Video
Nebraska & Elk River Writing Projects: Friendship
Transcript
[AD: We drift across a field of yellow petaled sunflowers headed towards a pointed hill and a flat hill in the distance.]
Narrator 1: Friendship, there are so many unique components and types of that single word: acquaintance, BFF, confidant. We have all shared, gained, and lost many. But in a moment, we will learn of a friendship that has spanned generations. It's an amazing story bringing together rangers from Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, the Nebraska Writing Project, and Elk River Writing Project for this three-part video series featuring Gretchen Meade, the great-granddaughter of James Cook
[AD: A black and white photo of a white man with a bushy mustache and a cowboy hat and kerchief around his neck.]
And Darrell Red Cloud, the fifth-generation grandson of Chief Red Cloud.
[AD: A black and white photo of a man with dark skin in a full headdress and long sleeve shirt with beaded patterns.]
Their interviews are broken up by three writing prompts. Allow the interviews to help you explore, inform, and consider the answers to these prompts. As we find out more about Agate and this friendship, begin to think about your own close friendship experience and reflect on how it began.
Tera Lynn: Hello, my name is Tera Lynn Gray. I'm a park ranger at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in beautiful Northwest Nebraska. But you probably knew I was a park ranger by the uniform I'm wearing. My green pants, my gray collared shirt, and this iconic flat hat. I'm standing in front of the wooden Agate Fossil Beds sign that welcomes visitors to our park. There are the two fossil hills silhouetted on the sign. Behind me, you'll see the mixed grass prairie. This is a prairie of knee-high brown and green grasses. It also has the bright yellow sweet clover.
Today you have the opportunity to reflect and write about friendship, gifts, and preservation. Why are we talking about these themes at a fossil park? Well, before Agate Fossil Beds became a national park, it was a very special ranch owned by James and Kate Cook. It was special because the Cooks wanted everyone to see the mammal fossils that they found on their property. It was also well known because of James's hospitality. His hospitality towards his good friend Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota tribe. Despite age and cultural differences, these two men still found many other traits in common. Think back to your American history classes. You probably learned how there was a lot of tension between the Euro-Americans and the American Indians.
This prairie behind me used to be full of bison roaming the land. The Lakota and the European settlers both wanted the bison but in different ways and in much different numbers. These tensions between the peoples led to many battles which eventually brought and forced the American Indians onto reservations. Imagine being friends with your so-called enemy. This is what happened to James Cook and Chief Red Cloud. So, let's listen to their story told by their great-grandchildren.
[AD: Darrell Red Cloud sits on a chair outside in the grass behind the Agate ranch house. An oxbow of the Niobrara River flows just beyond his right shoulder. A beaded necklace with an eagle picture lies over his long-sleeved shirt of blue and yellow geometric patterns. Three eagle feathers extend out from his pulled back and braided hair, and on his lap lays a braid of sweet grass similar in length to the prairie grass growing over his left shoulder.]
Darrell: My name is Darrell Red Cloud and uh I come from the Oglala Lakota people Chief Red Cloud, his band of people, the Bad Face band of our, the Oglala Lakota people. uh Like I said my name is Darrell Red Cloud. I am the fifth blood descendant of Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota people. From the stories and the information that was shared with me, was that he came across this young white gentleman. They said, they said, (Native Lakota Language) They would say, he was still young yet whenever he first came across Mr. James Cook. But he said that at that time, he said that he, that he could tell he was a good person just by uh, just by his demeanor about how he greeted my grandfather and how he wanted to help uh my grandfather and and his people. So I come from the, Red Cloud, Chief Red Cloud himself.
[AD: Gretchen Meade is the great-granddaughter of James Cook. She is a wispy woman seated on a chair in the grass, outside of Cook's ancestral home of Agate Springs Ranch. On our left, between the house and Gretchen, is her favorite cottonwood tree. One of a hundred planted on the ranch by her great-grandpa. Behind her is a shoulder-height wooden, dilapidated child's playhouse immediately in front of a grove of trees.]
Gretchen: My name is Gretchen Meade. My mother was Dorothy Cook Meade, and she was a granddaughter of Jim Cook, who was the main person, or among the main people that we're going to be discussing today. He grew up in Michigan and didn't have a mother. He grew up in a foster home and had three years of schooling. When he was twelve, he decided with a friend that they really would prefer to be a cowboy. And he did that for years. Uh, in about 1875, he took a-a break and went up to Fort Laramie where he hung out for a while and met another young man about his age, named uh Little Bat, Baptiste Garnier, who was half French and half Sioux. And he was one of those people who straddled the two cultures. On his white side, he, Little Bat, was an Indian army scout. He helped the army do their scouting, but he remained close ties with all of his Sioux relatives. He introduced him to Red Cloud and many of the other chiefs and Sioux Chiefs that were living there at that time. And Red Cloud set out word for, for all the important men to come to his lodge and meet Jim Cook and Little Bat and have visiting. As it so turned out at that time, there was a man named Professor O.C. Marsh from Yale University, who was camping nearby, requesting permission to look for fossils which the natives called 'stone bones.' They were highly suspicious of this, thinking that he must probably be looking for gold and they did not want, after having lost the Black Hills, they did not want to have, lose more land if gold were found. Jim Cook went, talked to Professor Marsh, learned about what fossils were, realized that's all he was doing, came back, and reported. And they gave him permission, and all he did was collect fossils. I don't know how long Jim Cook stayed and visited, but during the course of that visit, Jim Cook uh established a reputation for speaking with what they called a straight tongue, straight shooter, and he and Red Cloud formed the nucleus of a friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. Now, Jim Cook was 18. Red Cloud was in his mid-50s. But they never, despite the cultural age and every other distance every other reason why they might have not been friends, they were.
Darrell: Our people had to, they wanted to live freely. And then another force was coming on by trying to force our people to live another way that was unfamiliar to our people. And a lot of things happened there that uh, like I said, the textbooks are going to tell that um, our people suffered in all different types of ways. There was the beginnings of uh, uh and parts of a genocide that was running across the country. So for a non-native to come to a Native family or live amongst the people or near the people, and to be able to develop a friendship, wasn't typical at all. You know it, it was hard to see and hard to imagine that that type of friendship would come about. But, uh, for some good reason, uh Mr. Cook and my grandfather, they came across one another. And what brought that together was the spirit of each man. They carried the goodness within their heart, and they knew what they wanted to share, and they knew they had to look out for the people. James Cook, he felt that same way. I know my grandfather, the way of our people is to, whenever you come across somebody that is good, somebody that is genuine, then you could feel the aura that they give off. And I know my grandfather felt that towards Mr. Cook and then in return, Mr. Cook felt that same way for my grandfather. So they developed a friendship that that, that carried on for years to come even though there was that that age gap. You know. To our people it doesn't matter the age really doesn't matter when it comes to that heartfelt friendship, or heartfelt relationship with another human being. The color of their skin does not matter. The language they speak is, does not matter. What matters is the sincerity of this person that is your friend, this person that is trying to help you to understand, and then you sharing that same feeling for the person as well.
Gretchen: There was something in their, both of their personalities that just clicked. And the fact that he was, Red Cloud, was treated with respect. And Red Cloud saw something in him that he admired and liked. And they just formed fast, fast friendship. In fact Red Cloud named one of his sons James Red Cloud. Once Jim Cook started living here in about 1870... 1886 around then, uh one of the first things he did was let his Sioux friends know he was here.
[AD: Two men sit in the grass next to a house. Text: A meeting between James Cook and Jack Red Cloud on the lawn of the Agate Springs Ranch houses. Several Native Americans and ranch hands are gathered with them.]
Gretchen: And then they started coming to visit. And they would come in as individuals, as small groups.Uh, typically it would be anywhere from three to four wagon loads to about 20 wagon loads that would come for a visit, but once there were 50 wagon loads that came.
Darrell: Whenever he talked about Mr. Cook, he would um he would tell the stories after he got back to the, the people over there towards the east, he would tell the people that that he had had a good time. And he said they treat me really good. He said that my friend, my "kola," he says. In our language, my friend, he says, he treated treats me really good, And uh he uh feeds me. He feeds me some good, good food, he said. And uh we sit, and we talk and we visit about, about what the the white people want. And, and I tell him what our people want, and how, how we might be able to come to terms with with, for the people, for the non-native and the Native people. How can we come, bring this together? And they would have those types of conversations a lot of the time.
Gretchen: What I have been thinking about it, find so completely remarkable was not so much that an 18 year-old and a 55-year-old could become fast friends, but that you've got Jim Cook, one of the interlopers who's moved in. He had worked as an army scout. He represented the loss of Red Cloud's entire way of living that he had had. And Red Cloud who had, could have every right to be angry and bitter toward the white people who had taken his land, taken away his way of life, put him on a reservation where he had to initially ask permission to leave.
[AD: Yellow type-written note. Text: To Whom it May Concern: Permission is granted Chief Red Cloud and the following named Indians to visit James Cook's ranch in Nebraska for fifteen days. Red Cloud; Jack Red Cloud and wife; Red Bear & wife; Dirt Kettle & wife; Red Shirt & wife, Eagle Louse & wife; Iron Horse & wife. Sam Bone Necklace; Iron Bull & wife; White Whirlwind & Wife; Calico & wife. Signed, John R. Brennan; U.S. India Agent. Pine Ridge Agency; April 25, 1908.]
Gretchen: And I, what I find most remarkable, despite these reasons why neither one should want to have anything to do with the other, they became fast friends. And I think that speaks very well for both of their abilities to transcend that which would on the surface ought to divide, and say these are individuals. I like that individual. I admire this individual. We will be friends.
Darrell: Knowing that my grandfather and some of my relatives walked around on this ground and so forth, was, it is very very meaningful to me. And being able to be in the same area, same place, and put my foottracks right behind my grandfather's foottracks, was very, it's very meaningful to me. And knowing that that friendship developed into something really beautiful and really positive, is very inspiring to me. I know that there's a lot of non-native people out there that are good people, that are willing to share and try to help the Native people in a good way. So that friendship inspires me to be exactly like my grandfather and develop those types of friendships like Mr. Cook and my grandfather.
[Images of Chief Red Cloud and James Cook under the title Friendship. Then, narrator reads text on screen.]
Narrator 1: As shared, Chief Red Cloud and Cook had a unique friendship, one that moved beyond common language, customs, and age. Gretchen and Darrell showed us how Chief Red Cloud and Cook's friendship began and evolved. Their initial meeting happened through a mutual friend. Cook lent help in a negotiation.
Reflect: In your own experience, what initiated your friendship?
Their Connection: For Red Cloud the connection started with trust and it secured itself through a strong connection in spirit.
Reflect: What solidified or deepened your friendship?
Describe the moment, or moments, when the closeness in your friendship was established.
Shared Importance: The friendship between Red Cloud and Cook was a source of deep mutual respect and sharing of culture and survival strategies.
Reflect: What about your friendship is important to the people it involves? And what space of importance do each of you hold in each other's lives?
Now it's time to share your story of a close friendship considering these three moments: your initial meeting, your connection, and shared importance. As you write, reflect on the story told here today as well as how the experience of James Cook and Red Cloud can serve as a structure for your own writing.
[Images of beaded items: a shirt, bag, moccasins, and gloves surround the title Gift Giving. Then, narrator reads text on screen.]
Narrator 2: Gift-giving is important in all cultures as a way to show respect, appreciation, and to build friendships. As you view the following comments by Gretchen and Darrell, consider the types of gifts Red Cloud and James Cook exchanged, why those gifts were important to them, to their cultures, and even to us still today. You'll be asked to write about your thoughts following Gretchen and Darrell's comments.
Darrell: Gift giving is very meaningful to our people because our people were not um people that acquired a lot of stuff. We didn't need a lot of stuff to survive. We weren't materialistic. In fact, if we got something really nice for ourselves. Maybe one of the daughters or maybe one of the granddaughters would make a really fine quill pair of moccasins. Rather than keep, even though they gave them to me, rather than keep them for me, and they were really nice, almost priceless, instead of keeping them I would extend it to a real good friend of mine. I would give it to them and say, "Here, you use this." And, and it was very meaningful. The reason why it's meaningful in our language, we call it (Native Lakota language) the gift of giving. And if we gave this, then in return, we believe that creator would bless us with a gift of happiness, good health, good fortune, and good friendships. The gift of food is very important. So, I'm sure whenever my grandfather came around the area, maybe Mr. Cook would go and maybe butcher one of his cows or something in that line and get it ready. And they would share a meal together. And then from there comes that gift of friendship. And then from there becomes these other and then in turn around and my grandfather, I'm sure, would have gave Mr. Cook some sort of gift. Maybe a, a tomahawk, or maybe a knife, or maybe a, a gift of some sort that one of his relatives might have made for him. He would have shared it, and extended to Mr. Cook.
Gretchen: What, what the gift-giving that came from my family's side was seeing to they were well fed. That they had food. And gave them jobs, gave them whatever help and support. Sent them back with coffee and sugar as well as....
And the gift-giving that the Indians brought, and this was part of their culture. When you go to visit someplace, you bring hostess gifts. And, so initially any time they came, they would bring little things that they had made for members of the family. And each year once they came, they would bring something else. They gave them the gift of friendship. They gave them the gift of food. Of being welcomed to be here anytime they wanted to come. They would come. They would sit and talk about old times, about what, you know, all feeling sad that the country was being settled up and fenced. Jim Cook regretted this as much as they did. Uh, they had wonderful visits well into the night. Darrell: The most highly thing that my grandfather carried with him was his pipe. And he had a, had a pipe bag is what they call it today, And in in our people we say, (Native Lakota Language). A heart bag where they put the, where they put what it means from something from them, from the heart. They utilize that for the sacred pipe amongst our people. And I'm sure along the way if my grandfather didn't give it to him, I know that he shared it with him.
[AD: Three long rectangular leather bags with geometric beaded designs. Text: Heart Bags in Cook Collection Middle - Chief Red Clouds; Left - Son's Jack Red Cloud]
Darrell: Able to touch it, and able to feel it because that's the feeling that my grandfather carried for his friend when it was coming from his heart.
[AD: Narrator reads text on screen.]
Narrator 2: As Darrell and Gretchen explained, a variety of gifts were exchanged between Red Cloud and James Cook each time they visited. Some of those gifts were practical. They were useful. Others were more personal and represented the shared trust and friendship between the men. Other gifts were abstract. They couldn't be held or touched but were experienced.
Write now about your thoughts on the gifts that the men exchanged. What was the purpose of the various gifts? What did they represent? How were they important? Why are they still important to us today? Once you're done writing, share with a partner.
It's said that giving a gift can be as important to the giver as it is to the recipient of the gift. Take time now to consider gifts in your life. Both those you've given, and those you've received.
[Title: Preservation. Then narrator reads text on screen.]
Narrator 3: As you've already learned in this video, gift-giving was a sign of the friendship between James Cook and Red Cloud. However, it was also a way of preserving Native culture. In the last section of this video, we'll hear from Gretchen and Darrell about how the Native way of life was threatened, and the efforts made by both Cook and Red Cloud to preserve it. As you watch, think about why preservation is important and reflect on what in your own life, or culture, you would want to preserve. At the end of this section of the video, you'll have a chance to write more about these ideas.
Darrell: As far as I know, and the information that's been shared with me from generation to generation, is that he was a, a sincere person about trying to preserve our way of life. In beginning, whenever he came into the public eye, so to speak, he was uh wanting to preserve our traditional way of life, living free, living off the land, and so forth. And eventually that uh that changed after a while, and the history books will tell you a little bit about that. About my grandfather and how he uh stood up for his people. And tried to protect uh the land, the natural way of living in the land, on the land, and throughout the land. You know so um, it was very important for my grandfather to try to preserve that way of life way back when.
Gretchen: They started then bringing things that were of little more importance to them. Things that had a story to them, and they would tell the stories. And the story would be remembered and kept with the object. And then as the years passed, and the elders, some of them started to die, and their children and their children's children, who had never lived off the reservation, looked at some of the objects that their parents and grandparents had kept from the old days before white people had been here as, you know, remnants of a primitive past that they were currently being somewhat ashamed of. And they weren't keeping these things. Many of them were being destroyed. And this of course was heartbreaking to the remaining elders. That all of the stories that they gave, that go with objects, were then remembered and were told. And that people would come to visit, and would want to go through the, the rooms in which these possessions were, these in things, were kept. And would want to know, and so they would be told the stories. And so, the stories were being remembered by our family of the things that were being brought by the Sioux and the Cheyenne.
[AD: Tag attached to a leather item. Text: AGFO 109 Watch Pouch "J.H. Cook from Good Cloud."]
Gretchen: And they would say, they would come and say, "We give you these things so that your children's children can tell our children's children about this." And this was a great and wonderful trust for us to have. There were cards, there was kind of information on cards. And unfortunately at that time they didn't have a, a lot of you couldn't just take a picture such as we can now and put it in an online inventory sort of thing and have it like that. A lot of the information was oral, and although it was written down on cards for most of it, it was also just an oral tradition. So that, he told the story over and over and over to the people who were visiting. And his son Harold told the stories over and over exactly as Jim Cook told them. And when my mother and her sisters were children growing up here, and people would be coming, sometimes every member of the family would have a group of people and they each would be in a different room while they told the stories of what was in each room. So my mother grew up hearing the stories from her grandfather, Jim Cook, and knowing what the stories were that went with each of the objects. So it's been very much an oral tradition backed up by whatever information is on, on those cards.
Darrell: From just being here and being able to conversate with Gretchen here is is a really positive moment for, for me. On behalf of, on behalf of Red Cloud, my grandfather, on behalf of all of my Red Cloud relatives. I would say that in today's world, our people need to understand and educate themselves in a manner that would benefit the people because that's what my grandfather was all about.
Chief Red Cloud was about trying to find a way in life for the future generations of his people. Preserve a way of life for his future generations and his people. And with the help of, of James Cook and other influential people, uh non-natives, my grandfather became, I would say, a statesman for the Indigenous people.
Gretchen: Even though it was long before I was born, I had nothing to do with it, I am pleased to know that my forbears did right. They weren't among those who were prejudiced. Those, they weren't among those who treated other people badly. And that is a legacy that has hopefully come down and we're passing it on through the generations. That all people are individuals, and nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of other than that own individual's ill behavior or ill temper.
Narrator 3: The final section of this video focused on preservation. You heard about how the Native people give gifts to the Cook family in part to preserve pieces of their history as their way of life was being taken away. Now, in this final section of the video, you're going to reflect on what you would want to preserve from your life, your family, or your culture. First, think about your values. The items we preserve often reflect our own values. What values are important to you, your family, or your culture? Why are these values important?If you're stuck, you might start with items, objects, or gifts in your home that are important to you. What do you think those objects reflect? Next, it's also helpful to think about what stories you would want to preserve.
So in the video Gretchen described how her family preserved Native stories and cultures through narrative. In other words, when they talked about the gifts they had received, they remembered the stories that went along with them. So what stories are important to you, your family, or your culture? And what stories would you want to pass down? Again if you're having trouble getting started here, you might think about different objects in your home. Different gifts you've received, the memories you have, and the stories associated with those objects. Finally, consider your legacy. So the values and stories passed down by the Red Cloud and Cook families are part of their legacies, or what we hand down to the next generation. What do you want your legacy to be?
Now that you've thought about these three ideas: values, stories, and legacy. Write about what you think you'd want to preserve. Focus on these three concepts. When you're done, share your writing with a friend. As you read each other's work, you might think about why you have different values and stories and why you'd like to pass down different legacies. Why do you think your values and stories are different? In what ways are they the same? What do these values, stories, and legacies reflect about each of you as individuals?
Tera Lynn: Hello again, it's Ranger TL. This time I'm inside the museum sitting in front of a rectangular replica window that would have been in front of James Cook's original ranch. And to my right is an actual bison stomach hanging from a tripod of three wooden poles. As you know, Native Americans use all parts of the bison, so this stomach would have been used like a crock pot or cooking pot to cook their meals.
I hope you learned a lot from your reflection and journal writing today. Maybe you even gained a deeper respect for your own friends after hearing the stories of James H. Cook and Chief Red Cloud told by their great-grandchildren, Gretchen Meade and Darrell Red Cloud. I want to thank the teachers, and the Nebraska Writing Project, and the Elk River Writing Project for putting together this amazing collection of stories. And to you as well, thank you for spending some time virtually with Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. I invite you to visit us online to learn more, or even come to the park to see the wonderful collection of gifts that Mr. Cook, and later you, the American people, preserved for his friend.
Narrator 2: To learn more about Agate Fossil Beds National Monument visit their website at www.nps.gov/agfo. Thank you to Gretchen Meade and Darrell Red Cloud for sitting with Diana Weis and sharing their histories. And to the National Writing Project, Humanities Nebraska, and Humanities Montana for supporting this project. This video was created by Tera Lynn Gray, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument; Lorrie Henry-Koski, Elk River Writing Project, Montana State University Billings; Charlotte Kupsh, Nebraska Writing Project, University of Nebraska Lincoln; Robert Massie, videographer, Montana State University Billings; Diana Weis, Nebraska Writing Project, University of Nebraska Lincoln.
Description
This three-part interview, accompanied by writing prompts, highlights the friendship and cultural sharing between Chief Red Cloud and homesteader, James Cook of Agate Ranch. Through interviews with their descendants, learn about the nature of Cook and Chief Red Cloud's friendship, the gifts they exchanged, and their hope to preserve cultures.
This version is both closed-captioned and audio described.
Duration
34 minutes, 23 seconds
Credit
NPS/T.Gray
Date Created
10/20/2023
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