Chief Tours Historic Mathews Cabin
Oklahoma Nature Conservancy provides tour of John Joseph Mathews’s cabin
PAWHUSKA, Okla. (Feb. 18, 2015)—Aggressive, brittle, cold winds did not lessen the surreal and moving experience of walking across the land and through the home that inspired the monumental historical accounts of early Osage Nation Reservation life and times, eloquently preserved by Osage author, John Joseph Mathews.
“It feels really powerful to be here… I’ve read all of his books,” said Osage Nation Chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear, who was noticeably in awe of the moment. The Chief and the Osage Nation Communications Team were provided a tour of the cabin and property by Harvey Payne, Oklahoma Nature Conservancy Communications Relations Coordinator.
The cabin is tucked away just far enough from the main road leading to the scenic tour of the Tall Grass Prairie and the bison that make their home there. The small, abandoned and slightly dilapidated cabin is where Mathews wrote his deeply moving and visual accounts of Osage life and customs.
Pawhuska, Okla. (Feb. 18, 2015) — Harvey Payne holds a picture of John Joseph Mathews seated in the same spot in the 1930s where Payne stands.
Mathews’ writing is also noted for its elaborate and palpable descriptions of the land and wildlife.
“He showed his anger in fantastic play of lightning, and the thunder that crashed and rolled among the hills; in the wind that came from the great tumbling clouds which appeared in the northwest and brought twilight and ominous milk-warm silence. His beneficence showed on April mornings when the call of the prairie chicken came rolling over the awakened prairie and the killdeer seemed to be fussing; on June days when the emerald grass sparkled in the dew and soft breezes whispered, the quail whistled and the autumnal silences when the blackjacks were painted like dancer and dreamed in the iced sunshine with fatalistic patience.”
--Sundown, by John Joseph Mathews, 1934
“We are just so pleased that the Mathews family trusts us with this property and the history attached,” said Payne. The Conservancy purchased the home and property from the family in December.
Pawhuska, Okla. (Feb. 18, 2015) — Building adjacent to Mathews cabin that Mathews painted.
According to Payne, Mathews, wrote his first book, Wah’Kon-Tah, at the cabin in 1932, shortly after he first relocated back to his allotment acreage where the cabin is located. Mathews lived a life full of adventure even before moving home and beginning his literary career. He was a WWI fighter pilot, graduated from the University of Oklahoma, attended Oxford, he declined to be a Rhodes Scholar because he thought it was limiting, and he was a newspaper correspondent most of his adult life.
In an interview with Dr. Guy Logsdon, writer, folklorist, musician and Oklahoma historian, Mathews talked about his life before moving home to the Osage and the reason he decided to come home to chronicle the history of his people. Mathews described an incident that happened on a hunting trip in North Africa in the late 1920s.
“I remember very distinctly one evening, when we were preparing our meal, suddenly it came to my guide and my cook that it was time to worship. So they fell on their knees, their faces toward Mecca, as usual. In this situation you feel so clumsy, so out of things—you feel that you are an absolutely sinful person. About this time some Kabyles, a wild tribe of Arabs, came up who were not [Islamic] and had no known religion at all—wild! They came racing across the sand. I think there were about six or eight of them firing their Winchesters, the model 1894 lever. I thought, here, we’re in trouble. My guide and my cook were prostrate. They surrounded us shooting all the way on their Arab horses—all mares, incidentally. Then they got off and ate with us. They were friendly. That night I got to thinking about it, and I thought that’s exactly what happened to me one day when I was a little boy, riding on the Osage prairies. Osage warriors with only their breechclouts and their guns had come up and surrounded me—firing. Of course, I knew some of them, about them; they knew me, who I was. That’s what we called joy shooting you see, just joy. So, I got homesick, and I thought what am I doing over here? Why don’t I go back and take some interest in my people? Why not go back to the Osage? They’ve got a culture. So I came back; then I started talking with the old men.”
At the time, Mathews was living in Switzerland where he attended League of Nations sessions and earned a certificate in international relations form the University of Geneva.
Pawhuska, Okla. (Feb. 18, 2015) — Osage Nation Chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear, rests on the fireplace mantle of the cabin and observes a portrait of Mathews as a young man. .
Standing in the relatively small stone room with a large fireplace, Payne points to the Latin inscription carved into the fireplace mantle, “Venari Lavari Ludere Ridere Occast Vivere,” which loosely translates to, “to hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh—that is to live.”
Atop the mantle are copies of his book covers, and a portrait of Mathews. Payne holds a photograph of Mathews, taken more than eighty years prior to this cold day. In the photo, Mathews is sitting comfortably smoking a pipe next to a roaring fire with hounds at his feet. Payne stands in the same place in front of the fireplace. The group stops to take pictures and ponder the life and times of a classically educated Osage historian and artist during the thirties and forties on the Osage Reservation.
Considering all of Mathews’ travels, education, and the romantic era of literature when his own literary legacy was born, another translation of the Latin inscription on the mantle, when applied to its Roman culture origins, may be a more suitable translation, “to hunt, to make love, to play to laugh—that is to live.”
“Years ago, I was on the Nature Conservancy Board, so I know this place is in good hands,” said Standing Bear. “They are great caretakers of the land.”
At one time, Standing Bear said, during the previous administration, the Mathews family offered the Nation priority to purchase the land and property. “The Nation had the opportunity to purchase and just failed to follow through, it was another missed opportunity.”
However, the Conservancy has extended an invitation to include the Nation on developing the property. “It’s a natural partnership, of course, we looked to the Osage Nation first, it just makes sense,” said Payne.
Future plans include continuing road improvements to the property, rehabilitation on the home, and making visits to the cabin and land more available to the public. Long term, Payne hopes to include something for contemporary Osage writers.
“Can you imagine, writing in the same room where Wah’Kon-Tah, Sundown, and Children of the Middle Waters was written…by John Joseph Mathews,” said Payne looking at the cabin from the shade of a more than 200 year old post oak in the front yard.
Mathews served on the Osage Tribal Council in the 1930s, he wrote to preserve the history of his people from an Osage perspective. He was born in Pawhuska, November 16, 1894, and he died in 1979. His grave is located near the cabin.
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