The Indian Woman

by Stan Cartwright, Quiet Dog

My paternal grandmother and I were very close and I spent a great deal of time with her. Age 10 is when I was told of our Creek bloodline. This was in 1961 and my grandmother had endured many hardships, her mother having been born around 1871. I suspect that many of the skills she demonstrated were Creek in nature, but disguised, for protective reasons.

I have extensive information on my Great Grandmother and she is the one with the most influence on my life, through her daughter - my grandmother. She was the "healer" and known only as the "Indian Woman" when she and my grandfather moved into the Cove. She always had long hair and is probably wearing this hat in the performance of farm work. She was standing next to their house... a log house built around 1850. This picture was taken in the 1940's

They led a very secluded life, living along the Flint River and in the mountains of Central Georgia. My Great Aunt told me that when Great Grand Mother moved into the Cove (mountain range of the Flint River), she was known simply as the "Indian Woman" and the locals came to her for healing. My other Great Aunt had told a similar story years earlier, but not with as much detail - that Great Grand Mother was a "conjurer" and could "heal" was her story.

One story told to me about Grandmother, when her granddaughters would spend the night:
                                          
 
                                                         "Bird Switching"                                      
 
The granddaughters would stay with Grandmother, who lived in a log house built around 1850. Grandmother would build a big fire in the fireplace. The girls would gather 'round as grandmother would tell stories and they would all laugh, sit, and gaze into the flames.
 
The men had been in the woods clearing land for pasture. While doing so, they would make brush piles, to be burned at a later time. After the sun had been down for some time, grandmother and the girls would take torches and lanterns and go into the area that was being prepared for pasture.
 
They would head toward the brush piles, a torch, or lantern, in one hand and a sturdy switch in the other. Approaching the brush piles, the roosting birds became nervous. Finally, the birds would take flight, but being blinded by the light, they were easy targets for the girls and their switches.
 
After "switching" a good collection of roosting birds, they would return to the log house, clean and roast the birds over the open fire. They would eat until full, as Grandmother told more stories.
 
Shared by Stan Cartwright, as told to him by one of the granddaughters, March 1998. The approximate date of this event would have been in the 1930's.

Aunt Maggie at the Family Reunion

I was about 10 years old, autumn was coming, the leaves on the pecan tree were brown and a sprinkling of them lay upon the ground. I was shooting a bow and arrows that I had made. The tips of the arrows were constructed of coca-cola caps hammered over the ends to form "points". Each time I shot, I hit my target. On this day, my uncle said, "You’re just like Grannie Allen - "you're Indian." The year was 1961.
 
When Grannie Cartwright (Grannie Allen's daughter) died, I began to record the oral history of our Indian heritage. All the stories were the same. I had asked everyone except Aunt Maggie - my grandmother's sister. If the chance was permitted, I would ask at the family reunion at Aunt Lucille's, on August 13, 2005.
 
Aunt Maggie was expected to come. She would be 88 years old now and I had not seen her in many years. The last time I saw her, she did not seem to want to talk; she was quite an imposing figure and out of respect, I did not ask to sit and visit.
 
Today was different. She was smiling, talking, and asked about everyone. Aunt Maggie's still dark hair accented those almost black eyes, but today those eyes were more inviting. Today, I would ask about Grannie Allen.
 
"All my life, I've been told that we're part Indian....that Grannie Allen was Indian....is there anything to it"? I asked, of my Great Aunt Maggie. As these words left my lips, those dark brown eyes sparkled, a smile came to her face and she replied, “Yes, let me tell you all about it."
 
Aunt Maggie said that Grannie Lou Teal Allen (1871 – 1951) came from around Long Branch, in Upson County, that her father had been a full blooded Creek Indian. Upon marrying Papa Allen and moving to the Cove, people just called her the "Indian Woman." Aunt Maggie said that Grannie was a "healer" and that she used roots and herbs . . . that people brought their sick to the "Indian Woman."

Aunt Maggie smiled as she talked today and every word she spoke was worth hearing . . . and recording.
 
Recorded by Stan Cartwright,
Great Grandson of Grannie Allen,
As told to me, by Aunt Maggie Allen Long
Saturday, August 13, 2005

December 15, 2008
My Creek Grandmother had a huge hand in raising me. For whatever reason, it was me who was taken into the mountain range of a place called the Cove (just south of what is now Woodbury, Georgia). I went along to explore, was shown old home places (our first home was actually a log house built around 1850), picked berries with my grandmother, taught to hunt quail and deer, fished baskets in the Flint, ran and fished  trot lines, slept on the ground with bare essentials for days at a time, fished for sucker fish during their spawning season, taken to caves that my father knew of and told that they were used to hide out in times of need, sat on my grandmother's porch and enlightened as to what the "raincrow" was saying, walked behind my grandmother as she plowed and threw down soda (fertilizer) as she and my dad planted, watched my dad build boats of sawed boards and then seal it with pitch, was a patient of my grandmother when I was sick and received Lord knows what kind of salve when needed, but I do remember tobacco being a big one for bee stings - which were frequent.

House brooms were made of broom sage and "yard rakes" were bundles of sticks tied together. Grandmother lived within walking distance of the Flint and everything caught was cooked, including the fish head. Was better not to ask what was being eaten, just eat and be thankful. Out houses were the toilets and no one thought anything about it. Funny thing, names seemed interchangeable. I didn't know my dad's real name until I was ten or so. Everyone called him "Junebug". My grandmother was called either Willie Lou or Middie Lou, she answered to either. Granddaddy was called "preacher". My grandfather was a master weaver of baskets, bottoms, and backs, for chairs, and even a few fish baskets. This puzzled me a little because I often thought this was primarily a women's chore. His baskets were mostly of white oak strips that he cut by hand using a knife, and sometimes a draw knife. Granddad did some weaving with cane....again, he cut the cane into usable strips. Grandmother did it all - plowed, churned butter and butter milk, and milked cows for the "regular" milk. When we tagged along, she would shoot the milk from the cow right into our mouths....she thought it was funny...warm, but tasted good.  Every move on the farm was done according to the phase of the moon.