A Real Life Wonder Woman Finally Gets Her Due

June 18, 2017
   The Top Secret Writer is coming back for another round in True West. Paul Andrew Hutton has written up the adventures of a real life Old West character who somehow—for the life of me, I don't know why—has escaped big screen treatment.

    She was a pistol-packin' Mamacita. She had no children of her own but she adopted numerous Indian and Mexican orphans who stayed with her for life. One eye-witness claimed she was seven foot tall. That seems like an exaggeration to me, so we'll go with the next tallest observation: "she was six foot six."

   She founded two towns: El Paso, Texas and Yuma, Arizona and she was adored by all the soldiers in the Southwest for "her bravery in the field and for her unceasing kindness in nursing the sick and wounded." She was wounded herself in the war with Mexico with a saber scar across the cheek, and allegedly she shot and killed the Mexican soldier who cut her. She was awarded "rations for life" by the Fourth Infantry.

   The accolades didn't end there: 

"She packed two six-shooters, and they all said she shore could use 'em, that she had killed a couple  of men in her time."

—Jeff Ake, who met her in 1856 at her "house" in the Sonoita Valley called Casa Blanca

Daily Whip Out: "The Two-Gun Mamacita"

Daily Whip Out: The Great Suggestion"

   And, to boot, Sarah Bowman (The Great Western's real name) was the one who received and nurtured Olive Oatman when she was brought to Fort Yuma in February, 1856, after five years of captivity with the Indians.

Daily Whip Out: "Olive Oatman"

Daily Whip Out: "Topock Marsh From Memory"

"I will tell all about the Mohave and how I lived with them. Good-bye."

—Olive Oatman to Tokwatha, a Mojave who shook her hand before she left Fort Yuma

Olive Oatman Swims Her Way to Freedom

June 17, 2017
   After five years in captivity, it looked like Olive Oatman was finally going home. It was February of 1856 and after two nights of heated negotiations with the Mojaves, in which threats were made on both sides, the head Mojave finally relented and said the captive could go back to the Americans.

    However, there was one additional problem: Olive and her savior, an Indian called Francisco who had come to gain her release, had to travel 250 miles south to Fort Yuma, and even though he had help from a brother and two cousins (all four were Yuma warriors) there would be rough sections of the journey where they would have to swim through rugged canyons that choked the passage right down to the water. The area around Parker Dam comes to mind.

  According to Olive, they had to swim in the frigid water ten different times in order to make it through. Fortunately for her, in her time with the Mojaves she had learned to swim as the river tribe spent most of each summer in the water to escape the heat and they were known far and wide as superior swimmers.

Daily Whip Out: "Olive Swims to Freedom"

   This brings up an interesting dilemma: assuming her guides carried firearms (this is early—1850s, and many of the Indians still carried primitive armament), how did Francisco and his crew keep their weapons dry? If someone has to wade into the Colorado River and swim downstream, for a mile or two, they really couldn't prop their rifles, knives, or even their bows and arrows, on their heads. Could they? It's unclear if they had horses or were all on foot. Of course, horses would complicate the logistics even further. Were they swimming their horses for long stretches? Seems a bit crazy to me. Any ideas?

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't really make him a flotation device."
—Old Vaquero Saying

In Search of The Real Curly Bill

June 15, 2017
   With the passing of Powers Boothe last month we made a commitment to build a wonderful tribute to him and to one of the most intriguing Old West outlaws, which he portrayed to perfection—Curly Bill Brocius. We have some new research on the historical outlaw's backstory, from the late great Paul Cool, and that scholarship will anchor the issue, but we will also feature a fitting eulogy to the actor best known for his role as the leader of the cow-boys:

Curly Bill & The Red Sash Gang, Sabino Canyon, June 1993

   When we posted this photograph on Facebook (which ran in my Wyatt Earp book) it was viewed by more than 1.1 million people and received 2,121 comments and 6,149 shares. I'd say it struck a nerve.

Daily Whip Out: "Curly Bill Cover Sketch"

So Dan The Man Harshberger whipped out a few cover ideas to look at:

Dan The Man's first four passes at the cover.

He did two more this morning, and they are looking good.

Dan The Man's Color Pass

Still moving things around in terms of type, but we're getting closer to the final. Stay tuned.

"I should warn you that underneath these clothes I'm wearing boxer shorts and I know how to use them."

—Robert Orben

Olive With Child

June 14, 2017
   Got up this morning and took another run at a theme I have been wrestling with for a couple months now. This time, rather than showing her topless, I gave her a discreet blanket. Perhaps, too discreet.

Daily Whip Out: "Olive With Child"

More Praise for Fly at Embudos Issue:

   I don’t know how you do it, after reading True West since my childhood in the 60’s, it just continues to get better. 

   As a professional photographer I was captivated by C. S. Flys technique, (glass plates-really), his composition, (using an 8 x 10 view camera), and his skillful posing of subjects who likely didn’t want to be photographed and didn’t speak the same language. Just when I thought I’d seen all the great photos in this issue, along came “Tombstone is Shaking!” and I recalled that day in 1971 in an east Los Angeles high school when the earth shook during the Sylmar Quake. I spent the day shooting throughout the San Gabriel Valley and even managed to get a couple shots like the one in the article.
Many thanks again for your great magazine. I read it cover to cover, I have to- I wouldn’t want to miss a thing.

Rick Higbee
Bandera, TX

The July issue is now on newsstands

"Better that a girl has beauty than brains because boys see better than they think."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Mojave Men Meet The Shred Heads

June 13, 2017
   Our big Fly Shoots Geronimo at Embudos issue is out on the newsstand and we are getting some stellar reports. These were forwarded to me by Lynda Sanchez in Lincoln, New Mexico, who starts off her email with this:

   All,  Wow, what a great issue.  Just got my copies of the July issue.  I am going to mention it on my list that I use for my own historical buddies and those who care about the history of the West.  The CS Fly info is amazing.

[Linda included responses from her friends who found the issue]:

The July issue is out, I bought two at B & N today. Although I have yet to read the article, it looks to be good. I never tire of looking at the Fly photos.

Hola Lynda, Just got the July issue of TW and saw your great article. I didn’t know who the proud warrior was in the middle of the photo and obviously what happened to him. Outstanding information. I also note the photo of Ingstad and Yanosha in the next article. By the way, I can’t remember if I mentioned it earlier, but saw a National Geographic program that’s a series about a man who lives with primitive peoples and learns their skills for living and survival. The piece I saw was him living with the Cree Indians in Canada and going out in the middle of winter to find the caribou in the deep woods. He only took what any caribou spotter would have carried for survival. Reminded me of Ingstad with the Chippewa and how the Chippewa are first cousins to the Apaches.

____________

   End of comments. More to come. Decided today I was going to emulate the late-great Stevie Ray Vaughan, who could shred a guitar like nobody I have ever seen. I was watching him do his thing to "Pipeline" on an old Youtube video and I noticed that his strumming hand kept up a solid rhythm, but his fret hand was doing all the crazy stuff. I made a vow to be more like Steve and Let It Shred!

Daily Whip Outs: "Shred Heads"

      Finding a variety of old images this week, with some decent effects, like this:

Daily Whip Out: "The Midnite Visitor"

   According to the Whipple report, Mojave warriors painted their faces black and then applied four, red, stripes. Not sure this is right, but it's a start.

Daily Whip Out: "Painted Mojave Warrior"

   This led to some splashy noodling:

Daily Whip Out: "Mojave Male #2"

     I couldn't resist adding a few strokes this morning.

Daily Whip Out: "Mojave Male #3"

"He who hesitates is a dmaned fool."

—Mae West

Enter The Talking Vaginas

June 12, 2017
   If you ever find yourself seeking out a tribe of hedonistic, party animals, it would be extremely hard, if not impossible, to top the sexual proclivity and ribald antics of the mighty Mojaves, back in the day. Situated on the banks of the Colorado River, the tribe lived, loved and frolicked in an Old West Shangri-la that would rival the erotic shenanigans of the French Riviera.

 Mojave Indians as illustrated by Balduin Möllhausen. Mollhausen was the artist and topographer accompanying the party led by Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple in the Pacific Railroad Survey Explorations of 1853. In his diary he tells of Mojave mothers bringing their babies to him to paint. He said he painted them up with wild designs, which the mothers loved.

A Wild And Crazy Tribe!
   Let's start with the nickname they gave Olive Oatman—Spantsa—which Wikipedia euphemistically translates as "unquenchable lust or thirst." A more literal translation is, "rotten vagina," or "sore vagina." And vagina is the nice way of saying what they really meant. Get the picture?

   This ribald sense of humor even translates to the naming of local geography. A promontory point near Parker, Arizona is known by the Mojaves and Chemihuevis as, well, what do you think it looks like?

"Chipmunk Dick"

   A clever—and accurate—description, if you ask me. The anthropologist, Kroeber studied the naming practices of the Mojave and reported they often used "names of the most undignified sort. . .there is not the least shrinking from obscenity. . ." and that Mojave men were prone to adapting names with sexual connotations "in the hope of attracting or impressing women."

   So, what else is new?

   Author Brian McGinty ("The Oatman Massacre") gives us this scholarly take on their sexual mores: "The Mohaves were an uninhibited people who engaged in sexual relations without embarrassment. Their traditional dress was scanty and would certainly have been regarded by most Christians as immodest." McGinty goes on to say, "Children habitually went naked, while adult males wore nothing but a breech cloth and perhaps a blanket thrown round their shoulders in cold weather. Adult females wore skirts of strands from the soft inner bark of willow trees but were naked above the waist. The Mohaves had no formal wedding ceremonies: if a man and woman wished to form an intimate relationship, they simply lived together; they were divorced when one or the other left the marriage house. Old Mohaves did not exhort the younger generation to chastity; on the contrary, they encouraged them to 'enjoy themselves' while they could."

   Add to that, the Mojave's feelings of superiority: Mojaves felt that the whites they met were puny and uptight and inferior to the Mojaves in every aspect, except one: The only thing they thought the anglos were superior at was in making weapons.

   While it's probably a trait we all share (our tribe is better than your tribe), the Mojaves carried some exceptional genes giving their conceit some merit. The head man, Irataba, was over six feet tall, and, according to Whipple's diary notes, his friend Cairook stood six foot six! The average height of anglo males in that era was five feet seven. So, they were big, tall and impressive. And, boy, did they like to have a good time. And, by "good time" I mean having sex.

Enter The Talking Vaginas
   When the Whipple expedition entered the Mojave Valley on horseback they had been on the trail for months and each man had a full growth of beard. All the Mojave women giggled when they saw the furred-out Americans and one of the women even approached and wanted to touch the whiskers. When she laughed and said something to her friends, who also laughed, one of the interpreters told Whipple they had never seen such bushy faces (their men were all bare-faced). He said the Mojave women called them "the talking vaginas." Such was the bawdy sense of humor of the Hilarious Mojaves.

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."
—Aldous Huxley

How to Spot A Maniac

June 9, 2017
   If you are a subscriber to True West magazine you know we have been running a True West Maniac campaign featuring several of our most famous and favorite members, like this:

   Chris Casey Describes What Happened Next:

  While I was running errands for Mom, this morning, I had to pick up a few things at Food Pyramid.  Just as I was leaving the store I was approached by an elderly gentleman wearing a John Wayne T-shirt, a Korean War Veteran ball cap, and holding the latest issue of TRUE WEST magazine. He didn't seem to be in a very good mood. 

   When he got inside my bubble he asked somewhat gruffly, "You got a minute?"

   "Sure", I said. 

   The man flipped the magazine open and landed on the full page True West Maniac ad featuring my repellent mug.
   "This you?"

   "Yeah, that's me", I confessed. 

   I jokingly followed up with, "How'd you recognize me without the hat and the mustache?".
   "Ugly is still ugly", said the old man flatly.

   I laughed. "That's true!"

   "Next time you talk to the True West people", the man grumbled, "Tell 'em you spell carrying c-a-r-r-Y-i-n-g, not c-a-r-r-i-n-g". 

   The gent was referring to the typo in the ad of which I was already aware. But, I played like I was shocked.

   "Is that right? That's how you spell it?"

   The old man finally cracked a smile. "You're puttin' me on, now, ain't you?", he said with a chuckle. "Gettin' me back for that 'ugly' crack, huh?"

   "Probably", I said.

   The old gent stuck his hand out, we shook, and he said, "Pleased to meet you, Maniac".

   "Likewise!"
________

End of Chris Casey's travelogue. By the way, Chris lives in Oklahoma. Note that we actually spell-checked this version of the ad.

We have featured five Maniacs so far and we have been getting unsolicited submissions like this:

True West Maniac #81

J.W. Atkinson

   Don't know who to contact for a Maniac picture.... My name is  J.W. Atkinson ..True West Maniac # 81.   Hastings, Minnesota.  Cowboy Action Shooter... 50's and 60's Western lover... Retired and married to a school marm...owner and operator of Hastings Firearms...( yes I sweep out the place!)   Love your mag !

   Keep 'em comin'!

The Most Ridiculous Outfit Ever Worn to A Gunfight In The History of The American West

June 8, 2017
   Imagine you are the costume designer on a Western movie set. The producers have tasked you with the job of making sure all the costumes are authentic and accurate to the times portrayed in the film. The story in the film takes place in Nebraska and involves elements of the U.S. Army's Fifth Cavalry and Cheyenne warriors who crossed paths at Warbonnet Creek on July 17, 1876.

   Two actors, Ryan Gosling and Adam Beach, have been hired to portray the two main combatants. You have big plans on how to dress them in authentic garb because you have called Old West clothing experts Jim Hatzell and David Carrico to assist you, so you have done your homework and you are ready to rock. There is only one problem. On the first day of filming, Gosling shows up wearing this outfit:

Buffalo Bill, 1876

   People ask me all the time: how do you find out the truth on all those gunfights you feature in Classic Gunfights? The simple answer is, I find the person who knows the most about the event, and, or, the combatants. Sometimes it turns out to be several people, or, often as not, people who don't agree. My job is to extrapolate between the various versions and arbitrate the outcome, hopefully giving both sides their say.

   Our August issue will feature the famous fight between Buffalo Bill Cody and Yellow Hair (also known as Yellow Hand). Turns out there are four people who know the ins and outs of this fight the best, with Paul Hedren having a slight advantage in terms of the details. I used his version for the narrative, but there was one sticking point for me. And this morning I sent a furtive email about it to my key experts:

The Three Pauls,

   I am covering the Buffalo Bill vs. Yellow Hair fight in the next issue and I commend you Paul Hedren on your fine articles in True West. Meghan found them for me, and they are stellar. One aspect of the fight really bothers me: Cody wearing the "vaquero costume" and, in fact, CHANGING into it the morning of the fight?! Pardon my French, but my Bullshit flag is flying at full mast.

   So Cody and King wrote up the account to send to the New York Herald and it reads like mega-purple prose that would shame even Zane Grey. Do you actually buy that he wore the costume he is photographed in? He looks like a Plains Pimp, not a frontier scout. Please advise. We go to press today. Thanks.

BBB

   Fortunately, the answers to my burning questions came back fast and furious:

Yup, no question Buffalo Bill wore the vaquero outfit at Warbonnet. But here's what's new. Steve Friesen has a letter from him telling how he wore this stage costume straight from stage to field. His bags did arrive simultaneously in Cheyenne and thus he had nothing to change into. Vaquero it was.
—Paul Hedren

   As Hedren mentions, it turns out Steve Friesen of the Lookout Museum outside Denver had some insights as well:

   In 1903, in a letter to artist Irving Bacon, Cody wrote that he did wear a showy outfit that he "had worn when playing a Mexican on stage."  However, he preferred that Bacon show him in buckskins.  When artist Robert Lindneux was working on a painting of the Yellow Hair incident in 1929, he wrote Charles King to verify the outfit.  King replied that Cody had rushed out from his stage appearance in Wilmington, Delaware, barely joining the battalion in time before it marched westward.  His baggage had not yet arrive with a suitable outfit so he was forced to wear the "jaunty Mexican jacket and long trousers."  Like other portrayals before it, Llindneux's painting ended up showing Cody in the typical scouting buckskins rather than the Mexican outfit.  Cody's flamboyant outfit was a result of chance; not of posturing for show business.

    For all of us who have had our luggage delayed or lost while traveling, this seems like a pretty logical explanation.  My sources were a letter to Irving Bacon from Cody and the letter from Charles King to Lindneux.  Unfortunately, I don't have copies of them here, they are at the museum. 

 —Steve Friesen

Dear Bob et al -- The costume is right.  The only thing I can add is that the description of Yellow Hair's outfit comes from the testimony of Sgt. John Hamilton, Troop D, 5th Cavalry.  Hamilton added other details, such as that the blond scalp was a "young woman's," though you have to wonder how he could tell. 

-- Paul Fees 

What astonishes me is that we have so much info on his outfit. Incredible. And I love the painters putting him in buckskin. Its like the Alamo hump. Painters and movie makers put it in even though they know it was not there in 1836.

—Paul Andrew Hutton

Charlie Russell's 1917 painting of the Buffalo Bill vs. Yellow Hand fight. 

   Note that Russell has shown Cody in traditional buckskin, which it turns out is inaccurate.

A Postscript:
   A cowboy friend of mine has this to say about the Charlie Russell painting:

"First I believe Buffalo Bill is not wearing buckskins, or not entirely. Take a close look at the inside of the legs of his pants. Russell has painted Bill wearing cloth pants because the pants are 'foxed.' As to the shirt, it could be cloth too because the sleeves have no fringed leather. This could well be part of the vaquero outfit which Bill no doubt had in his collection."
—Bill Dunn

"When the legend dresses like a pimp, dress him down."

—BBB

Buffalo Bill And The Pucker Factor

June 7, 2017
   It's been said, every great idea makes someone pucker, and Buffalo Bill had a great idea: what if he took his successful, indoor, stage show and put on an outdoor, frontier extravaganza, with an Indian camp, cowboys, a stagecoach, and then, utilizing the railroad, load up 250 actors, horses and as many stagehands—who would need to be fed three times a day—and chug on down to the next town and put on another show.

   I read somewhere that the first tour lost money (I want to say $80,000) but Cody had the huevos to keep going and take this lumbering idea out on a second tour. Now, if you had $55,000 of your own money in an idea like this that lost money, would you go out again? Not me. I'm puckered just thinking about losing that kind of money. But he did and the rest is history. Everyone knows about Buffalo Bill's Wild West show (by the way, he NEVER called it a "show") but most have forgotten just how incredibly impactful it was, both in the United States and on the world stage.

   So we asked The Top Secret Writer to give us a short introduction on: Why He Still Matters. Hutton is so good. Here's a taste: "He was, like the nation he came to symbolize, a bundle of contradictions: a hunter who became a conservationist; a friend to American Indians who was famed as an Indian fighter; a rugged frontier scout best remembered as a sequenced showman; a living artifact of a pioneer past playing out his role in a world of telephones, motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, skyscrapers and world wars."

Buffalo Bill Rides On

   Jana Bommersbach produced a fine story about Cody and his mine down by Oracle, Arizona. So this all leads us back to the cover:

Dan The Man's First Four Cover Concepts

   In spite of all the massive grooviness, we ended up with none of these. Two were considered too negative, one was considered misleading and the last one was criticized because as one of our outspoken staffers put it, Cody looks like a "damn banker."

   Still, by all accounts, featuring Cody on the cover is a great idea, but guess who is puckering? Me. The problem for me is Cody has never really done that well for us on the newsstand. We have featured him on four covers in the past 18 years, and, well, they all performed so-so. Is it the design? Is it the cover headlines? Or, lack of them?

   We'll soon find out. It goes to press tomorrow.

"Yellow Hand was the only Indian I ever scalped. I did not believe in scalping."

—Buffalo Bill in a letter to Irving Bacon. By the way, although Yellow Hair is the more accurate name for the Cheyenne warrior, many, including Cody here, referred to him as Yellow Hand

One Man's Trash Is The Model's Treasure

June 6, 2017
   Went home for lunch and worked on a little set piece for the transition sequence where Olive and Mary Ann Oatman are sold to the Mojaves. 

Daily Whip Out: "They Marched Northwest Under An Anvil Sky Towards The Needles"

   And, as I was looking for some lettering in the garage, I found six paintings the pack rats got into, so I threw out four of them and called the models who posed for the other two:

Daily Whip Out: "Cowgirl Up"

Yes, the model (Deena) took it.

Daily Whip Out: "Pioneer Confusion"

And, the main model, Jenny Smith, took this one.

"Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story."

—Homer, as quoted by Bob Dylan in his Nobel Lecture

The Eyes Are The Window to The Soul

June 5, 2017
   Worked most of the weekend studying Olive Oatman's time among the Mojaves. After her release, she gave very conflicting reports on her four year stay in the Mojave Valley. Was she merely property? This was the basic theme of the book she wrote with Stratton, and the basic theme of her lectures. After all, the Mojaves bought her, along with her sister, for a couple horses, blankets and vegetables. On the other hand she reveals affection for her host family and there are hints of a deeper connection, although never proven.

   Sometimes getting lost in a drawing gives me a perspective I didn't start with. This morning I have a new-found appreciation for the vulnerable position Olive Oatman found herself in after her release from the Mojaves. Everyone wanted to know: How bad was it? Did they try to. . .you know? 

Daily Whip Out: "The Eyes Have it"

"The eyes are the window to the soul."
—Old Vaquero saying (or, Shakespeare, or Leonardo DaVinci, or Max Beerbolm, or Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Cringe-worthy Confessions of A Class Clown, Part 36

June 4, 2017
   Last night I attended a surprise birthday party for the first girl I ever kissed. 

That would be Jan Prefontaine, center, flanked by her daughter, Xandi, at left, who engineered the event, and, my first girlfriend, Karen Johnson Collins, at right. The boy, at bottom, is not the end result of my association with either woman. For one thing, he's too good looking.

   Whenever I attend these events, I run into old school mates, like Rusty Petry, who invariably remind me, first by their memories ("Remember that time you took off all your clothes. . ."), or, just by their very existence, of all the crazy, cringe-worthy things I have said and done in my long and tenuous reign as a Kingman Class Clown.

Confessions of A Class Clown, Part 36
   I don't remember anyone ever crowning me class clown, nor do I remember it being said with much respect ("Boze you are such a Bozo."), but I always knew if there was an opening for a laugh, I was going to take it.

   In eighth grade I had a history teacher who despised Billy the Kid. One fine spring day at Kingman Junior High School, Mr. Lomasney, said, with much contempt in his voice: "Billy the Kid shot everyone in the back." Sitting in the first row, stage right, I reposted—without raising my hand, by the way—"He didn't shoot 'em in the back, they just didn't turn around fast enough." It got a big laugh, and I got two swats for it. That was my first lesson in being a Class Clown: you will receive laughs, but it will always come at a cost.

   The cost I regret the most is hurting people's feelings for the sake of a laugh. Back in my wilder days, I was in a band called The Razz and we prided ourselves on being the musical equivalent of Saturday Night Live. In that vein I once sang these lyrics at an outdoor event in Tempe: "If everybody had a negro, across the U.S.A. . ." with the chorus, " Everybody'd be surfin', surfin' KKK." It was written by a friend of mine and the intention was not to be racist (we told ourselves) but rather it was an outrageous mocking of racism itself. But it doesn't matter what our intent was, because when I sang it at the event, we were on a riser , above the crowd, and I saw a black couple coming into the event, they heard the lyrics, and turned right around and went to their car to leave.

   I wish I had that one back.

   Other times I have upset people and it made me happy. I once gave a speech at a history conference in Tucson where I mocked the hero-worshipping of Wyatt Earp and after I finished my remarks and was leaving the stage I was accosted by an attorney (or, so he told me) who was literally foaming at the mouth. He got in my face and informed me I was a disgrace to the history profession and a liar and a scumbag, to boot. I just smiled and said, "You sure know a lot for being so damn dumb."

   The one area of Class Clownism I enjoy the most is the humor-fests involving my family. When Tommy and Deena bring their families to our house for the holidays, we always trade funny stories (and FYI: both my kids have taken the whole class clown thing to another level) and we have signature lines we use on each other. When, for example, Kathy regales us about some ridiculous, self-effacing episode in her professional life, she will often end with the line, "So I've got that going for me."

   It always gets a laugh, from me.

   Another of our family lines, comes from Wonderful Russ. One time we were driving to dinner in his car and as we rounded the curve on Tatum, going towards Shea, I looked over at the McDowell mountains and said, "Wow! Look at that!" Russ, who was driving, said, in a deadpan serious voice, "You look, I'm depressed." So now, whenever anyone tells any of us to look at anything, they get this line in return.

"I never wanted to be an editor. I never wanted to be a boss. I just wanted to write, and it didn't make any difference whether it was fiction or nonfiction or short stories or whatever. I just...that's what I was destined to do."
—Frank Deford

Did Olive Oatman Have Children While She Was A Captive?

June 2, 2017
    Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty: did Olive Oatman have children while she was with the Mojave?

   Author Margot Mifflin says no: "Olive almost certainly didn’t marry a Mohave or bear his children. If she had, it would have been a highly unusual, thus memorable, piece of tribal history." Mifflin, whose 2009 book, "The Blue Tattoo" was featured in the August, 2009 issue of True West ("10 Myths About Olive Oatman") goes on to say, "Although she married after her ransom, Olive never had biological children, which raises the possibility that she couldn’t. Finally, a half century after her ransom, when the anthropologist A.L. Kroeber interviewed a Mohave named Musk Melon who had known Olive well, he said nothing about her having been married."

   This is a solid argument on why Mifflin believes Olive did not have biological children, period. In fact, Olive, herself claimed nothing "improper" transpired between her and her captors, but that was after her ghost writer Royal B. Stratten got ahold of the story and cleaned it up. 

Daily Whip Out: "Twilight Reflections On The Colorado"

      

   The most compelling argument for her having children comes from a friend of the Oatman girls who was on the Brewster wagon train with them, before the massacre. Susan Thompson was living with her father and husband at the former's Inn in Monte (today El Monte), California, when Lorenzo and Olive stopped there on their way from Fort Yuma. This was immediately after Olive's release. And, more importantly, this is before Rev. Stratton got ahold of the story. Late in life, Susan described the visit. She claimed her friend Olive was a "grieving, unsatisfied women" who "somehow shook one's belief in civilization." Susan also remembered that Olive confessed to being the mother of two children and that having to leave these children behind when she left the Mojaves was the source of her grief.

   This, to me, is a bombshell revelation, but Mifflin dismisses Thompson's claim: "Compelling as it is, the statement is unreliable: [Thompson] also claimed Olive lived with the [Thompson] family for four years (in fact it was for two months after her ransom.)"

   The author of the fine book, "The Oatman Massacre" has a somewhat different take. Brian McGinty told me in an email, "I believe she may have [had children].  There were reports that she did, as detailed in my book.  Her unhappiness in later years may be explained by sorrow over the loss of her children.  The eagerness with which she greeted Irataba in New York in 1864 may also be linked to that.  However, there have been denials by Mohaves.  Perhaps they wanted to avoid recriminations from whites.  To the best of my knowledge, there has never been convincing proof that Olive did or convincing proof that she didn’t have Mohave children.  The question is vital to understanding the tragic story of Olive Oatman and should not be dismissed out of hand, as at least one writer has. Some convincing proof may eventually emerge.  I hope researchers will continue to pursue the question."

   I have always believed Olive had children while she was with the Mojaves and I believe her fits of despair were related to losing them. I will later go into the complicated dynamic that facilitated her release from captivity, but the short version is: she didn't have much of a choice to return to anglo society.

   I'll leave the final word of this argument to McGinty, who sums up his book with this haunting passage:

"Perhaps the story has no end—at least not in the conventional sense. Perhaps there is no date on a calendar or place on a map that represents the last chapter in the tragic history. Perhaps it will end only when the truth is known and sober minds can reflect on it. Perhaps it will really be over only when all the characters in the drama are released from the captivities—physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual—that so long and so forcefully held them in their grip."
—Brian McGinty