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Linking The Two Worlds Of Joseph F. Griffis And Chief Tahan: Sharing A Story And An Incredible Journey

photo provided Photo from the book ‘Tahan, out of savagery into civilization’ Tahan in the Indian warrior costume he wore on the platform.

Tuesday September 14, 2010

By Cookie Steponaitis

    In 1915 Chief Tahan wrote Tahan: Out of Savagery into Civilization, an autobiographical account of his amazing life that chronicles a man who wore the mantles of Indian Chief, Medicine Man, outlaw, deserter, scout, Salvation Army Captain, evangelist, clergyman, storyteller, and accomplished student of language, art, the classics and music. He is known to many in Vermont as Joseph F. Griffis who was a man of culture and quiet dedication. Yet, in one lifetime he had lived in two different worlds and called them both home. The reader, while studying his works is drawn into sharp parallels, contrasts and often left with the question of how one man could have lived so many diverse lifestyles. The answer is quite simple - no average man could have. Chief Tahan, or Joseph F. Griffis was unique in history and in his accomplishments. His work is all but unknown now and only recently surfaced in the hands of a local teenager who found an old book on the shelf and ran to her grandmother for an explanation. The inscription on the cover read, “To Irene, May flowers always grow from your footprints.” Sincerely, Tahan January 10, 1950. The inscription resulted in the knowledge that Tahan had not only lived in Vergennes for a period of time, but there were more of his works to find and read. The curiosity of one generation sparked the need to understand the past and a search was born.

    While Tahan writes that he is not certain of the location and date of his birth, and in fact can only narrow it to, “…somewhere between the borders of Canada and Mexico,” he does know that his mother was called Al-Zada and was of the Osage tribe. His father was known as a trapper, hunter, and fisherman and often was simply referred to in the territories as “California Joe.” His mother was killed in a raid when she took a blow that was met to kill Tahan and the toddler grabbed the hair of his attacker, who took him home to his wife as a present. After learning that the child came from Texas, the young Kiowa chief’s wife named the baby Texas Man or Tehan.

    Also incredible to read and digest are Tahan’s recollections of the American prairie as he grew up and the incredible stampedes of animals and people when the fires came or the tribes set “big burns.” He describes in graphic detail the impact of fire on the herds, the tribes and the interconnectedness of the entire region to the cycles of nature, renewal, birth and death. His travels and raids brought him in contact with incredible diversities of other tribes as well as encounters with traders, explorers and the American military. At each page, you see the America of the 1890’s through the eyes of a man who not only lived it, but transformed his own world in it.

    One facet of Tahan’s incredible life that has transcended his own writings was the collection of Indian Story Circle Stories and dances that he passed on through his writings, drawings and story telling. “As soon as I could walk,” Tahan wrote, “an old man taught me the Rabbit Dance, for, like every boy, I was called a Pho-ly-yo-yeh, “rabbit” though not born a Kiowa. The girls as well as the boys took part in the dance. They formed a circle, imitating the peculiar motions of the rabbit, and with the first two fingers of each hand kept to the beat of the tom-tom.” In addition to the dances Tahan chronicles his being placed on a horse alone as a little child and remarks that this was “…common sport with the child.” As his skills grew, so did his role in the tribe and his activities that earned him fame and fear in the circles of neighboring tribes.

    With chapters dealing with games, rituals, moral codes, ideas on conception and order of the universe, choosing a medicine man, and more, the reader follows Tahan on a journey that includes finding a different way of life, a new perception of God, a new education, and a unique ability to transcend both worlds with words and actions. Whether as Joseph K. Griffis, a pastor at the South Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, New York, or the man who lived quietly in Vergennes and would put on his Native American clothes from his times as an Indian Chief as he told stories of many different tribes to the youth and populous of Addison County, Tahan set down on paper a description of a time and world that was then rapidly disappearing. He clearly tells the writer he did not invent any of the material and from his home in Vergennes in 1928 even penned a second book, Indian Story Circle Stories, in which everything from rainbows to what is important in life are detailed in story form from generation to generation, a tradition of oral story telling that exemplifies the essence of the culture, preserving it for the next generation.

    For the teenager who found the book, the world of Tehan has become a source of inquiry, exploration and research, tracing his life and his path across time and linking it to his years in Vergennes and the residents he had contact with. For those wishing to learn more about this incredible man, his autobiography can be found on Google books and read on line. A copy of his Circle Stories is currently on loan to members of the Ferrisburgh Historical Society and then will be made available at the Bixby Library for people to see and read.

    Better yet, take down one of those old dusty books from the shelf and open it up. What treasures await you there? Will you find a local man who was more than he appeared to be? Will you look through the eyes of time and space to a world no longer present? Or maybe you will find that the past is not dead and that the important issues of then are those of now and reach forward to us to be found and again treasured. “From this day, said he slowly, and every word was like a big rock on the back of a drowning man, you shall go on your hands and your feet and always. These were the first bears. So they began.” The words of a Kiowa storyteller passed generation to generation seals in time a capsule of imagery and details of a life in one world and recorded by a man who walked the streets of Vergennes and had feet in both worlds, saving and recording both for all time, and just there waiting to be found again and treasured.

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