Red represents low-energy X-rays, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. The blue hand-like structure was created by energy emanating from the nebula around they dying star PSR B1509-58. The red areas are from a neighboring gas cloud called RCW 89. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.

On one of my trips to Germany, we visted the beautiful city of  Cologne.  I was saddened to see the following news:

The city without a memory: treasures lost under collapsed Cologne archives

(Federico Gambarini)

The Eye of God

Only 450 light years away in the constellation Aquarius, this long-observed planetary nebula, created from outgassing of a dying star has been imaged in glorious detail and color by Hubble.

Nicknamed “The Eye of God” it spans an area half the size of the moon. Read more from hubblesite.org.

(NASA, ESA, C.R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), and M. Meixner, P. McCullough)

~

This is the one that freaks me out… this could just as easily happen in our Milky Way Galaxy.  A true “star wars” event!  Makes one feel pretty small and insignificant, doesn’t it?  So, forget your troubles today!  If we get zapped like this, none of it will matter!

“Death Star” Galaxy Black Hole Fires at Neighboring Galaxy

Even galaxies get bullied. Here, a so-called “death star galaxy” blasts a nearby galaxy with a jet of energy. Scientists said that if this happened in the Milky Way, it would likely destroy all life on Earth.

Dec. 17, 2007

RELEASE : 07-280

‘Death Star’ Galaxy Black Hole Fires at Neighboring Galaxy

WASHINGTON – A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet’s path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake.

Known as 3C321, the system contains two galaxies in orbit around each other. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain super massive black holes at their centers, but the larger galaxy has a jet emanating from the vicinity of its black hole. The smaller galaxy apparently has swung into the path of this jet.

This “death star” galaxy was discovered through the combined efforts of both space and ground-based telescopes. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope were part of the effort. The Very Large Array telescope, Socorro, N.M., and the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) telescopes in the United Kingdom also were needed for the finding.

“We’ve seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first time we’ve seen one punch into another galaxy like we’re seeing here,” said Dan Evans, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leader of the study. “This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling.”

Jets from super massive black holes produce high amounts of radiation, especially high-energy X-rays and gamma-rays, which can be lethal in large quantities. The combined effects of this radiation and particles traveling at almost the speed of light could severely damage the atmospheres of planets lying in the path of the jet. For example, protective layers of ozone in the upper atmosphere of planets could be destroyed.

Jets produced by super massive black holes transport enormous amounts of energy far from black holes and enable them to affect matter on scales vastly larger than the size of the black hole. Learning more about jets is a key goal for astrophysical research.

“We see jets all over the universe, but we’re still struggling to understand some of their basic properties,” said co-investigator Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. “This system of 3C321 gives us a chance to learn how they’re affected when they slam into something like a galaxy and what they do after that.”

The effect of the jet on the companion galaxy is likely to be substantial, because the galaxies in 3C321 are extremely close at a distance of only about 20,000 light years apart. They lie approximately the same distance as Earth is from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

A bright spot in the Very Large Array and MERLIN images shows where the jet has struck the side of the galaxy, dissipating some of the jet’s energy. The collision disrupted and deflected the jet.

Another unique aspect of the discovery in 3C321 is how relatively short-lived this event is on a cosmic time scale. Features seen in the Very Large Array and Chandra images indicate that the jet began impacting the galaxy about one million years ago, a small fraction of the system’s lifetime. This means such an alignment is quite rare in the nearby universe, making 3C321 an important opportunity to study such a phenomenon.

It is possible the event is not all bad news for the galaxy being struck by the jet. The massive influx of energy and radiation from the jet could induce the formation of large numbers of stars and planets after its initial wake of destruction is complete.

The results from Evans and his colleagues will appear in The Astrophysical Journal. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass. Additional information and images are available at: http://chandra.nasa.gov

I thought you might be interested to see what has been said to be the first print Doc ever produced. It was made around 1978.

The title of the work is “Sand Storm.”

Very interesting piece, don’t you think?

This is a beautiful photo portrait of my dear friend, Woogie Watchetaker, graciously provided by David and Ruth Malhalab.  It was taken by their family member, Jonathon J. Malhalab, sometime between 1976 – 1977 when the family member was stationed at Fort Sill.

Mr. Malhalab is seeking any information whatsoever relating to this photo and the circumstances relating to it.  If you have  any information relating to this photo or the events relating to it, please email me and I will put you in contact with him.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy seeing Woogie, proudly displaying his great strength, pride and strong character. What a special man he was and I extend a special thank you to Mr. Malhalab for sharing it with me and for the permission to post it on my artblog so that the entire world can enjoy it as well. Jonathon J. Malhalab’s photographic skills were amazing.  I know Woogie must have been very pleased with the  results of the sitting.  I’m so thankful for whatever circumstances made it possible for the photo to be taken and appreciate David Malhalab generously sharing it with us.  This, my friends, is the Woogie I knew.  He always described himself to me as “strong, like Geronimo” and that strength Woogie always displayed was skillfully captured in this photo.

NOTE:  This photo is protected by a copyright.  You must have written permission from Mr. Malhalab or his representative to copy or use this photo.

Did you know that an Eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks?

The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come.  When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind picks it up and lifts it above the storm.  While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it all in the calming breath of the Great Spirit.  The eagle does not escape the storm.  It simply uses the storm to lift it higher.

The storms do not have to overcome us. When the storms of life come upon us (and all of us will experience storms in our lives) we have the ability to rise above them by setting our sight on Our Great Creator.   We can look to Our Great Creator’s almighty power to lift us up above the storm.

The Creator of all things can set us above the winds of the storm and allow us to soar above it all,  just as the eagle does.

Kindred Spirits by Cheryl Davis (Copyright 1993)

“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eages.”

Isaiah 40:31

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

.

Yigaquv osaniyu adanvto adadoligi naqvv utlogasdi nihi
(May The Great Spirit’s Blessings always be with you)

.

Oh, Father Time… slow down, please!

What’s the big hurry?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_06dC-qqT0

Remember the Reason for the Season. I pray that it is a blessed holiday for you and yours. May the New Year bring you all an abundance of God’s love and grace.

Be Blessed.

Cheryl

GO SOONERS!

G00d Luck in the Championship Game!

Sooner Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01VR6m5o08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k59hCnuMcoQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THZEaZ89NY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKD2Wh9GxAc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMo_-ONtZNI

This Veterans Day, I want to say a big “THANK YOU” to all the top-notch men & women who serve or have served and sacrificed for this great Nation.  Your military service makes it possible for us to live the very blessed lives that we live.  I also send up a special prayer for America as we begin the “Obama Era” in America’s history.

Today, I ask for two “special blessings:” One for my nephew, Richard “Vercules” Vertrees, who honorably served with the 204th Military Police, Bladerunners in Baghdad, Iraq for a one year tour as an MP.  Richard was there during the period of time Saddam was captured:  an extremely violent time to be there. Another for Richard’s father, my dear brother-in-law Hugh Vertrees, who served honorably in Phi Bui, Vietnam with the 101st Airborne.  Both men saw combat during their time in service.  They served their country well.  I am incredibly proud of both of them, for the many blessings they bring to my life and will forever be grateful to them for their service and great sacrifice.  Words are, as always, so insufficient to express my gratitude for all that “they and hundreds of thousands of others” have given.

Hugh Vertrees (Above Photo: Right) was stationed in Phi Bui, Vietnam with the 101st Airborne.  His treacherous job was to patrol the jungles, rivers, and deny the enemy access into Phi Bui.  This duty was a result of the successful capturing of Phi Bui in 1968.  Hugh honorably served his country in Vietnam from January 1971 to December, 1971.

“Welcome Home Soldier! Thank you for your service!”

Richard “Vercules” Vertrees (Above Photo, Right)

(Richard: Front Row, Far Left Side)

204th Military Police, Bladerunners:  Baghdad, Iraq  2003

Richard, “Home for Christmas“

To Richard and Hugh, and to all who are

currently serving or who have served in years past.

You make me proud!  THANK YOU!

Yigaquv osaniyu adanvto adadoligi naqvv utlogasdi nihi
(May The Great Spirit’s Blessings always be with you)

“AND  HERE’S A SALUTE TO AMERICA’S FUTURE SOLDIERS!”

Adrian says, “Go Army!”

Links:

http://www.fortpolkguardian.com/articles/2005/12/16/fort_polk_news/16deploy.txt

Hugh’s unit:

101st Airborne Veterans

http://www.vetfriends.com/units/?unit=238104&gclid=CNy3rs248JYCFQRkswodwVdrrA

The Vietnam Center & Archive: Virtual Archive

http://www.virtualarchive.vietnam.ttu.edu/starweb/virtual/virtual/servlet.starweb?path=virtual/virtual/fa_new.web&search1=ONUM%3D2130000000

Community of Veterans (Support for Iraq and Afghanistan Soldiers)

http://communityofveterans.org/

MILITARY.COM:  A Veteran’s Day Slide Show

http://www.military.com/veterans-day/veterans-day-slideshow.html?ESRC=army.nl

http://www.oklachahta.org/code%20talkers.htm

In the closing days of World War I, fourteen Choctaw Indian men in the Army’s Thirty-Sixth Division, trained to use their language, helped the American Expeditionary Force win several key battles in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign in France, the final big German push of the war. The fourteen Choctaw Code Talkers were Albert Billy, Mitchell Bobb, Victor Brown, Ben Caterby, James Edwards, Tobias Frazer, Ben Hampton, Solomon Louis, Pete Maytubby, Jeff Nelson, Joseph Oklahombi, Robert Taylor, Calvin Wilson, and Walter Veach.

With at least one Choctaw man placed in each field company headquarters, they handled military communications by field telephone, translated radio messages into the Choctaw language, and wrote field orders to be carried by “runners” between the various companies. The German army, which captured about one out of four messengers, never deciphered the messages written in Choctaw.

The Choctaws were recognized as the first to use their native language as an unbreakable code in World War I. The Choctaw language was again used in World War II. Choctaws conversed in their language over field radios to coordinate military positions, giving exact details and locations without fear of German interception.

1939 to 1945

The Army taps Hopi, Choctaw, Comanche, Kiowa, Winnebago, Seminole, Navajo and Cherokee Americans to use their languages as secret code in World War II. The Marines rely on Navajos to create and memorize a code based on the complex Navajo language.

During the annual Choctaw Labor Day Festival in 1986, Chief Hollis E. Roberts presented posthumous Choctaw Nation Medals of Valor to the families of the Code Talkers. This was the first official recognition the Choctaw Code Talkers had been given. On November 3, 1989, in recognition of the important role the Choctaw Code Talkers played during World War I, the French government presented Chief Roberts with the “Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Merite” (the Knight of the National Order of Merit), the highest honor France can bestow.

The World War I
Choctaw “Code Talkers”

Unbelievable, these men have never been honored by their country.

We can help make it happen.

The Family Tree – August/September 1999

Bryan County Heritage Quarterly
P.O. Box 153, Calera, Okla. 74730-0153

In the closing days of World War I, eight Choctaw Indians were instrumental in helping the American Expeditionary Force to win several key battles in the Meusse Argonne Campaign, which proved to be the final big German push of that war. These Brave soldiers were the now famous Choctaw Code Talkers. One of the eight was from Bryan County, Oklahoma and one was from Choctaw County and the remaining six were from McCurtain County. They were Solomon Lewis, Bennington; Ben Carterby, (Bismark) Wright City, Mitchell Bobb, Smithville; Robert Taylor, Bokehito or Boswell; Ca’vin Nelson, Kullitukle; Pete Maytubby, Borken Bow; James Edwards, Ida (now Battiest) and Jeff Wilson, Goodwater.

All of these men were serving in the same battalion, which was practically surrounded by the German Army.

And, to make matters worse, it was known that the Germans had “broken” the American radio codes and had tapped the telephone lines. The Germans were also capturing about one out of every four messengers sent out as runners between the various companies on the battle line.

One day, a Captain Lawrence, Commander of one of the companies, was strolling through the company area when he happened to overhear Solomon Lewis and Mitchell Bobb conversing in their native Choctaw language.

After listening for a few minutes, he called Lewis and asked “Corporal, how many of you Choctaws do we have in this battalion?”

After a conference with Bobb, Lewis told the Caption, “We have eight men who speak fluent Choctaw in the Battalion, Sir.”

“Are there any of them over in headquarters Company?: the Captain asked/

“I think Carterby and Maytubby are over there, Sir.” Lewis replied.

“You fellows sit right here,” said the Captain.

He got on the field telephone and discovered that, indeed, Ben Carterby and Pete Maytubby were attached to Headquarters Company.

“Get Them and have them stand by,” Captain Lawrence told his commanding officer “I’ve got an idea that might just get those Heinies off our backs.”

Calling Lewis Bobb the Captain told them, “Look, I’m going to give you a message to call in to headquarters and I want you to give the message in your language. There will be somebody there who can understand it.”

It was at that moment that PFC Mitchell Bobb, using field telephone, delivered the first Choctaw Code Message to Choctaw Ben Carterby, who then translated it into English for the Battalion commander.

Within a matter of hours, the eight men able to speak the Choctaw Language had been shifted until there was at least one in each field company headquarters.

Not only were they handling field telephone calls, they were translating radio messages into the Choctaw Language and writing field order to be carried by “runners” between the various companies.

The Berman code experts were “flipping their wigs” trying to break the new American code.

With in 72 hours after the Choctaw language was pressed into service, the tide of battle had turned, and in less than 72 hours, the German Army was retreating and the Allied Forces were on full attack.

Since this occurred at the close of the war, the Choctaw Code Talkers were apparently used in only this one campaign. The men were praised by their company commanders and the battalion commander. Thought these men were promised medals for their contributions to end the war, they have never been received.

The information contained in this history of the Choctaw Code talkers was told to the writer of the article by Solomon Lewis in 1979, who at that time, was the only remaining Code talker alive. Solomon Lewis died sometime between 1982 and 1983.

With Thanks to the Bryan County Heritage Quarterly.

American Indian Medal of Honor Winners – In the 20th century, five American Indians have been among those soldiers to be distinguished by receiving the United States’ highest military honor: the Medal of Honor.

America’s Secret Military Weapon

Bishinik – The Official Publication of the Choctaw Nation, August 1986.

Choctaw Code Talkers – WWI – The First code talkers in the U. S. Arm Forces

Native Indian Tongue for Secure Communications

Who were the Choctaw code talkers?

Code Talkers – Mosai Ne-ahs-jah Be Dzeh – What does this mean?

http://library.thinkquest.org/28005/flashed/timemachine/courseofhistory/choctaw.shtml

The Choctaw Code Talkers:

As World War I drew to a close, the United States had a continuing problem of phone calls being intercepted by German forces. One could be fairly certain that a German spy would hear any telephone call made. Unfortunately, voice-scrambling technology wouldn’t be invented for decades. The United States came up with several inventive solutions to the problem, but unfortunately none of them worked for any length of time.

First, the Army tried trench codes. They worked for a time, but after they had been in use for a while, the Germans readily cracked them. Another solution, sending messengers between camps, failed because Germans captured about one in four.

So, what was the Army to do? One smart commander, Captain Lewis, realized that the languages used by American Indians are extremely complex and difficult to learn. He capitalized on the complexity as a code, employing eight Choctaw Indians during the Mousse-Argonne campaign, which turned out as the final German push of the war.

The Indians:

• Solomon Lewis
• Mitchell Bobb
• Ben Carterby
• Robert Taylor
• Jeff Nelson
• Pete Maytubby
• James Edwards
• Calvin Wilson

Simply put, the Indians were stationed at command posts, and spoke all important telephone calls in their native language, translating from and into English for their commanders. German intelligence wasn’t able to figure out what the new American code was or to even think about breaking it.

Within 24 hours of the United States starting to use Choctow Indians language as a form of encryption, the tides of war changed in favor of the United States. Within 72 hours, the Germans were in retreat.

The Choctow weren’t used again in an unclassified military effort (other data may still be classified). However, the Navajo tribe was utilized in World War II, where they had equal effectiveness at stumping German cryptographers.

http://www.choctawnation.com/files/codetalkersact.pdf

World War 1 Code Talkers Instrumental in Ending War

When World War I broke out a huge percentage of Choctaw men volunteered, along with about 10,000 other Native Americans, for service in the U.S. Military. The language the Choctaws spoke was considered obsolete. That same language later helped bring about a successful end to the war by confounding German eavesdroppers.

During World War I, with the tapping of the American Army’s phone lines, the Germans were able to learn the location of where the Allied Forces were stationed at, as well as where supplies were kept. An idea was born to put Choctaw Indians on the phones and let them talk in their Native speech. The German soldiers had never heard this language before. The Choctaw Nation also had tribal members who used their language to transmit messages in World War II. The native language was an excellent tool to use on behalf of the American forces in both wars. Until the use of the Choctaw language in World War I, the Germans had decoded all transmitted messages sent by the Allied Forces.

In World War I, according to a memo dated January 23, 1919, from the commanding officer of the 142nd Infantry Division, Col. A.W. Bloor, “The first use of the Indians was made in ordering a delicate withdrawal of two companies of the 2nd Bn. From Chufilly to Chardoney on the night of October 26th. This movement was completed without mishap, although it left the Third Battalion greatly depleted in previous fighting, without support. The Indians were used repeatedly on the 27th in preparation for the assault on Forest Farm. The enemy’s complete surprise is evidence that he could not decipher the messages. “After the withdrawal of the regiment to Louppy-le-Petit, a number of Indians were detailed for training tin transmitted messages over the telphone. The instruction was carried out by the Liaison Officer, Lieutenant Black. It had been found that the Indian’s vocabulary of military terms was insufficient. The Indian for ‘Big gun’ was used to indicate artillery. ‘Little gun shoot fast,’ was substituted for machine gun, and the battalions were indicated by one, two, and three grains of corn.”

“It was found that the Indian tongues do not permit verbatim translation, but at the end of the short training period at Louppy-le-Petit, the results were very gratifying, and it is believed, had the regiment gone back into the line, fine results would have been obtained. We were confident the possibilities of the telephone had been obtained without its hazards.”

“The Choctaw Nation is very proud of the story of the original Code Talkers, and even has a granite monument at the entrance to our capitol grounds that bears the engraved names of the men who used the Choctaw language to help win World War I,” said Chief Gregory E. Pyle. “The language is so important to the tribe today that there are classes offered in 43 public schools, two colleges and three universities, as well as on the Internet and in many community centers.” Verbal history, combined with written history, has revealed the names of the 18 Choctaws who were trained to use their own language to transmit messages that the enemy was never able to decipher. These men were Tobias Frazier, Victor Brown, Joseph Oklahombi, Ben Hampton, Albert Billy, Walter Veach, Ben Carterby, James Edwards, Solomon Louis, Pete Maytubby, Michell Bobb, Calvin Wilson, Jeff Nelson, Joseph Davenport, George Davenport, Noel Johnson, Otis Leader and Robert Taylor. Originally, only eight men were asked to be Choctaw Code Talkers, but as the success of using their native language as a “code” was recognized, others were quickly pressed into service.

When the Choctaw tongue was spoken over the field telephones, the Germans stopped attacking the supply dumps and counter attacking the American troops. This is because they had no idea what the Choctaws were saying and couldn’t effectively spy on the message transmissions. A captured German officer later said they were completely confused by the “code”.

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma has formalized a request to Congress that recognition be given to the Native American Code Talkers of all tribes who used their own language during WWI or WWII as a “code” to confuse the enemy. Honor from the United States Government to these unsung heroes is long overdue.

Other Links:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm

American Indian Medal of Honor Winners
Navajo Code Talkers in World War II: A Bibliography
Navajo Code Talker Dictionary

http://www.crystalinks.com/codetalkers.html

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-99352091.html

Bill would recognize WWI Code Talkers. (Washington Report).(Senator JAmes M. Inhofe introduces a bill to authorize the president to award a medal to)(Brief Article)

http://firstworldwar.cloudworth.com/choctaw-code-talkers.php

The first code talkers: Choctaw telephone squad, 142nd Infantry

Choctaw Indians were the first “code talkers” in the U.S. military, using their language a generation before the World War II Navajos. A band of Choctaw Indians volunteered when the U.S. entered WW1 and joined the 36th Infantry Division. They were never recognized, and their descendants have been on the offensive to change that. “We don’t have a lot of Indian heroes,” said Tewanna Edwards, the great-niece of Choctaw veteran Otis Leader. They met with some success when Lt. Gen. Charles Rodriguez honored the 18 Choctaw code talkers at a ceremony in Austin. Families believe that the code talkers deserve a Congressional Gold Medal, which the WWII Navajos received. [ star-telegram :: 2007-09-17 :: WW1 Choctaw code talkers ]

Cheryl says,”Tommie told me he’s feeling good!

He’s ready for a great year and I know it ‘absolutely… positively’ will be a major clutch year for him!”

Tear it up, Tommie! You are in our prayers, as always!

We love you.

Psalm 18:1-2, 20-42

In this July 30, 2006 file photo, Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris waves to fans during the team’s evening practice at football training camp in Bourbonnais, Ill. Harris says the talks that led to his four-year, $40 million contract with the Chicago Bears were businesslike and “classy.” Speaking at a news conference Friday June 20, 2008 at Halas Hall, the defensive tackle said he and Bears management kept negotiations private in reaching a deal that will keep him with Chicago through 2012. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Article below can be found at:

http://www.nwherald.com/bears/story.php?id=493

By NICK HUT – nhut@nwnewsgroup.com

BOURBONNAIS - With Tommie Harris, it can be hard to pick which trait stands out the most.

Harris is earnest and passionate. After several of the Bears’ most disappointing losses last season, he was the one who went around the locker room telling various team­mates to stay positive.

Harris is playful and witty. He knows when not to take his job too seriously, a rare trait indeed in the NFL.

Someone recently asked Harris about training camp, for example, probably expecting a stock answer about how it helps forge toughness and solidarity.

“You go from a nice big ol’ house to sharing showers and having stalls and having to see dudes’ feet underneath while you’re trying to handle your business,” Harris said. “Training camp is an amazing place to be, man.”

Harris is rich. He signed a $40 million contract extension last month that runs through 2012. The $10 million annual average of the deal is an NFL record for his position.

Most importantly to the Bears, Harris is a dominant defensive tackle. He merely needs to put together an entire season to prove it beyond any doubt.

“He’s healthy now, and he’s got a lot of things behind him,” coach Lovie Smith said. “He can just really concentrate on being the best defensive tackle in football. Who knows exactly how good he can be when he plays in a complete season? We’re expecting him to do that.”

Harris, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, was lights-out at the start of the past two seasons. Combine the first eight games of 2006 and 2007, and Harris had 30 solo tackles, 12 sacks and three tackles for a loss.

Those are premier numbers for a defensive tackle, a position where players usually settle for occupying blockers so the defensive ends and linebackers can make plays. Harris’ singular athleticism allows him to do that and more.

“He’s probably as good as there is in this league at his position,” defensive line coach Brick Haley said. “You just expect the guy to be good. We’re happy to have him.”

Harris has had a harder time during the second half of the past two seasons.

A severe hamstring tear knocked him out for the final four games and the playoffs in 2006. He was slowing down a bit even before the injury, going seven games without a sack.

In 2007, Harris said, an early-season sprained knee ligament caught up with him as the games progressed. He had only one of his eight sacks in the final eight games.

But Harris takes issue with the notion that he wears down as a season goes along.

“I get cheap-shotted” by opposing blockers, he said, which takes a toll on his lower body.

Harris said he feels as good now as he has since the ‘06 preseason. He expects to start fast and, this time, stay that way.

“We’re very proud of Tommie,” general manager Jerry Angelo said. “He is one of our signature players – somebody who represents us very well not only on the football field, but off the football field.”

Psalm 91

CHICAGO – DECEMBER 02, 2007: Tommie Harris #91 of the Chicago Bears prepares to face the New York Giants during warm-ups on December 2, 2007 at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Roy asks: “What is it with gifted and talented people? What an amazing gift they have, to be able to visually express their ‘minds’ interpretations of life.’ A gift that is so amazing to us mortals who are not creative in this way! To think that anything a gifted artist creates is ‘less than acceptable genius,’ doesn’t register with me.

I recently bought a book called “Wisdom of Our Fathers” written by the late Tim Russert. I admired him a lot & the book is not disappointing me. I want to share part of a letter from the book with you. Beginning on Page 37, Tim wrote: “President Harry Truman & General Douglas MacArthur were bitter rivals, to the point where Truman relieved MacArthur of his command during the Korean war. And yet both men – the common man who found himself in a position of great power, where he had to make uncommonly hard decisions, & the feisty and brilliant military leader – were heroes to my dad.

When I was twelve, General MacArthur gave a speech at West Point that became an instant classic, especially in our neighborhood. Dad referred to it often, and to this day whenever I hear the word ‘honor ‘ I think of MacArthur. His subject that day was “Duty, Honor, Country” – the motto of the United States Military Academy. To some people, MacArthur told the cadets, those words were just a slogan. “But these are some of the things they do,” MacArthur said. “They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, & brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.” It was a great speech, & I’m sorry it isn’t better known today.

~

After ‘Big Russ & Me’ (his first book) was published, one of my readers sent me a quote from General MacArthur that he thought I might enjoy. “By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact,” MacArthur said. “But I am prouder – infinitely prouder – to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build, the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battlefield but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven…”

A soldier destroys in order to build…

…the father only builds, never destroys.

-General Douglas MacArthur, Advice:

I realize that advice is worth what it costs — that is, NOTHING!

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, Age:

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, on Age:

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, on Parenting:

A Prayer For My Son Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory…Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength. Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain..

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, on Propaganda:

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, A Soldier Speaks: Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 1965 – Surrender:

There is not one incident in the history of humanity in which defeatism led to peace which was anything other than a complete fraud.

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences, pp. 216–17 (1964), [speech to the people of the Philippines, on Leyte], October 17, 1944:

People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of the Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil…. The hour of your redemption is here…. Rally to me…. As the lines of battle roll forward to bring you within the zone of operations, rise and strike. Strike at every favorable opportunity. For your homes and hearths, strike! For future generations of your sons and daughters, strike! In the name of your sacred dead, strike! Let no heart be faint. Let every arm be steeled. The guidance of Divine God points the way. Follow in His name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory.

~

-General Douglas MacArthur, In his speech to the Republican Party Convention, October, 1962 – WAR:

“In war there is no substitute for victory.”

http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/veterans.html

Cheryl writes: “No finer people were there than the likes of Doc and Charlotte. And I say the same for their sons, featured in this great article below, published May 5, 2001. Doc’s sons carry the gifts of their father – each with their own unique styles and interests – each carving out their own place. But their father and mother’s influences are apparent in all that they do. I have a special place in my heart for Tim and his family, as we have gotten to know each other at different events through the years. Their kindness and friendship has been something I place great value on. And what a fine man Tim is – he has his father’s gentleness and his talent continues to amaze me, as does the talent of all the brothers. I’ve also had the pleasure of doing past events with Sonny and getting to know him. I just cannot say enough good things about this family. If one could bottle up all the talent that this family has been blessed with, there would not be enough warehouses in the universe to store it all.” (Below: Doc, working on one of his masterfully-made flutes in his workshop.)

www.okhistory.org

Cheryl states,”It has been a blessing and great honor to be acquainted with this fine and talented family.”

Peyote Singer by Tim Nevaquaya

Canku Ota (Many Paths)

http://turtletrack.org/Issues01/Co05052001/CO_05052001_Brothers.htm

An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

May 5, 2001 – Issue 35

Four brothers raised in Apache, Ok. are following in their father’s footsteps — and emerging from his shadow.

Above: Calvert Nevaquaya displays some of his three-dimensional art in March 2001 in Apache, Okla.

Each of the sons of the late Doc Tate Nevaquaya, renowned Native American artist and flutist, has traveled the broad trail their father pioneered.

The journey began in the 1950s as they were exposed on a daily basis, to his paintings depicting Indian history and music he played on the flutes he carved.

Each of the brothers — Tim, Lean ‘Sonny’, Edmond and Calvert – has chosen a path down the trail cleared for them 50 years ago.

With their own unique talents in oil paintings, watercolors, acrylics and flute carving, they’re still developing their places in the art world which is slowing drawing them out of their father’s silhouette.

“All of our children grew up surrounded by their dad’s paintings. They sat down at the dinner table and they looked at his work,” recalled their mother Charlotte Nevaquaya.

Crystal Gayle with two of Doc’s sons at the Native American Music Awards

“Doc knew all the Native American stories from the 1800s and he painted them their entire lives. There was no way they couldn’t have been influenced by the stories he told them.”

Tim was the first of the Nevaquaya brothers to set off on the art trail.

“When I was 3, in 1969, I remember seeing a television announcing the astronauts had walked on the moon,” said Tim. “I ran to my room and grabbed a pencil and paper and never stopped drawing.”

Tim recalled how painting came to him through a nightly ritual with Doc Tate.

“When my father painted in his studio, I would fall asleep at his feet watching him,” Tim said. “He would tell me stories as he painted free people, beautiful sunsets, land and horses.”

In the beginning, at age 13, Tim received his first oil set — he’s the only one of the four brothers who use oils — from his father and painted several items with him, Doc Tate painted people and Tim painted sunsets.

“My father was my teacher, I was his apprentice with flutes and silhouettes,” said Tim. “He taught me that the only way to do a silhouette is to explore it and advance it. This is something I will carry with me throughout my art career.”

Later, he developed his own talent for making his paintings come to life.

“I’d put on tapes of Indian music and I would become the dancer and flute player I was painting. At other times, I became the warrior,” Tim explained.

“This is what came out on my canvas.”

In other art his favorite subject — thunderstorms.

“If he could be a storm-chaser, he would,” said his wife Sandra. “He’ll say to me, ‘let’s go and see the sunset or follow that storm.’ He thinks thunderstorms are beautiful. He creates a beautiful painting depicting it after he sees it.”

Tim’s flute making also is inspired by his father.

“When I make my flutes I use cedar because it gets you fired up. You see designs form in the wood. I can’t go to sleep because I’m thinking about it,” Tim said.

Like his brother Tim, Edmond also began art at 13 but started at the opposite end of the trail from Tim. He was playing the flute with his father long before he started painting with watercolors in 1995.

Edmond didn’t paint with his father; rather he asked his father to critique his work after it was completed and before he sold it.

“I’d see my dad with my piece and I was amazed at how he’d grab a rush and go along and add one small touch and it would make a difference in the world,” said Edmond.

Edmond realized that his father knew best.

“I decided early on that the best thing I could do was follow in the footsteps of the path my father had already paved for me,” Edmond said. “Even today I get stuck on an idea and I look at photos of my dad and his prints and they always inspire me to go on.”

Calvert, the youngest of the brothers didn’t being his journey down the trail until after Doc Tate’s death. “I never sat with Dad or had his assistance with my art. I just learned from his work. He had movement and motion in his art,” Calvert said.

Though Doc Tate is known for a traditional flat base style, Calvert is trying a three-dimensional style.

“My art is detail-oriented and my colors are different than what dad would have done,” Calvert said. “I want people to recognize me as Calvert Nevaquaya when they think of my art, not as Doc Tate’s son. I’m proud of my dad, but I want to prove myself based on my talent, not his.”

Sonny, the oldest of the four sons, lives in Hollywood, Florida. He painted in the 70’s, but his primary focus today is flute music.

“I was always astonished with my father’s music. It magnetized me to him. All the sudden I’d hear his music and it did something to me,” Sonny said.

“Whenever I speak about music, I always tell people that if it weren’t for my father I wouldn’t be where I was,” Sonny said. “I carry this with me wherever I go.”

“Whenever I speak about music, I always tell people that if it weren’t for my father I wouldn’t be where I was,” Sonny said. “I carry this with me wherever I go.”

” Comanche Buffalo “ 18″ x 24″ oil on canvas

” Dance With The Wind “ 28″ X 22″ oil on canvas

Tim Nevaquaya is a full-blood Comanche Indian living in southwest Oklahoma. Tim’s art provides you with a visual opportunity to experience the uniqueness of his Native environment and painting style – ethereal and spiritual with inherently traditional imagery.

Michael McCormick Gallery

106C Paseo del Pueblo Norte
Taos, New Mexico 87571
(800) 279-0879 – (575) 758-1372

asm2002 SPIRIT OF THE FLUTE – Lean “Sonny” Nevaquaya

Textural Native American flute music from the eldest son of the late Commanche artist and musician Doc Tate Nevaquaya. Lean’s handcrafted traditional instruments and evocative melodies fill vast reverberant spaces with power and grace as he infuses every note with an honest, contemplative quality.

Order asm2002CD from amazon.com

Native American Tube: Tim Nevequaya

“Grandmother” by Denny Haskew

…on the Passing of Elders

You sit still among us, Brother (Sister), your person retains its usual resemblance, and continues similar to ours, without any visible deficiency, except that it has lost the power of action. But whither is that breath flown, which a few hours ago sent up smoke to the Great Spirit? Why are those lips silent, that lately delivered to us expressive and pleasing language? Why are those feet motionless, that a short time ago were fleeter than the deer on yonder mountains? Why useless hang those arms that could climb the tallest tree, or draw the toughest bow? Alas! Every part of that frame which we lately beheld with admiration and wonder, is now become as inanimate as it was three hundred years ago. We will not, however, bemoan thee as if thou was for ever lost to us, or that thy name would be buried in oblivion; thy soul yet lives in the great Country of Spirits, with those of thy nation that are gone before thee; and though we are left behind to perpetuate thy flame, we shall one day join thee. Actuated by the respect we bore thee while living, we now come to tender to thee the last act of kindness it is in our power to bestow: that thy body might not lie neglected on the plain, and become a prey to the beasts of the field, or the fowls of the air, we will take care to lay it with those of thy predecessors who are gone before thee; hoping at the same time, that thy spirit will feed with their spirits, and be ready to receive ours when we also shall arrive at the great Country of Souls.

…funeral oration

http://www.dickshovel.com/elders.html

Roy Ramirez shared:

“I had the honor of being one of Jerome’s Pall Bearers at the service. I hold the honor blanket the family presented me as a special gift and treasure . The honor blanket, along with his hat and other special items the family passed to me are held in ‘a place of honor’ in my home. I was unable to attend the dinner afterwards due to a commercial I was taping the next morning in Dallas. As a result I missed that special event.

Roy shares, “Before I met Jerome…”

I’d started my radio career by ‘being one of the first on the air’ in Anadarko on station KRPT. One of the programs we instituted was the “Indians to Indians for Southwest Oklahoma” program. It was amazing to see as many as 40 performers and singers arrive and perform live in a space about 30 X 30 feet each Saturday. That’s where I first met artists like Doc Tate, Woogie, and Lincoln Tartsa.

One of the hosts, Louis Satoka, was also an artist. He and the other host, a gentleman named Adolphus Goombi, would be exchanging friendly jabs at each other and soon they’d start comparing tribal talents. Adolphus would make a statement about the Wichita tribe and Louis would jab back at Adolphus’ tribe (Caddo, as best recalled). Each would claim to have the highest number of champion dancers, best singers, and most talented artists.

They’d go on by saying, ‘our tribe has this artist, that dancer and etc., etc…’ A number of times I’d hear Jerome’s name pop up in the conversation. I never asked who he was. It never really seemed to matter at that time. One Saturday, as the group was filing in, they were discussing the upcoming Oklahoma State Fair. They said that they were expecting to try and do a live show from the fairgrounds, if it could all be arranged. Also, they’d need permission from the fair and Jerome Bushyhead. In trying to put it together, I had to make contacts in Oklahoma City. So, I asked, “Who is Jerome Bushyhead and how will I recognize him? They both looked at each other, kind of smiled and chuckled, then turned to me and said, “You’ll know him once you see him.”

The show from the state fair never developed any further than the talking stage. As Jerome might say, “Indian time took over, and it was not to be.” So, I missed that early opportunity to meet my brother. When we finally did meet, this six foot ten and a half inch massive giant, proved to be the most sincere, gentle person I had ever met.”

BOOK: A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians Written By Thomas Biolsi

an excerpt from the book: …. One might consider, for example, how the recording industry and broadcast radio have affected the process of adaptation and change. In southwestern Oklahoma, for instance, every Saturday morning, the radio station KRPT hosts a show entitled “Indians for Indians,” which often features Indian music of all kinds and styles. Kiowa and other native singers often use the medium to introduce the latest singing group, share new songs, or present alternate song renditions. Similarly, many American Indian communities have their own radio stations (such as Navajo Nation Radio KTNN) where negotiations about the adaptations and changes of music (in addition to a host of other issues) are played out on a daily basis….

http://books.google.com/books?id=ry_9ZWXgwyUC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=Indians+to+Indians+for+Southwest+Oklahoma+radio+show+KRPT&source=web&ots=9Ci9QaEwdX&sig=cETmTGBNcw58hHkVvL0mPcMiIV0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians - Google Books Result

A note from Cheryl: I’m not sure if this is the Adolphus Goombi that Roy spoke of, but thought it was worth noting:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~okcaddo/cemeteries/ftcobbak.txt

This information is offered FREE and taken from http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcaddo/ccpage.htm

================================================

Fort Cobb, Caddo County, Oklahoma

Canvassed by Jim & Pat Tustison 2003.

The Caddo County Genealogical Society has

digital pictures for this cemetery on file

ccgs73005@yahoo.com

=================================================

SURNAME, GIVEN NAME – BIRTH DATE – DEATH DATE

Goombi, Adolphus: 01 Apr 1910 – 04 Mar 1987

If you live in the hearts of those you leave behind, it’s as if you’ve never left at all . . .

Roy Ramirez, a long-time friend of Jerome Bushyhead’s recently contacted me. His message touched my heart. He shares the deep love I have for Jerome and so I asked him to share his stories of their days together. I hope this will be one of many to come for you to read and enjoy.

Here is Roy’s remembrances - in his own words:

.

.

Thank you again for sharing your story. Perhaps we will be blessed to hear another. Keep them coming! It brings Jerome a little closer to us, and I know he is enjoying us having a good laugh together as we remember the good times we shared with him! – And those who didn’t have the great honor of knowing him personally, can know him through us. We love and miss you, dear friend.

.

Jerome & Laura Bushyhead

.

This photo was taken at a week-long art show on the Seminole Reservation in Florida in the early 1990s. ‘The time spent on that trip with Jerome and Laura left me with many fond memories,’ Cheryl states. ”It was an amazing show! We had a blast together and the crowds were unbelievable! People literally lined up for blocks and blocks to get in! It was incredibly humid, scorching hot weather, but because of Jerome’s ‘clout’ we were put in the cool shade – they gave us the only hut on the rez, I think and treated us like royalty! But of course, Jerome WAS royalty!’ (I will try to find some more pictures from that show.)

Andrew Jackson

excerpt from: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Washington-Johnson/index.html

……Efforts to make removal treaties with the Indians began as soon as Jackson took office and continued throughout his presidency. Jackson himself occasionally participated in the negotiations. The administration focused on the southern tribes, beginning in September 1830 with the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek with the Choctaw, and proceeding with the Creek, Chickasaw, and, in 1835, the Cherokee. Less well known are the treaties made with the generally weaker tribes of the Old Northwest, such as the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi. Over the period of Jackson’s presidency, the United States ratified some seventy treaties, affecting approximately forty-six thousand Indians…..

http://www.prairienet.org/prairienations/ok.htm

Jim Fay, Ph.D.
9/13/07

Abstract: The etymology of “‘OK” based on the Choctaw “okeh” that was cited in dictionaries well into the twentieth century, and how that etymology came to be replaced by one formulated by Allen Read. Also notes and information about this document .

INTRODUCTION

Consider the expression “O.K” as it was used in the early to mid 1960’s.

Peter, Paul and Mary were singing, in the song “All Mixed Up”:

You know this language that we speak,
is part German, Latin and part Greek
Celtic and Arabic all in a heap,
well amended by the people in the street.
Choctaw gave us the word “okay”…

The song was written by Pete Seeger, who was at the center of the folk music scene as the composer of such songs as “This Land Is Your Land.” Seeger said he based his statement about “okay” on Choctaw traditions such as the one that Andrew Jackson heard the expression from the Choctaw during the Indian Wars before he passed it on to the rest of the world. (PETE) One apocryphal story has a Choctaw warrior using the expression to Andrew Jackson to express victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. In 1840 a “Jackson Breast Pin” was advertised celebrating “the hero of New Orleans and having upon it…the very frightful letters O.K.”Also at the center of this folk music scene was the Okeh record label, “okeh” being recognized as the older spelling for “an Indian word.” The first Okeh records had a Native American silhouette logo on the label.

The expression was still occasionally spelled “okeh” in popular usage at that time in America, and that was a preferred spelling in other parts of the world such as Germany and Russia. It is still a preferred spelling in those parts of the world.

Dictionary entries of the day routinely cited a Choctaw etymology based on resources going back to 1825, especially an 1870 Choctaw Grammar which treated the expression in some detail, saying the expression meant “it is so and in no other way” and was often used as an interjection to get the attention of the user. When spoken more quietly it expressed “thank you.”

The US Postal Service was introducing new changes including two-letter abbreviations for the states. Oklahoma was given the abbreviation ‘OK,’ which fit in very well with the myriad of Choctaw and other Muskogeon place names. For example, the village that had been “North Muskogee” until that name was changed to “Okay” in 1919 became officially designated as “Okay, OK”

Although the Choctaw etymology was widely accepted during the early 1960’s, other events were also happening at that time in the etymology of “OK.” Columbia professor and editor of the scholarly American Speech, Allen Walker Read, had been promoting for 20 years the importance his discovery of a couple of early uses of “OK” dealing with Martin Van Buren. He argued that the popular usage of “OK” was derived from an acronym for “Old Kinderhook,” which referred to Van Buren’s birthplace.

There were literally dozens of instances of “OK” in the published record before and after the instances discovered by Read. The 1830’s and 40’s was the time of an extremely popular fad in which normal expressions were given facetious or “sportive” spellings and acronyms such as “N.C.” for “’nuff ced” or “K.Y.” for “know yuse.” “OK” was the basis for an endless array of these facetious acronyms, and many linguists saw no reason why “Old Kinderhook” was any more important in the life of the expression than any of those other uses such as “Orful Katastrophe,” “Out of Kash” or — by far and away the most popular — “Oll Korrect,” which was often associated with Jackson.

Nevertheless, Read was very zealous in promoting the “Old Kinderhook” etymology, so zealous that the Dictionary of American English (DAE) editor in charge of the OK entry published a paper in American Speech pointing out that the “Old Kinderhook” was not the origin of the expression and arguing it was not even a very significant component of the etymology. He argued that the ‘Old Kinderhook’ etymology be abandoned.

That paper led Read to publish a series of six papers in the 1963 and 1964 issues of American Speech. The papers offered an encyclopedic account of the various uses of the “O.K.” expression by whatever spelling. But, more importantly, the papers also served notice about how Read was more than willing to use the pages of American Speech to treat anyone who did not wholeheartedly endorse his ‘Old Kinderhook’ etymology.

Four of those papers will be discussed here.

But before looking at those papers, we will take a look at a significant body of American literature that pre-dates by almost a decade and a half the uses of “O.K.” beginning in 1839 and cited by Read.

One final introductory note…in this discussion the expression will be rendered by whatever spelling was used by the original writer. In those instances when the expression is used in general, it will be spelled “OK” that implies no particular historical pedigree.

EARLY CHOCTAW LITERATURE

The expression pronounced “okay” and denoting affirmation — “it is so and not otherwise” — appears in Choctaw literature more than a decade before the acronym or pseudo-acronym “O.K.” appears in English literature. Linguists refer to it as a particle in that it does not modify any particular noun, verb or other modifier of the sentence in which it appears. It merely affirms or emphasizes the point being made.

The authorship of this early Choctaw literature is universally ascribed to two Presbyterian missionaries to the Choctaw, Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright. Although those names seldom if ever appear as authors on the title pages of the publications, they are almost invariably given in brackets as the authors in citations of those works. Wright was a full-blood Choctaw, and he and Byington sought to develop material to evangelize and educate the Choctaws on one hand and to train missionaries and teachers on the other.

These two men produced either independently or in collaboration a body of literature that included an 1825 reading and spelling book with translations apparently aimed primarily for non-Choctaws; an 1829 Chahta vba isht taloa holisso or, Choctaw hymn book; an 1831 translation of passages from the Book of Genesis, History of Joseph and his Brethren; an 1835 Triumphant deaths of pious children; an 1836 Chahta i kana or The Choctaw friend; an 1839 volume The Acts of the Apostles translated into the Choctaw language: Chisus Kilais, with the Choctaw subtitle “Im anumpeshi u’hliha u’mmona ku’t nana akaniohmi tok puta isht annoa, chaval anumpa isht atashoa hoke.”

These titles were followed by a host of similar works, many of them Bible translations, and all devoted specifically to evangelism and education. It might be noted that the titles of these early works is sometimes no more clear cut than the authorship of them. The title cited in a catalog might not be the title given on the title page at all, but rather a translation of the title or even merely a general description of the work.

The 1825 Choctaw spelling book consists of lists of spelling words and verb conjugations with English translations followed by translations of Bible passages. The particle”oke” or “hoke” is not included in these lists, but it is routinely used in the Bible verses translated at the end of that early book. After offering translations of The Lord’s Prayer and The Ten Commandments, the book offers a translation of The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus beginning with Luke 16:19, and it ends that verse with an expression ending in “-oke” to affirm or emphasize the point being made. That passage is about the rich man who lived in luxury every day, and the translation ends the first verse with something akin to “…the rich man lived in luxury every day, yes he did.” The “-oke” notation is used to end about half of the remaining verses translated in that early book, often with the “tok” particle to emphasize “in the past.”

The Choctaw use of the affirmative particle is virtually identical to one of the very common ways the expression “OK” is used in English. Take, for example, that quintessential use of “OK” in the sentence, “We arrived OK.” Perhaps that “OK” may not modify either “we” or “arrived.” In other words, it does not necessarily reflect on either the condition we were in when we arrived or how satisfactory our arriving was, but merely emphasizes the point that we arrived. This is especially the case in some situation in which our arrival is called into question. And so, for example, the comment “Someone said you never arrived” might well be met with “Oh, we arrived OK.” Indeed, we would probably see no contradiction at all in the declaration “Oh, we arrived OK, but we were too late” or “Oh, we arrived OK, but we were all sunburned, and Jack had a sprained ankle.”

The expression “OK” is not used is used to modify either “we” or “arrived.” It is rather used to affirm and emphasize the point being made. The statement says, in effect, “We arrived, we did” or “We arrived; it is so and not otherwise.”

At any rate, subsequent Choctaw spelling books and readers de-emphasized the spellings lists in favor of straight prose, and they made use of the particle. but they too never included it in the word lists or discussed it directly. The presumption was that the use of particle “oke” or “hoke” was so common and self-evident as to preclude any need for explanation or discussion for either its Choctaw or non-Choctaw readership.

The first spelling book in 1825 made rather fine distinctions regarding pronunciation, offering for example three separate ways of pronouncing the vowel “e” ­ as a short “e,” as a long “a,” and as the “eh” sound. Later works adopted the much simpler pronunciations. The pronunciation guide (on page three of most editions of the speller) states simply that “o” is to be pronounced as the “o” in “note,” and “e” is to be pronounced as the “a” in “made.” It must be remembered that Byington and Wright had little or no interest in “expanding the envelope” of linguistic studies. They were concerned only with the most expeditious means of teaching and converting Choctaws and training teachers and missionaries, and the simpler orthographies fulfilled that requirement very admirably.

In the 1825 book most of the vowels had some diacritical mark attached to them. In subsequent works, such complications are almost, if not entirely, absent. A fluent speaker of Choctaw may observe some subtle nuances between the sound of “eh” and a short e, for example, but such subtleties were not essential for the purposes of the missionaries.

Using this straightforward and unambiguous orthography, the verb “oke” or “hoke” is pronounced “okay,” or “hokay.” Moreover, since expression comes at the end of sentence or is used as an interjection in the Choctaw language, the expression is easy for even a non-speaker of Choctaw to spot on paper, to hear in spoken Choctaw and to learn to use after some fashion or other.

The spelling book went through three editions before 1840 and eight editions before the end of the century. Editions after the first edition were usually referred to as Chahta holisso Ai isht ia vmmona or in English as A Spelling book written in the Chahta language or simply as Chahta holisso, that is, “The Choctaw Book.”

After the death of Wright in 1853 and Byington in 1868, others published the material those individuals had developed but not published because it was not directly concerned with evangelism or education. This situation gave rise to the curious phenomenon in which those missionaries were listed as authors of new works from more than a century beyond the grave. They are the authors, for example, of Nitak moma ilhpak pin or Our Daily Bread published by the American Bible Society in 1978.

The Dictionary is a good example of the timeless nature of the material. In 1915 the highly respected Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian published A dictionary of the Choctaw language with Byington as the principle author. That Dictionary has been repackaged and reprinted countless times since, for example by Oklahoma City Council of Choctaws, Inc., in 1972; by the Scholarly Press in 1976; by the Central Choctaw Council, in 1978; by the Title VII ESEA funded Bilingual Education Program located in McCurtain County, Idabel, Oklahoma in 1985; by Native American Book Publishers, in 1990; by the Global Bible Society in 1995; and by others. It was microfilmed by the Microfilming Corporation of America in 1974 and by the Law Library Microform Consortium in 1990.

The earlier works published by Byington and Wright themselves also continued to be republished to this day, but, because of their more limited application, not to the extent of works such as the Dictionary. The 1829 hymn book, for example, was reprinted by the John Knox Press in 1964; by the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1988; and by the Native American Bible Academy in 1997.

The publication of Byington’s Choctaw Grammar is a particularly interesting story. The widely respected linguist and ethnologist Daniel Brinton published a fuller version of the kind of material that had gone into the very first 1825 spelling book but then abandoned to streamline the evangelism and education efforts. Byington had finished the first draft of a Choctaw grammar in 1834, and was asked to submit the work to the Smithsonian in 1852, which he did It was well received, but the final revision seems to have been lost. Brinton published it in 1879, and made a presentation on it to the American Philosophical Society in February of the same year. The Grammar was subsequently published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1915 and on other occasions.

The second reason the Grammar is of interest is that it first treats at some length an important aspect of the nature of Choctaw conversation and oratory that was only infrequent and incidental in the formal literary exposition of the previous publications, and that is the heavy and effective use of interjection. Both the historical record and contemporary evidence demonstrates that Choctaw speakers delight in rhetorical flourishes such as interjections and rhetorical questions to invite a response from the listener. ( Badger, 6-7 )

It should be remembered that the works published by Wright and Byington were almost exclusively spelling and grammar books and translations of the Bible, not conversation. Moreover, the literary style adopted by the missionaries in biblical translation was quite different from vernacular, conversational Mississippi Choctaw. ( Badger, 16, note ) Consequently, these early books do not necessarily offer good examples of vernacular, conversational Choctaw. One of the early Choctaw works that was an exception to this was the 1835 book Triumphant Deaths of Pious Children, which contains a good bit of conversation, and these passages of dialogue include interjections and rhetorical questions to involve the listener in the dialogue.

The Grammar took some pains to treat these various rhetorical devices in more detail than previous works had done. The syntax of most interest to English users of “okay” is the “affirmative contradistinctive” and the “objective interjection.” As noted earlier, that syntax meant almost exactly what “okay” means today, “it is so and not otherwise.” ( Byington, 14-15, 55 )

Byington distinguished between “okeh” and “okah”:

Okeh was also used as the objective interjection:

This is also virtually identical to the way the expression is used in English. How many meetings or classes have begun with “OK, let’s get started…”? One textbook on public speaking offers the admonition not to begin the speech with “OK…”

Moreover, “OK” is routinely used in English as a particle to affirm or emphasize the point being made, often in a rhetorical question. For example:

“Can we get started?”

“OK.”

In this case the “OK” is not so much a yes/no answer as it is an affirmation of the point being made in the rhetorical question.

Linguists and ethnologists have noted the similarity in the use of the expression in Choctaw and English, but since Read published his series of papers, this point is given the most hesitant treatment. One treats it in an “amusing” footnote:

The book by Thomas Pyles mentioned in this note discusses Native languages in particular for some eight pages and is elsewhere sprinkled with references to Native and frontier contributions to American vernacular speech. Chapter Seven, “Later American Speech: Coinages and Adaptations,” which discussed the expression “okeh” begins with these words:

The book accepted the “Old Kinderhook” etymology but also included a small but straightforward mention of the Choctaw etymology of “OK.” Moreover, Pyles said that Read built up a convincing case for “Old Kinderhook” but admitted the possibility and discussed the implications of it just being “a newspaper writer’s fabrication of an etymology after the fact.” (162)

It might be noted, however, that in a 1982 work published after Read’s series of papers Pyles showed no such ambivalence. He not only ridiculed evidence of pre-Kinderhook or non-Anglo-Saxon uses of the expression, including his own 1952 work, but disparaged that evidence as the romantic product of “the ingenuity of amateur etymologists.” (274) While the 1952 work treated Indian languages (in eight pages) as a significant source of loan words into American English, in 1982 he peremptorily dismissed Indian languages in a single paragraph within a five-paragraph section on “Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, and American Indian” which he says are “[v]ery minor sources of the English vocabulary.” (309) On the second to the last page of the 1982 book, Pyles reiterated that Indian languages do not have significant usage in American English and what usage there is occurs mainly in literature, such as in the works of James Fenimore Cooper. (310)

The central place of Choctaw as the lingua franca of the frontiersman as suggested in Pyles’ 1952 book is supported by a World Cat survey of the publications during this time by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which produced the Byington and Wright books. Such a survey indicates that the Native cultures that received the most attention were the Choctaw and related Muskogean people. Cherokees received the second most attention.

Moreover, Choctaw phrases using some form or spelling of “okeh” were precisely those phrases that would be familiar even to people with no particular interest in the language culture. One such phrase, “Yak oke,” was and is a good example. “Yak oke,” by various spellings, means “Thank you,” but may also be used to express joy when spoken quickly or regret when spoken slowly. (Byington, Grammar, 369) Moreover, about the first two expressions one learns about any language are those for “yes” and “thank you.” Just as people today who profess no knowledge of or interest in Spanish still know the words “sí” and “gracias,” or people who profess no knowledge of or interest in French know the meaning of “oui” and “merci,” so it was that people of the 1800’s who were interested in the frontier undoubtedly knew of “oke” and “Yak oke.” The fact that they seldom, if ever, wrote the expressions or used it in formal discourse does not mean they did not use them.Choctaw expressions based on some form of “oke” are precisely those expressions learned by those people with even the most fleeting contact with the language and culture. Even today, in web pages that do not by any means deal with the Choctaw language, if those pages do include a phrase or two of Choctaw, those phrases will almost invariably be based on some form of “oke.” The phrase “yakoke” or “yak oke” used in its “Thank you” sense is a popular feature of these pages. Some rendering of “oke” is often used to proclaim “I am Chahta (Choctaw).” or “We are Chahta.”

In short, anyone with even a passing interest in Choctaw culture has occasion to be familiar with “oke.” That may account for why the word was used constantly in the very early Choctaw spelling and reading books, but never treated formally in the word or expression lists or conjugations.

Modern reader may not appreciate the how widespread the use of the “okeh” spelling once was in vernacular American speech, a use documented in the mention of “okeh” someplace in entries for “O.K.” or “okay” in modern dictionaries, often with the notation the spelling is obsolete.

Woodrow Wilson, who was a highly respected historian and author of, among other works, the five volume A History of the American People before he became President, was something of a campaigner for “okeh,” and always used that Choctaw spelling to emphasize its Native origins. He did not use the spelling “O.K.,” he said “Because it is wrong.” - Wilson, 145

The Arrow shirt company marketed an Okeh collar for a while with the slogan “all that its name implies.” The advertisers felt no need to explain to the public what it was the name implied. (The author is indebted to Elina Smith of Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc., New York, who included photocopies of three “Okeh” shirt collar ads in an April 29, 2002 letter.)

“Okeh” continues to be the favored spelling for the expression in some other languages, notably German and Russian. It may not be included in their dictionaries, but the “okeh” is alive and well in vernacular usage, as demonstrated by web searches of those languages. A Russian language search for “okeh” done by a competent Russian language researcher on a computer configured to the Cyrillic alphabet yields primarily, as any web search for “okeh” does, a mass of information about records by “Okeh” artists. But included in those listings is Russian vernacular use of “okeh,” most notably as the names of the businesses that have flowered in the new-found freedom of recent years, names that indicate the New World aspirations on which those businesses are based in import/export, computers, market research, consulting and so forth.

Before leaving the discussion of the substantial body of material by Byington and Wright, perhaps a couple of points are in order. First, this body of work has been taken very seriously for some 175 years and is taken seriously today by a variety of scholarly and religious institutions. A review of the three editions of the spelling book published before 1840 or the array of the institutions reprinting the Dictionary, for example, should dispel any notion that this material can be dismissed as silly or trivial buffoonery or as some kind of Tonto-esque “pop culture” gag.

The second point is an ironic counterpoint to the first. Nothing in this body of material should be taken as an effort on the part of Byington, Wright or Brinton to engender an appreciation for the Choctaw language or culture. Quite the contrary, the work of those individuals was devoted to, as Brinton put it in his introduction to Byington’s Grammar, “redeeming the [Choctaw] nation from drunkenness, ignorance and immorality to sobriety, godliness, and civilization.” (4) The whole body of evidence is predicated on the assumed superiority of civilized culture over uncivilized culture and on efforts to eradicate one culture in favor of the other.

Byington, Wright and Brinton would be appalled at the notion that their work might, some 150 years later, lead to some increased appreciation of traditional, uncivilized Choctaw culture, or that the work might play any part in expressions from the language of “ignorance and immorality” finding their way into the language of “godliness and civilization.”

READ’S “FOLKLORE” PAPER

One of Read’s papers was entitled “The Folklore of ‘O.K.’” but was a review of what most historians and the general public would be more apt to call history than folklore. In that paper he says that “[o]f all the folklorist stories about the origin of O.K., the cleverest and most seductive” is that it is derived from the Choctaw okeh. (14)

This etymology was the one given by dictionaries well into the twentieth century. Read cites in part a couple of these dictionaries. One was the New Century Dictionary:

Another was Webster: “Prob. fr. Choctaw okeh it is so and not otherwise,” which was retained until 1961. (17, note)

However, Read excludes from his quote a rather crucial aspect of this Choctaw usage documented by Byington and included in the New Century dictionary entry, and that is the “interjectional” nature of the expression when “used to excite the attention of the party addressed.”Another nineteenth century Choctaw grammar, Allen Wright’s Chakta Leksikon, spelled the expression “okah,” “hokah,” or “yokah” and translated it as “it is, usually used in reply to a question with emphasis” – “Folklore,” 15

Read did not mention that Funk and Wagnals included the term “okeh” as a separate entry from “OK” in their 1941 edition and quoted the Byington grammar. Moreover, although some of the works by Byington or Wright had been reprinted repeatedly by respected scholarly, cultural and religious institutions for over a century, Read did not treat any of them in the text but merely mentioned them as a digression in a footnote about another work.

Read surveys several of the “backwoods” associations with the expression.

John Jacob Astor became the nation’s first millionaire by trading with the Indians for furs. In large part this trading was done throughout the section of the country in which Choctaw, or some derivative of it, was the lingua franca noted in the quotation above. One dictionary of colloquialism says that Astor used “OK” to approve of business transactions with other traders. Read says that it is “altogether probable ” that Astor used “OK” from 1839 until his death in 1848. (”Folklore,” 13) Read’s pinpointing the date as 1839 most assuredly is based on his own assumptions about the etymology of the expression. The chronology of history presents an alternate view. If the evidence offered by Read is correct and Astor used “OK” in reference to other traders, it must surely have been before 1834, when he retired from his activities in dealing with those traders. - Haeger , 243

Read reviews the first of the numerous accounts he discusses in his papers associating Andrew Jackson with “OK,” accounts that were set down on paper some time after the incident described. William H. Murray, whom Read repeatedly refers to as “Alfalfa Bill” instead of by his given name, was a student of Choctaw history, president of the Constitutional Convention instrumental in creating the state of Oklahoma and subsequently governor of that state. Murray offers an account of the Choctaw warrior Pushmataha using the phrase “si Hoka” very much in the unique way that “Okay!” is used today, and Jackson becoming enthralled with the emphatic expression. – “Folklore,” 15-16

In later papers Read presents several pieces of evidence (which he discounts out of hand) associating Jackson and William Henry Harrison ­ both of whom launched their careers on the frontier ­ with the expression “OK.”

Another piece of evidence Read dismisses out of hand is the work of W.S. Wyman, who he calls a highly praised “excellent scholar” and accomplished user of Choctaw.

Wyman offers a very earnest presentation of the evidence that Jackson learned “okeh” or “Hoka” from the Choctaw. He begins with “There is a tradition among the intelligent Choctaws of the old stock who once lived in Mississippi,” and ends with a ben trovata comment to the affect that, although the tradition is very enlightening and very consistent with history, the reader is not obligated to accept that tradition. Read interprets this modest phraseology to mean that Wyman fabricated these accounts. (”Folklore,” 15) When a scholar is accused of fabricating fraudulent historical evidence one would usually expect the accusation to be supported by some historical evidence that warrants the accusation. Read offers none, other than his suspicion, but treats his suspicions as established fact.

Admittedly, much of this evidence has all the earmarks of apocryphal anecdote. For example, until some historical documentation comes to light to support it, any scenario in which “okay” first passed into American English when Pushmataha used it to Andrew Jackson to indicate victory at the Battle of New Orleans is a little too pat and a little too neat not to arouse some skepticism. As a matter of fact, a look at the logistical setting of the story suggests that it probably would not have been Pushmataha who said to Jackson that the battle was going “okay.” ( Ward )

Nevertheless, reservations about individual anecdotes should not cause the entire body of evidence to be dismissed as “anecdotal” other than in the sense that all history is anecdotal. The point is that the well documented and widespread tendency to associate “OK” with the frontier is not based on the details of one particular anecdote. Quite the contrary, the apocryphal, almost mythical quality of these anecdotes in itself speaks volumes about how deeply rooted the term was in the frontier and in Native American (and native American) culture. The wide popularity of the expression had little to do with the specific details of any anecdote.

The central importance of Choctaw language as the lingua franca of the frontier at the time when the frontier was playing a large part in the molding of psyche Americana has already been noted. Moreover, as also earlier noted, the Choctaw expressions based on some form or spelling of “okeh” are precisely those expressions well known to people with even the most fleeting contact with or interest in the language or culture of the frontier.

Any discussion of whether Jackson could possibly know of these Choctaw expressions misses the point entirely. If anything, the question should be whether it is at all possible that Jackson could not have known of these expressions mentioned in the various anecdotes, and the answer to that is “no.” It is virtually inconceivable that Jackson could deal with Choctaws for years, adopt a Choctaw boy and yet remain unaware of these expressions, any more than one could deal with Mexicans for years and remain unaware of the expressions “sí” or “Gracias.”

Read’s treatment of the Choctaw “okeh” is a good example of the rhetorical technique known as “inoculation” in which evidence or arguments are acknowledged merely in order to give them a derisive dismissal. The attempt is to “inoculate” the audience against this evidence by creating an unwarranted antipathy to it that is difficult to overcome with reasoned argument. Indeed, the whole point of inoculation is to forestall thoughtful reasoned treatment of the evidence.

And so, for example, Read does not offer reasoned refutation of Murray’s account of Pushmataha and Jackson, although such refutation is possible. Quite the contrary, Read does not do anything to invite a reasoned evaluation of the evidence. He merely establishes that Murray was known as “Alfalfa Bill” in hopes the audience will always associate that evidence with bucolic buffoonery and dismiss it out of hand. By the same token, Read does not take issue with Wyman’s credentials, nor does he try to refute Wyman’s accounts of the Choctaw traditions surrounding Jackson and “OK.” He tries to establish the feeling instead that sophisticated readers understand that Wyman’s ben trovata comment indicates he was merely indulging in a little tongue-in-cheek academic gag.

Read concludes his discussion of the Choctaw etymology with the statement that the evidence he has surveyed is the product of emotional Indian lovers and that “the weight of the evidence is conclusively against” the Choctaw etymology. (17) This is a startling conclusion indeed, since he has presented no evidence to refute, conclusively or not, the evidence for “okeh.” Even if one totally accepts Read’s objections – Murray was a buffoon; the term was promoted by Indian lovers; Wyman was a practical jokester, the Pushmataha-at-New-Orleans anecdote is too good to be true – none of these factors invalidate the Choctaw etymology. Indeed, they are all part and parcel of that etymology. They all speak for its widespread popularity and usage of the expression in vernacular speech. Misunderstanding, embellishment, fraud and chicanery are often crucial factors in the origin, meaning, usage and popularity of words, especially vernacular colloquialisms such as “okay.” Indeed, the etymology that Read champions later in these papers is one that he deems particularly valid because it was “engineered” through a clandestine conspiracy.

The only evidence Read presented in the “Folklore” paper documented the depth and breadth and scope of the popularity of the Choctaw etymology which achieved the near-mythic status in folklore. Read spends considerable effort in these papers documenting on one hand the popular, widespread association of “OK” with Jackson and then arguing on the other hand against the relevance of that evidence in explaining the popularity of the expression. Indeed, he probably spends more time in the papers discussed here arguing that point than on any other single topic.

It seems that with this paper Read established a fundamental principle on which on which the discussion of “OK” or “okay” would be based, and that inviolable principle was that uncultured, non-Anglo-Saxon, “popular” material had no place in the discussion. According to Read, what may appear to be sound historical evidence is really nothing more than vindication of his premise that the material is really the “cleverest and most seductive” of all of the the bogus etymologies.

READ’S “FIRST STAGE” PAPER

In another paper, “The First Stage in the History of ‘O.K.’” Read offered early instances of “O.K.” appearing in newspapers beginning with a March 23, 1839 issue of a Boston paper. He offers a lengthy explanation and examples of a fad that emerged in Boston about 1838-9 which delighted in “sportive” use of language, spelling and abbreviations such as “N.C.” for “’nuff ced” or “K.Y.” for “know yuse.” This fad was documented by numerous examples of “O.K.,” “sportive” and otherwise, collected by Albert Matthews of that city.

He also described how the speech of the frontier, in particular the “transmontain” region between the Allegheny and Rocky Mountains, was in vogue at the time and was the source of many linguistic innovations. He offers several examples of this as raw material for “sportive” use of the language.

The dozen early instances of the use of “OK” cited in the paper are colloquialisms expressing affirmation. In five of the twelve instances, the expression is not glossed. The reader is assumed to be already familiar with the term and its meaning. In the remaining instances, the expression is glossed as “all correct,” although in some instances “all correct” does not seem to be a particularly good fit semantically or syntactically. In all instances the term is used in an informal, uncultured context. Indeed, in one instance an apology was later made for using the term at all. In none of the dozen quotes offered by Read is the expression used as an abbreviation for anything.

Read closes the paper with this startling summation:

This conclusion is startling because, except for one instance in which he speaks about the use of humor in “the emergence of ‘oll korrect,’” that term does not appear any place in the paper until this summary. He offers extensive documentation of other sportive abbreviations (over 125 citations), as well as extensive background and interpretation on how one should expect to see “O.K.” glossed. He offers examples of “O.W.” glossed as “all right” beginning some nine months before the first occurrence of “O.K.” He offers an instance of “a.r.” glossed as “all right” before the first occurrence of “O.K.” But he offers not one instance of the appearance of “oll korrect” in the public record during this time.

This includes every instance in which the style of writing might conceivably be considered “sportive.” This includes instances in which the writer spells “Boston” as “Bosting” or uses N.S.M.J. for “‘nough said ‘moung gentlemen” or uses the phrase “Vell, vot ov it!” but still glosses “O.K.” as “all correct.” That seems to be fairly persuasive evidence that the “sportive” expression “oll korrect” has not yet been coined. Moreover, most of the instances of “O.K.” cited by Read occurred in settings which did not by any stretch of the imagination use “sportive” phraseology or spelling.Regardless of the conclusion with which he ends this paper, the evidence he presents argues very exhaustively and unambiguously that “OK” was widely used at this time as a popular colloquialism expressing affirmation but not as an abbreviation for “Oll Korrect.”

READ’S “SECOND STAGE” PAPER

In his next paper “The Second Stage in the History of ‘O.K.,’” Read continually refers to the general usage or general circulation of “OK” as “Oll Korrect,” but he is able to offer only two examples of clear cut instances of this “general usage.” He offers several citations of a story that Jackson used “OK” for “Ole Korrect” or “Oll Korrect” and notes that this material was very popular and widely circulated. However, he maintains the policy he established in the “First Stage” paper of dismissing as irrelevant any evidence that associated Jackson with “OK.” He also dismisses evidence associating William Henry Harrison with “Oll Korrect,” saying it is a case of “simply a transference from one false story to another.” -”Second Stage,” 89-91

He offers two examples of “OK” being glossed as “Oll Korrect” in jest as part of a list of similar outrageous inventions (”Second Stage,” 97, 99) But out of the some 80 uses of “OK” he cites in the paper, excluding those he “disposes of” because they associate “OK” with Andrew Jackson or the frontier, Read is able to find only two instances in which “OK” is employed in general usage or general circulation as “Oll Korrect.” Neither originated in either Boston, where Read claims the phrase was created and promoted, or New York. Both are from Ohio (which was not far removed from “frontier” at the time.). One occurred in April of 1840, and the other in September of the same year, well after the stories associating it with Jackson had become popular.

The evidence he presents in the “Second Stage” paper documents extremely persuasively that “OK” was very widely used during this time as a colloquial expression of affirmation, but it was not employed in general usage as an abbreviation for “oll korrect” (except in connection with Jackson) any more than it was in dozens of other ways.

The “Second Stage” paper, however, is not primarily about the “Oll Korrect” etymology, but rather about the “Old Kinderhook” etymology. This use of “OK” was first noted by Read in the March 23, 1840 issue of The New York New Era, a paper affiliated with the democratic political party. The paper carried a notice regarding a meeting of the a group of Tammany Society “O.K. Boys.”

Read might give the impression the Tammany groups were merely a New York political group named after a building, Tammany Hall – also popularly known as the Great Wigwam – but that is not the case. The Tammany groups or social clubs as well as the buildings were named after the individual described as “the greatest and best chief known to Delaware tribal tradition.” (Mooney, “Tammany,” 683) There were Tammany Societies up and down the young country, and they had been instrumental in the formation, development and survival of that republic. Tammany is sometimes referred to as the patron saint of America. (See the chapter “America’s Patron Saint” in Jack Weatherford’s Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America.)

Because the Tammany Society is so central to Read’s “old Kinderhook” etymology, the subject warrants some discussion:

In 1812 a branch of the Tammany Society was formed at Hamilton, Ohio. They called their meeting place “Wigwam No 9,” and met to listen to “long talks.” (”Tammany Society”) Details of Choctaw culture were very popular and well known at that time and “long talks” or “great talks” were common popular translations for Indian (Choctaw and others) expressions for a speech. The Tammany faithful delighted in using what they perceived as Indian expressions whenever possible as the quote above suggests and as this newspaper notice illustrates:

Read might also give the impression that the Tammanies were sophisticated and effective molders of public. This perception is greatly at odds with the more widespread perception among the civilized, cultured elements of society that the Tammanies were little more than mobs of uncouth hell-raisers. This was certainly the perception about the Ohio group:

The New York Tammanies of 1839-40 were not very different, nor were they perceived as very different, from the Ohio Tammanies of 1812. The microfilm copies of The New York New Era from July 19 to the end of that year offer about the only accessible record of the day-to-day offerings of that New York City democratic publication at the time preceding the “OK boys” notice in March of ‘40. (New York Democratic-Republican New Era)

Some things are evident from this six month long “snapshot” of the Tammanies. The most obvious thing is that they were not serious, sophisticated users of the press, nor were they sophisticated social or political activists. Their interest instead seemed to be limited to taking every opportunity to use what they perceived to be Indian expressions and performing what they perceived to be Indian rituals and practices. While the six months of the New Era on microfilm documents in great detail the meetings, agendas, motions, debates and so forth of other democratic groups around the city, there was nothing like this concerning the Tammanies, with a couple of minor exceptions. Press reports about the Tammanies were almost entirely limited to notices about meetings nearly identical to the ones in the Ohio papers decades before, notices that delighted in using what the Tammanies perceived to be Indian expressions. Here’s an example.

Many, perhaps most, of these notices included a note similar to the one in this notice that the upcoming meeting would feature some ritual associated with the election or installation of sachems. If there was much purpose to the Tammany meetings as anything more than an occasion to delight in Indian speech and practices, it is not apparent in the Tammany papers of the time.

A parade organized by the democratic “Butt Enders” in November of 1839 is also insightful. The democratic New Era noted that it included a contingent of Bucktails Boys mounted on white horses and featured a large painting of an Indian purporting to be “Old Tammany.” The Bucktails were so named because instead of wearing the usual items of Indian regalia favored by Tammanies, they wore buck tails on their hats instead plumes, to commemorate the totem of Chief Tammany, the deer.

The New Era devoted a column to the parade. The rival Whig paper The New York Herald, on the other hand, devoted a column and a large engraving to the event in the next issue and another column and large engraving a few days later. The article describes how the Tammanies had traditionally been identified by Indian names such as Mohawk (as the Mohawks who performed the Boston Tea Party, for example), or as the Bucktails until the summer of 1830 when the efforts of various factions to assume power within the Bucktails or Tammanies began engendering a myriad of splinter groups with rough-and-tumble, but not necessarily Indian, names. (”Humors“)

These Tammany groups were not only very uncouth, they were also very successful. It was the success of this popular, rowdy, frontier approach to politics that had decided previous elections, and the Harrison partisans decided to exploit (or manufacture) a frontier, rough-and-tumble image for their candidate.

As a result, Harrison became popularly known as Tippecanoe, after the famous Indian War battle. So popular was this Indian-derived designation that Harrison’s most popular slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” used it in place of his name. Supporters of Harrison began developing Tippecanoe clubs in response to the success of the Tammany groups, and Read documents that the Tippecanoes sometimes referred to their activities as “pow-wows” (”Second Stage,” 95) just as the Tammanies sometimes did theirs (90).

In general, the Whig efforts to sell a rough-and-tumble, log-cabin-and-hard-cider image of Harrison were definitely less successful than the various rough-and-tumble images with which the Tammanies sold their democratic candidates. The Tammanies often characterized Harrison as the “granny” general, or “petticoat” general, and these jabs seem be well received by the public. Sometimes the imagery of the conflict between the Tammanies and the Tippecanoes was fairly explicit, as in this description of the Tammanies by the pro-Harrison New York Morning Herald .

Perhaps a moment should be taken to note the general tone of the piece. It is a free-and-easy, tongue-in-cheek swipe at the Tammanies. It is not intended to be taken too seriously or too literally. As an example of the tone of the campaign, it is very enlightening. As an example of journalism, it is not outstanding, to say the least. And it is not, nor does it have any pretensions of being, an example of sound historiography. To suggest that a sentence or a couple of words can be taken from this story to serve as the factual basis of some cultural phenomenon is highly problematical at best.

The 1840 newspaper notice about the some of the Tammanies meeting as the “OK Boys” was documenting a rather ordinary phenomenon as these groups constantly evolved and reorganized. In this case, a group of Tammany Bucktails or Tammany Old Butt-Enders began calling themselves the OK Boys.

One newspaper account stated that The O.K. Club was “said to number 1,000 bravos…”. – Second Stage, p. 89 Bravos was the shortened version of the more common “Indios Bravos,” or “Wild Indians.” “Bravos” was often used by itself in English to mean “savage.” Other accounts more or less characterized the O.K. Boys as the standard bearers of the Tammanies. – Second Stage, 94; Second Stage 95

The vulgar, improper nature of these groups was expressed in their catchwords or war cries, and this particularly applied to “OK.” It was widely noted that there was something special and inexplicable about this use of “OK” from its very earliest days.

Indeed, four days after the initial newspaper notice by the OK boys another notice appeared in the same paper with the headline, “Meeting To Night,” followed by the large letters “O.K.” That notice the expression “O.K.” proved to be a thinly veiled suggestion to the OK Boys to break up a meeting by the political rival party, the Whigs. The papers the next day commented how central the expression “O.K.” was to the ensuing melee:

Another paper described “shouting the watchword of the New Era, ‘OK.’” Another paper called “O.K” the “war cry” (italics in the original). (85)

In the coming months “OK” was described as cabalistic on many occasions. The term “cabalistic” was used in a virtual sense in that the expression seemed to have an inexplicably popular and inexplicably expressive dimension to it.Read also described the term as cabalistic, but argued that it was cabalistic in the literal sense of deriving some special significance through secret ritual, secret password or secret society. He argues passionately for a theory that the publisher of the New Era organized and engineered a clandestine conspiracy to promote a special, secret use of the expression “O.K.”

Read put forth this theory because some months after its initial story about the OK Boys, the New Era carried the ad for the “O.K.” lapel pin mentioned earlier commemorating the “hero of New Orleans,” Andrew Jackson. The notice described “the very frightful letters O.K., significant of the birthplace of Martin Van Buren, old Kinderhook, as also the rallying word of the Democracy of the late election, ‘all correct.’” The story went on to note that the pin could be purchased at Mr. P. L. Fierty’s, 486 Pearl Street, and ended with an optimistic hurrah that the upcoming elections would turn out “O.K.” – “Second Stage,” 86

On the face of it, this notice seems to be a rather unremarkable advertisement in a very unremarkable publication. Catalogs such as the OCLC Union List of serials often include the description that the New Era was “largely advertisements,” and that is very true. It was only published for about four years and never rose much above the level of a modern day “shopper” except that it contained daily long harangues against the formation of a national bank and promoting New York democratic politics. It was usually entirely ads except for the second page which contained the political material. One could hardly find, in the New Era, a less likely instrument of social engineering, just as one could hardly find, in the Tammanies, a group more devoid of aspirations or abilities to advance social or cultural innovations.

The “hero of New Orleans” commemorative pen was typical of the standard New Era advertisement that starts out as a humorous anecdote or human interest story and then ends up in the last sentence or two noting where the object of the story – the patent medicine or corset stays – could be purchased. It was a common practice of the day to try to disguise ads as legitimate news articles. An ad for “rheumatism plasters” that was run dozens of times in the New Era was given a “New Era” byline in an effort to make it look like a news story. Likewise, an ad for a hat store was given a “twist” to try to make it look like a democratic political notice. There is no reason to believe the OK lapel pin ad is anything other than another one of these ads.

Read perceives the notice differently. He argues in this “Second Stage” paper and then more passionately in his last paper of the series that this notice was “an important breakthrough” in the use of “OK.” He theorizes that the editor of the New Era, after months of secretly engineering the popularity of the expression “OK” through secret meetings as a cabalistic abbreviation for “Old Kinderhook” finally, in the “hero of New Orleans” lapel pin notice, announced to the public the secret, heretofore inexplicable, cabalistic meaning of the expression.

Others have not always share Read’s interpretation of the notice. The notice does not materially seem to be particularly about “Old Kinderhook.” On the contrary, it is hard to imagine a more explicit argument that in 1840 the expression “OK” was popularly associated with Jackson and the Choctaws at the Battle of New Orleans. At least the writer of the ad saw no need to explain the connection. Both “Old Kinderhook” and “all correct” seem rather to be afterthoughts to exploit the sportive acronym fad.

Andrew Jackson and New Orleans were an extremely important part of popular culture at the time. Entertainment offerings of the day included a speech at the New York Lyceum recalling the Battle of New Orleans and the exploits of “the old Hero” of that battle. (”New York Lyceum“) A fundraiser for the Tammany Temple was a ball commemorating Battle of New Orleans. (”EIGHTH WARD TAMMANY TEMPLE ASSOCIATION“) One New York establishment advertised in the New York Herald was the New Orleans Literary Depot. (”NEW ORLEANS LITERARY DEPOT“)

Moreover, the lapel pin notice did not at the time constitute an important breakthrough in the use of “OK.” “OK” for “Old Kinderhook” was not used at all before the lapel pin notice and, according to Read’s own evidence, it was not widely used after that notice. Read cites only one instance in November of 1840 of the use of “OK” used as “Old Kinderhook.” – 98

Read’s evidence, or lack of it, is compatible with that of other historians in that Van Buren’s birthplace, Kinderhook, is sometimes associated with the man in political and campaign usage, but he was not by any means known as “Old Kinderhook” in general usage. Read elsewhere expresses consternation that a “sound historian” knowledgeable of the events surrounding “Old Kinderhook” should be “so remarkably vague” to the Library of Congress about the etymology of “OK.” In fact, this historian’s explanation of the rise of “OK” was not vague at all; it just didn’t include in any way “Old Kinderhook” but rather associated the expression with Andrew Jackson. – “Folklore,” 13

Even the one example Read cites of general usage of the name “Old Kinderhook” may have been more tongue-in-cheek than an example of “general usage.” This usage occurs in a notice about a rally for Van Buren and another Tammany candidate, Richard Mentor Johnson. “O.K.” and “Old Kinderhook” references to Van Buren were used to maintain parallelism with the use of “O.K.” and “Old Kentuck” to refer to Johnson. “Old Kentuck” was in wide circulation at the time, as documented by Read. (”Second Stage,” 86) But it was the nickname for an important national Whig leader of the day, Henry Clay. For the Democrats to suggest that the popular nickname “Old Kentuck” referred to the Democratic Johnson was a gag to take a slap at Clay and the Whigs.

Referring to Richard M. Johnson as “The Hero of the Thames” was also a slap at Harrison who usually accorded that distinction, and was celebrated in that way in a song “The Hero of the Thames” promoted for months in the New York Morning Herald. In fact, the description “Hero of the Thames” fit Johnson at least as much as Harrison in that it was Johnson and his troops who engaged in the crucial battle on the field. Indeed, according to the widely circulated anecdote, Johnson was the individual who killed Tecumseh after being wounded by the Shawnee chief. Harrison, on the other hand, was the butt of Tammany efforts to ridicule the extent of his heroism in battle and, indeed, his very manhood, on occasion portraying him in a dress. This raises the question about the extent to which, if any, the use of “Old Kinderhook” in this instance was much more than one more facetious element of the gag. To take sportive acronyms in this newspaper story literally is to miss the whole point. And yet Read takes the story very seriously and very literally, arguing not only that it documented a general usage, but the general usage from that time forward.

Finally, it should be noted that according to Read’s own policy, the entire lapel pin notice should be dismissed out of hand, associating, as it does, the expression “OK” with Jackson. The whole purpose of the notice is to promote the sale of the pin designed to commemorate Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. This particular instance, however, Read does not characterize the material as “folklore” or “fabrication” as he does other material dealing with “OK” and Jackson. In this case, says Read, “a particular individual, the Tammany editor, simply set down the truth as he knew it.” (note, 89) Read says his discovery of the notice was the “important breakthrough” in the etymology of “O.K.” “With that piece of information, the whole picture appeared to fall into place.” – “Successive Revisions,” 251- 252

It is characteristic of Read’s interpretation that he would maintain that a substantial body of material associating “OK” with Jackson – material by reputable historians that was widely accepted and widely circulated not only at that time but to this day – did not have any bearing on the popularity of the term, but that two words take out of context from an obscure notice about an “OK” lapel pin commemorating Jackson – a notice that apparently went unnoticed until Read’s promotion of it a century later – would be, according to Read, the seminal event in the popularity of the expression.

By the same token, it is characteristic of Read’s interpretation that he would maintain that a large body of popular and widely accepted material dealing with Jackson is irrelevant because it was “invented,” but that the seemingly obscure and inconsequential citation he discovered “looms overwhelmingly important” because it was clandestinely “engineered.”

Read ends the “Second Stage” paper with a reaffirmation of the importance of his discovery dealing with “OK.” Out of the 80 or so instances of “OK” he documents in this paper alone, not counting those dismissed out of hand because they associate the expression with Jackson or the frontier, one is the phrase “old Kinderhook,” and one is the sportive use of “Old Kinderhook” some five months later in an anti-Whig gag. On the basis of these two isolated instances and an enormous amount of interpretation – “sheer, gratuitous, armchair theorizing” according to one of his critics – “Successive Revisions,” 258 – Read concludes that:

He ends the paper with the statement that he has established “the trajectory of O.K. as it rocketed across the American linguistic sky.” (102)

Read took this line of interpretation to the point that he considered the lapel pin notice the “origin” of “O.K.” All previous examples of OK he came to regard as incipient forms of the “Old Kinderhook” etymology. Although the expression seemed to be used by those with no ties to Van Buren about as much as it was by the Tammanies, Read argued that those uses were really attempts by opponents of the Tammanies to de-value the term. Read speculated about what it would take “to modify the picture” to the extent the “‘Old Kinderhook’ origin” would cease to be regarded as the only true one. Read’s friend, H.L. Mencken wrote in an article for New Yorker that many “have busied themselves with trying to find examples of O.K. before March 23, 1840. . .but always without success.” (259-260)

When Heflin, the Dicionary of American English staffer in charge of the OK entry, pointed out the obvious, that “the expression O.K. was widely known in 1839 and 1840″ Read’s response was “No one can deny this or does deny this.” (262)

There are a couple of other problems with the sportive “oll korrect” and cabalistic “Old Kinderhook” etymology.

First, “OK” has always had some widely understood and accepted special connotations of impropriety to it. The reference to the “frightful letters O.K.” in the Jackson lapel pin ad has already been noted.

Early in 1840 a theatrical weekly used “O.K.” in a story about a benefit for the widow and children of a popular entertainer: “The net proceeds was upward of $1,200, O.K.” – “First Stage,” 18 – “O.K.” appeared about three weeks later in the same paper, and Read says the editor apologized the next day for using the expression because it was not appropriate for inclusion in the paper. (18-19) This paper had no problem with sportive or colloquial phraseology in general, and there was certainly nothing improper about the benefit-for-the-widow-and-children story. However, there was definitely some widely appreciated dimension to the expression “OK” that made it unacceptable in ways similar colloquialisms were not.

One news story referred to the “mysterious letters, the power of which, when exerted, is so fatal to the peace and harmony of the city…” – Second Stage, 91. A short fictional newspaper piece said “Drums beat in the street and shouts of O! K! made the night hideous.” (99) Brinton’s implication that Choctaw was the language of “ignorance and immorality” while English was the language of “godliness and civilization” comes to mind.

Even today the use of the expression is not considered standard English, as any grammar or high school student who used it in an essay or paper has probably learned.

The second problem with the “oll korrect” or “Old Kinderhook” etymologies is semantics. This is obviously the case with “Old Kinderhook.” No one would seriously argue that in any but one or two instances the expression “OK” has been used to express “Old Kinderhook.”

But even “Oll Korrect” is often not a good semantic fit for the expression “OK.” This is a very characteristic and widely acknowledged aspect of many, if not most, of the early uses of “OK” documented by Read. In these instances when “OK” as “all correct” does not quite seem to fit, the traditional, non-abbreviation “okay” seems to fit perfectly. So does the Choctaw “okeh” meaning “it is so and not otherwise” discussed earlier. The linguist’s observation that “the occurrence of okeh in Choctaw conversations in much the same syntactic and semantic environments as the American OK” is remarkably pertinent.

And so, for example, charitable net proceeds of upwards of $1,200 would not be characterized as “all correct.” But it would be perfectly natural to pronounce them “okay” or “okeh.” By the same token, failure to hold a meeting might be “okay” or “okeh,” but it would not be “all correct.” (”First Stage,” 13) The attendance at a concert (”the house” in theatrical parlance) might be “okay,” but it would not be “all korrect.” (”Successive Revisions,” 265) Even when those instances of “OK” are glossed as “all correct” the gloss is reasonable because “all correct” conveys the general idea about as accurately as anything else might. But in almost all of those cases, the essential “feel” of the word is not conveyed by “all correct.” To use the terminology of the Choctaw linguist, the “syntactic and semantic environments” do not quite fit. In all of those cases, the tradition “feel” of “okay” is a much better fit.

Heflin cited “O.K.” used in reference to a mint julep and a bargain and pointed out that thinking of those things in terms of “OK” is perfectly natural, but in terms of “all correct” is problematical. Read acknowledged the point but minimized its significance. – 13-14

It should probably be noted for the record that Read published a “Later Stages in the History of ‘O.K.’” after the “Second Stage” paper, and in that later paper he reviewed his conclusion of the previous “Second Stage” paper, that the general usage of “OK” was a product of “Old Kinderhook”:

In this paper he cites and disparages several instances in which “the erroneous Choctaw etymology” is explicitly used: Woodrow Wilson’s use of “okeh,” a sampling of three instances of “oke” used in England, a play on words in which “okeh” becomes “okie” as in “okie-dokie” as well as the nickname for an Oklahoma resident in a popular song proclaiming “I’m a Pale Face Okie…From back in Muskogee.” – 95-96

Read also published a paper devoted exclusively to discussing whether or not Andrew Jackson could spell.

His last paper in the series was titled (with what was apparently unintentional irony) “Successive Revisions in the Explanations of ‘O.K.’”

READ’S “SUCCESSIVE REVISIONS IN THE EXPLANATIONS OF ‘O.K.” PAPER

In this last paper of the series Read deals with a subject he has for the most part ignored in earlier papers, even though it is by consensus the earliest known example of “ok” being set down on paper. It is the quintessential “We arrived OK” notation in the hand-written diary of a traveler going from Boston to New Orleans in 1815. The traveler’s name was Richardson, and the “Richardson OK” occurs in the entry for February 21, 1815. It is, of course a hand-written account with many strike-outs and insertions, but by most reckonings that entry includes this sentence “Arrived at Princeton, a handsome little village, 15 miles from N Brunswick, ok & at Trenton, where we dined at 1 P.M.” (”Successive Revisions,” 246)

This “OK” was written by a traveler to New Orleans who presumably was interested in events in that city and in touch with someone who lived there, and it was used at a time when that city (and the nation, for that matter) was still abuzz over the Battle of New Orleans. It is perfectly plausible, but perfectly speculative, that the traveler had learned of the expression “OK” from the New Orleans friend or family member and then used that expression in his diary. It is possible Richardson read the expression in press accounts of the events surrounding the battle because such accounts were common and popular, although those accounts seldom included much or any information about Native contributions to the victory, and no usage of the Choctaw in the public record has yet come to light.

Woodford Heflin summarized how this occurrence of “OK” was regarded in many quarters, coming as it did some twenty-five years earlier than the flurry of occurrences of “OK” coming in 1839-40:

Heflin, always the meticulous researcher, invested substantial “unhasty” thought and research on the question, even consulting a handwriting expert. “In my opinion,” he wrote, ” it is a genuine usage.” (94)

There was certainly room for different opinions regarding this notation, and the “Successive Revisions” paper is ostensibly about how the DAE editors grappled with how to treat the notation. In fact, however, the paper is overewhelmingly the notice Read served about what would happen to anyone from “a mere snip of a secretary” to the chief editor (and in particular at Woodford Heflin) who did not take his “Old Kinderhook” etymology sufficiently seriously.

A DIGRESSION ON FRONTIER GEOGRAPHY

Before leaving the subject, mention must be made of an significant “frontier” dimension to the expression “OK,” and that is its recurrence as a place name. The first examples that come to mind are probably the “OK Corral” of gunfight fame and the “OK Mine” of Central City, Colorado, which was also home, incidentally, to the Marx Brothers’ OK Clothing Store. It is hard to believe these things were named ‘OK’ to commemorate a New York City politician. But the most interesting and provocative “OK” was and is – where else? – Okay, OK.One current web site about ghost towns says that:

This description is not exactly wrong. It is certainly more right than the widely circulated assertion that town of Okay was named for the Okay Truck Company. The town was officially given the name Okay in 1919; the OK Truck named in 1923. - McMahan, 13, 27

Both the “ghost town” and the “truck company” assertions imply the situation was much more well defined and straightforward than is the case.The Three Rivers area of what is now Oklahoma figured very prominently in frontier history. The first trading post was established in 1806 but was destroyed in its first year by Pushmataha because it was dealing with Osages, the enemies of the Choctaws. Other traders followed, until trading posts and more than 30 log cabins appeared in a two or three mile stretch of the Verdigris River. One of Astor’s prime competitors, Auguste Chouteau, established not only a trading post there, but a facility to build keel boats to ply the rivers. Chouteau’s facilities was later converted to an Indian Agency as the federal government became involved in the administration of Indian policies. – 6-8

This relocation of the Chouteau facilities was only one example of a common and recurrent incident in the history of the area. Flood or fire or war would often cause a small settlement or trading post to be relocated a few hundred yards up or down the river. When the railroads came through, the centers of the community tended to gravitate toward the area that offered the most effective access to the railroad.

Moreover, the arrival of the railroads and later the implementation of U.S. Postal Service to the area meant that the community or the loose cluster of smaller communities acquired official names, perhaps for the first time. For example, the first railroad facility in the area was the Corretta switch and the community that gravitated around that facility became known, more or less officially, as Corretta Switch. When postal service came to the region, one of the prime challenges it faced was to adjudicate the various claims regarding which of the traditional names should be used and where the facility should be located. The post office went through a series of name changes, the most recent being in 1919 from “North Muskogee” to “Okay.”

How prominently did the name “Okay” figure in the early history of what is now the town of Okay? Did, for example, the community identify itself as “Okay” in the early 1800’s before it relocated near the railroad in 1871 as the “ghost town” quote above implies? There seems to be no hard contemporary documentation in the current literature one way or the other. There appears to have been an Okay bank before 1915. (20) It is highly unlikely that any hard evidence will come to light documenting the use of the name “Okay” that predates the published uses of “OK” beginning in 1839.

COMMENTARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The problem of the etymology of Okay, OK is the problem of “okeh” or “OK” in microcosm. The history of the region and the preponderance of other place names in the area drawn from Muskogean culture – from Pushmataha county to the town of Muskogee – suggest very strongly that “Okay” is merely a variant spelling of the Choctaw expression that Byington spelled “okeh.”

The alternate view, that the name “Okay” is a corruption of the acronym “O.K.” which stands for “Old Kinderhook” may be more complicated and dubious, but it places the discourse squarely within the civilized context of Anglo-Saxon culture and the published record which many liberally educated English language researchers tend to assume is the only valid and legitimate one. The self-evident difference between Choctaw “ignorance and immorality” on one hand and Anglo-Saxon “godliness, and civilization” on the other noted by Brinton comes to mind.

Read’s out-of-hand dismissal as “folklore” of anything that is colloquial or popular or “uncultured” is a profoundly striking example of such thinking.

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang lists “okeh” as the obsolete equivalent of “okay” four times but says that “[w]ithout concrete evidence of a prior and established English borrowing from Choctaw-Chickasaw” the claim that this “okeh” – the obsolete form of “okay” – is derived from the Choctaw “okeh” is no more warranted than similar claims about the Liberian Djabo “O-ke,” the Mandingo “O ke,” or the Ulster Scots “Ough, aye!” – II, 708

It is surely not arguing against the importance of high standards of rigorous and disciplined discourse to note that there seems to be one set of standards of “concrete evidence” for “okeh” and another set of standards of “concrete evidence” regarding Read’s “Old Kinderhook” theories. Read offers explicit statements that the expression was derived from Choctaw from, among others, 1) a professor of English and “excellent scholar” well versed in Choctaw, 2) a student of Choctaw history, president of the Constitutional Convention instrumental in creating the state of Oklahoma and subsequently the first governor of that state, 3) “a reputable etymologist” and “prominent member of the American Philological Association” 4) a President of the United States and author of a 5-volume A History of the American People. Moreover, Read tells us that “O.K.” was the war cry of bravos who were standard bearers for the Tammanies who beat drums and went to pow-wows. (He does not mention that the Tammanies were originally referred to as the Red Men secret order, that Tammany Hall was referred to as the Great Wigwam, and that the use of Indian terms, rituals and costume was the defining characteristic of the Tammanies.)

Read offers no refutation of this evidence of any kind. Nor does he offer any evidence of this kind to support his “old Kinderhook” etymology.
The only evidence he offers in support of his “old kinderhook” etymology is two instances of the phrase being used in an obscure political propaganda sheet that was only published for about four years. One of the cases was an obvious gag. In neither of these cases was any suggestion made by the user or anyone else that “old Kinderhook” figured in the origin of the expression “O.K.”

Over a century of scholarly statements, recorded uses, anecdotes, songs, record labels, geographical names and dictionary entries document – and in many cases celebrate – the popularity of rustic, frontier or Choctaw associations with the term. In the 1960’s, when Pete Seeger wrote that “Choctaw gave us the word ‘okay’” he was merely reflecting what had been the popular and accepted etymology for decades. (“PETE” ) By the time Read published his series of papers in ‘63-64 it would seem to be late in the day to try to “un-ring the bell,” to promote a school of etymology that pronounced the century of folklore and vernacular, colloquial usage as “erroneous” and irrelevant.

Indeed, by any standards of reasonableness, it would be hard to conceive of a more ludicrous and far-fetched “scholarly” explanation for the current extraordinary popularity of this colloquialism than to argue that it was a 100 year-old phantom conspiracy (for which there is absolutely no evidence) about Martin Van Buren’s birthplace that “assured its place in general usage” and that a single obscure (and probably facetious) journalistic usage of ‘Old Kinderhook’ looms overwhelmingly important” in the current popularity of the term. Such “sheer, gratuitous, armchair theorizing” seems to validate all the pretentious, irrelevant, silly “doesn’t-have-a-clue” connotations sometimes associated with the word “academic.”

Regardless of the origin of the expression, the fact remains that the “okay” used around the world today, the “okay” that was once commonly spelled “okeh” in this country and is still spelled that way today in other parts of the world, is very much the same colloquialism that was used on the frontier a century and a half ago. In other words, to review the quote from the Choctaw grammarian mentioned earlier “the occurrence of okeh in Choctaw conversations in much the same syntactic and semantic environments as the American OK occurs.”

Indeed, the whole world speaks Choctaw.

Notes

Badger, Herbert Andrew. Descriptive Grammar of Mississippi Choctaw . Diss.University of Southern Missouri, 1971.Byington, Cyrus. A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language. Edited by John R. Swanton and Henry S. Halbert. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 46. GPO, 1915.

—. Grammar of the Choctaw Language. Edited by D. G. Brinton. Philadephia: McCalla and Stavely, Printers, 1870.

[Byington, Cyrus and Alfred Wright.] Chahta Holisso. Cincinnati: Morgan, Lodge, and Fisher, 1827.

—. A Spelling Book Written in the Chahta Language with an English Translation; Prepared and Published Under the Direction of the Missionaries in the Chahta Nation, with the Aid of Captain David Folsom, Interpreter. Cincinnati: “Published by Morgan, Lodge and Fisher for the Missionary Society,” 1825.

—. Triumphant Deaths of Pious Children. In the Choctaw Language. Boston: “Printed for the Board, by Crocker & Brewster,” 1835.

Craigie, William A.and James R. Hulbert, eds. Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.

“EIGHTH WARD TAMMANY TEMPLE ASSOCIATION,” New York Democratic Republican New Era, Dec. 28, 1839, page 2.

Emery, H.G. and K. G. Brewster, eds.. New Century Dictionary. New York: Century, 1927

Fritzius, Bob. “On the Origin of OK.” <<http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/ok.htm>> (18 Aug 01)

“The Grand Procession,” New York Democratic Republican New Era, Nov. 1, 1839, page 2.

Haeger, John D. John Jacob Astor, business and finance in the early republic. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.

Heflin, Woodford, A. “‘O.K.’ and Its Incorrect Etymology” American Speech Dec. 1962: 243-248.

—. “‘O.K.’ — But What Do We Know About It?” American Speech XVI 1941 89-95.

“Humors,” New York Morning Herald, November 3, 1839, p 2.

“Immense Meeting at Tammany Hall,” New York Morning Herald, November 1, 1839, p 2.

Johansen, Bruce. Forgotten Founders. Boston: Harvard Common Press, 1982. [Posted as full-text at <<http://www.ratical.com/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.html>>

Lighter, J.E., J. Ball, and J. O’Connor, eds. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Random House, 1994.

McMahan, Liz. “Okay: Where Oklahoma Began.” Typescript project “for the Okay Auxiliary.” 1989. Available through the Oklahoma Historical Society, Wiley Post Historical Building, Oklahoma City, OK. 73105-4997.

Mencken, Henry Louis. The American Language : An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 4th ed., New York : Knopf, 1962

—.. The American Language, Supplement I. New York : Knopf, 1962.

—. “‘O.K.,’ 1840.” American Speech, XVII (126-127).

—. “Tammany” Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Ed. Frederick Webb Hodge Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30. GPO: 1910. V II, 683-684.

“NEW ORLEANS LITERARY DEPOT,” New York Morning Herald,

New York Democratic-Republican New Era. Usually referred to in text as the New York New Era but cataloged as New York Democratic-Republican New Era. A note is in order about extant copies of the publication. Catalog descriptions of the microfilm sometimes refer to it as dealing with the years 1839 – 1842. In fact, it includes issues from July 19, 1839 to the end of that year and then a single issue in 1842. This is only one example of how anomolies or errors of the cataloging process tend to overstate the archives of the publication. Some searches of union lists or catalogs, for example, might give the impression that several institutions hold the same collection of a dozen or more bound issues. A moment’s thought would suggest that this is an enormous coincidence. In fact, it is an error. In fact, it seems that there is no reasonably extensive archives of the publication. The Library of Congress, according to its on-line catalog, has four scattered issues.

“New York Lyceum,” New York Democratic-Republican New Era, December 4, 1839, page 2.

“ Okay” from “Ghost Towns and History of the American West.” Atjeu Publishing., 1998. << http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ok/okay.html >> (8/18/01)

“PETE by Pete Seeger and Friends: ‘All Mixed Up.” Paul Winter’s World of Living Music. < http://www.livingmusic.com/catalogue/albums/pete/tracks/allmixed.html > (11/5/01)

Pyle, Pyles, Words and Ways of American English. New York: Random House, Inc., 1952.

—. The Origins and Development of the English Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

“Pushmataha.” Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Ed. by Frederick Webb Hodge. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30. GPO: 1910. V II, 329-330.

Read, Allen Walker. “Could Andrew Jackson Spell?” American Speech 1963: 188-195.

—. “The First Stage in the History of ‘O.K.” American Speech Feb. 1963: 7-27.

—. “The Folklore of ‘O.K.’” American Speech Feb. 1964: 5-25.

—. “Later Stages in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech May 1964:83-101.

—. “The Second Stage in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech May 1963: 83-102.

—. “Successive Revisions in the Explanation of ‘O.K.’” American Speech December 84: 243-267.

Sutton, Allan. “The Origins of Okeh.” Mainspring Press: Books and Online Resources for Collectors of Vintage Records, 1999. <http://www.mainspringpress.com/okeh.html> (3 Jan 00)

“Tammany Society” from “A Historical and Biographical Cyclopedia of Butler County, Ohio.” <http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohbutler/cyc/104.htm> (Jun 29 01)

Ward, Rufus, Jr. Personal conversation, August 5, 2001. Ward is co-author of By the Flow of the Inland River – The Settlement of Columbus, Mississippi to 1825, by Samuel H. Kaye, Rufus Ward, Jr., and Carolyn B. Neault. Columbus, MS 1992.

Weatherford, Jack. Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991.
—. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett
Columbine, 1988.

Wilson, Edith Bolling. My Memoir. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1939.

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