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expressed to his son,“We never wanted to cross him because we were afraid he would ‘put the hoo-doo’ on us.”21 Chevato always stressed to his family , however, that his power dictated that he only use it to help people; his shamanism had to be used in a beneficent manner or all his supernatural power would vanish, and without supernatural power, he would be at the mercy of evil forces and would perish. The Community on the Creek In spite of the kind of life Chevato lived, he did have certain morals. I credit that to his mother and father. He had to do certain things in order to stay alive—for his brother and sister. But he was always compassionate. As an adopted member of the Comanche tribe, he had been given a 160acre headright. His sons and his wife were also given headrights, so they had a big spread. They were lucky enough to get their headrights close together, a mile away from a little town called Indiahoma, Oklahoma. There was a large creek running through Chevato’s headright with banks about twelve feet high. There was nice sand down by the creek, where you could dig down and hit water that was drinkable. On the east side of the bank of the creek were sprinkled numerous blackjack and pecan trees. It was just like a shelter down by the creek. Chevato had his house sitting just off the creek. When hard times came to Indiahoma, one thing that proved to be a blessing to a lot of Indians was the fact that they were wards of the government. Chevato didn’t hold title to his land because the government kept the deed. He didn’t have to pay tax, and everything he got off of the land was taxfree . That is the way it also is today. So, when hard times came to Indiahoma , creditors could never take an Indian’s land, because the government held the deeds. Chevato was always a farmer at heart. He had cattle and horses, and he had farmed the land back in Zaragosa. Now, the land around his headright in Oklahoma was very fertile because it was just off that creek bottomland. ฀ ฀ ฀ So Chevato was successful in raising crops. We always had a large garden with all kinds of vegetables. I was told this story by my parents, as well as by other older people, about an incident that happened when hard times came to Indiahoma. Some people were losing their homes and their town lots; they had nowhere to go. Chevato traded in Indiahoma and bought supplies there, and he knew people there—both Indian and Anglo. The good thing about Indiahoma was that, after the 1874 Buffalo War (also known as the Red River War, 1874–75), relations between Comanches and Anglos were very good. It was a place that was optimistic, hopeful, fruitful, and there was always a good atmosphere. When Chevato went into town, he noticed that some people were losing their homes because of the hard times. He asked one of them, “Where are you going to live? What are you going to do?” The person replied that he and his family were now homeless, and they would have to live on the road. So Chevato said,“Let’s find you a tent; you come on down to my place. I’ve got land down there, and the government will leave us alone. You can put your tent and your family there in the trees along the creek. There’s water there for you. The only thing I ask is that you don’t tear up the land. From time to time, I will provide for you. Maybe you could work for me, your family could work for me. And we will give you food.” He had over one hundred families living in that creek bottom when it was all over. They lived there happily, and they all worked together. That all got in the fields, and they all did the gardening. They split up what the land produced , just like a big community. This is one of the stories about Indiahoma, and I hope it never gets lost. When I was a young boy, I was told, “Yes, my father lived on your grandfather ’s place down on the creek.We lived in tents, and your grandfather was a very good man.”When they were naming the streets of Indiahoma, a small...

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