The Chickasaw Leaning Pole: Finding Our Home

An Interview with Chickasaw Artisans Wayne Walker and Wayne Scribner When speaking of homes, Chickasaws often talk about many different kinds of homes. They speak about their ancestral family allotments in Oklahoma where grandparents might live, about family homes where countless cousins gather for birthdays and holidays and meals, about church homes where they worship, and about historic homes and museums where our history is on display Many times is a place where we are in the presence of our friends and families and in the footsteps of our ancestors. The story of the Chickasaw Leaning Pole in all its variations is a story not only about the creation of our tribe, but also of finding our ancestral home in the southeast. A story held in the hearts and memories of Chickasaws, it has been transmitted in a multiplicity of ways - from oral traditions, to paintings, modern dance interpretations, poems, and comic books. It's a story of who we are as a people and how we came to be; it's a story of finding our refuge, of finding a place to be Chickasaws. The new Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma, is another place to be Chickasaw and is another Chickasaw home. With its opening the story of the Leaning Pole comes up in full force in the minds and memories of Chickasaws and has been interpreted by two Chickasaw master artisans into a beautifully symbolic pole nearly 10 feet in height cut from cedar and engraved with Mississippian iconography. The following interview highlights the experiences of Mr. Wayne Walker and Mr. Wayne Scribner as they conceived of the Leaning Pole and the process and artistry behind its creation. Working with woodcrafts and leather, they have handmade award-winning art and craft pieces that are traditional examples of Chickasaw material culture. To them the Leaning Pole isn't just a Chickasaw story, but the pole tells a story within itself. Their story of artistry and friendship as they finished each other's sentences and thoughts, and of the very journey ancient Chickasaws took into the east. Their strikingly carved and painted Leaning Pole is placed on display in the Plaza. Just like the story, it marks a new place of home for Chickasaws, and also, as if never forgetting our homelands, it leans ever slightly to the east. Meredith Johnson: Let's begin with some background information - where were you born and raised? Wayne Walker: I was born in Oklahoma City and we lived there until I was two years old and my father came back to Happyland where his father, Eamonn Walker, had his allotment land. We moved down there and he built a house on that land, and I remember walking through that open field in the grass to pick out where we'd live; where we'd built a house. That's where we built our house. We lived there until he passed and then after that we moved around. Then we lived down in Allen and that was where she had her home built, and I got married and moved to Oklahoma City but came back to Ada in 1995.. . . But this area was always my home, my grandfather's allotted land is still out there. It's not 160 like it was because it's 28 acres now, but it's still there. Wayne Scribner: I was actually born here in Ada. My family, the Chickasaw side of my family, is from the Stonewall area, so I was actually born here in Ada. Then my father went to OSU and went into the military, so I actually just grew up all over the world - Korea, Hawaii, Germany, the United States. This is where I came back to because this was home. This is where my grandparents lived. I had one set of grandparents that lived out at what they called Old Frisco and my other grandparents,... after my grandfather passed away, [my grandmother] moved from the Stonewall area up to Ada. So this was the only place we could call home. When you grow up in the military, you grow up all over the world, and so it comes [to] a point when you leave the household. My parents at that time were going to a European tour, I come back to Ada because that was the only place I could call home because that's where my grandparents lived. …