Durant Weekly News
May 11, 1928
Antiquities of Bryan County
By Guy A. Crossett
Forbis Manning of Caddo, has spent all his young life practically in Bryan County. Born at Tishomingo 57 year ago, he moved to Caddo with his parents, Dr. and Mrs. T. J. Manning about the time of the coming of the M. K. & T. in 1871, perhaps a few years afterward.
He was educated at Jones Academy and at neighborhood schools of the time, taking some work in Caddo private schools. He has followed various avocations: farming, stock raising, sherffing, and a now extinct business- livery stable. In his time the livery stable flourished and made good money. Horses, carriages, and feed were cheap and buggies in demand. At the early age of which I am writing, there were thousands of horses running wild on the prairies near Caddo. A horse was good to carry a person, but brought little money. He tells of one man who sold a dandy wild horse for a gallon of whisky- and a gallon of whiskey in those day was worth only $3. But the new buyer was never able to catch his wild horse.
Cheap in price though horses were, the cattle or horse thief was an outlaw, and more severe punishment was inflicted for this crime than for murder. It was necessary, because at that early day sure and severe punishment was all the protection the people had for their property. No fences, no law officers, few courts and vast distances between houses
The Manning brand was 23. All horses bearing that brand belonged to the Manning family. The Boydstun brand was 33. In the early days these brands had many horses- perhaps thousands. None of the family ever saw all of their horses. They ran wild.
Joel Nail, with the diamond F brand, lived on Blue, eight miles west of Caddo and he, too, had a world of horses. It was he who built the first wire fence on the prairie. He fenced six miles of Twelve-mile Prairie with wire, and to test it, had his cowboys drive the horses and mares toward the fence to see if it would hold the horses. It did.
Vanishing Trades
Besides the livery stable there has almost vanished another trade- that of saddle maker. Few people ride saddle horses anymore. The hardware and harness stores now seldom sell a saddle, yet when Manning was in his youth the saddle maker flourished with a good business. The cow man thought more of his saddle and pony than he did of his home.
The stage coach driver, once a flourishing trade, is now gone the way of all the earth. The old Chisholm Trail that went west of Durant by Kiersey to Robbers Roost to the western frontier is but a memory, but many men now living remember the Trail Carriage Point, near Kiersey was a noted relay station. Then Robbers Roost was a U. S. Post Office. The place takes its name from the fact that it was the rendezvous of a gang of robbers that flourished during that period.
The call of the points along that route was not such as to reassure timid passengers. First was Robbers Roost, then Devil’s Den, last Sulphur. The sequence is suggestive. Tales are told of how those highwaymen would scorn to use the gun on victims, but would use a lariat, thrown about the neck of the victim, and then drag him to death.
Crooked Roads
That road and others of that time followed no straight lines. It was decidedly crooked. The one from Caddo to Fort Sill went in a westerly direction to Nail’s Crossing, then by Emet, Tishomingo, Davis, Whitehead, Duncan, to its end. There were not bridges. The roads hunted natural fords. Also, these roads avoided trees. Such a thing as cutting down trees to make a road straight did not comport with the spirit of the times. Better to wind around a tree than cut it down. Likewise, no banks on streams were cut down. The road just ran along following least resistance until a likely natural crossing was found; quite different then to our numerous straight roads on section lines and countless bridges and culverts. If a team got stuck in the mud in those days, more teams were hitched on until the load was pulled out. Time and distance apparently meant little in those days.
Pashofa Dances
The Pashofa Dance was a Choctaw ceremony used to cure diseases of the sick. It was performed by the Medicine men who came in response to the call of the family. In this dance the neighbors all came, for it was an occasion of a big feed. The women folk made Pashofa by mixing corn and cubes of pork. These were cooked in a large pot in the yard and the individuals fed themselves with huge crude wooden spoons, lacking better utensils. Between gorging on the toothsome morsels, they performed rhythmic gyrations to the tune of beaten tom toms.
Meantime a rope had been stretched outside the house wherein the sick lay, so that persons could not come within the sacred precincts of the medicine men, who, dressed in garments calculated to frighten any spirit or human, performed various rites and gyrations before the stricken one. It was believed that if one of the neighbors came within the rope, the disease of the person would enter the bold adventurers who spurned the admonition to stay out. The spirit of disease was called Shulop.
After many hours, perhaps, of his medicine-making, the doctor man would fill his mouth with a fluid of his own concoction, which he would spew over the face and form of the sick.
These Pashofa dances lasted usually as long as the Pashofa held out. Lacking a prospect of food, the neighbors gradually drifted away.
Manning tells of one time when he was bout 14 years of age, he went to see a sick boy friend. The Pashofa dance was in full swing when he got there. In his zeal for the welfare of his friend he disregarded the dividing rope, crawled under it, and entered the room as the medicine man was spewing the water in the face of his friend. The medicine man grabbed Manning by his scanty garments and threw him out on the ground, much to Manning’s’ chagrin and the amusement of the spectators. The Shulop, however, never entered Manning.
Hard Money
Frank Mugler is another citizen who has lived in Bryan County all of his life. He tells of times when he wore his pockets out carrying money in them. Not many of us now are so circumstanced. But in those days checks were not popular with the natives. Nor had they much confidence in greenbacks, for the Civil War had but recently passed and the Confederate currency had become worthless. Time was required to restore confidence in Uncle Sam’s paper money. So to buy cattle or other products the buyer must needs carry hard money with him- gold and silver. Frank carried his in a canvas shot sack. He still has one of those old money sacks. There is said to be now much gold buried in places in the Choctaw nation by people who thus turned their cattle into gold.
Manning’s father always carried his money in his boot legs and when upon retiring he removed his boots, left the money in the boots. In those days of few banks, and far between, the inhabitants must have a medium of exchange, so these were their ways. Strange to us now, but prevalent and necessary, so those were their ways.
As I talk to these old timers, these men who stand between two civilizations, who have lived in days that are full of history, I am nonplussed that the human family so readily adapts itself to any condition. Stern necessity has compelled them to hard living. New inventions have dulled the senses of the newer, so that no such hardy race is now being produced. What once was done by strenuous manpower, is now done by gasoline and electricity, for mankind has harnessed the elements and made slave of the laws of nature- a different thing to human slavery.