Southern Paiute: A Portrait

Clifford Jake, Indian Peaks Band

69 Clifford was a mythic force in southwestern Utah, both within the Paiute tribe and to whites. Was he what many hoped and feared, a peyote roadman with power? If half the stories about Clifford are true, perhaps he was. For the most part, his peers indulged him affectionately, saying Clifford’s mystique came, as Evelyn Samalar asserted, from simply “telling it like it is.” Regardless, he was perhaps the last of Utah’s Southern Paiute to evoke such intense emotions , both light and dark, as the renowned healers of old. After Clifford passed on, one thing was certain: Utah felt smaller. Always dapper, Clifford allowed an impromptu portrait to be taken when he happened to walk into the tribal office while Michael had his camera. Iwas born in Indian Peaks, way out in the sticks on the fall time, camped out picking pine nuts there. My parents didn’t move for maybe two weeks, let me settle in. They met at a big Cry Ceremony out in Newcastle. They liked each other so they left together—took off on one horse and came back over this way. The old people they used gather in the morning times, doing the nice day. I would chop wood for them, listen. They say one day here comes a wagon, saddle horse, and team. This white guy, maybe Mormons, wants to trade that place there for the wagon and team, makes arrangements with that Indian family. Later on this white man said to other Indians; “You have to move out now, I traded that team.” The rest of the Indians didn’t know anything about it; but now they have to move out to the hills there. Then some other white man tells them they have to move out from there too. Then they move to the Squaw Cave up there, that little spring. Then they had to move again. And so they moved again and settled by the ballground there in Cedar City. They had a big camp there, lived the way they wanted to live. They help one another, talk their own language, had horses, wagons. They lived in tents and boards put together, made a fire outside, cooked. My grandfather was over there, Jake Moroniwithz. He lived a long time. A white family lived there across the river and treated the Indian people real good. Later on, the church was involved, Mormon Church. That guy from the church came and visited, Toon Ivints [Tony Ivins]. He looked over where they were living. Mormon people gathered and had a big meeting about the Indians. They came to the decision to move them to where they live now. Whites believe Paiutes were starving when they came into the country. We were the ones to save them. We got jerky hanging on the cedar tree, berries set aside for winter, Clifford Jake indian peaks band, born 1919 70 rice grass, rabbits, sage hen. Insulated with rabbit furs and moccassins. Those beetles taste like popcorn when roasted; heat em up, a little salt. Chuckwalla’s pretty good too, helps with tuberculosis. I started with the Native American Church in 1940. My uncle, Jody Roe, he used that great medicine to bring me home safe from WWII. I used it to bring my son home from Vietnam. Jo worked as a CAT operator in Apache country and learned it from the Comanche Alfred Wilson. He also took a part of it in Goshutes. Back from the war, I went up to Ft. Duchesne; Jo bless me, told me I could be a member. Another uncle, Albert Tom, and others —Tommy Wash, Culbert Peanump, Ivy Bear—been with it a long time. I learned how to do the spiritual things that they do, the medicines. I learned how to talk to the Creator and Mother Earth, water, air, food, all these things combined what the Creator did. Give. When you give, you take care of this mother, make a home on this Mother Earth. That’s the way it goes. I heal with the medicine. I was a spiritual man, a good man, and it come to me itself. They give me the authority. I stretch the teepee, put everything up for people that need me, ask for me. I don’t go around looking for it. They have to come to me. To heal them, they have to express themselves to me. Tell me what’s wrong. They got to be honest. You can’t...