Dr. Tom's bio


I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with an interest in American Indians fueled by the Boy Scouts. As a senior in high school, I knew I was going to the University of New Mexico as an anthro major, but at that time, I had little idea what anthro was. That summer I volunteered at the Smithsonian, the start of a long and involved partnership with the Institution.

During the school years at UNM, I became involved with the local pow-wow circuit; there was a monthly pow-wow in Albuquerque, as well as pow-wows at the Santa Fe Indian School and in Taos. I sang with a northern drum [Leroy Little Bear, Paul Raczka, and Saul Birdshead] which practiced at the Kiva Club at UNM.

I also had a weekly folk music radio show on KUNM. After a session on Indian music with Paul Raczka and Tony Isaacs (of Indian House Records), the response was so great that it expanded into a weekly show, the Singing Wire, first hosted by Paul Raczka, then by Conroy Chino from Acoma Pueblo, now a respected reporter on Albq. TV.

During the summers I returned to Washington where I got a series of internships and fellowships at the Smithsonian, studying the Plains Indian collections, doing a project on Siouan mythology, I also became associated with the then new Festival of American Folklife, especially their new Native Americans/Indian Awareness Program.

In 1970, we focused on the Indians of Oklahoma, and I first met. Comanches. I also met Floyd Just Plain Westerman; he was hauled off our stage by an irate Comanche lady who was upset about his singing protest songs. Several years later at the National Folk Festival, a different thing altogether, he and I spent an afternoon singing country-western songs on a hillside.

In 1971, after graduation, I returned to the Smithsonian where I worked for 6 years at the Native Americans Program. We did a number of 'cultural' programs, most notably the annual Festival of American Folklife. At each year's festival, a different 'culture area' was featured, and we did basic field work in each, primarily looking for a local coordinator, but also seeking out craftspeople, etc. Thus I did fieldwork among the Iroquois; Blackfoot, Assiniboine, Rocky Boy's Cree, Gros Ventre in Montana; Lower Brule, Miniconjou, Brule, Oglala, in South Dakota; San Juan and Zuni, in New Mexico, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Navajo, Pima, and Papago in Arizona.

Meanwhile in Washington, the director of our program was Cherokee, and Comanche by marriage, and through participation, I became attached to the small local Comanche community; I also took time to visit the Comanches in Oklahoma as much as possible; I joined the Little Ponies Society in 1972.

We also did some other more directly Indian related programs. In 1971 we were contracted with by the Econ. Dev. Admin. of the Commerce Department to prepare a study of cultural programs on reservations. As a result of that, we produced a $2M pilot proposal to fund cultural centers/museums (built to proper museum standards, not just store fronts) on selected reservations and to train native personnel to run them.

The proposal had preliminary approval from DOC and was on Louis Bruce's (Commissioner of Indian Affairs) desk for his sign-off in November of 1972 when the Trail of Broken Treaties was trapped in the building.

W,e of course, knew the TBT was coming, and indeed had been working with them on arrangements for pipe ceremonies at Arlington cemetary; the big tipi that was set up on the lawn of the BIA building was ours!

We ended up acting as negotiators between the Feds and TBT; as far as I know, I was the only self-described non-Indian in the building. The FBI did come around our house later, having traced the license plate on my mothers car (a Carmen-Ghia), which I was driving.

But our museum proposal ended up in the mountain of trash in the hallways. I have often wondered whether, if it had been funded, the relationship between museums and tribes, which resulted in the acrimony of NAGPRA, might have been different.

In 1977, I went to George Washington U for a Masters in Anthro; my thesis focused on the Comanche pow-wow as a means of communicating a specific tribal identity within the larger "Indian" identity of the pan-Indian pow-wow.

In 1980, I went to the Hopi Reservation in Arizona to coordinate their commemoration of the Tricentennial of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the only successful Indian 'uprising'. I also served as de facto director of the Hopi Cultural Center Musuem, mostly trying to explain to visiting tourists that the Hopis are not the spiritual masters some New-Agers want them to be, as well as the political realities of the Hopi-Navajo land dispute.

I lived in Kykotsmovi (New Oriabi) in a house owned by Oswald White Bear Fredericks (of The Book of the Hopi fame[infamy]). The Katsinam often walked across my roof while passing from one kiva to another, and on winter nights we would gather outside the kivas to listen to them practice. The plaza was just down the street and they would pass by mu front door going too and from the dances.

I seldom saw White Bear during my stay (he spent most of his time in Sedona playing golf) nor did I see any of the other so-called "Traditionalists" from Third Mesa. I did however, spend a lot of time with the traditional (note small t) elders from Second Mesa (they were my Board of Directors).

In 1982, I went back to U New Mexico for a PhD in Anthro, focusing on the Comanche political history. [I had kept up my Comanche connections.] In '86, I went back to the Smithsonian, working at various contract jobs.

I did a catalog of the James Mooney photographs held by the National Anthropological archives, leading to the paper 'Visualizing the Ghost Dance'. i also did a catalog of the William Soule photogaphs, leading to the paper 'Comanche Domestic Architecture'.

I also taught Anthro, Political Anthro, and Native America at GW and Georgetown. In 1992, the job at Bloomington came open and I moved to wonderful Indiana. Unfortunately, after 10 years, it didn't work out. I am still associated with IU through the American Indian Studies Research Institute. With the University of Nebraska Press, they published my Comanche Political History and Comanche Ethnohgraphy, 1933

I am continuing my Comanche connections, consulting with them on NAGPRA and other issues; I have also opened connections with the Pawnees and Southern Arapahos working on museum related projects.

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