CHOUTEAU, Okla. – The certificate of authenticity reads: “My name is John KnifeChief. I am a full-blood Pawnee Indian from Pawnee, Oklahoma. I make hand-made arrows, buffalo spears and lances. I look forward to being your Native artist.”
Those few sentences say much about the single father making a home for his five-year-old son in the heart of Cherokee country. It even says something about where his heart is.
“Elders say the veins in the arrowhead speak of the journey you’ve taken in your life,” KnifeChief said. Seated at the dinette set serving as a work area, he has already split a single feather cut from the tail bustle of a turkey he shot with an arrow he made from a bow he carved.
After attaching the feathers, he binds the perfectly knapped arrowhead with sinew.
“My elders in my tribe say (to me) if I would’ve been alive 100 or 200 years ago, when they had wars – when they had arrow makers and bow makers and different people that did different things in tribes – then I would’ve been one of the main guys that they would’ve kept alive. Nothing would’ve happened to me,” he said.
But things do happen to everyone, and the many relief-like rises and valleys on the surface of KnifeChief’s arrowheads say so.
As a child, KnifeChief’s dad was a farmer who would often find arrowheads while plowing the ground of his family’s land outside of Pawnee. The late Dennis Charles Knifechief, who everyone called “Gala” for his gentle and generous nature, gave them to his sons. The boys kept them and took after their father, who made bows and arrows as he had been taught by his elders. KnifeChief and his brother, Charles KnifeChief, learned to make their own toys as well as their father’s craft. They knew where to find the bois d’arc trees ideal to make a strong, flexible bow; they knew to gather the straight dogwood shoots in spring on river banks and cemeteries to make arrow shafts. They learned to knap points for hunting from flint, jasper and black obsidian.
As a teen, KnifeChief was drawn to art and often sold his paintings, sketches, arrows and bows to help the family with “diapers and milk.” As Gala became older, the boys kicked in by cutting firewood for sale and picking pecans for market. With the death of his father in 1983 of Rocky Mountain tick fever, KnifeChief found himself changed, even avoiding powwows and dances – activities Gala had loved. They just weren’t a part of his life anymore.
Years passed before KnifeChief made another arrow. By that time, he had two sons of his own and was a Pawnee Fire Scout. Through the Scouts he joined the ranks of volunteer Wildland Firefighters battling blazes throughout the country. On 9/11, firefighters streamed into lower Manhattan to rescue people trapped in the fallen Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. KnifeChief knew some of the firefighters who died in that effort from wildland fires. To the fallen, he made 40 traditional spears but in American patriot’s colors and gave most of them to the New York City Fire Department to remember those lost to the attacks. Spears, he said, are symbolically thrust in the ground to mark the beginning and end of a war. The NYFD planted one of the spears at Ground Zero. He kept six of the spears, some of which are on a wall in his home in Chouteau. He moved there to be near his brother.
Being among firefighters means family, he said.
“It’s just like having a regular brother and sister, you get a stronger bond, I think, whenever you put your lives on the line. People are different. They look at things different,” he said.
His own career as a firefighter came to end soon afterward. Being hit by a driver on his motorcycle wasn’t the only thing, however, that would change his life again.
About four and half years ago, KnifeChief was driving his motorcycle near Tahlequah. He recalls quite a bit considering the damage. It was dark, and a teen with his learner’s permit approached him from the opposite direction before swerving into KnifeChief’s lane. He remembers flipping through the air and that his helmet flew off.
“When that person hit me, I was laying there, and it was like that out of body experience you always hear on TV,” he said.
His third son, Charles, was only an infant at the time. He thought about him, his father and many other things. He also thought about what it meant to appreciate life. Afterward, he made some changes to himself.
“I wasn’t a bad guy or anything, but I watch what I say and I don’t … I do my best not to hurt anybody’s feelings if I say something wrong. It’s rough being a single parent,” he said.
KnifeChief has full custody of Charles, who plays alone but for a languid black kitten because there just aren’t any children his age where they live. KnifeChief never expected to be raising a child on his own.
“I’m 46, and he’s five. I didn’t want any more kids, but I was (sent) to a wildland fire in Atlanta, Ga., and came home and he’s what happened,” he said. “I wanted to take it easy, but my whole life changed when he came into my life for the better.”
He speaks to Charles in Pawnee, but around strangers, he’s bashful to say much, yet happy.
“It’s just been me and him for the last five years, KnifeChief said. “… Since I can’t work, and he’s only in kindergarten, this is what I do -- make my arrows and bows and go around different places and demonstrate how to make bows and arrows and things. Pays the bills.”
While Charles is at school, KnifeChief spends hours at the dinette set with holes half-bore at the edge, a casualty of the trade. He cures the dogwood shafts with flames from a cigarette lighter to set them straight. The smoky burn marks that blacken the length resemble small, smudgy fingerprints and are his signature. The arrows, along with the spears and much larger, sturdier buffalo arrows, are built for use, not showcase, but the buffalo hunts Pawnee ancestors subsisted on are a thing of the past; and KnifeChief knows that most people who buy his work intend it for a shelf. There is little practical use for his buffalo knives carved from elk or deer antlers today.
“I’m honored that I am one of the few people who are still continue this dying art,” he said.
He enjoys teaching his tribe’s craft to school and youth groups.
From the family land in Pawnee to wherever his little truck takes him, KnifeChief and his small, cheerful helper are becoming recognized on the road. They will drive to a town, park the truck and walk to different businesses selling the arrows. What his buyers do not realize is that they are fulfilling two needs: rent payment and tradition. KnifeChief separates them as ideals, but understands how they merge to his family’s benefit. He’s not in for the money, but his son’s welfare depends on it.
“Chaticks-si-chaticks.” That certificate of authenticity he sends home with everything he makes doesn’t interpret this old Pawnee saying, although it’s prominent on both his letterhead and in life.
“It means, ‘men of men’ or ‘people of people,’” he said.
In other words, everyone is connected and worth knowing. With every work, KnifeChief makes his introduction.
To contact John KnifeChief, call 918-207-6457.