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Biographical Sketch of Frances Berry Coston, 1876-1960

By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

Frances Berry was born in Rockhold, Kentucky in 1876, the second of six children of James and Mary Berry. James was a farmer according to the 1880 and 1900 censuses. Frances graduated from Berea (KY) College, and subsequently took graduate courses at five universities. In 1900 Frances continued to live with her parents in Rockhold, where she worked as a schoolteacher. She moved to Indianapolis where she subsequently taught for 48 years. In 1916, now 39, Frances married George E. Coston. George worked for 25 years at a car company, Willis-Overland, in the finishing department and later had his own business as a cabinetmaker. The couple had three children and Frances was atypical for this period as she had a teaching career of almost five decades even as a married woman with children.

In addition to her work as a teacher, Frances wrote articles for the Indianapolis News, including a 1919 sketch of Indianapolis businesswoman and suffragist, Madam C.J. Walker. In the summer of 1917, Frances Coston was featured in two Indianapolis News articles urging Black women to engage in local politics to improve conditions for their race. In one piece she highlighted the growth of political clubs among Indianapolis Black women. The first of these was Branch No. 7 of the Equal Suffrage Association, whose first president was Carrie Barnes Ross.

In 1913 women's suffrage emerged as a contentious issue in Indiana as the state legislature considered a bill that would have offered women partial suffrage, limited to school board elections. The Equal Suffrage Association (ESA) supported the partial suffrage bill as a first step toward full suffrage. The Woman's Suffrage League (WFL) opposed the bill as undercutting the demand for full voting rights for women. Suffrage efforts culminated in a protest 500 strong at the statehouse that brought together supporters from both the ESA and the WFL. What is not clear from local newspaper accounts is whether Black women suffragists had joined in the day's events.

Frances Coston's activism extended into all corners of the Black community in Indianapolis. She spearheaded an effort to open a Colored YWCA and was a leader of the Woman's Improvement Club. In 1921 she was a founder of the Educational Aid Society for Colored Orphans.

The Costons lived out their lives in Indianapolis. George died in 1949 at the age of 75. Frances died at 84 in 1960. They were survived by their daughter, Jean Lee, a concert pianist, and a son, Ray, a physician.

Sources:

Federal Manuscript Censuses, 1870, 1880, and 1900, Kentucky; 1910, 1920, and 1930, Indianapolis. Accessed online, Ancestry Library Edition.

Marriage and death records for George Coston and Frances Berry Coston, Accessed online, Ancestry Library Edition.

Indianapolis News: obituaries for Frances Coston, July 19, 1960 and George E. Coston, Aug. 27, 1949. Accessed on newspapers.com.

"Urges Colored Voters to Use Their Judgment," Indianapolis News, 9 July 1917, p. 16.

Frances Berry Coston, "Colored Women Study Problem of Suffrage," Indianapolis News, 6 June 1917, p. 20.

"A Silent Roar: Indiana Suffragists' 1913 March to the Statehouse," on the Indiana History Blog. Accessed online at https://blog.history.in.gov/a-silent-roar-indiana-suffragists-1913-march-to-the-statehouse/

Christine Fernando, "'Black history is American history': How Black Hoosiers contributed to suffrage movement," Indianapolis Star, 27 Aug. 2020. Accessed online at https://www.indystar.com/story/news/history/2020/08/27/how-black-hoosier-women-contributed-womens-suffrage-movement/3414946001/

Frances Berry Coston, "Life of Mrs. Walker an Incentive to Race," Indianapolis News, 7 June 1919. p. 20.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Carrie Stofer Whalon, 1870-1927

By William Franklin Gulde

Originally published online in "Vintage Irvington," accessible at https://vintageirvington.blogspot.com/2022/02/pioneering-black-suffragette-lived-in.html

For a profile of the author and links to his online publications, see https://www.blogger.com/profile/03543618957186432656

Originally published: Friday, February 11, 2022

Pioneering Black Suffragist Lived in Irvington

On June 19 and 20, 1916, women from all over the state of Indiana gathered during a convention to hear the keynote speaker and the president of the National Franchise League, Carrie Chapman Catt. Dozens of state leaders and some politicians also attended the two-day event. The estimated 500 delegates rose to their feet and applauded as Mrs. Catt stood to speak. Other franchise groups attended the conference as did some politicians. Mrs. Catt was blunt in her speech. She had been disappointed by the stance of several of Indiana's elected officials who did not support suffrage for women. She noted that the United States had been "inconsistent" with regard to the freedom of half of the population. She noted that more Republicans favored women's suffrage than Democrats. Part of her speech was xenophobic as she noted that "if there are incompetents voting now, then something should be done to stop the naturalization of ignorant foreigners." She also raged against apathetic women who supported the cause but did nothing. Her speech angered some in the audience including some Democrats.

Also sitting in the audience that day was another Carrie although most at the event likely did not know her name. Carrie Whalon of 438 South Ritter Avenue had come to the convention in her role as the president of the First Colored Woman's Suffrage Club. She was not alone and sat next to two of her fellow neighbors, Minnie Highbaugh and Lizzie Compton. It is not known how many of the 500 delegates present were black, but there were at least three.

So who was Carrie Whalon? We must start with the fact that there are several unknowns about her life including the spelling of her last name. Both her will and death certificate spell her name as Whalon, but in many newspapers, including the black-owned Indianapolis Recorder, her name was spelled as "Whallon" or "Whallen" in many articles. Carrie Stofer was born in 1870 as the daughter of Jack Stofer and Minnie Berry Stofer Grubb Williams in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. At some point, she married William Jackson and had two children, Stofer and Louvenia (possibly Lavenia). We do not know what happened to Mr. Jackson, but the 1900 Federal Census indicates that she married Thomas Tipton, a laborer at a planing mill in Montgomery County, Kentucky. Mr. Tipton had six children of his own and with Carrie's two children made for a very large family. Gaps in her life remain, but we know that she married for the final time on August 1, 1910, to John Whallon (also spelled Whallen) in Louisville, Kentucky. There were Whalons living at the intersection at Greenfield and Ritter Avenue in Irvington so this is likely how she ended up moving north.

We are not sure of the exact moment that Carrie and John Whalon moved to Irvington. We do know that her children did not move up to Indianapolis right away. An Indianapolis Recorder article indicated that her son Stofer came up from Mount Sterling, Kentucky to visit his Mom, Mrs. Carrie Tipton Whalon, at 425 West St. Clair Street. Another Recorder blurb from the same year noted that Mr. and Mrs. Whalon moved into their home at 5521 Greenfield Avenue. John Whalon is listed at that address until 1915.

By 1916, Carrie Whalon no longer lived at the Greenfield Avenue address. She appears to have moved in with the Tarpennings, a white family at 260 South Ritter Avenue, where she "lived in the rear" of the home. She was frequently listed as a "cook" so she likely served as a domestic for various Irvington families. She did not live there long.

In the summer of 1916, Carrie Whalon achieved a dream of buying her own home. The Indianapolis Recorder noted that Mrs. Whalon purchased a "beautiful two-story frame home at 438 South Ritter Avenue." A later ad called it a "pretty" three-bedroom cottage. Behind her would have been an open field, and farmland existed south of her along Brookville Road. She would have heard the rumble of the trains along the nearby Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and from the new Irvington Ice and Coal Company located about a half block north. Her son and later his wife and grandson moved in with her.

While she was busy setting up her new house, she was also very committed in 1916 as president of the First Woman's Colored League in Indianapolis. The club met weekly in various women's homes primarily on the west side of Indianapolis so Mrs. Whalon would have had the added expense of traveling from Irvington to the west side. The inaugural meeting took place on April 27, 1916, at the home of Mrs. Ida Winston at 401 West Pratt Street (later 9th Street). Mrs. Whalon spoke as the presiding officer and served tea to the new members along with two white guests, Grace Julian Clarke and Mrs. Orville O. Carvin of Irvington. Both Mrs. Clarke and Carvin had long been involved in the suffrage movement and were there to advise the ladies on their new club. Black women were seldom invited into long-standing franchise leagues, thus the need for a separate club.

Throughout the year, the ladies of the First Woman's Colored League continued to meet. On October 5, 1916, the women invited Mrs. Claudia Pash to speak to the club as she had already voted three times as women in certain parts of the United States had the right to vote. On October 17, 1916, Carrie Whalon hosted the group at her home in Irvington. The women asked their husbands and other men to attend since black men in Indiana did have the right to vote. All over the state, women were encouraging their husbands, brothers, and fathers to elect candidates who were in favor of women's suffrage. The First Woman's Colored League was no different.

After the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, millions of women cast their vote for the first time. Although we have no record of it, it is highly likely that Carrie Whalon was one of those women. She joined the Republican Party and was very involved in a local black chapter in Irvington. An Indianapolis Recorder article noted that Mrs. Whalon served as the secretary of the club. During the Indianapolis mayoral primary in 1921, there were three candidates on the Republican ticket. In April of that year, the club met at the Knights of Pythias building at 202 1/2 South Audubon Road to endorse a local favorite, Thomas Carr Howe. He spoke to the club that night as did numerous other speakers. Although Mr. Howe did not win the nomination, Carrie Whalon and other black women in Indiana now had a political voice in state and federal politics.

At some point during the 1920s, Carrie Whalon became sick. Doctors diagnosed her with cancer. She continued to remain politically active. She was also very involved at the First Baptist Church at 231 Good Avenue where she helped to organize a chapter of the Mother's Aid Society. In another era, it is likely that Mrs. Whalon would have run for a political office, but there were few opportunities for black women in the 1920s as the Ku Klux Klan dominated the state of Indiana in that era. Likely knowing that the end was near, she signed her last will and testament on January 4, 1926. She left her house and her money to her children and to her mother. Her death certificate in 1927 indicated that she was buried at the Floral Park Cemetery on Holt Road although there does not appear to be a headstone.

Sources:

State Suffrage Convention and Carrie Chapman Catt, "Leaders of Suffrage Leagues and National Head to Confer," Indianapolis Star, June 18, 1916, 47.

"Disappointed Over Suffrage Conference," Indianapolis News, June 20, 1916, 3.

Carrie Whallon, Minnie Highbaugh, and Lizzie Compton at the convention, Indianapolis Recorder,June 24, 1916, 2.

Marriage to John Whallon, Kentucky Marriage Licenses on Ancestry.com.

Visit from her son, Indianapolis Recorder, May 20, 1911, 8.

Move to Greenfield Avenue--Indianapolis Recorder, July 22, 1911, 4.

Purchase of 438 South Ritter--Indianapolis Recorder, June 24, 1916, 8.

First Woman's Franchise Club, Indianapolis Recorder, April 15, 1916, 8.

Indianapolis News, April 22, 1916; Indianapolis Recorder, May 6, 1916, 2; Indianapolis Recorder, September 23, 1916, 2; Indianapolis Recorder, October 7, 1916, 2.

Republican party chapter in Irvington--"Robison Best Asset of Shank Campaign," Indianapolis News, April 21, 1921.

Death announcement--Indianapolis Recorder, August 31, 1927; Her will and death certificate were obtained on Ancestry.com.

For further reading on Indiana's suffrage movement, Anita Morgan, "We Must Be Fearless": The Woman Suffrage Movement in Indiana. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2020.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Caroline Burnett, 1835–1906

By Blair Forlaw, Citizen Researcher

In 1877, 15 women and 18 men signed a petition calling on the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to "adopt measures for so amending the Constitution as to prohibit the several States from Disfranchising United States Citizens on account of Sex." All of the signatories identified themselves as colored residents of Uniontown in the District of Columbia. Caroline Burnett was among them.

A review of records suggests that signing this petition may have been the only time that Caroline Burnett attached her name to the women's suffrage movement. Hers is not a story of social activism, but her 70 years of life reflect several other important dynamics of that era: race, class, economy, immigration, and the Federal government's authority over the District of Columbia. Through her, students of history are presented with intriguing questions, the answers to which could lead to a deeper understanding of women of her time and circumstance.

Caroline Burnett first appears to public view in the 1870 Census, where she is listed as a member of a household of eight individuals, their only apparent commonality being that all were Mulatto. At that time, approximately 1.5 percent of the general population and 12 percent of the African-American population of the U.S. were of mixed Black and White races, identified in public records as Mulatto.

The head of the household where Caroline lived was Elizabeth Herbert, one of the earliest settlers of Barry Farm, a subdivision of Washington D.C. established by the Freedmen's Bureau in 1867 to provide settlement opportunities for freed slaves and free Blacks. Elizabeth Herbert gave her age as 90 years at the time of the 1870 Census. Caroline was listed as "keeping house" in Elizabeth Herbert's dwelling, which was on Sheridan Avenue (now Sheridan Road), on the east side of Barry Farm and south of Uniontown on the Anacostia River.

The 1870 Census suggests that Caroline Burnett was born in the District of Columbia in 1845, but other official records indicate that she was more likely born in the District in 1835. Madison Burnett, also residing in the Herbert household in 1870, was born around the same time in southern Virginia, near the North Carolina border. He was one of a large family of children growing up with farming parents, identified in the 1850 Census as "free inhabitants," with no race specified.

As a young man, Madison worked as a farm hand in his family's Virginia home. Perhaps he moved to Washington D.C. in search of better economic opportunities as a carpenter. Perhaps he married Caroline there. We do not know for certain, because no marriage certificate could be found. Records do show, however, that by 1880, Caroline Burnett was a widow.

____________________________________

Because they were people of color, it is unlikely that many of the signatories to the 1877 Petition for Woman Suffrage actually lived in Uniontown. It is more likely that the petition was signed by individuals from near-by neighborhoods while attending a gathering in Uniontown.

The reason is this: Uniontown was established in 1854 by the private Union Land Association, to provide homes for White workers at the nearby Navy Yard. The settlement carried restrictive covenants prohibiting the sale or lease of property "to any Negro, Mulatto, or anyone of African or

Irish descent." When the national economic Panic of 1873 hit the D.C. economy hard, the Union Land Association went bankrupt and developer John W. Van Hook was forced to sell his mansion, Cedar Hill. He sold the house to Frederick Douglass in 1877 – opening the doors of Uniontown to those previously excluded.

Historians describe Frederick Douglass as a very gregarious man who made his spacious Cedar Hill home freely available for meetings and social gatherings in support of women's suffrage. Residents of Barry Farm (including at least two Douglass sons) frequently made their way up the hill to the elder Douglass's house, and it is entirely possible that they were gathered there when the petition was distributed. Frederick Douglass, Jr., his wife, his sister Rosetta Douglass Sprague, and her husband were the first signers, in fact.

Several dynamics were at play in the campaign for suffrage for African-American women in the District of Columbia at that time. Enslaved persons had been emancipated in the District in 1862. The 14th and 15th Amendments had been ratified in 1868 and 1870, establishing citizenship for all persons born in the U.S. and prohibiting states from disenfranchising voters "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The earliest arguments for women's suffrage referenced these two Amendments specifically, asserting that women should be assured the right to vote under them.

In 1874, in the midst of a growing national movement for women's suffrage, Congress–which has Constitutional jurisdiction over the District of Columbia–took away the voting rights of all District residents. This was but one of a series of actions in which the Federal government constrained access to self-governance in the nation's capital, a tension that exists yet today.

Further, Black women in the District, doubly disadvantaged, struggled to be represented equally within the suffrage movement. In 1876, for example, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a national advocate for suffrage and other rights of African-American women, requested that the names of 94 Black women be added to the National Woman Suffrage Association's Declaration of the Rights of Women. This Declaration was presented at the World's Fair in Philadelphia on the Centennial of the U.S. Declaration of Independence – without the Black women's names. Unrelenting, Cary went on to organize the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association in Washington, D.C. in 1880.

Despite the lack of inclusion on the part of the National Woman Suffrage Association, the petition that was signed by Caroline Burnett and others in Uniontown was a printed form designed and distributed by the NWSA. The national organization distributed the forms widely, intending that they would be presented to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees of the 45th Congress (1877-1879). The campaign was so successful that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Josyln Gage, and Susan B. Anthony reported in a memorandum submitted to Congress that year that a total of 40,000 signatures from 35 states and 5 territories had been collected.

Was Caroline Burnett proud to be associated with Uniontown – finally, after years of exclusion? Was she aware of the compounding obstacles that still stood in the way of her full participation in American democracy? Did she see agency for herself in the proposed Woman Suffrage amendment? Was she inspired by the larger cause, the greater good? We might imagine her having these sentiments, but we have no real answers.

____________________________________

Elizabeth Herbert, the elderly woman who owned the Barry Farm property where Caroline Burnett lived in 1870, died during the decade. A newspaper notice reported that her will was filed in probate court in the District of Columbia in September 1881.

What happened to most members of Elizabeth Herbert's household after her death is not clear. But Caroline Burnett next appears in the public record as a servant in a White household in a prosperous section of New York Avenue in the District of Columbia. According to the 1880 Census, the head of the four-person household was John McClelland, a widowed machinist with a 24-year-old daughter at home. Peter Shriggs, a Black coachman, was also in residence. The servant Caroline Burnett – other characteristics being consistent with what is known of her – is identified in the Census as White. The records give us no clue as to whether Caroline was "passing for White" (a practice not entirely unknown to light-skinned Mulattos of the era) or was reported to be White by the individual who responded to the Census taker's questions.

The widower John McClelland died in 1885, around the same that Caroline reconnected with Barry Farm. She returned by a rather unexpected route. According to a newspaper notice, ownership of the lot in Barry Farm that belonged to Elizabeth Herbert in 1870 was transferred to Caroline Burnett in 1884 for $25. The seller of the property was Mary S. Callan – an individual who cannot be found in any of the earlier Barry Farm records. Several women named Mary Callan appear in the U.S. Census of the District of Columbia around that time; all of them were either Irish immigrants or the daughters of Irish immigrants. Mary Callan was possibly part of the great wave of European immigrants who came to the U.S. between 1820 and 1860, one-third of them from Ireland, many fleeing the economic and social devastation of the potato famine.

It is interesting to wonder how a woman of Irish descent (a group often distrusted and demeaned in the dominant white Protestant culture of 19th Century America, and prohibited – as were African Americans – from purchasing property in Uniontown) came to acquire Elizabeth Herbert's plot in Barry Farm. And why would she sell it to Caroline Burnett for $25 – a small fraction of the original $125 – 200 price of Barry Farm lots? One clue about the sale can be found a few years later in a local newspaper notice: like many others in the sustained economic downturn, Mary Callan was in financial trouble. In April 1890, she was put on notice for being delinquent in paying three property tax bills totaling $164. The notice threatened that the property would be sold at public auction by the Tax Collector's Office if the taxes were not paid in short order.

____________________________________

The next time Caroline Burnett appears in the public record is with the notice of her death at 331 V Street NW in the District of Columbia in February 1906. The building where she died was only a few blocks from Freedman's Hospital, then located at 5th and W Streets NW. This hospital was established by the Department of War in 1862 to serve the medical needs of free and formerly enslaved African Americans. It later became the teaching hospital of Howard University.

Caroline Burnett's death certificate was completed in the polished penmanship of Dr. Floyd V. Brooks, a prominent physician and civic leader of the day, who noted that she was a 70 year-old colored woman, a widow, who had been in this District for only three weeks, although she "was resident previously." The primary cause of her death was pneumonia, Dr. Brooks noted, but the immediate cause of death was "exhaustion."

Of Caroline Burnett's interesting life journey, we know no more.

Sources:

1850 U.S. Federal Population Census. Database with images. Free Inhabitants in the Southern District in the County of Pittsylvania in the State of Virginia. Page 241. Madison Burnett in household of Micajah Burnett. Dwelling #779. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed via www.archives.com.

1870 U.S. Federal Population Census. Database with images. Inhabitants in Subdivision East of 7th St. Road. Washington, District of Columbia. Page 91. Caroline Burnett and Madison Burnett in household of Elizabeth Herbert, Dwelling #564. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed via www.archives.com.

1880 U.S. Federal Population Census. Database with images. Inhabitants on New York Avenue, City of Washington, District of Columbia. Page 20. Caroline Burnett in household of John McClelland. Dwelling #1332. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed via www.archives.com.

1877 Petition for Woman Suffrage. Petitions and Memorials. 1878. Committee on the Judiciary. Petitions and Memorials, 1813-1968. 45th Congress. National Archives Building, Washington, D.C. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/documented-rights/exhibit/section3/details/suffrage-petition.html.

Anacostia. Anacostia Community Documentation Initiative. www.cdi.anacostia.si.edu.

Death Certificate for Caroline Burnett, February 14, 1906. Record No. 165660. District of Columbia Health Department.

Deaths in the District. Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 17 Feb. 1906. Page 5. Image 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1906-02-17/ed-1/seq-5/.

Death of John McClelland. May 21, 1885. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185264751 via www.archives.com.

Declaration of Rights of Women of the United States, July 4, 1876. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Collection. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (111.00.01) [Digital ID#s us0111_1, us0111_0] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/declaration-legacy.html#obj2.

Delinquent Taxes. Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 04 April 1890. Page 5. Image 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1890-04-04/ed-1/seq-7/.

Email communications from Alcione Amos, Anacostia Community Museum, May 2019.

Freedmen's Hospital, African American Heritage. https://www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/freedmen-s-hospital-african-american-heritage-trail.

Giovana Xavier da Conceição Nascimento. The Dangers of White Blacks: mulatto culture, class, and eugenic beauty in the post-emancipation USA, 1900-1920. Revista Brasileira de Historia, vol. 35 no. 69 (Jan./June 2015). Accessible online at https://bit.ly/2XV5Y7s.

Hutchinson, Louise Daniel. List of First Settlers of Barry Farm / Hillsdale 1867-1871. History of Place Research Files, Anacostia Community Museum. 1981. Elizabeth Herbert's house was Lot 18 in Section 3.

Library of Congress. Irish Immigration. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/irish2.html.

Matthew B. Gilmore. A Timeline of Washington, DC History. Washington, DC History Resources. https://matthewbgilmore.wordpress.com/a-timeline-of-washington-dc-history/.

Memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, National Woman Suffrage Association. Petitions and Memorials, 45th Congress (1877-1879). Committee on the Judiciary. HR45A - H11.7. National Archives Building, Washington DC.

Transfers of Real Estate - Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 08 Sept. 1884. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1884-09-08/ed-1/seq-4/.

Uniontown. https://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacostia_Historic_District and https:///www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/303.

United States Senate. "Landmark Legislation: Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments." https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilWarAmendments.htm.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. Financial Panic of 1873. https://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/Financial-Panic-of-1873.aspx.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Josephine Holmes (Frazier), 1868-1927

By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

Josephine Holmes was born in Atlanta in 1868, the daughter of George and Elvira Holmes. Her father was a day laborer in 1880. She graduated from Clark University in South Atlanta. She was active in the National Association of Colored Women and the Atlanta Woman's Club. In 1897 she served as state organizer for the Georgia Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

Holmes supported woman suffrage in 1908 and 1919. She served as the National Secretary of the Equal Suffrage League and her name appears on ESL letterhead on a 1908 petition to the U.S. Congress calling for enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments. The ESL had been founded by Sarah J.S. Garnet in the late 1880's and was headquartered in Brooklyn. That same year Holmes was serving as the first recording secretary of the National Association of Colored Women and she was listed in a call for the annual meeting of the Association that was held in Brooklyn in August 1908.

Holmes was a teacher in public school 89 in New York City, a position she held for 17 years, until her death in 1927. In April 1919 she took part in a mass meeting at St. Mark's M.E. Church in Manhattan calling for voting rights for Blacks in the South. At that event Holmes proposed language for the woman suffrage amendment that was finally passed by Congress in June.

In 1923 she married Rev. Nicholas C. Frazier. In July 1921 Holmes participated in the statewide meeting of the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs, giving a speech entitled, "Organization is Power." Holmes was re-elected as chairman of the Federation's Executive Committee. An August 1925 article in Opportunity, the journal of the National Urban League, reported that Josephine Holmes Frazier continued to serve on the Executive Committee of the Federation.

Josephine Holmes Frazier died in New York in 1927, at the age of 59, and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. She had no children.

Sources:

Petition from the Equal Suffrage League, March 17, 1908, accessible online at http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b002-i201.

Marriage record, Nicholas C. Frazier and Josephine E. Holmes, New York, N.Y., 15 August 1923. Accessed online through Ancestry Library Edition.

Opportunity, vols. 3-4 (August 1925), p. 255.

"Manhattan and the Bronx," New York Age, 20 Sept. 1917, p. 8.

"Colored Citizens of New York Start Campaign to Get Ballot for the Race in the South," New York Age, 12 April 1919, p. 1.

"Empire State Women Hold Stormy Session," Buffalo American, 28 July 1921, p. 1.

"Josephine H. Frazier, School Teacher, and Noted Clubwoman, Dead," New York Age, 22 Oct. 1927, p. 1.

Federal Manuscript Census, Atlanta, GA, 1880, entry of the family of Josephine Holmes. Accessed online in Ancestry Library Edition.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Elizabeth Lillian Coleman Dixon Bryan, 1876–1924

By Lee Ann Timreck, Library of Virginia Research Volunteer

Elizabeth Lillian Coleman was born on November 11, 1876, in Halifax, Virginia, the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Coleman. She married the Reverend James E. Dixon on September 4, 1892, and the couple lived in Halifax for several years. By 1900, they were living on South Union Street in Petersburg, Virginia, with their three children, Mariam, James Jr., and Lucius Dixon.

James Dixon was a minister at the Union Street Black Methodist Episcopal Church in Petersburg until the church was torn down in 1903. The history of Petersburg's Black churches date back to the eighteenth century, with a legacy of social activism that helped launch the Civil Rights movement. Henry Louis Gates Jr., observed that "The Black Church was the cultural cauldron created to combat a system designed to crush their spirit." As a minister's wife, Elizabeth Dixon probably worked alongside her husband to counter the social and educational injustices levied upon Petersburg's Black community.

James Dixon died by 1910, and on August 16, 1917, Elizabeth Dixon married Charles Bryan in Petersburg. In 1920, the year Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, Elizabeth Bryan was living in Richmond, Virginia, with Charles and her three children. Although her specific engagement with the movement advocating women's right to vote is unknown, she may have been involved with the voter registration efforts led by many of Richmond's prominent African American women. One of them was Maggie Walker, the Right Worthy Grand Secretary-Treasurer of the Independent Order of Saint Luke, the president of Richmond's Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank (the first African American woman to ever serve as president of a bank), and a powerful force for women's rights at the local and national level. In 1920, Walker organized mass meetings across Richmond to educate and encourage Black women to vote, then stood with them in the long lines to pay the poll tax. When Elizabeth Bryan signed the voter registration book on October 2, 1920, she joined Maggie Walker in becoming one of the earliest African American women voters.

In 1921, at the recommendation of Maggie Walker, Elizabeth Bryan and Ora Brown Stokes represented Virginia's Black women voters at the National Woman's Party (NWP) convention in the District of Columbia. Along with the other Black delegates from across the country, Bryan came to protest flagrant violations of the Nineteenth Amendment across the South, and request that the NWP urge Congress to investigate. When the delegation finally met with Alice Paul, President of the NWP, her attitude was described as "thoroughly hostile" by one of the Black delegates; Paul ultimately denied their request to have the conference formally adopt a resolution on voting rights violations.

Shortly after, Elizabeth and Charles Bryan moved to the District of Columbia, where Elizabeth Coleman Dixon Bryan died unexpectedly on September 20, 1924. She was buried in the Columbian Harmony Cemetery, which later closed. In 1959 her body was reinterred in National Harmony Memorial Park Cemetery in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Sources:

Birth date in Halifax County Register of Births, 1876.

United States Census Schedules, Petersburg (1900), Richmond City (1920), Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

First marriage in Halifax County Register of Marriages, 1889–1905.

Second marriage in Richmond City Marriages, 1917, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia.

Voter registration in Rolls of Registered Colored Voters, Lee Ward, 6th Precinct (1920), Richmond City Election Records, Library of Virginia.

List of NAACP Delegation Members to Alice Paul, 12 February 2021,

NAACP Papers, Part 04 Voting Rights and Voting Rights Campaign, 1916-1950 (Feb. 8, 1921-April 3, 1921), frames 61-64, Library of Congress.

"Mrs. Bryant Dickerson" mentioned in Maggie L. Walker to A. W. Hunton, February 17, 1921, NAACP Papers, Administrative Files, box 407, Microfilm Series Part 4-Voting Rights Campaign, 1916–1950, Reel 2.

"Suffrage Memorial and Convention in Washington." Newport News Star, February 24, 1921, page 5.

District of Columbia Death Certificate, Sept. 20, 1924.

Death notice in Washington, D.C., Evening Star, Sept. 21, 1924.

Cott, Nancy F. "Feminist Politics in the 1920s: The National Woman's Party." The Journal of American History 71, no. 1 (1984): 430-68. https://doi.org/10.2307/1899833.

The Harvard Gazette, "How the Black Church Saved Black America: Henry Louis Gates' new book traces the institution's role in history, politics, and culture," 31 March 2021, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/03/the-history-and-importance-of-the-black-church/.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Arianna Sparrow, 1842-1927

For a strong biographical sketch of Arianna Sparrow, see the National Park Service posting: https://www.nps.gov/people/arianna-sparrow.htm.

By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

Arianna Cooley was born in Virginia in 1842, the daughter of Elizabeth Cooley. Arianna married George Sparrow, also Virginia born, in 1879 and in 1900 the couple lived in Boston with her widowed mother. George Sparrow, 55 in 1900, was an unemployed barber and the couple had no children. George died later in 1900 and in 1920, Arianna continued to reside in Boston, living alone as a 78-year-old widow. Arianna died in Boston in 1927.

Arianna Cooley was active in the woman suffrage movement in Boston with surviving records dating from 1885 and 1887. She continued as a suffrage supporter as a founder of the Woman's Era Club in 1893 and an organizer of the First National Conference of Colored Women of America, held in Boston in 1895. An 1894 article in The Woman's Journal described the first members of the club as "able and fearless advocates of woman suffrage."

When Boston Black clubwoman and suffragist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was excluded from participation in a national meeting of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1900, Arianna Sparrow co-authored a statement condemning the Federation's action, concluding: "we shall feel very sorry for the cause of woman to see its standard lowered, its accepted ideals repudiated, its power diminished by any declaration that it is the cause of white women for which it stands, not the cause of woman."

Arianna was listed frequently as a speaker or singer at public events in the Black community of Boston. She was prominent in celebrations honoring Boston abolitionists, speaking at tributes for William Lloyd Garrison in December 1905 and for Charles Sumner in January 1911. In 1907 she addressed a gathering celebrating the centennial of the birth of the poet John Greenleaf Whittier. In 1915 she performed as a soprano in a choir at St. Augustine and Martin Church. In 1918 she stood in a receiving line that welcomed attendees at a testimonial for the Guardian, a Boston Black newspaper edited by William Monroe Trotter.

Sources:

Federal Manuscript Census, Boston, 1900 and 1920. Accessed online via Ancestry Library Edition.

National Park Service, "'Make the World Better': The Woman's Era Club of Boston," accessed online at https://www.nps.gov/articles/womans-era-club.htm.

Yasmeen Freightman, "Warrior for Women's Justice in the West End: Arianna Sparrow," February 2022, accessed online at the website of the West End Museum, https://thewestendmuseum.org/news/february-2022-newsletter/.

"Sets in Colored Society," Boston Globe, 22 July 1894.

"Colored Women and Suffrage," The Woman's Era, 2:7 (November 1895).

"By the Woman's Era Club," The Boston Globe, 28 Nov. 1900, p. 2.

"Tributes to the Work of Garrison," The Boston Globe, 11 Dec. 1905, p. 5.

"Col. Higginson's Address," The Boston Globe, 17 Dec. 1907, p. 8.

"C.G. Morgan Presided," The Boston Globe, 7 Jann. 1911, p. 4.

"St. Augustine and Martin Church, Lenox Street," Boston Evening Transcript, 3 April 1915, p. 44.

"Colored Americans in Testimonial to Guardian," The Boston Globe, 22 March 1918, p. 5.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Julia Mason Layton, 1858-1925

By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

Julia Mason was born in Middleburg, Virginia in 1858 to Henry and Ann Mason. By 1880, the family had moved to the District of Columbia, where Henry worked as a waiter and his daughter Julia continued to live at home while attending M Street High School. After attending Miner Normal School for a year, she became a teacher in the DC colored schools, beginning in the elementary grades and by 1891-92, back at her alma mater, M Street High School.

In 1893, Julia married fellow teacher John T. Layton. By 1900 the couple had two sons, John Turner and Alfred, and lived on 10th Street, NW, in a household that also included Julia's parents. By 1910 the Laytons owned their mortgaged home and John continued as a music teacher in DC schools. Their sons were now 15 and 10 and 80-year-old Henry Mason completed the household. Her husband died in 1916 and the 1920 DC census recorded Julia as widowed and heading a household that included 19-year-old Alfred and her now 90-year-old father. Julia, now 62, was recorded as a matron in a war camp.

Julia Layton was active in the DC branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving on its Executive Committee between 1913 and 1916. In February 1921, Layton joined a delegation of 60 Black women suffragists, who protested violations of the recently ratified 19th Amendment in Southern states that denied Black women their voting rights. The delegation, headed by the NAACP field, Addie W. Hunton, met with Alice Paul, head of the National Woman's Party (NWP), on the eve of the party's national convention. Their purpose was to press the NWP to pass a resolution calling on Congress to investigate the failures of Southern states to enforce the 19th Amendment for Black women. Paul made no such commitment and the convention as a whole refused to endorse the call.

Julia Layton passed away in Washington, DC, in February 1925 and her obituary in the Chicago Defender described her as "one of the most eminent welfare and social workers in the country." She was active in the Grand Army of the Republic, the Women's Relief Corps, and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). She served as a DC representative on the National John Brown Memorial Association of Women, an organization founded by NACW leaders to erect a memorial to John Brown "and his faithful followers." These groups were just a few of some 24 organizations which a 1913 article in the Afro-American Ledger noted that Layton belonged to.

Judging from her biographical sketch in the Negro History Bulletin, Layton's greatest commitment was to the Baptist Church. She was baptized in DC's Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in 1879 and was married there in 1893. She was a member of the Deaconesses' Club and the Ladies Christian Mite Society of the church. She frequently represented the District of Columbia at annual meetings of the National Baptist Convention and served on the board of the National Baptist Training School for Women and Girls that was directed by fellow suffragist Nannie S. Burroughs.

Sources:

Henry S. Robinson, "Julia Mason Layton, 1859-1926," Negro History Bulletin, 45:1 (Jan.-March 1982), 18-20.

Federal Manuscript Census entries, Loudoun County, VA, 1870, Washington, DC, 1880, 1900-1920. Accessed online via Ancestry Library Edition.

Death record, Julia W. Layton, Washington, DC, 8 Feb. 1925, and Find-a-Grave death record, both accessed online via Ancestry Library Edition.

"Mother of Turner Layton Passes Away: Son Abroad," Chicago Defender, 14 Feb. 1925, p. 2. Her older son was a noted song writer and composer.

Constitution of the National John Brown Memorial Association of Women, accessed online at https://womansera.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/volume-3-number-4/.

 

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Biographical Sketch of Mary J. Gordon, 1863-1932

By Thomas Dublin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University

Mary J. Gordon (maiden name uncertain) was born in Pennsylvania in 1863 or 1864. In 1884, Mary married James H. Gordon, a Tuskegee graduate. In 1900 Mary, her husband, and daughter Julia resided in Ward 22 in Philadelphia, where her husband was employed as a minister. In 1910 the family had moved to Brooklyn, where James was the superintendent and Mary the matron at the Howard (Colored) Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn, responsible for some 250 children.

As early as 1907 and 1908, Mary Gordon attended regular meetings of the Equal Suffrage League (ESL) in Brooklyn and in November 1907 she gave a woman suffrage talk at an ESL meeting. The New York Age recorded a portion of that address. Following a scriptural justification for women's equality with men, Gordon spoke: "Because of this I believe in woman's vote, woman's enfranchisement and in everything. I believe in it because no race can rise above its women. And now in these times while our white sisters of the South are saying if they could vote they'd overbalance the black men, etc. I believe in it because we should be well informed so that we could not only teach our boys and girls, but that we, too, could vote and overbalance those women's prejudices. Our people are being oppressed as we attempt to rise. Some men of every race fail to value their vote. Our men, like others, are not ready to die for their vote. This evil can only be remedied in the homes. Until our women fully appreciate the responsibility they'll never be able to combat. Women are to be helpmates in the home, church, in State and everything and woman's parity will do much in eradicating the roughness, etc., in politics.

As women, our contention is not only for the vote, but for the uplift of our race. If you want to uplift the world, woman will have to be a part of that uplift."

The last suffrage activity for Mary Gordon for which there is surviving evidence was a garden party in Flushing, Queens in May 1913. Mrs. Gordon took charge of a booth at the event.

In 1911 the Orphan Asylum moved to a 572-acre farm in Kings Park, Long Island and the Gordons moved with it. James passed away in 1914 and Mary served as superintendent through 1917. The asylum offered a program organized around industrial education, much influenced by the work of Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. The asylum closed in January 1918, unable to secure adequate coal to heat its buildings. Mary had one exchange of letters with W.E.B. Du Bois in September 1918, when she resided at 1 Jefferson Ave. in Brooklyn. In her letter Mary asked if she might use his name if she applied for a social work job and commented on a recent visit she had had with Mrs. Du Bois.

In 1920 Mary was employed as a clerk in the New York Bureau of Buildings, earning an annual salary of $600. Her address at that time was 308 E. 39th St. in Brooklyn. She died in Brooklyn in November 1932.

Sources:

Federal Manuscript Census, 1900, Philadelphia, ward 22; 1910, Brooklyn, ward 24. Accessed through Ancestry Library Edition.

New York death record, James H. Gordon, 3 March 1914. Death record, Mary Gordon, Brooklyn, 15 Nov. 1932. Both accessed through Ancestry Library Edition.

New York Age, 21 November 1907, p. 6 and other articles identified by searching on Newspapers.com.

"New Home is Opened," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 7 June 1911, p. 2.

"Suffragists' Garden Party," Brooklyn Times Union, 14 May 1913, p. 8.

L. Hollingsworth Wood, "To Give a Child a Chance," The Southern Workman, Jan.-Dec. 1914. Accessed online.

Carleton Mabee, "Charity in Travail: Two Orphan Asylums for Blacks," New York History, 55:1 (January 1974), 55-77.

Judith Wellman, Brooklyn's Promised Land: The Free Black Community of Weeksville, New York (New York: New York University Press, 2014).

Untitled, The Crisis, 13:6 (April 1917), 297.

"Howard Colored Orphan Asylum," in Wikipedia. Accessed online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Colored_Orphan_Asylum.

"The City Record," 1920, p. 181. Accessed online at http://cityrecord.engineering.nyu.edu/data/1920/1920-07-31%20part%200005.pdf.

 

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Introduction

   'How Coyote Imitated Bear and King-Fisher' does appear in the published version of Coyote Stories, but it is a greatly sanitized version of the original. In the original story, Coyote and his wife Beaver have run out of food, so Coyote goes to Bear's lodge and Bear aids Coyote and his family by cutting a piece of buckskin (deer skin) off his wife's clothing and cooking it in water over a hot fire. Bear also adds some of his own berries to the cooking pot. Bear's shoo-mesh, spirit power, allows him to both repair his wife's clothing and to present Coyote with a fine meal of venison (deer meat) from the piece of buckskin he had put in the pot. Bear's huckleberries accompanied the deer meat. Coyote tries to do the same in his own home, but because he does not possess Bear's shoo-mesh, he is unsuccessful. In Mourning Dove's original story, Bear cut off a piece of his wife's breast to prepare the meal for Coyote. Even though Bear's shoo-mesh allowed him to immediately heal the wound, the editors sanitized this story to remove the elements of cannibalism and mutilation. In addition, in the original story, Bear's 'berries' were the product of his bowels. In the published version, Bear empties a bag of pebbles into the pot. A bag of pebbles would have served no useful purpose in an Okanagan home, but it is clear why the story was sanitized to remove the real origin of the berries. Grimm's Fairy Tales were similarly edited throughout the nineteenth century out of concern for whether their original subject matter was suitable for children.

____________________________________

[p. [1]]

-:HOW COYOTE IMITATED BEAR AND KING-FISHER:-

   Coyote and his wife Mole lived with their five children, all boys, in a lone tepee by themselves. During the moons of snow, they grew very hungry. Bear, and King-fisher, were Coyote's closest neighbors. They had plenty of food. One sun Coyote said to his wife Mole:

   "I am going over to see your brother Bear. (1) He may give me something for my starving children."

   So Coyote went to the lodge of Bear, who had no family but his wife.. On entering the door-way, Coyote noticed that Bear had nothing in his home but his bedding of robes. Every thing was nice and clean; even to the fireside, but no signs of food. Coyote was hungry; was always hungry. For a time he sat in silence, then began to yawn. Bear said to his wife:

   "Put the rock in the fire and bring water in the basket. Maybe your brother is hungry. Maybe he wants something to eat."

   Bear's wife placed the rock in the fire and went after the water. This made Coyote wonder where the food was to be had. He said nothing; but he kept on yawning. It was the yawning of hunger.

   After the rock was heated, Bear took his flint knife and opening his wife's buckskin clothing, cut off the fattest part of her breast and laid it aside. Bear put his hand in the ashes, rubbed it over the wound, which immediately healed. Bear's wife then placed the fat-breast meat in the cooking basket with water, and cooked it with hot stones. This was for Coyote. She asked her husband if he had any berries left. Bear got up, turned his rear to the cooking basket and emptied part of his bowels to season the soup for Coyote.

   This disgusted Coyote. Hungry as he was, he only pretended to eat the food set for him. Then he thought to taste the soup, which looked good. He poked his finger in the basket, and found what Bear had contributed, to be fresh huckleberries.

[p. 2]

   Coyote. This disgusted Coyote. He pretended to eat the food set for him, then thought to taste the soup which looked good. He poked his finger in the basket,and found that what Bear emptied from his body was fresh huckelberries.

   Coyote ate all of the soup. The remains in the cooking basket, the meat, he took home for his wife and children. Bear told Coyote to have his children bring the basket home, but Coyote insisted that Bear come after his basket. Bear must visit him; so finally Bear consented.

   Next day Bear went after his basket. When Coyote saw him coming, he told his wife Mole to hide all of their rose-hips,(2) and to clean up the tepee, as he had found the tepee of Bear. Only a cooking basket, two sticks and a rock lay by the fire-side. Bear came and looking in at the doorway, asked for his basket. But Coyote insisted that Bear come in and visit with them. Bear came in, and Coyote told his wife Mole to heat the rock and bring a basket of water. This was what Coyote had seen Bear's wife do. Mole did as she was told. When the rock was heated, Coyote took his wife by the breast and cut her bony chest off. Mole fell back dead. Coyote tried to restore his wife's flesh with ashes as he had seen Bear do, but could not. Mole lay on the tepee floor, without life in her body.

   Bear sat for a time, then said to Coyote:

   "This is my way! Coyote. I do not imitate any body as you do."

   Bear then cut off both of his breasts and laid them down for Coyote. He healed the wounds with ashes. He also healed the breast of Mole, who came back to life again. Bear then taking his basket, went back to his own tepee.

   Coyote and family lived on the meat cut from Bear's breast for many suns. When it was all gone and they had grown hungry again, Coyote said to his wife:

[p. 3]

   "I am going over to see your brother King-fisher. Maybe he will give me something for my children to eat."

   Coyote then went to the tepee of King-fisher, who was no brother to his wife Mole As he entered, he saw nothing to eat. He sat down in his neighbor's lodge, yawning. Coyote was hungry; was always hungry. Soon King-fisher said to the oldest of his two children:

   "My son, go bring four willows!"

   Boy King-fisher brought the four willows to his father. King-fisher placed them over the fire to heat. When hot, he twisted the willows to make them strong. This caused Coyote to wonder! King-fisher tied the four sticks to his belt and flew to the top of his tepee. From there he flew to his water-hole; diving in. After a short time he came out of the water with all four willows strung full of fish. They were for his neighbor, Coyote.

   King-fisher's wife cooked the fish and set them before Coyote. Coyote ate his fill. There was some remaining which he wanted to take home to his wife and children. He wanted to carry the food in the la-ah-chin. King-fisher told him to have one of his children bring back the cooking-basket. But Coyote insisted that King-fisher come for the basket, and pay him a visit. After Coyote had coaxed for some time, King-fisher agreed; but against his will.

   The following sun King-fisher went to the lodge of Coyote for his la-ah-chin. Upon entering the door-way, Coyote wanted him to stay for a meal. Coyote said to his oldest son:

   "My son, go bring four willows!"

   Boy Coyote asked his father:

   "Why do you want them? What are they for?

   Coyote scolded his son. He said to him:

   "You ought to know why I want the willows! You have always brought

[p. 4]

them for me."

   Boy Coyote then went after the willows for his father. When he came with them, Coyote heated them in the fire and twisted them as he had seen King-fisher do. Then placing the four sticks in his belt, he tried to fly to the top of his tepee. But he had a hard time climbing to the top without breaking the lodge down. From there he jumped to the water-hole. striking the ice, he bursted open and his intrals came out. Coyote lay on the ice by the water-hole dead.

   King-fisher taking his cooking-basket, went down to the water-hole where Coyote lay. He took the four willow sticks from Coyote's belt, and tied them to his own. Then diving into the creek, he soon came out with all four willows strung full of fish. Laying them beside Coyote, King-fisher restored Coyote back to life. He said to Coyote:

   "This is my way! I do not imitate as you do."

   King-fisher now went home. Coyote taking the fish to his tepee, said to his wife Mole:

   See! We have plenty to eat now. Plenty for my imitating Bear and King-fisher. That is why I imitated them."(3)

   Thus ends the stories of Coyote; the "Imitating" Person; The "Imitator"; the Here Deity of the Animal World.

[p. [1]]

-:NOTES TO:-

HOW COYOTE IMITATED BEAR AND KING-FISHER

(1)--With the tribesmen, such decleration of relationship as here indulged by Coyote, is a mark of respect, a confering of honor and should not be confused with the conventional phraseology of the Old World peoples. Grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin, brother and sister, are oftimes allegorical expressions, demoting profound respect or esteem. I have a missive written by a leading Yakima, wherein he addresses his chief: "My Dear Nephew:"; subscribing himself: "Your Nephew." These endearing phrases may be used in currying favor, as in the case where "Chick-adee Kills Elk.", found elsewhere in this volume. Dangerous creatures, such as the rattlesnake are sometimes thus importuned to do the supplicant no secret or unlooked for injury. In like manner, trapped or slain game is not infrequently addressed appologetically for the necessity of having to taking its life. The sentiment is one of significant beauty, and not without its commendations.

(2)--Rose-hips: the red berry-like seed/pod of the wild rose, gathered and made use of as food during periods of dearth. The rose-hips figure in the Kutenai Tales by Boas. (Bulletin 59, Bureau of American Ethnology.) There were times of famin through a dearth of salmon, or other causes, when the tribesmen were driven by starvation to the direst straits in food substitution. One aged Yakima told me how they had been reduced to the necessity of boiling the dung of deer, making it into a kind of gruel, or soup. Not only were the droppings gathered where the animals ranged, but the contents of the stomach of any killed was carefully preserved and made use of.

[p. 2]

(3)--See "How Speel-yi Was Tricked By Schah-shá-yăh." "Too-noon-yi." and "Ots-spl-yi." Legends of The Yakimas.

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