Appalachian Heritage

We had driven past it dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, the giant, plastic Indian which stood in front of the motel on Highway 51, and we had almost always cussed it as we went by. It was an insult to us all. One feather in its hair, a pair of moccasins and a flap on its front and back were all the clothes it wore. It stood with one leg straight and the other slightly bent at the knee; it held one hand up against its head as an eye shade. Its hair was long and worn in two braids which dangled on its chest. Perhaps worst of all, its flesh was pink. It stood there, towering over us as we drove from Tahlequah to Tulsa or to any number of smaller towns along the way.

We came to view the big, pink, plastic Indian as a symbol of all that was wrong and all that was evil in our midst. Before 1907, the spot on which the plastic Indian stood had been definitely and unquestionably Cherokee. It had been a part of the Cherokee Nation, a portion of the land that was owned by all Cherokees. But Oklahoma statehood had changed all of that. Before 1907, the Cherokee Nation had produced more college graduates than the states of Arkansas and Texas combined. By 1970, according to the U.S. census, the average adult Cherokee had but four and one-half years of school. Even Will Rogers had said, “We had the greatest territory in the world, and they ruined it when they made a state,” or words to that effect. We all agreed with him, and we all further agreed that the plastic Indian was a symbol of all of that.

We had all been out drinking one summer’s evening, and we were headed back toward Tahlequah, when we drove past the plastic Indian.

“Look at that Ugly son-of-a-bitch,” Tom said.

“We’ve been looking at it for years,” said Pat.

“We talk about it every time we drive past here,” I said.

“We’ve talked long enough,” said Tom. “Let’s do something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s tear the damn thing down once and for all.”

The plastic Indian was already well behind us and long out of sight, but the conversation continued. Perhaps it was all the beer we had consumed. Perhaps the timing was just right. Who knows? But the talk just kept going. It wouldn’t stop.

“How are we going to do that?” I asked. [End Page 11]

“Drive out to my house,” Tom said, “and I’ll show you.”

By the time we got to Tom’s house in the Rocky Ford community on the other side of Tahlequah, Tom had passed out. None of us had any idea what he’d had in mind, so we rolled him out into his front yard and drove off. Nothing was done about the plastic Indian.

It was several days before we all got together again. We were at my house drinking beer, and for some reason, Tom started talking about the plastic Indian again. I don’t recall our ever having talked about it before except when we had just driven past it. It was still early in the evening too. I suspected that something might develop.

“That damn thing,” Tom said, “is an insult to all of us. It would be bad enough if a white man put up a tall Indian that really looked like a Cherokee to advertise his business. But that thing doesn’t even look like us. If anything, it looks like Longfellow’s Hiawatha, or maybe Uncas from The Last of the Mohicans.”

“It is an ugly bastard,” I said, not being possessed of Tom’s eloquence. I sipped some more beer from the wet can.

“Those guys think they can do anything right here in our own country,” said Pat. “They’re surrounded by Indians all the time. Hell, some of their customers are Indians.”

“Most of them,” said Tom.

“There’s the U-Need-Um Tires Company,” I said, “and the U-Totem Stores...