the storyteller

Truman Anquoe (Kiowa) Part 1 - 8 Mar, 2010

I was born in a teepee. My mother was in labor when we went to a church camp meeting at Red Stone Baptist Church where my grandfather was a member. He was a deacon there and they took me to church there and they put up a camp. It was in the winter, and it was cold and it was snowy. There, they couldn’t find a doctor to bring me into this world, but there was an Indian lady who knew how to bring babies into this world.

So they went after her and brought her over here to our teepee. There, right there on the campground, on January 22nd 1924 I was born. I was born feet first. They don’t know how this lady brought me out. They said she had to break one of my legs to bring me out. But somehow God spared me. He had something for me to do. He spared me.

Our Indian names is given to us by our grandparents. The certain character you have, that they name you. When they name you that name, you have to live with that name the rest of your life. You live by it. It’s a priority in your life, a good life. Like me, I became a Christian, but my name was Kaw-al-baw.

When the Indians used to fight against one another up there - we was up there in Montana, in the Black Hills. There’s a large river by there. There’s Kiowa and Sioux; they got into a fight. A war party; only two of them were left, one of my great-grandfathers and one Sioux. So this Sioux, he ran and jumped in the river, and my great-grandpa jumped in the river, and he killed this Sioux guy in the water. So my name is Swimming After – Kaw-al-baw. It’s given to me and I will always… I’ve known that name. I didn’t know my name is Truman… I know it was Kaw-al-baw, and I live with it. I got to keep it with respect. I never try to degrade my name.

My father’s father’s name was An-goo, he was a wise man. He’s one the keeper of the maps, the family story on buckskin, every year he puts drawing on there and they call him An-goo. He was wise, intelligent, he’s kind of like a counselor. So the name of An-goo; so when they enrolled Indians, they didn’t know how to spell An-goo. They didn’t know how to spell it. So the closest they come was Aunquoe; that’s how my name is in the government book, Aunquoe; that’s my name.

But when my brother went into the service, he was a famous boxer. His name was always in the paper, but he’s one that changed his name to Anquoe; it’s easier to pronounce, so I started using Anquoe. So all my cousins started using the word Anquoe then; An-goo, just a few of us have that An-goo, and we’re known as Anquoe now all over the state.

Today I’m Truman Anquoe.

I grew up in a traditional home. We put our tribal ways first. My name was given to me by my great-grandmother; she’s very traditional. Her grandfather was one of the greatest chiefs among the Kiowas. And his name was Ku-lay’i. He was a protector for the Kiowas where they lived, but through her, I started my life in living our traditional ways.

Powwows, war dancing, round dancing, forty nines, camping in family groups; I learned all that and that was my life. But my aunt and her husband, another aunt and her father, they’d take us to Sunday school. That’s where I started learning about the Bible.

And my dad would go to dances; he won’t take us but he’d go himself. We’d camp at these meetings, cause he’s always invited because he is a good singer at around the drum. They’d treat him good, they gave him things, but somehow, my mother, she stuck to the Bible.

There was one summer, a place called Rainy Mountain Baptist Church, they’d have Vacation Bible School, and my parents were a little reluctant to send me, my dad, especially my dad, because he belonged to the Payote religion among our Kiowa people.

But I went on anyway, and thanks to the teachers, thanks to the teachers at our Bible school, they told me about Jesus. After I became where I could think, my tribal ways so beautiful I started going that way.

And there I learned how to drink, smoke. I learned about sex and women. I got in trouble because I was strong, so that school couldn’t put up with me because I’d be a bully among their children, so they made me leave. So they sent me to a boarding school, and what’s at the boarding school, it’s just like an army, you’d march everything you did. Everything you did, you’d do it perfect; fix your bed, hang up your clothes; we learned how to do all of that.

There, one of the top priorities was doing away with my language. They punished us when we spoke our language. They whip us or they put clothespins on our tongues and put a bucket for our saliva would go in that bucket; we’d stand there maybe two hours when we spoke Kiowa. We talked Kiowa they’d punish us, they’d whip us.

So right there I learned English. I knew nothing but Kiowa. There I went to school with every tribe in western Oklahoma were students there. We all grew up together.

My father and mother’s marriage was unstable because he was a good man, he believed in God, he’d prayed, but even prayers cannot get you to Heaven; only Jesus gets you to Heaven.

But one time my dad chased me away from home, because he was going to attack my mother and I picked up a stick, a piece of wood, wood stove wood, and I was going to hit him with it, he knew it. He commanded me to leave his house and never come back, so I went.

I joined the CC camp. There, God took control of my life, He put me in the army. There, I was able to help myself; also I was able to help my dad who was not working. I sent them so much of my check, the government matched it. I bought bonds, and through that they were able to live through the war.

In 1942, I went off to war, WW II in Germany, and I became a combat medic. I could have got in infantry, but I told them I didn’t believe in killing, so I got in medical corp. But even when I was in service, I still turned to my tribal ways to guide me and direct me and to help me through the bad parts of life. And when I went to South Wales, there I was assigned to the British Commandos and the US Rangers, and there we were trained.

One day, we got on some boats. There were so many boats we couldn’t count them. The water was real high, the waves were high, and the ships could hardly move, and there was so much mist in the air that we didn’t know where we were going. The German Air Force could not attack us. But we kept going, pretty soon our ship stopped and we got off and got into some, they call them LCI’s, landing craft infantry. From there we landed on D-day on Omaha Beach, Green Beach in Southern France.

When we went to the shore we could see the bombing of beaches with shells, and I hit the ground. The guy by me, I was supposed to tag him, killed in action or wounded in action, I’m supposed to tag him, so they could identify him, notify their relatives through that, so I tagged this man, this boy.

He was a northern Indian, he was from Wisconsin I think; I forgot his name but the first person who landed by was American Indian on D-day. So I stayed with him for awhile; I thought about his parents, about his loved ones. In my heart I prayed for him, and I still remember his face today.

There was thousands of men killed to secure that beach, American soldiers. And we were sent in on the second wave to look for the wounded and to treat them, and if they’re in pain we’d give them a shot of morphine, and we had a collection station where we collected all these wounded men.

Then the Navy came in with boats, LCI’s, we would load them on, these wounded guys, and there were hundreds of them on these landing crafts that took them to a hospital ship. And that was the most gruesome things I’ve ever saw in my life.

There were land mines, barbed wire, personnel mines, anti-tank mines, that when you touched one that tripped it, exploded. And German AD’s were shelling us on the beach. But me, being a combat medic, them snipers didn’t shoot at me because I had a cross on my arm. Men'd be falling all around me, I’d be the only standing there.

(To be continued)