A Tribute To
John Joseph Mathews: Osage Writer
Fredrick W. Boling
Published in August 2006 Western Writers of America ROUNDUP Magazine.
John Joseph Mathews.
Photo Courtesy of The Osage Tribal Museum
John Joseph Mathews began the first chapter of his book, The
Osages: Children of the Middle Waters, with one of his unique
metaphorical comparisons. "If a snake were slithering along in
definite search for food, and suddenly he became aware of the shadow
cast by the wings of a red-tail hawk, high-circling, he would draw
his head back and retract his body until it formed into a series of
half-loops, then he would freeze, with only his forked tongue
darting for messages. He would be like a carelessly dropped rope;
like a new rope that had not the kinks stretched out of it.
"That is the way the Osage River of central Missouri and eastern
Kansas looks, as it comes down from the high prairie to flow through
the wooded hills. It lies shining there, among the hills, like a
snake under the shadow of wings, or like one that had been touched
on the end of the nose by a snake stick."
Few writers capture the reader with such vivid imagery as did John
Mathews in all of his writings, fiction and nonfiction. This trait
is not uncommon among Native Americans who devote themselves to the
creative arts-photography, painting, sculpture, music, architecture
and writing. Being born to Osage parents, William and Eugenia
Mathews, at Pawhuska, Osage County, Oklahoma in 1895 and growing up
among tribal members contributed greatly to insightful perceptions
included in all of his writings.
Mathew's ancestry played a major role in his writing. His great
grandmother, A-Ci'n-Ga, a pure-blood Osage, married mountain man,
William "Old Bill" Williams. He was an interpreter between the
Osages and U. S. government at the treaty of 1825. John Mathew's
father, William S. Mathews, who married Eugenia Williams, a daughter
of Old Bill and Ci'n-Ga, followed the Osages to Pawhuska, Oklahoma,
where he established the Osage Mercantile Company and Citizens Bank.
John married Virginia Winslow Hopper in Switzerland while studying
International relations at Geneva University in 1924. They returned
to the United States, settling in California. The marriage later
failed after two children, John and Virginia, were born. John
returned to the land of his ancestors in Oklahoma and remained there
the rest of his life. He married Elizabeth Hunt in 1945. She
became his coworker, helping with extensive research of the Osages
and their migration from Missouri to Kansas and then Oklahoma.
His educational, professional, and lifetime accomplishments were
numerous. He became a pilot with a rank of second lieutenant in the
fledgling U. S. Army Signal Corp Air Service during World War I. He
graduated with Bachelor of Arts degrees from University of Oklahoma
in 1920 and Oxford University in 1923. He also pursued studies at
University of Geneva in 1923-24. He served as a member of the Osage
Tribal Council from 1934 until 1942, on the Oklahoma Board of
Education in 1935, was co-founder of the Osage Tribal Museum, which
opened in 1938, and served as United States representative to
Indians of the Americas Conference, Michoacan, Mexico, in 1940.
two years spent as a realtor in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California,
he returned to Osage County, Oklahoma, in 1928, where he became a rancher
and began his writing career. All of his works reflect a concern for
the loss of Native American culture and traditions. His initial
nonfiction book Wah'Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man's
Road, published by University of Oklahoma Press in 1932,
incorporated an Indian agent's journal to pass on Osage history and
traditions. He feared the tribal way of life was in danger of
being lost. The taproot of his fear probably had its origin
while he was a small boy. He alludes to this in the
introduction of his last work, The Osages: Children of the
Middle Waters. After the arrival of his second sister, John was
moved from his mother's bedroom into a room by himself. Here, he
describes his first night spent alone. "I might have lain all night
obediently silent, but I remember the hour before dawn, when the
silence was the heaviest. There floated up to my room through the
open window, which overlooked the valley, a long, drawn-out chant
broken by weeping. I could even hear the sobbing. It was like the
song of the wolf and yet like the highest pitch of the bull wapiti's
moonlight challenge, but with a soul-stirring sob."
"I heard it many times later as I grew up and up until
the time I entered high school, and I have never been able to
describe it to myself; it was indescribable, and there is nothing
with which to compare it. It filled my little boy's soul with fear
and bittersweetness, and exotic yearning, and when it had ended and
I lay there in my exultant fear-trance, I hoped fervently that there
would be more of it, and yet was afraid that there might be."
"It seemed to me later, after I had begun to reason,
that this prayer-song, this chant, this soul-stirring petition,
always ended before it was finished, in a sob of frustration. It
was a Neolithic man talking to God."
Mathews spent the remainder of his life searching for
the ending of this prayer-song in desert mosques, European
cathedrals, pre-Columbian Mexico - once again in the Osage hills of
His only fictional work, Sundown, is a novel about a boy who
has both white and Indian ancestry, commonly called a mixed-blood by
tribal members. The story appears to be somewhat autobiographical,
which lends authenticity to the main character's experiences.
Challenge Windzer who is a mixed-blood Osage is born in the early
1900s when Wah'Kon-Tah, God of the great Osages, was still dominant
over the wild prairie and the blackjack hills. His father named
him, Challenge dedicating the boy to confront the disinheritors of
his people. The story propels the reader through the many ups and
downs Challenge experiences dealing with discovery of oil on Osage
lands, sudden wealth, and their effects on tribal and non-tribal
Talking to the Moon relates Mathew's experiences in getting
back to the land of his elders after living elsewhere for too many
moons. A quote from Western American Literature says it
best. "This is a timely book, beautifully written, one that can be
enjoyed just for the flow of beautiful English. It reminds one of
the writings of Thoreau with its down-to-earth philosophy, keen and
intimate observations of nature. But it is also full of Native
American comparisons, cowboy reflections and humor, and personal
John J. Mathews became a close friend of Ernest W. Marland, one of
Oklahoma's foremost oilmen who later became governor. Marland was
responsible for much of the oil discovery and development in Osage
County, which retains the same boundaries established for the Osage
Nation by the United States government in 1870. In 1951, The
University of Oklahoma Press published Life and Death of an
Oilman: The career of E. W. Marland by John Joseph Mathews. It
was an in-depth accounting of one of Oklahoma's enigmatic pioneers.
The author begins this story by relating how Marland's mother
dressed her only son in a complete Scottish outfit, including
Glengarry, dirk, sporran and kilt when he was quite young. She sent
him off to school where his schoolmates severely taunted him. He
ran back home, all the while yanking away every accoutrement prized
so highly by his mother.
Mathews best describes the task at hand for writing this accounting
by the following: "I had to find the human being among the many
pictures given me. . . . On the one hand, I had to cut off his "devil's tail, reshape his cloven hooves, and give him the human
quality of sympathy, and on the other, to snip off his wings and
throw his nimbus away. . . .Gossip was everywhere for the taking."
On June 11, 1979, John Joseph Mathews, his astute observations and
metaphorical genius ceased to be. The American West as he knew it
had experienced growing pains, agonizing and debilitating for most
Native Americans; yet, he succeeded in reminding his people of their
historical heritage. He became a part of white society without
giving up his Osage legacy. He accomplished much in his account of
The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters. The narration is
replete with in-depth observations, often approaching a spiritual
realm, and allegorical comparisons that reveal the Native American
psyche. His words paint pictures that can be understood and savored
by anyone, no matter their ethnic origins or societal orientations.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, white America saw
the West's verdant forests, cascading streams, far-reaching
prairies, and towering mountains as its manifest destiny. There was
little thought concerning the impact of westward progression upon
Native American societies. Let us hope John Joseph Mathews'
Wah'Kon-Tah will give us another chronicler like John who can show
us the way to recover the treasures of our combined heritages.