Southern Paiute: A Portrait

Gary Tom

41 Gary’s father was Bill Tom, whose final wish encouraged the Kaibab Tribe to reject Waste Tech’s hazardous waste incinerator. Because he moves comfortably in both white and Indian worlds, Gary is often in the position of articulating the minority position to either group, which takes a lot of courage. When Gary spoke at the incinerator hearing, he expressed both the strength and the difficulty in seeing both sides of situations: “I’m torn down the middle on this. On the one hand, I know this is bad for our land. On the other hand, these are the first people to offer us real jobs, good money.” In the fall, when pine nuts were ready to harvest, school was of no concern; they’d take me out and I’d come back when we finished. Just being out with my grandparents, out in nature, understanding it, was my introduction to the spirituality of my ancestors. One of the first things we’d do out there was feed the spirits, the four directions. Of course the food was gone, animals ate it, but as a kid you visualize the spirits eating it. They’d talk about the time when animals, trees, everybody was able to communicate with each other. I loved being with my grandmother, Serena Mose, out with those majestic animals, elk, deer, sometimes cougar. You come across cat tracks and you kind of look around and think, jeez, I might be dinner. My father, Bill Tom, enrolled on the Kaibab Reservation, but my grandfather Roy Tom was registered with Indian Peaks. My mother and dad used to travel quite a bit to Las Vegas, where I was born. They did migrant work in Washington, St. George, down through Logandale, and northern Arizona. Then we lived in Shivwits; I attended fourth and fifth grades there in St. George. He worked the railroads, some farm work. Then we moved to Kaibab; he worked for Kaibab Lumber. He was elected tribal chairman out there for four or five terms. It was my father’s final wish that the tribe reject Waste Tech’s hazardous waste incinerator . That was consistent with his beliefs. He cut trees for a living and appreciated what was happening, what could happen, to the environment. But there are always two sides to the coin, and you always have to look at both sides of the issue. They were the first white people to offer us anything of value. We were talking about millions and millions of dollars there, and jobs. I ended up doing a lot of sports in Fredonia High School and a lot of music. I was a guard on the basketball team, and I played trombone, guitar, and flute. I married my sweetheart right out of high school, an Anglo woman, Bernie Button. We have eight kids. Those days it was tough having a mixed relationship. Now there are many more. Gary Tom kaibab tribe, born April 1948 42 I studied music at Dixie College for a couple of years, pitched on the baseball team, got my associates degree. We played big band music; we recorded the college’s only record as a stage band—a unique experience. It’s one of the reasons I keep stressing education; it offers so many opportunities. Then I went to Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, got my bachelor’s in music education. I went out and taught school, then went back and got my masters in education administration. That allowed me two different fields of employment, to teach or administer . I’m going on my fourteenth year as administrator of education programs for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. Performing with the International Organization of Folk Arts, I had a unique opportunity to travel a lot, like Sardinia, Italy. You get into their back country, you look at the land, look at the ruins, then you look at the people. You see they’re intermeshed and connected. They lived without electricity or running water. But they were happy. They laid out a big feast; they were proud to serve us. I ate my chunk of pig and went back for seconds, but it was all gone—eyes, ears, snouts—nothing left but bones. I could relate to that. I like to say we were this land’s foremost ethnobotanists. We ate everything possible—every root, grass, seed, insect, animal. I talked to a bunch of Gypsies at one festival; we were all talking about tribal things...