It was 1901. No-tats was sitting in a room with plain walls painted white like the outside of the small building. It was the Indian Agency and there was an old white man with spectacles. His name was Baker, the Indian Agent. Next to him sitting stiffly straight was a white woman with her hair tied up in a ball on top her head. It made her eyes narrow slits. Some said she came from back East after giving up on looking for a man to take her in and now she wanted to bring God to the Indians. But she was afraid to be alone with Indians, and so she became the Agent’s writer for the big books. She had a hard face and she listened to every word, writing everything down in the book. The book was big leather one with red colored cloth pages. There were several on the shelves in the office. The old ones said those books brought bad luck to people who went in to see them when Baker called, when somebody died. It was during the time of the allotments when Indians were moved from their ancestral homelands. These people who had lost the forests of Colorado in 1865 and then again in 1880 had moved to the high deserts of Utah. “What is your name?” “No-tats.” “How old are you?” “Sixty-eight winters.”Get the Story:
Johnny Rustywire: The Books That Brought Bad Luck (Indian Country Today 6/8)
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