On Monday, April 17, 2000 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Erik A. Mattila wrote:   
   > A couple of weeks ago someone here mentioned Richard Oakes.  I think   
   > Richard was a great Indian leader, and deserves his cubic centimeter of   
   > rememberance in the record.   
   >   
   > Sometime during the the summer of 1970 I was over to Willard Rhoades   
   > house in Enterprise, which is a suburb of Redding, CA.  Then these three   
   > fellows showed up who had just been down at the other end of the Pit   
   > River (erroneously called the 'Sacramento River") San Francisco.  The   
   > three were Wallace Mad Bear Anderson, Tuscarora, Thomas Banyaca, Hopi,   
   > and Peter Mitten, Cayuga.  They had just been in San Francisco where   
   > they doctored Richard Oakes.   
   >   
   > The story that led up to this went like this.  Richard had got into a   
   > fight with some Samoans in a tavern in San Francisco.  One of the Bula   
   > Bula Boys had cracked a pool stick over Richard's head, and he was down   
   > for the count.  More than that, he was dying.  He ended up in the Cedars   
   > of Lebanon Hospital in SF, in a deep coma, and the doctors there could   
   > do nothing for him.  Whatever was damaged in his head had caused his   
   > whole body to go rigid -- just imagne it, tighten up every muscle in   
   > your body until they seem like they are going to tear loose from your   
   > bones -- that was how Richard was.  He was actually burning up all his   
   > life energy - exhausting himself to death.  He was burning up more   
   > calories than the doctors could pump into his with the IV appuratus.   
   >   
   > Now here's where the story gets a little fuzzy as far as my knowledge is   
   > concerned.  Oktaha Sans Harjo, aka Yellow Hand, told me that he had   
   > spoken to Richard's wife, Annie, and some others, and they felt bad   
   > because no Indian doctors were coming forward to help out with Richard.   
   > Yellow Hand got on the phone, and began calling around the country and   
   > challenging doctors, more or less, to come and help.  What came out of   
   > that was Mad Bear, Banyaca, and Peter Mitten coming forward.   
   >   
   > So Mad Bear and Thomas told the story (and Peter Mitten, but he wouldn't   
   > speak English, so he spoke through Mad Bear) of what had happened in San   
   > Francisco the day before, when they got to Willard's camp in   
   > Enterprise.  It was kind of strange, because when they got to Willard's   
   > somebody went down to Colonel Chickens and got a big bucket, and as the   
   > telling was going on we were eating clhicken and throwing the bones down   
   > on the ground.  Willard and his wife Mildred had some pet chickens   
   > there, and these were eating the chicken scraps we were tossing to   
   > them.  Chicken cannibalism, in fact, and it make me think that "Mohawk"   
   > was supposed to mean "Man Eater" in their language (Oakes was Mohawk).   
   > Anyway - that just adds to the surrealissm of the day...   
   >   
   > The doctors at Cedars of Lebanon told Annie Oakes that the could do   
   > nothing for Richard, and the told her that he would die in a couple of   
   > days.  Annie told them that she had got some Indian Doctors to help   
   > Richard, but the hospital doctors said 'no dice."  She pleaded with the,   
   > and her strongest argument was that they had definitely thrown in the   
   > towel, and why not give Indian's a chance.  They finally consented, but   
   > they wanted to know what the Indian Doctors were going to do.  Mad Bear   
   > and Thomas told the doctors that they would understand what they were   
   > going to do, and there was no way to tell them about it.  So they   
   > sequestered a small laboratory, and Peter Mitten went about preparing   
   > some herbs the had brought along in suitcases.  The hosptial doctors   
   > kept asking questions as Mitten was extracting and combining etc. but   
   > Peter Mitten would just give them an explation in Iroquois that the   
   > couldn't understand.  After a couple of hours of lab work, Peter Mitten   
   > had a small vial of a blackish liquid, and he took that to Richard's   
   > bedside, where he disconnected the IV tube, and began to drip the black   
   > liquid into the tube.  As the hospital doctors saw this mixture going   
   > down the tube into Richard's arm they began to royally freak-out.  You   
   > can imagine the 'malpractice fear' they were expereincing.  But the   
   > Indinans there managed to keep the MDs in check.   
   >   
   > They said that Richard's Oakes' body had turned as white as a piece of   
   > paper, after his several days of laying in a coma with every muscle in   
   > his body absolutely rigid.  As the Indian medicine entered his body,   
   > they said, a red spot appeared over his heart -- and it began to expand   
   > outward as the color returned to Richard's body.  As this ring of red   
   > expanded, the muscles underneath the red area just sank into relaxation,   
   > until finall his whole body just relaxed.  He didn't wake up.  Peter   
   > Mitten called Mad Bear and talked to him, and Mad Bear translated for   
   > the MDs:  "Now he will have to sleep for four or five days."  And they   
   > left.  But they said something else up at Willard's, and that was that   
   > Richard was supposed to come home to New York to complete his   
   > doctoring.  Richard never did do this.   
   >   
   > After he recovered, Richard was never 'quite right' and many of his   
   > friends urged him to go home to complete his doctorig.  But he wasn't   
   > going for it.  He was strange.  I mean he would walk up to you one   
   > minuge, say hello, hows it going, and all that, and pretty soon he would   
   > look at you like he didn't know you, and ask "Who the hell are you?"   
   > And he would blurt out outrageous plans at any given time " I'm going to   
   > blow up..." some building or bridge or something.  It made everyone feel   
   > uncomfortable.   
   >   
   > A couple of years later I was traveling with John Pope Rolling Thunder,   
   > Red Sun (Semu Haute's boy) and My Socks, and we were trying to fix the   
   > bus the bus that the Mormons had given Mad Bear, which was broke down in   
   > Oriabi, at Banyaca's house.  We spent the night in Salt Lake City, and   
   > we were going to Oraibi the next day.  That night in SLC I had a very   
   > strange dream.  I was at these people's house, and they were coin   
   > collectors.  We were looking at the coins, but I kept hearing Indian   
   > music coming from outside.  I went out the door of where I was, and I   
   > could see that all of Salt Lake City was wired with a big PA system, and   
   > there was a big Pow Wow going on that was being broadcast over the whole   
   > city.  I left the 'coin party' because I wanted to go to the PowWow.  No   
   > sooner did I start walking down the street, when these four guys in a   
      
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