t want anybody to know where I was. So it was a secret. But I was writing back to him, and if I needed anything, he had communication with the school. So the school would contact him, he’d contact the superintendent. If it concerned money, the superintendent would mail it over to the school. Well, then the school took care of everything for me. 05:02 -06:05 So, I was pretty well taken care of. Well I went to school for two years up here in Marysville. Finally he wrote me a letter and said you can come home now. In the meantime, I learned the language up here. I had to because they didn’t speak English.
Linzee	You mean the Salish language?
Beavert	Umhmm. I didn’t learn it fluently, but I learned enough so that I knew what they wanted me to do. And I even spoke some of it to talk to my girlfriends – and I made quite a few friends. That’s when I learned about the Winter Dance. And I was living with the half brother to Chief Seattle.
Listen to Track 17
Beavert	00:00 – 01:10 Chief Kanam was who I ended up with. [she laughs]
Linzee	Oh, that’s who the grandfather was that took you in?
Beavert	Umhmm. He used to tell stories about how the Yakama used to fight with the...I mean the coast Indians, from where he was from. Fight with the Yakama over there, defeat them. [we both laugh] He’d tell us some interesting stories, and we’d sit around and do that in the evenings. That’s how I learned the language. He spoke a little bit of English, and he’d try to explain. But his wife couldn’t speak English at all. And I had to learn to eat some of that food – the traditional food. I guess they don’t do that anymore. And I had quite a time with that. 01:11 – 02:33 But she told me, “You don’t have to eat it if you can’t eat it.” But see, at home I was trained, whatever people put in front of you you eat it. You never refused people’s food. So I’d pretend like it was OK, but it was hard.
Linzee	What were they eating that was hard for you to eat?
Beavert	Well, for instance, this one....they just took the salmon eggs out whole, you know? And she used to just lay them in this dry shack. And they’d mold. And she sent me out to get a panful one time when there was a birthday. She said, “Go get those salmon eggs.” I went out there and I brought ’em in. And I was going to wash them. I started to put water and she said, “Oh No, no no. Don’t put water on it.” And my girlfriend came in the house and I said, “Did she say not to wash these?” She said, “Oh no, you don’t wash those,” she said. 02:34 – 03:59 She wants you to put each one on each plate. Just like that? Yeah, just like that. And all moldy on top. So I had to go around and put each one on each plate. That was the first thing that they ate. Well I saw everybody else eating it, so I thought I’d start eating it too. Well, I survived. [she laughs] That’s supposed to be a delicacy you know.
Linzee	Like caviar.
Beavert	And I don’t like caviar either. [we both laugh] Sushi, I don’t like that either.
Linzee	So were there other things that were very different?
Beavert	Oh yeah.
Linzee	They probably ate a lot more seafood than what you grew up with, right?
Beavert	Yeah. Well we really liked the smoked clams though. You know they used to string it on cedar bark. Oh, that was delicious. Especially the way my grandma used to fix it. 04:00-06:04 And my mother. They would make kind of a soup – they put little tiny bits of potatoes in it, or flour.
Linzee	So like a chowder?
Beavert	Umhmm. [I mention Ed Carriere talking about dried clams & trading them with tribes in eastern WA – mention horse clams] These were the small clams. I know what horse clams are. [she laughs] One time my brother went out and he dug a whole sack full. We woke up the next morning and they were crawling back towards the water and they were halfway down there. Even though they were in the sack, they were just rolling along. [we both laugh] He had to retrieve them and that evening we had horse clams. And they were making these little squeaky sounds while they were going along.
Listen to Track 18
Linzee	00:00 – 01:13 Is Virginia your given name? Did your parents give you this name?
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	They gave you an English name, huh?
Beavert	Umhmm. Oh, I have an Indian name. I have two. I have a spiritual name and an ancestral name. A lot of people have spiritual names that they don’t reveal. Because it’s usually a shaman will give you...the shaman gather and then they give the child a name. And it’s usually different than a regular Indian name. So, I don’t remember when they gave me this name – what year it was – but I remember that this man was dancing around with me and he had me on his back, on my back. So we were back to back, and I was wondering what he was doing to me. 01:14-02:43 And he was bare, and I was bare. So we were skin, back to back, and he was sweating...and that was the important part where he was putting his sweat on my body and giving me that name. And I didn’t really understand it and I was wondering what on earth I was doing on his back like that while he was dancing and jumping up and down, and here I was bouncing around on his back. And all these shaman were sitting around there watching and they were all singing along with him and pounding on this – they had these medicine sticks and they were pounding on the floor and it seemed like they were all...and he was dancing with me up and down. So that’s how I got my spiritual name. But later on my mother – you know she had on her paternal side – she had Christian family. Her father went to school over – back east, in New York. And he graduated over there and he came home and he was modern. 02:44-04:13 And he was a Christian. And he married her mother. And he took her mother to Spaulding, Idaho and a Reverend Spaulding married them over there. That Reverend Spaulding is a historical missionary you know that converted the Nez Perce people over there. And he established the church there. Well that’s where her father and mother were married. So when she was born, they took her over there and had her Christianized. And I didn’t know this until a few years before she died, she revealed this secret to me. And here I thought she was pure Longhouse Indian. And she smiled when she was telling me, “I’m baptized, did you know that?” And I said, “You ARE?” [she laughs] Shock. But anyway....and she had...her father had a mother – I guess they were very close. So they’re buried together. Up there, one grave where we’re always cleaning it and decorating it. So she gave me her paternal grandmother’s Indian name. 04:14-05:53 So when she made her will, she gave me her allotment. So I have her allotment – I inherited that, with the name. And it’s Tuxámshish. That’s my Indian name. That’s her paternal side of the family. Everybody wanted me to take my grandmother’s name that raised me. Xaxísh, you know. But I didn’t. I held that name only until about four years ago I gave it to one of my nieces. Because I – everybody wanted that name, my mother would tell ‘em, “No Virginia’s holding that name for a special person.” Because I didn’t feel like I qualified for that name. She could do everything. She could make baskets, she could – just do everything. She used to make these tule mats. Make special tule mats that people don’t make anymore. They weave it, you know. They didn’t make those just straight up and down. These were woven and she used to make those. Those are rare now. 05:54-07:35 Anyway...and herbal medicines. She was just like a doctor. She could heal. She evidently knew something about a smallpox medicine that saved a whole village. And my mother was going to show me that plant, and we went down there – where Grandma used to get it, I guess. And I don’t remember even going there with her but...then my mother said, Well I’ll show you where she used to get it. We went and there was 2, 4-lane freeways running over it. So that was lost. So I just didn’t think I was qualified for that name, Xaxísh.
Linzee	Now this was your grandmother or your great grandmother?
Beavert	Grandmother – great grandmother.
Linzee	Your great grandmother? The one that you lived with?
Beavert	Yes. So I saved that name and I gave it to a young lady that has those qualifications. But then now I have my mother’s paternal side of that name Tuxámshish. I didn’t know the woman. But evidently she was a very gentle person. So I don’t know if I acquired any qualifications from her at all, but I like my name.
Listen to Track 19
Linzee	00:00-01:07 Did your parents speak English?
Beavert	No.
Linzee	But they gave you an English name?
Beavert	That was given to me by the nurse that examined me when they came down from the mountain.
Linzee	The nurse gave you the name Virginia?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	Now is Beavert your family’s last name?
Beavert	My father’s.
Linzee	Your father’s last name. But the nurse gave you the name Virginia?
Beavert	Well, my brother had something to do with it I guess. He happened to be there, and he was studying geography. And he had this name, Virginia. The state of Virginia in his class, you know. So he liked that name, so he told the nurse. “I wish they’d call her Virginia.” “Oh we can put down that name.” So they...And then my aunt happened to be there and she liked the name Rosalind. 01:08-02:47 So I became Virginia Rosalind. My father was supposed to have been Bouvrais. He came to get an allotment and his Indian name was Watasláyma. He couldn’t spell it. So they told him we can’t give you an allotment unless we can spell your name. You have to have an English name. He had no idea what they meant, so he went back. He happened to be working for a Frenchman. The Frenchman told him, “I’ll loan you my name. I’ll go with you and I’ll tell them that your name is Harris Bouvrais – whatever the French name for Harris was at that time. I don’t know what it would be. So he went with him to get his allotment and he told them, “I’m loaning him my name. My name is Harris Bouvrais, so that will be his name.” And everybody began to call him Henry. Maybe the name was Henry, I don’t know. But, whatever – he had these two names Harris & Henry.
Linzee	Your father.
Beavert	They couldn’t spell Bouvrais, so they came up with Beavert.
Linzee	Interesting. So that’s how you became Beavert. That’s a very interesting story.
Beavert	[she laughs]
Linzee	02:48-04:17 What did your parents call you? Did they call you Virginia or did they call you something else?
Beavert	I don’t know.
Linzee	How did they address you?
Beavert	Well, ísha.
Linzee	ísha?
Beavert	Umhmm. [means] Daughter.
Linzee	So they didn’t give a name. They didn’t say....
Beavert	No that was usually...they never mentioned my name. Except in school. I was káɬa or ísha or ála or tíla, you know. Relationship terms. I only answered to that you know.
Linzee	So it wasn’t until you went to school – public school – that they used your name, Virginia Beavert. Very interesting. But that’s what’s on your birth certificate?
Beavert	Right. And I was just about to turn twenty-four. And quite young, certainly in life experience. Umhmm. I don’t have a birth certificate. But fortunately my stepfather and my mother went to the Columbia River to fish. They’d take me along – take me out of school early. Bring me back late. So I missed a lot of school, because I was kind of babysitting my little brother. 04:18-05:50 They got in trouble with the truant officer. So...there was a mission in White Swan that was sponsored by the First Christian Church. And it was a boarding place, it wasn’t really a school, but a boarding place. But they taught us about Christianity and the Bible and how to look after ourselves. That’s the first time that I ever got introduced to modern living. How to properly set a table and how to properly put my clothes away in drawers and wash out a bathtub and let the water out. And flush the toilet. Because, see the environment that I came from was the outhouse, bathing in the washtub, and hand pump outside the house. You know, that kind of living. No bed. Sleeping on the floor. And then when I went into the mission it was altogether different. And I had to learn to do all those things. 05:51-07:01 If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know...
Linzee	How old were you when you went there?
Beavert	I must have been...they took me there when I was in the 7th grade. That’s when they first introduced me to that. That kind of atmosphere and then I came out and I stayed away for a while, and then I went back. I guess I went back in the 8th grade. Because I remember going to school 9th grade in Toppenish. That’s when my mother was going to marry me off to that man. When I was in the 10th grade I went down to Marysville, and 11th grade...Back and forth everywhere...But I guess...
Listen to Track 20
Beavert	00:00-01:35 Then I had to go live in a primitive kind of way – again in Tulalip. When I lived with that old couple. They lived in a very simple...
Linzee	Traditional way.
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	Did they live in a longhouse then?
Beavert	No, they lived in their own little home. But it was just like my home....original home. So I didn’t mind that at all. It was pretty interesting. [she laughs]
Linzee	When you and your husband got married – and you had spoken a lot about your boyfriend from Taholah earlier....That’s an interesting story about why you didn’t marry the fellow that you went out with for a long time from Taholah. Was he Makah?
Beavert	No.
Linzee	Quileute?
Beavert	Quileute.
Linzee	Do you remember how you met him?
Beavert	I had – what do you call – when mother hired...not quite a babysitter but a....this was kind of a tradition. Because I was still young, we had to have an older girl look after you, take care of you. 01:36-03:00 That was I guess after my menses. I remember when I started my menses, I thought I was dying. And I guess my stepfather kind of – I don’t know how he knew, but one day he told me to get ready and pack some clothes and he took me to this old lady that lived in White Swan. She lived all by herself. And he left me there. And of course I just did anything he told me to do, without question. That’s the way we were raised you know. And this old lady just took me in and in a few days...I found I started my menses. And I thought I was dying and I took off across the field and she chased me and she had to tackle me [she laughs] and explain all this to me and I told her I was dying, I was dying. [she laughs] And she had a terrible time with me trying to teach me how to take care of myself. 03:01-04:33 By the time my stepfather...I guess he went to cut wood up in the mountains and he came down with a truckload of wood. And by that time I was already all trained and everything. And then he took me home and my mother had this woman – young woman – there, who was supposed to be my escort everywhere I went. Because I guess she had plans for me or something. But anyway her name was Ollie. Well, Ollie’s family were Shakers. You know this new religion they call Shaker. And they traveled quite a bit over to the coast to the Shaker meetings and she happened to meet Jim’s parents. Well, Jim came down to visit them one time and Ollie stopped by to pick me up, and introduced me to Jim. And so I....I didn’t really think too much of him... 04:34-00:00 He was a little dull I thought at first you know and...but he was just trying to act I guess. He was far from dull. Anyway, once we got acquainted then, and he was old enough to get a car, then he started coming over to visit.
Linzee	That’s a long trip, from Taholah.
Beavert	He made LOTS of trips coming over. Even when my brother died. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know how I would have made it when my oldest brother died. Because my brother and I were very close. It was traumatic for me. I actually wanted to commit suicide.
Linzee	What happened to your brother?
Beavert	He had varicose veins and they sent him to a government hospital and they stripped his veins and I guess a clot got away and got into his brain and killed him instantly. He was only 38 years old. And it was so sudden that I just couldn’t believe it and then all of a sudden my mother changed. She didn’t want me close to her....
Listen to Track 21
Beavert	00:00-01:28 I didn’t have anybody, and Jim came over. And he spent that time with me. And he even walked in with me in the Longhouse. There were just hundreds of people in there. And we walked in together and we had to shake hands with everybody in there. I was doing fine and he kept encouraging me from the back, he kept saying, “You OK?” And he kept touching me, “Are you alright?” “Yeah, I’m fine.” And go around and shake hands with people. And he was a drummer, my brother was a drummer. And here the drummers were standing and they had his drum laying there. When I got to that place, that’s where my knees started to give way. And he held me up. I still had to keep shaking hands. And I got on the woman’s side. Then the old ladies...they kept encouraging me you know. They’d take my hand and they’d say, “Choo...choo.” That made it worse. 01:29-02:45 He had a hard time getting me clear around there you know. Even through the funeral and everything, he was right there all the time. He really liked my brother too. But we had some fun. He had a brand new car and it was one of those new ones that had buttons in the front door, and you could press it and it would...
Linzee	Automatically open and close?
Beavert	And we had 3 old ladies in the back and he was teasing them. In the graveyard. And he touched those buttons and the windows....and they were sitting there looking at each other and wondering...finally when they discovered what he was doing they said, “Oh you...” They were laughing...he was making them laugh. But anyway, he was a big help. And I supported him too in a lot of his crises. 02:46-04:21 One time he came to visit and coming home from a fancy home like his to our little old shack...my brother had this upstairs in the attic, he had this little room made up into a bedroom. So my mother took him up there and put him to bed and I kept thinking, I wonder what he thinks of our home. So he came down in the morning and I was cooking breakfast and he said, “Could you borrow the car today?” He flew in, and he had to get a cab to come to the house. I said, “Why?” He said, “All the air leaked out of my lungs.” One lung had to be inflated to support the other. Because he had that tuberculosis you know. One collapsed, so he had to have that inflated and the air leaked out. And he said, “I’m really hurting. I have to go see the doctor and he’ll inflate it back up again.” So I went over and told my mother, “So, could I have the car key today?” 04:22-06:15 She said, “Why?” I said, “Jim has to go see the doctor.” “Oh, what’s the matter with him?” And I explained in Indian you know what’s wrong. So she went over to my stepfather and she said, “Alec (sp?), why don’t you go give Virginia the car key, Jim has a flat tire.”[she laughs] And he heard that, he was in the kitchen and he started to laugh. It was hurting him, but he had to laugh. And he came in and said, “Oh Ellen, you’re so cute.” So Alec gave us the key and I took him to the doctor and got him inflated again.” [she laughs more] And he never forgot that. He’d always...once in a while he’d chuckle and...”flat tire.” But anyway, we...you know it was a good life I guess. Every time he’d buy a new car he’d come over and show it to me. And even after he had that baby, he was bringing it over.
Linzee	But you said your mother objected to you marrying him, right?
Beavert	Yeah, she didn’t think it was a good idea.
Listen to Track 22
Beavert	00:00-01:32 But you know I felt bad when his family didn’t inform me that he wanted to see me before he died. I guess his lungs finally got the best of him. His wife left him. I guess they got divorced. So when he got pretty terminal he asked them to ask me to come and see him. And I found out later....that he was thinking of putting me in his will. And, so they didn’t inform me. Until after the funeral – until the funeral. Then they came and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the funeral. And already somebody – one of his relatives, a woman relative – told me, “He wanted to see you. Have they told you?” I said, “No.” “He was asking to see you.” So his family came and wanted to know if – his uncles – wanted to know if I wanted to go to the funeral. I told them, “No. I don’t think so.” 01:33-02:45 So I didn’t get to go. But I know where he’s buried, because he used to always take me down there and show me his father and mother, and his little boy’s buried. He said this is mine, you want yours there? I don’t want to be buried over here. I don’t know anybody but just your family. J: He was still hopeful you might marry him in the end, huh? [she laughs] He’d give me salmon, I’d drive over there – they’d throw a few salmon. I had one of those little Toyotas, the motor was in the back. And my trunk was in the front. My mother couldn’t believe that. She was so mused to the other way around. But they’d throw some salmon in there and I’d go on home with it. Pack it in ice. I’d be halfway home and I’d be leaking. 02:46-04:20 Somebody once told me, your oil tank must be busted, you’re leaking. I said, I know. You know? It was that ice that was melting. Really good sockeye salmon.
Linzee	Now when you actually got married, did you have a traditional Indian wedding?
Beavert	No. No, that was performed by a judge.
Linzee	In Yakima?
Beavert	Yeah, and this anthropologist that I was working with, Dr. Mel Jacobs’ student was my maid of honor. And one of his best friends was an ex-Army guy – happened to be my cousin – was the best man. And this woman that I worked with. She was a comical person. An crazy. So we were getting ready to go on our honeymoon up in the mountains and all of a sudden she showed up. She said, “I’m going with you.” I said, “You are?” And she said, Yeah I have my camp and everything’s all in my car, I’ll just follow you guys up there. 04:21-05:42 I said, Oh, OK. [she laughs] The more the merrier. She had her tent and everything. So we went up and we stopped on the way in this campground where there’s a lot of ice water coming down from the mountains. And when we traveled we just jumped in. We didn’t care about the cold water, we just jumped in. [can’t make out next short bit] Well, that was our first camp. And while he was building a fire she said, Let’s go jump in the water. OK. So I got my bathing suit on and she got hers on. He said, Where are you guys going? We’re going to go jump in the water. Oh, I’ll come down there as soon as I get the fire going. So we were already in the water, splashing around and it was sooo cold and here he came and dove in and and he came up blowing – Why didn’t you tell me it was this cold? 05:43-07:45 [she laughs] He jumped out of the water. That was his first experience with her. And everywhere we went she followed us.
Linzee	Really?
Beavert	She was always taking pictures of everything – wildlife and the lake. He wanted to go out on this big lake – just the 2 of us. Pretty soon, Yoo-hoo, I’m coming. She was riding on this log and paddling out there. He said, I hope she turns over. And she made it over there on that log and she got on the raft that we were on and we all tipped over and we had to go back on shore. By that time he was really upset. He was a mountain man. Cause he was in CC camp, and you know, hiking. He couldn’t out hike me. I was a hiker too. But she was too. We could never get rid of her. That was quite a time. So right there he didn’t like her anymore. But she was just so friendly all the time and everybody liked her.
Linzee	This was Mel Jacob’s student?
Beavert	Umhmm. I had no trouble introducing her to Indian people because of the way she related to them. Except with my husband. [she laughs]
Listen to Track 23
Linzee	00:00-01:44 So did you and he go back and live in Toppenish?
Beavert	Umhmm. Well, she had to get back to the university and catch up on what she was doing and...Well it was kind of off and on for my marriage. It was all alcoholic related. He just couldn’t leave that alone. I ended up being the breadwinner in the family. Because he couldn’t get a job. He had a lot of talents, you know, but he just couldn’t stick with it. He was quite confused and very jealous. He even accused me of having affairs with the doctors...in the hospital where I worked. That’s what I was trained for.
Linzee	You were a nurse?
Beavert	No I was a medical record librarian and I had to take all those subjects that the nurses take...
Linzee	Was this the local hospital in Yakima?
Beavert	Umhmm. Toppenish. It was a fairly new hospital and I worked with a....the main doctor actually was our family doctor, so he was the director of the entire hospital. 01:45-03:24 So whenever we had an emergency, he would just send me over to the emergency department and I had to take care of patients. Course it was such a small town, you know. But a lot of times he’d show up drunk and want me to drop everything and go home. I had to finish my time and he’d mess around and get in trouble. Well, I’d have to call the police. One time he got so mad he went into the kitchen and he just pulled out all those pots and pans and threw them around and I had to call the police. But once there was a man having his first child and he was a nervous wreck. And I was trying to help him relax and talk to him and everything. And my husband showed up drunk and he wanted me to go home and he threw an ashtray at my head and we had a switchboard and it rang and I just bent over to answer and that big glass ashtray went over my head and right threw the door... 03:25-04:35 ...and landed in the hallway and the head nurse was coming. It shattered right in front of her. She was so shocked she said, “What’s going on here?” and she came in and he was standing there real innocent like he didn’t do a thing you know. And so I told her...well she knew him...and she said, well you can go if you want to, just close the switchboard. So I got my brand new coat my mother just gave me for Christmas and it had one button up here. It was cold outside. And we started out and he grabbed me and he jerked me and he tore my button right through my button hole. He tore it just like that. And my temper....that’s the first time I lost my temper with him and I just hit him, right in the jaw. He went backwards and I slipped on the ice and I went backwards. 04:36-06:30 And we both flopped. It made me so mad in my brand new coat, you know. And that man saw that and he came running out there and he grabbed my husband and he jerked him up and he hit him. He hit him twice. And I ran back in the hospital and I called the police and they arrested my husband. [she laughs] Oh boy, just like a movie. Anyway they held him, and I had some friends in the police station and they called me – he wants to come home. No, just keep him there. Then he’d get on the phone and he’d plead with me. I said, “Well they won’t let you go.” And I guess he’d tell...“She said I could come home.” “Nope. Can’t go.” He was good for quite a while after that. And he was pretty sore. That man really hit him. So he learned his lesson for a while there.
Linzee	Did you have any children together?
Beavert	4 pregnancies that he terminated. I could have had... this last one probably would have made it but it had to be aborted because it was dying. That was the last straw, right there. I filed for divorce.
Listen to Track 24
Beavert	00:00-01:29 Then I went back to work again with Kit, and found something to do there.
Linzee	With Kit? What do you mean?
Beavert	With that anthropologist.
Linzee	This woman you were talking about.
Beavert	I went back to working with her again. We collected a LOT of things. Reels and reels of interviews and a lot of movies. We were the first people that the chief of the Celilo Falls allowed to ride around and take pictures of the fishermen and interview them.
Linzee	You mean the fishermen working from the platforms at the Falls?
Beavert	And it was because he knew me and when I introduced them, he liked her. So he gave us permission to go ahead and go on the cables and ride across to the islands and speak to the fishermen. And all those interviews on the reel to reel recorders and also a movie. She had a movie camera. And still camera. And we took pictures of powwows at Celilo. 01:30-02:49 We even had a movie of my youngest brother’s wedding. The Indian trade between the Umatilla’s and the Yakama’s. That was quite a movie. And we don’t know what happened to all that.
Linzee	Did it come to the university? Was it sent here?
Beavert	We’re hoping it’s somewhere around here.
Linzee	On the campus? Archived somewhere here [we’re referring to U.W.].
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And she was in anthropology, so it would be in the anthropology department?
Beavert	Her name was Margaret Kendall. Everybody called her Kit Kendall. And she died, she had acquired this sickness where the water gets in between your skin and body and she just blowed up. It affected her heart and she died. I was away when she died. And I told my stepfather they should take all that material because – see they gave her permission to go anywhere on the reservation as long as I was with her.
Linzee	02:50-04:17 And this was the Yakama reservation?
Beavert	Umhmm. So actually that material was rightfully theirs. The Yakamas. And I inquired if she had sold it. And I read her estate – her will. She only had one beaded bag that she gave to a friend. Because I was gone, you know, and she never saw me for quite a while. Didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know that she died until I came back.
Linzee	Did you and she have grant money that paid to do this work?
Beavert	I didn’t get any money out of it.
Linzee	You didn’t? You weren’t paid? You just helped her out. And was she teaching at the university at that time?
Beavert	No, she was a student. She brought me to Dr. Jacob’s office and introduced me to him. And they went off together and he left me with the story. And he said, “Now this is the alphabet. This is the sound and he would make all the sounds. 04:18-05:21 It was in Klickitat. “And do you understand?” Because he didn’t approve of me right away because I was all dressed modern. Shorts, sandals, sleeveless T-shirt. [she laughs] And he took her out in the hall and said, “I told you to get a...recruit a traditional Indian.” And Kit said, “She’s traditional.” [she laughs] So that’s when he came back in and he said, “We’re going to go somewhere. We have some work to do. I’m going to leave you here in my office,” but he said, “This is the alphabet, and he told me phonetics and all that and the written material. And he read some off and I could understand it. I could read it. So I was making comparisons. 05:22-07:35 I picked it up right away. And he said, “Here’s a story. And when I get back I want you to read it to me. I want to know if you understand what’s written there.” “OK.” So I sat there and I studied his word list and phonetics and then I read this story. When I was sitting there my face was red. I was blushing. That was a real sexy story and I just never heard anybody talk that way and I was really blushing and he said, “You understand it, didn’t you?” And I didn’t even want to discuss it with him because he was a man and that story was a man’s story and he got a big kick out of that. [she laughs] So he was testing me. And after that he became just like my grandfather. He treated me like a granddaughter. We became real acquainted. I met his wife later on and she was my friend until she passed away. I talked to her on the phone once in a while. ‘Til later she got so sick, the young man that took over their foundation, he told me she’s just too sick to talk to anybody now. So then she died. So....I made a friend there with the doctor. A lot of people were afraid of him because he was so gruff. But there was another side of him that was different. He was kind and had a sense of humor. But this other front that he put up was different.
Listen to Track 25
Linzee	00:00-01:33 How old were you at that time?
Beavert	Good night, I don’t know.
Linzee	This was after you were married? And gotten divorced?
Beavert	I met him before that.
Linzee	Before You got married.
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	How old were you when you got married? In your 20s? 30s?
Beavert	I wasn’t that old. Let’s see. I was back from the service. Must have been about 24, 25...25 I guess.
Linzee	And did you stay married for 10 years you think?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	So it was about 35 when you got divorced? And you said at that point you came back and did some more work? Or you did some more work with Kit at that point?
	Umhmm.
Linzee	Were you also working and living in Toppenish at that time?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And were you still working at the hospital?
Beavert	No, I didn’t go back to the hospital after that. I worked at the Yakama Valley Memorial Hospital. And I went to Sunnyside Hospital, I worked there. 01:34-03:09 Well in Sunnyside I was doing real good until I lost my hearing and I lost my balance. And I ended up at the Mayo Clinic. And they did some brain work over there. And I was in a coma for quite a while. In the meantime I had met this one young man and he came up there and he stayed with me while I was in the hospital. And he brought me home. And my parents couldn’t go out there. They didn’t have enough money. So they gave him authority to sign any papers that needed to be signed. And he wanted to get married and I had some second thoughts because he was not Indian, and I did change my mind about marrying him. But he was a real nice person.
Linzee	You changed your mind?
Beavert	I did commit myself and then changed my mind about marrying him. ‘Cause I kept hearing my great great grandma, she...”When you marry out of your own race, then you have spotted children.” 03:10–04:58 And all these things. This was from our religion you know. She used to quote some of the teachings. And then when I’d think about it,...well I guess I better just stay within my own, you know....But he was very nice. My parents liked him. But I thought to myself, well he’ll find somebody better. I guess he did marry somebody much older than him. I saw him a few times later, but I tried not to be too friendly with him. You know, and cause him any problems. But like Jim, he did try to talk to me, but I didn’t encourage it. But the horsemen....see he was a race horse person. And then he also was a teacher. And he kind of went too far ahead of me. He went ahead and built me a home. But his mother and his sister were very prejudiced against me and I didn’t want to put up with that. 04:49-06:25 They didn’t approve. And I said, well I’m not going to live with that. And it was too close. The home was too close to where they lived. Because he was their main support, so I don’t blame them. They would lose all that support, I don’t know what they’d do.
Linzee	Did he live in Toppenish also?
Beavert	Oh no, he lived in Hillsboro, Oregon. Then he had a stallion, a thoroughbred stallion. And I had 2 mares and we were going to combine those and raise thoroughbreds. It would have been OK too I guess. But he wanted to move away. He wanted to live over in Idaho. Boise, Idaho. It was hard to even deal with because he was such a nice person
Listen to Track 26
Linzee	00:00-01:23 At a certain point, you had said that your stepfather had wanted you to go back to school. And this was after you were divorced and you went to get a degree in anthropology and that was at Central Washington, is that right?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	Can you talk a little about that?
Beavert	Well, I went back....I didn’t have to go to Central. I could have gone over to WSU or anywhere. And I could have come over here too [she is referring to U.W.]. Because I already knew Dr. Jacobs and that would have been easy. [she laughs] But the reason I went to Central was because I had heard that it was a prejudiced school. And I was kind of like that. I was always challenging at that time. At my age at that time. I was out of the Army and everything and I felt like...I was a little more aggressive than I am today. 01:24-02:58 So I decided to go there and try it out. Well, right away I did sense a little distancing, you know ...and there was a young man there and he was an Indian. And he was one of the professors there. And he was married to one of our Yakama women. And we became friends. He encouraged me, and then he introduced me to the president of the school. Then I met this Japanese man, he was teaching art there. And he was kind of a snide little old man. Little tiny man, very talented. And he introduced me to his new wife. He just brought her back from Japan. And she was even smaller than he was. And they took me home one day and he said, “I had to go through all this expense of lowering all my shelves and everything so my wife could cook here.” 02:59-04:19 Cause she was so tiny. And we got on the subject of things to eat, and he was very interested in Indian culture, especially the foods. So she was introducing me to their kind of foods. So after I was teaching this one group of students – I took them root digging. Well that was about the time I was getting acquainted. So I was telling her that I had all these students who were bringing in all this Indian food. And she said, I must talk my husband into going to that and eating those eels. I said, I don’t think we’ll have any eels. We’ll have some salmon. And he just didn’t want to go. He very firmly told her, “I’m not going.” But she wanted him to come. She said, “Let’s trick him.” “OK.” So I told him, “We’re going to have rattlesnake meat over there.” “Rattlesnake?” 04:20-05:52 “Yes.” “You folks eat rattlesnake?” “Yes.” Lie. “Oh, well, I might come.” So I made a phone call and I asked one of my nephews to find out if they could get some eels anywhere. He said, “We might.” And I told him how to bake it and everything. So instead of cooking on an open fire, one of the wives decided to cook it in the oven. And barbecue it. So they did bring some eels. So I secretly told his wife that we had some eels. Oh, she was anxious to sample it. The only way we could get him to go was rattlesnake. So he came – one taste and he knew it was eels. [she laughs] So we didn’t fool him very long. But getting acquainted like that...and then the president came to our multi-cultural gathering that we had. And I ended up teaching in one portion of the – I guess it’s part of the anthropology department now. 05:53-07:03 Ethnic Studies. And that’s how I earned my living then – my tuition and everything – working through the university. Teaching in Ethnic Studies. And I ended up teaching students who were taking Native American studies. Which was a little higher than Ethnic Studies. Then I got elected, right after graduation ceremonies, they had General Council. They elected me right away, I tried to decline and they wouldn’t let me. I actually did decline and they said, we won’t accept it. We’re going to run you anyway. I was the only woman running against about 13 men. So I said, what chance do I have anyway. So I said, Oh well, I’ll go ahead and run. Then Lo and behold I got elected.
Listen to Track 27
Beavert	00:00-01:24 Well, I was in General Council for 14 years, but then I did a few other little projects in the meantime, still with Central. The support that I got getting into that migrant education with an open door for this committee to get in there and then we started another project. So I was doing several things while I was elected, but then the elected position became a full-time...at first it was part-time see. Then it became full-time so I had to work every day so I had to give up the rest of my projects and put in my full-time with General Council. A lot of travel, a lot of reading, a lot of meetings. Even until midnight sometimes I’d go to meetings. And meet with people. I started changing things there. I did change quite a few things. 01:25-02:40 While I was in my elected position. I wasn’t very popular with the Tribal Council because I managed to get a code of ethics developed. Because, a few times that I traveled, I could see where we needed reform. And that stopped it. There was a lot of drinking on the job and things like that. So we stopped that. And now when they talk about doing away with that resolution I worry because if we do we won’t have any watchdogs. And it will go back to the way it was again.
Linzee	So the General Council is serving the tribe, right?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And that’s different from the Tribal Council.
Beavert	The Tribal Council is our working council that takes the resolutions that we pass in the General Council to do something, and it’s up to the Tribal Council to do it.
Linzee	02:41-03:38 So the General Council is like the governing body of the tribe.
Beavert	Yes it is.
Linzee	And how many council members are there typically?
Beavert	Well, actually there were 4 elected positions there. The translator/interpreter had to be elected. Then there was the Secretary. That was the position I got into. The Vice Chairman and the Chairman. So the 3 officers who were all officers. I think the title Secretary is a misnomer. Because I did just as much as the Chairman, if not more. Because a lot of times the Chairman would be off doing something else outside of the job, and then I had to do his job. The Vice Chairman...especially the Vice Chairman. 03:39-05:01 So I ended up with a big staff. A really good working staff. So that was how we were working. Thank goodness for my staff because they were trustworthy and good workers. All the time I was in there I had a good staff.
Linzee	So this was a full-time paid position?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	With benefits?
Beavert	No. No benefits. That was a problem. That’s the problem that my stepfather ran into. See he was Chairman of the Tribal Council. Before my time that is. Before I got elected. For quite a while and they didn’t have any benefits. So after he retired then he went to work at Fort Simcoe as an archivist. And that’s where he started getting his benefits. So I guess during the war though, both my mother and my stepfather were working in the war effort. Driving the trucks. Working out in the farms. 05:02-07:32 That were working for the benefit of the war effort. So they accumulated some benefits there. My mother was driving trucks and working in the cannery and she couldn’t even speak English. But she got her driver’s license. Because she’d draw what she saw – with a pen. She’d look in those little things and she would draw the letters which she saw and she was perfect in her driving test. So she got her driver’s license that way. Up until she was about 90 years old she was driving.
Linzee	So at the point that you came on the Council, had you actually finished – had you completed a degree at Central Washington? And you went there to study anthropology, right?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And you got...
Beavert	A bachelor’s.
Linzee	So you were there for 4 years? But you also supported yourself by teaching courses there?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	How old were you at the time? In your 40s?
Beavert	Umhmm. It was hard for me until I started teaching. And while I was teaching I had all these other ethnic people – like the Hispanics, the Blacks. Well, actually it was just the Hispanics and Blacks and myself. And we had another group of white that was kind of like, hippies, and they were different from the campus too. So we had all this group working together and I learned a lot from them. And we all became friends – so it was easy to work with them.
Linzee	Were you living in Ellensburg or were you commuting?
Beavert	No I lived right in Ellensburg.
Linzee	But when you got on the General Council you had to move back down to...
Beavert	I had a hard time finding a place to live, I had to live in a motel...for quite a while and eat out and...
Listen to Track 28
Beavert	00:00-01:39 I didn’t want to bother my parents. They were independent too. I didn’t want to be a third person there, although I had a bedroom there all the time but...I preferred to live by myself. After my stepfather...they were separated for a while. He was going through some second childhood things, and she in the meantime got a divorce. I couldn’t get her to move to Ellensburg with me. She said that was off the reservation. She wasn’t going to move off the reservation. “It’s only Ellensburg.” “That’s still off the reservation.” So during that time she was very independent. And she had one grandson living there too. Well I...after...fourteen (14) years I was more like forced out. There’s a group of Indians, they call themselves the Cowlitz tribe. 01:40-02:59 And they’re growing in numbers, and they came in and...well I didn’t really think too much about it. To me, everybody was Yakama. Until people started saying things like, “Well, I’m not Yakama. I was forced to come in to be a Yakama.” And I started thinking, what do they mean by that. You know, I thought everybody was a Yakama. And I was treating everybody the same. And pretty soon I heard about these meetings going on. Well, since I was elected I should find out what it was. What it was about. So I went to some meetings. And when they’d see me, when I’d walk in when somebody was talking, all of a sudden they’d quit talking. And I’d sit there and wait. Then somebody else would get up and talk. But they acted like they were guarded, they were very guarded when I was there. They weren’t speaking freely I felt. 03:00-04:26 So one day I heard they were having a meeting. Then I heard these rumors, and I didn’t believe in rumors so I thought I’d better find out for myself. So I walked in through the lobby and it was in the theatre. Then I heard this woman talking. Talking real loud and she said, “Well, when we get our money, we’re not going to share it with these goddammed Yakamas. We’re going to keep it for ourselves. We’re not going to share any of it, just our people, our own people.” And I thought, Who is our people? So I waited for a little bit and listened. And somebody else got up and said something. They actually had an elected group sitting up there, just like in our General Council, you know. So I finally walked in and I sat down. And somebody else got up and didn’t know who I was I guess and he started talking about the money. And he was saying Cowlitz and Cowlitz and...So finally I raised my hand and asked to see if I could talk. 04:27-06:31 Well they weren’t recognizing me. Finally I just got up and walked out there. Took the microphone and I said, “I’ve been listening to you people and I’m only the General Council. You all know me.” And I mentioned my name. And I said, “Now I hear that you people are going to sell all your rights over there. That you have east of the mountains and a lot of that is Klickitat land you’re talking about. I feel like I have this responsibility to talk to you about what you’re doing. So, what you’re doing is you’re selling your heritage. You’re selling it for money. Now if you’d think about it. And I’ve talked to your elders over there. And these are elders who don’t want to sell. Because I helped them with their ?? money. All you folks receive claims money from the Yakamas. Every one of you that are in this building right now. I know your names. All of you received money, thousands of dollars, from the Northern Claim, from The Dalles Dam. But you were saying you were Yakama at that time. And now you’re saying you’re not Yakama. OK, Now you’re selling your heritage...for money...just like you don’t care about who you really are.”
Listen to Track 29
Beavert	00:00-01:32 “What are you going to do when you get your money and you spend it all? Are you going to still be Yakama? Are you still going to depend upon the Yakamas to support you? Just like we’re doing now? You’re sharing all of the benefits from our treaty, and you’re not even named in our treaty. Have you ever thought about that?” I told them. “Your name is not on our treaty. You have signed the treaty with the Medicine Creek people. The Cowlitz tribe signed the Medicine Creek treaty. And there are about 5 or 6 groups of Cowlitz people which group do you represent? Do you know that? Because I know all about the Cowlitz tribe.” They just sat there and I said, “If you keep the forest and land and all the areas that you’re talking about...If you kept that, and didn’t sell out...you could tell the Yakama people to file a claim for your area. You say you’re Yakama, you want the Yakama to extend the boundary line over into the area that you claim...” 01:33-03:14 “You could get all of your resources back. Your home sites for your children. You’d get all of that back if you really wanted to. But if you sell all of it, you’ll spend all of your money in one week. Then what are you going to do? Do you still want us to support you?” I made enemies right there. But the children were pulling on their mothers and Dads, “Yeah Dad. Yeah Mom. We want a place to live.”
Linzee	They were going to sell reservation land? This was land that was reservation land?
Beavert	I don’t know what kind of land the Cowlitz people have. I don’t even know where those people are from – which area of Cowlitz. They don’t even know. Well, they banded together and they came in and they had a petition to get me out of my position. Well, then they couldn’t do that. They didn’t have enough signatures. Then they banded together with the cattlemen, who...I was talking to the cattlemen about the range land they were using that was allotted to some of the old, old people. 03:15-04:26 And they were still paying them one cent an acre to graze their cattle and they had great big ranches and big herds of cattle. I said, “When are you going to raise the grazing rate and pay a little more to these old folks who are starving? And own that land. And here you are rich. And you’ve got lots of children and a great big ranch house and everything – all these cattle. These little old ladies that own that land where you graze your cattle are starving.” So I made enemies right there too. Well they banded together with the cattlemen – they got all of us out. All three of us. Well one ran back in...they wanted all of us to run back in again, they were going to re-elect us again. But I told them, “Fourteen years is a long time. I gave up my life for 14 years. I’m not going to run again, ever.” 04:27-06:16 And they’ve been trying to re-elect me for years now and I told them, No, don’t bother. I’ve had that. It’s hard work. You have to stand up for your own rights. And that’s what I did. I stood up for the rights of other people who were suffering and also the rights of the Yakamas....against the Cowlitz. And now they finally realized that they decided to be Yakamas. Because another group came in and took over and got recognized. And they won’t let them in, so...they have to claim to be Yakamas now. So I let it go, I don’t bother about it, but...
Linzee	So after your 14 years, what happened next?
Beavert	I didn’t do much of anything for a while. I met a very nice Yakama Indian who I met when I was working in Hanford. I was working for the FBI and they sent me out to investigate some people who had applied for jobs and things. I had to follow them’ round, count how many drinks they took and all that. Then they assigned me to this one man on the reservation who was AWOL. I had to go pick him up.
Listen to Track 30
Beavert	00:00-01:23 Well, I found him and I hauled him over and talked to him. I asked him if he could talk Indian and he said, “Oh sure, I can talk Indian.” So we were talking Indian, I told him “I’m supposed to pick you up and put you in jail.” He said, “You are.” I said, Yup.” I told him where I worked, I said, “You’re AWOL.” “Yeah, I know.” “Look it, I’ll tell you what. I could give you a break. If you go to the firing range and turn yourself in, it will be a lot easier on you. Rather than if I arrest you.” He thought it over and he says, “OK.” He turned himself in. Well, it was about that time, he came back and he was with this one woman...and I thought they were married. So this one big grant came out and I was assigned to go help these people with this grant. I got elected to do that. 01:24-02:37 So I went over and I was helping them. I was helping her with her land and her claims and what she was going to do with certain money and she told me it all had to be written up before they could receive their money. But they had to have a plan. Well he told me he wanted to get some black Angus, but she didn’t want it in her name, he wanted it only in his name. And I said, “Why? Aren’t you going to use her land?” He said, “No not really. I have my own.” And I said, “Well, you know it’s kind of awkward. You folks are living in this one home.” He says, “Well, we’re not married.” I said, “Oh. OK.” So I had to make a separate plan for him. So later on they split up. And he started pursuing me. And he caught up with me and he could speak the same language. He could speak Columbia River – my father’s language. 02:38-04:26 And he was raised the same as I was. We were very compatible. We lived a very happy life for quite a while. And...I had to drop a few of my own recreational habits. Because he was in for food gathering. All the time. Hunting, fishing, root gathering, berry picking. And then we preserved everything that we gathered. We shared it with the family. My family. And we spoiled my family. But we were very compatible. He was a little younger than I was. But the first time we went to see my...he was still legally married to his wife. I was still legally married to my husband at that time then. Because he kept refusing to accept my divorce. He kept saying, I’m Catholic, I don’t believe in divorces. My attorney would tell him, “Well Virginia’s not Catholic. And when they got married this issue didn’t come up.” Well anyway we were waiting for his divorce and my divorce. I felt divorced myself, because I went through the judge and everything. 04:27-07:11 And the judge gave me a divorce. His wife wouldn’t divorce him because they had two children. And his uncle was raising his boy. And we were going to take him, but the uncle didn’t want to give him up. He was too attached to him. She had the girl and it was retarded and she was living with a Filipino out here in Bainbridge. And they had a strawberry patch or something. Good business. Nice home and everything. So she was threatening him. “If you divorce me, I’m going to take Junior.” So he was stuck. Finally it just came to an end. And I decided that was enough. And he tried to come back, but my mother told him, “No I don’t think so. She’s working at Heritage and I don’t think she wants to do that anymore.” So he drank himself to death. Which was a shame. He had a lot of talent. He was a farmer and he knew how to run all the brand new equipment that they have these days. He was farming thousands of acres of land. He was using all that equipment. He was a mechanic. He could fix it. Then when he started drinking even his employer came to see me. Please, go back to him because I need him. [she laughs] OK, you need him, you go catch him. But he finally drank himself to death because I wouldn’t go back to him. I didn’t want to reform him, he was in the Army.
Listen to Track 31
Linzee	You mentioned that you raised a lot of your nieces and nephews and children in the family. Even though you didn’t have your own child, you raised a lot of kids. And that was over time? At various points in time?
Beavert	Umhmm. My mother and I when we were alone, we had five that we raised. Before that I raised Ronnie. Then I raised one of my brother’s little boys. He gave it to me before it was even able to walk yet. I took him and I raised him until he was about seven. Then he wanted him back. The boy didn’t want to go back. And I told him, “Well, he’s your Dad.” He said, “I’d rather stay with you.” And I took him back. He was running in a race and fell over and died with a heart attack. He was running on track.
Linzee	As a teenager?
Beavert	Umhmm. I think if he’d stayed with me I’d have had him checked all the time. 01:30-03:21 Because, I was working in the hospital when I had him. So I had him checked all the time. He had worms when I got him. You know how kids get worms. I caught him one time scratching, I said, “Why are you....” “I always scratch,” he said. So I took him to the doctor, to my doctor and he said, “We’ll have to get those worms out of him.” So I took him to the hospital, he took the treatment, he was OK. And his dental work...he needed a lot of dental work. You know I had full possession, he was on my medical and everything. So he was my dependent. He was a good kid. And when he died I was real brokenhearted. I had a hard time getting over that. I was losing my own.
Linzee	And he was back living with his father at that time? And this was your younger brother?
Beavert	My younger brother. His wife was ready to have another one. And she was really big. And he was just little yet and she had a hard time carrying him around and everything. I was just teasing, I said, “Well I guess I’ll take this one home.” 03:22-04:49 And I was just joking. And I was on my way, driving away and pretty soon he caught up with me at a stop sign and he had his baby bag and the baby and he says, “Here.” [she laughs] So I took him. He liked me. He liked me right away. He was happy with me. There was no problem.
Linzee	And you were still living with your husband then?
Beavert	No. He wouldn’t have let me take it if he had anything to say about it.
Linzee	Now at some point you said the linguistics professor at Central had gotten you a grant to go to Dartmouth?
Beavert	Umhmm. I went over there and I was taking a summer course in linguistics. It was historical linguistics. And I ended up housesitting for a young lady that was on a Caribbean excursion on some ship out there and she didn’t have a housesitter, so I took care of her home. 04:50-07:42 And I met these Indian children going to school there at Dartmouth then. They were politically involved in some Indian politics and they did this march to Nixon’s office I guess. But I don’t think they were involved in that raid. They weren’t those kind of kids. But they wanted me to go with them and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t that politically involved at that time. So, and that was a long process. That we worked on beginning sometime in the early part of 1974.
Linzee	And you were studying linguistics at Dartmouth for the summer?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And then you went on to teach at Heritage College?
Beavert	Yes. That was kind of accidental. I could have gone back to Central. But that was a long drive and my mother was older. More dependent on me and I didn’t want her cooking for herself because her coordination was all off now. She was getting pretty old. Her hands were all knobby with arthritis and she couldn’t pour the hot water into the cups anymore like she used to. I didn’t want her burning herself. And her eyesight was also going. She had to have trifocals and she had a hard time adjusting to her trifocals at that time. And so I didn’t want her cooking, so I wanted a job where I could stay with her most of the time and there was a job opening for a cultural teacher and...So I went to see about it at Heritage and they hired me. And then I eventually started teaching the language. There was a great interest in the alphabet, so I started teaching our Native alphabet. I had a pretty good class, but I preferred evening classes and it was beneficial for those who worked. There were people who were working people and they took evening classes. So it worked out pretty good with my mother and also with my students, and myself. So that’s how I got started with Heritage.
Listen to Track 32
Beavert	00:00-01:19 And then eventually we started talking about developing an additional dictionary based on the one that I had worked on, which was a special project that I did over at Central. And I decided, well, since nobody’s doing anything about the dictionary anyway I might as well participate in obtaining this grant, so I went to see the Tribal Council to see if they would support it because – in the meantime, in between that time - there was a resolution that was passed in General Council by somebody. I wasn’t there when it happened. They didn’t want the Indian language taught in public school or they didn’t want to teach reading and writing to any students. Because they felt like they could teach the language at home. 01:20-03:05 It didn’t say that in the resolution. All it was was a mandate not to teach it, period. So since I was not working in the public school, I was working in the college, I had the freedom to do what I wanted because I was the author of the dictionary anyway. So I went ahead and helped Heritage with the proposal and I had to seek support from the Tribal Council. So the Chairman of the Tribal Council signed a letter of support. That’s all he signed was a letter of support. And he didn’t sign anything else. That was all he signed was a letter of support. And I managed to get one woman from the Tribal Council, who used to teach the language in the public school. She was just teaching little children. Well, she thought that was important, so she came to the meeting. And another man – he realized that their language was dying which was the Chinook language they call Wíshxam. 03:06-04:59 That was all dying out. All the elders were dying who spoke that language and the young people didn’t learn it. So he came to support us. So I had two people sit in on that meeting with the grant. Then we got a small grant. Then later on as the work began to show that we were doing something – and I was teaching in the meantime – using what we were developing. They would make on site visits and see what was going on. So they’d add some more to our grant.
Linzee	Who’s they? Where did your grant come from?
Beavert	Washington, D.C.
Linzee	A federal grant?
Beavert	Yes.
Linzee	Do you know from what division of government?
Beavert	Well it was the...
Linzee	Bureau of Indian Affairs?
Beavert	No. I got a grant from ANA – which is a federal grant. I got a grant from there. I was supposed to work with it – a kind of a personal grant. I was supposed to work with the tribe and because I wasn’t very popular with the Tribal Council and I wasn’t elected anymore the grant came in... 05:00-06:10 ...and they didn’t even notify me. So they were going to give it to somebody else. And they told them, we can’t release this grant because it’s for Virginia Beavert. So it angered the Council, they had a meeting. And I guess some of my supporters got outvoted. I had I guess three supporters in that Council. And they sent the money back.
Linzee	What is the ANA?
Beavert	American Native Association, something like that. It’s a federal grant. So the other grant we received was from the Mellon grant for the Heritage. So that’s what I’ve been working with ever since.
Linzee	So that went to Heritage College, but you’ve been working with Sharon on that?
Beavert	Yes.
Listen to Track 33
Beavert	00:00-01:28 And now I’m working also with this young lady from Eugene – University of Oregon. And we’re also developing a grammar with this same grant that ran out, so she got her own little grant. It’s not very much. But she’s doing that to support her effort to obtain more experience with our writing system and continue working with the grammar – hopefully in the future. We’ll get a bigger grant to complete what we’re doing.
Linzee	Is she Native American?
Beavert	No.
Linzee	Is she a linguistics student?
Beavert	She’s working toward a master’s and a PhD in linguistics. So, where Sharon is more shy. She doesn’t go right in there....she goes with me, she’s respectful and all that, but she doesn’t do any talking.
Linzee	01:29-02:46 Do you think she knows enough to speak some of the language?
Beavert	Oh yeah, she could. She’s quite fluent. She gets too confident sometimes thought and I have to correct her...
Linzee	So does she speak it with you?
Beavert	Umhmm.
Linzee	And did you teach her?
Beavert	Yes. I’m teaching my apprentices and also I have some young men who apprenticed through me and they’re out doing things now. I have one who’s teaching at the Tribal school out here in Tacoma. There’s an Indian federal government school there. And he’s teaching there. He’s teaching culture and language. I think he’s getting credit from some university, I’m not sure. He was into linguistics.
Linzee	And at some point you ended up going down and doing some studies in Arizona you mentioned.
Beavert	That’s where I was introduced to structure. 02:47-04:11 ...of our language. After my mother died I didn’t know what to do with myself. And I was in the mourning stage where I was supposed to stay away from social affairs and things. And since I came directly from my mother’s womb I had to give up eating fresh meat for a while. There’s certain things that we have to avoid when we’re mourning like that. When we’re directly connected to the relative. Like the mother. Or the husband. If I had a husband that died then I would have had to go through the same thing. So with my mother, I came from her womb, so I had to observe that also. I couldn’t eat fresh meat for a quite a while. That didn’t bother me any. And I had to stay away from social affairs and dress conservatively. I was practically in rags when I was over there in Arizona. 04:12-06:10 I really looked pitiful I guess, but that was the way I was supposed to look. That’s the way I was supposed to be.
Linzee	This is part of your tradition?
Beavert	Umhmm. So when I went over there I was starving. See, I spent all my money on her funeral. All my savings. So I didn’t have any money. So I went on a small grant that just covered my place to stay in the dorm. But the two nuns that were working at Heritage at that time – they gave me $200 a piece from their department. And then the Veterans on the second year gave me $200 too. So that gave me enough money to eat on. And then I did get my per capita and I saved that. And so I managed to survive the second year. But the first year that I enrolled over there, my teacher was Japanese. Dr. Yamamoto from the University of Kansas – he’s a linguist. He’s the one who introduced me to structure, structuring the Native American language. Because he had started a lot of the tribes already on reading and writing their language and developing educational establishments for their children to learn their language in. And write their curriculum and everything.
Listen to Track 34
Beavert	00:00-01:38 So, he was teaching....there were Warm Springs people there too. The other classes too were in the Native languages like Navajo. I enrolled in the Navajo class. A Native Navajo was teaching it. She had a PhD in linguistics and anthropology. And those two were the first two that introduced me to structuring our Native languages. I never knew that before. I could speak it and I could use the alphabet, but nobody ever bothered to teach me anything about structuring the language. And that really interested me because I thought, well I never looked at my language like that before. I could speak it and everything. And understand it. But I never thought about structuring it. And I had this talk with Sharon. When we started picking up on a lot of things. Well, later on we...after I got my master’s degree there in culture and language... 01:39-03:17 education.... Anyway, when Sharon and I started working on phonology and then we did some things in phonetics and phonology and morphology. Now we’re on word order. In the meantime we’ve been working on this dictionary. We published one paper already and we’re working on – I guess this morphology is still hung up somewhere. But those are the only two publications that we’ve completely finished. It was a lot of work, a lot of extra hours. And she’s a pusher. She pushes me pretty hard and a lot of times her husband calls her a slave driver. [she laughs] But I figure if there’s work to do, we should do it. I don’t complain. It’s interesting, otherwise I guess I wouldn’t be doing it. I’m real interested in what’s going on there. So I pass it on to my apprentices and try to explain as much as I can and suggest some reading matter.... 03:18-04:51 Let them learn on their on. I had this one that became interested in going to Arizona, but he couldn’t stand the weather over there. He got sick, very sick. He ended up in the hospital. And I think his family was quite concerned over that. He has a really loving family and I think they were really worried about him. So they approve of him going over to Eugene alright. They’ll come and visit him. But they said they wouldn’t come and visit him if he went to Arizona. So he’s going to apprentice with me over there.
Linzee	So, how long ago was it that you were in Arizona?
Beavert	Oh, I guess I was there about four years.
Linzee	How long ago was that – from now? You did that soon after your mother died. How long ago did your mother die?
Beavert	Oh...12 years.
Linzee	So it was 8 years since you were in Arizona. And you’ve been back here and teaching ever since, have you?
Beavert	Ummm.
Linzee	Are you still doing some teaching at Heritage?
Beavert	No, I’m not. 04:52-06:01 I’m working full time on this dictionary. And hopefully it’ll be published in December.
Linzee	Oh really? This coming December? [2008] That’s exciting.