Full Description
Tilton and Grace Entokah: An Osage Story offers an episodic history of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma as told through the life narratives of Anthony Lookout's great-grandparents Tilton and Grace Entokah. Anthony Lookout grew up hearing the stories of his relatives, including those of his great-grandfather Fred Lookout, who served as the principal chief of the Osage Nation in the early twentieth century. Anthony Lookout's father, Morris Lookout, methodically recorded the oral traditions and tribal stories of Osage elders and relatives on reel-to-reel tapes from 1965 to 1971. The recordings preserved generations of Osage history, religious practices, and cultural traditions reaching back to the mid-nineteenth century. To write this story of his family and Osage history, Anthony Lookout did additional research in archival collections, newspapers, and magazines and interviewed elders.
From the perspective of a participant rather than an observer, Lookout tells the tribal history of the Osage Nation's removal from their Kansas homelands in 1865 and relocation to Oklahoma's Indian Territory from 1872 to the early 1940s. The heart of the story revolves around Lookout's great-grandmother Grace Entokah, who grew up as a traditional Osage woman, and adapted through traumatic and uncertain times, staying true to her Osage culture. She went from riding horses to riding in automobiles, eventually meeting the president of the United States.
Lookout covers the family history of the Entokahs, the Allotment Act of 1906, Oklahoma statehood, the depredations of mining and oil companies on Osage lands, the establishment of tribal government and courts, Principal Chief Fred Lookout's journeys to Washington, DC, to meet top government leaders, as well as tribal stories of the infamous 1920s Osage murders and other key episodes in Osage history. Tilton and Grace Entokah is not only the story of the Entokahs but also an Osage history written from the collective memory of those on the Osage reservation.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Part One
1. Sitting Bull
2. Inlonshka
3. Seeing Things
4. Grace
5. Osage Relatives
6. Staying Traditional
7. The Wedding Day
8. The Business
9. See Haw
10. The Good Old Days
11. The Allotment Act
12. Making Plans
13. Results and Actions
14. Doing Time
15. Warnings
16. The Setup
17. The Journey
Part Two
18. Moving Forward
19. Death and Romance
20. Trust
21. The Meeting
22. Osage Nuptials
23. Being Mrs. Abbott
24. Conversations
25. Cowboys and Indians
26. The Individual Song
27. Hattie
28. Expect the Unexpected
29. Will Rogers of the Osage
Epilogue: Pahshehe
Acknowledgments
