Sally Wells, Smyrna

Sally Wells, Smyrna

On September 24, 2019 Bradley Hanson, Suzanne Lynch, and Evangeline Mee recorded Sally Wells in Long Hunter State Park. A revered elder in Tennessee’s Choctaw community, Sally Wells is recognized as a master of several endangered Tennessee art forms. As a bead worker, dressmaker, traditional cook, and speaker of the Choctaw language, her life and work represent a direct link to a deep and rich Native American cultural heritage.

For more information on Sally, visit the biography and video created in honor of her 2019 Tennessee Governor’s Arts Award. The following is an interview transcription.

Sally was raised in the Bogue Chitto community on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian Reservation. Her family then joined a small migration of Mississippi Choctaw seeking agricultural opportunities in West Tennessee. Sally began by describing her childhood and her family’s move to Tennessee.

“I grew up [in Mississippi]. I think I was about twelve when we moved to Tennessee. But I am very much part of that. I go meet my people. I still have relatives there. We go every year in July. The community itself, we got about seven or eight communities around there. We got sixteen thousand acres, the whole reservation is. That’s where I was born and raised. My parents both spoke Choctaw. It was eight of us in our family. That’s how my childhood went. When we moved to Tennessee, we ended up in West Tennessee, Lauderdale County. That’s most of my life. We was kids, we don’t know what was going on. But my parents felt like they had to get away to provide us what we need. On the reservation you don’t have nothing. So when government talked to people in West Tennessee—my parents were farmers—so when they asked for someone to come down to help them work on farm, so my parents jumped up and packed us up and moved us here in Tennessee.

After we moved to West Tennessee, there were several Choctaw families that moved too, so we was all in a community. We feel like it was a community, because we all get to know each other. We was just isolated from everything else. We stayed by ourselves. We went to school, we get involved with church. From there, we grow, things changed. I hated it when my parents moved us to Tennessee. But after a while, I made adjustment I guess. I wasn’t happy the whole time, but after I went to high school, I changed everything. I feel I was welcome. All of us did. My sister and my brother they feel the same way. That’s how we end up in Tennessee because my parents feel like they have to move us out of the reservation in order to survive.

When I went to Indian school, we was about ten, fifteen miles away from school. There was no busses, nothing. So the government decided that we’re going to school no matter what. They took three of us—my older sister, and next, and I was the youngest—I was about five years old. They pick us up and took us to a family that lives close to school and put us up there. So we can walk to school. I remember all that. Later time they had busses. But after we left is when they had those kinds of things. Now it’s so much better place to live, I could move back and live there now. I wouldn’t hate it. Back then we didn’t have nothing. When you live on a reservation, you feel like you’re stuck there. You can’t go nowhere.

When we come to Tennessee, I hate it because I left most of my friends and everything else, but after a long while we got used to it. At the time when we moved out here, it was probably about fifteen, eighteen families that moved along with that. We all a big family together in a group.”

Sally described how she learned various Choctaw traditions from her parents. She explains that these traditions were woven into the fabric of everyday life in her Choctaw community.

“The family, they all do cooking, making clothes, and the bead works. I think that they learned from their parents and brought along. And they want us kids to learn anything that we can learn. I didn’t really care about learning all this, so I didn’t start it. My mother and my grandma they used to set down, and would say, ‘You need to do this; you need to do that.’ So we sat down with them and start maybe beading, maybe making quilts. Maybe learn how to cook. That’s how I learned from them as I grow up. So I can make the traditional Choctaw food. I don’t have to wait on them, as I was growing older, I learned how to do all that stuff.

My aunt, they always make the prettiest baskets, but for some reason I didn’t want to touch a basket. I didn’t want to learn how to do it. Now I look back, and I wish I could so that I can do everything that a Choctaw does. And today now when I go back home, they are giving lessons in school. Back then it was just the family and that’s how you learn and carry on. My bead work, my mom has taught me many days. That’s how I keep going to do that.

I think [bead work] is just a part of our life. That’s the traditional culture. As a little girl, I remember they have dance; they have stickball. And when we go to do all that, to participate in anything that was going on, we have dress up. We have to wear beads. I think that’s how we carry it on. We feel like it’s part of our lives; we can’t do without it.

For myself, I started with the beads. Until I feel like I know what I’m going to, what design I’m going to make, what color I’m going to use, I can’t start it. I sit down and think about it. As I said before, I don’t have no pattern to go by with it. Today they go to school to learn all this. I think they have somebody to put out the patterns. That’s how my family learned. They don’t have to have patterns. They sit down and think about what’s in head. And then you just say ok, this is how I am going to put it together and what color do I want? Blue, green, white, red, whatever. That is how I learned how to do all that.

I have four sisters and they don’t do as much as I do. They do whenever they can, but they do the same thing. If I’m making something like a collar necklace, earrings, and bracelet, it takes me about eight hours. Indian people, when you see somebody and you know they are a special person, you give them something. I have this thing here, this guy from New Mexico gave it to me because I was a special person to him. That’s the way we do. I know I give many of my friendship necklaces away. I do that at the arts and crafts show here. If I see somebody that I feel like is special, you can tell, I give so many of that.

When growing up, on the res, we don’t wear pants. We only wear dresses that my mom makes. That’s what we we’re supposed to wear. So we wear those dresses until we moved to Tennessee, then everything changed. We start wearing pants. Right now when I wear my Choctaw dress, it’s a very special day. That’s when I wear my Choctaw dress. It’s not like that back, but I grew and my family always talked about what you need to do at the funeral. I hate to bring that up, but that’s what we were expected to wear, is Choctaw traditional dress, when somebody died. I have two dresses that I wear, at both funerals of my parents. I’m going to wear my dress at the powwow. We’ve been doing this thirty-eight years. I’m going to wear my traditional dress. They will wear the dress every time we have something special. And that’s how I grew up, to respect whatever they taught us to do.

We just elected a new tribal chief. He asked me to send him an invitation to the powwow. He’s over all of us. No matter where you are, you have to vote. My sister and her daughter live in California, and they have to vote.

We had a place called—-Nanih Waiya—it’s a mound. The history about that is that that’s were the Choctaw people originated from that mound. They have a celebration every year, a green corn dance. Every year since I can remember. They always say Choctaw people originated from there.”

Sally has been a leader and educator both within the Native American community in Tennessee but also to communities unfamiliar with her cultural traditions. In the next section, she discusses how she founded the Native American Indiana Association (NAIA) with Ray Emmanuel in the 1980s. She also goes to schools and teaches children about Native American history and culture.

“Ray and I—30, 40 years ago— Ray had a business in Smyrna. I went to the store and met Ray. We thought we was the only Indians in Middle Tennessee. He asked me if I meet anybody, and I said no, I didn’t think there was any Indians. He told me he was the Lumbee tribe. We talked, he said, ‘we should organize something and put an invitation in the newspaper. Maybe some Indians will come and we can all get together.’ He had dealed with a mayor in Nashville, and he said, ‘ya’ll should build an Indian organization.’ He help us to create this Indian organization. That’s how we started this Native American Indian Association. All volunteer work, no pay. I’ve been doing it with him for thirty-eight years. We started before that, but originally when we signed the papers, was thirty-eight years ago.

I’m an officer on the board since we started. I was a treasurer, I was president, I was vice president. Now I’m the vice president. I really liked to do all this volunteer work because that’s how we create this, and that’s how the Indian people come. Thats how we know which Indian tribes are here and why they’re here. We help these people. That’s what I need to do.

I got to school and do the presentation. The kids do not know what’s Indian. They say, ‘why aren’t you wearing feather.’ I say, ‘that was a long time ago. You only wear feathers when there is a war or a dance or event. You don’t just wear feathers because you want to wear feathers.’ I would explain it and that’s how it would go. It’s important for children to come and find out.”

Sally closes with a reflection on the role of traditional culture and the Choctaw language in her life. Sally discusses what it meant to her to teach her granddaughter in the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. She explains what she wishes others knew about her heritage and Tennessee’s history.

“Why are my traditions important? I grew up with it. That was our life. That’s what we live with. I was taught a lot of stuff from our tribe and family. I still continue it, and I will continue till I die.
I’m glad people are doing it. My sister, she cooks Indian dish. I do too. I just want to carry it on and taught my children and my grandkids, and they know where they come from. Where I came from. I will never give up my heritage. My husband never asks me, ‘why are doing this.’ He never asks me that.

I learned when I was a child, my mom taught me, then I taught my children. As long as I’m here as a grandma, I’m still continuing to teach them what they need to know. If someone else wants to learn from me, I will be glad to teach them. My language is gone, they didn’t taught at school. Younger generation is loosing it. We never did, we always talk in Choctaw. At home that’s all we used was Choctaw language. At school, we used both. But the first time I went to school when I was five years old, not living with mom and dad. At the time, I didn’t know how to speak English, because I never was taught. When we went to school they don’t want us to talk Choctaw, they want us to talk English. That was hard. Because I didn’t know how to speak English at five years old. So that was hard, but we learned. Whatever you do, you’ve got to learn to accept it and move on.

She was in high school. I think she was in 11th grade. So I asked her if she wants to be student. She said, ‘Nana, I will always want to learn how you do it.’ I give her an hour over the weekend and she come over and we sit down and do the work. Sometimes we would do it about three or four hours. That’s how she learned. She is a quick learner. My daughter knows how to do it, but she didn’t taught her. I didn’t have to taught my other daughter anything. She went to Arizona/New Mexico. She thought she wanted to be a painter. Thats what she went to college for. Maddie has two sisters who want to work with the beads.

When someone comes and asks you if you are Indian, and then they started talking about whatever tribes they come from. And they want to know more about it because they don’t know. I wish there was a way for them to learn their heritage. And go on with that, knowing they are part Indian. I believe white people know something about [Indian heritage]. Tennessee don’t have recognition of tribal people. They don’t have no land in Tennessee. People here are just born here like everyday people. Some kids don’t now what Indian is, they just know what they see on TV. That’s all they know, cowboys and Indians. I wish it didn’t happen, but it happened that way. We want them to know that Indians was here. They need to know that there were five civilized tribes here. If I asked them who the tribes were, they wouldn’t know. They need education. I’m aging. And I feel like life is too short to not know what you should knowing.”