Woman's 108 years celebrated

From The Oklahoman, by John David Sutter, Staff Writer

OKMULGEE — In 1900, Martha Berryhill was born into a dark period of American history — one in which the federal government tried to strip Berryhill and others of their Muscogee (Creek) identity.

Today, on Berryhill's 108th birthday, members of the Creek Nation are still struggling with laws set up then to break down their culture, language and traditions.



And while they celebrated Berryhill's long life on Thursday with a colorful cake, Creek-language hymns and construction paper birthday cards, Berryhill's friends and family already were talking about how when the "jewel of the tribe” is gone, it will be an end of an era for American Indians.

"If she ever goes, she's going to be taking a lot of history with her,” said Dora Neconish, 63. "It's a new chapter for the Creeks.”

Last living Creek on rolls
After Berryhill's family was forcibly moved to Oklahoma from the southeast United States on the Trail of Tears of the 1830s, they set up in Indian Territory, or what now is Oklahoma. At first, the land was used communally, in keeping with Indian traditions.

Then, after the General Allotment Act was passed in 1887, nine years before Berryhill's birth, the federal government imposed a system of private property rights on the people of Indian Territory. Each adult member of an Indian tribe was given 80 to 160 acres of land.

The program was designed to turn Indians into "responsible farmers in the white man's image,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Berryhill is the last living member of the Creek Nation who was given land as part of the Allotment Act. She's also the last of the tribe who was listed on a government roll of American Indians — called the Dawes Rolls.

That listing still causes headaches and resentment among American Indians today, as it is used to determine who is and isn't Indian, and therefore who is eligible for certain benefits given to Indian people.

Some say the list is inaccurate. Others feel like it was used to divide and conquer native people.

Moreover, the list and the land divisions cut the timeline of Creek life in half. Berryhill was born at the time of the split, and so she's lived a life with one foot in the traditional world that existed before the removal and the land division, and one in the Western world that followed, said Geri Berryhill Johnson, Berryhill's 61-year-old niece.

Many traditions of the Creeks live with her 108-year-old aunt, Berryhill Johnson said. The traditions are not written down, only passed orally.

While she's familiar with much of the history, she said historical questions undoubtedly will come up that only her aunt can answer.

"Once she's gone we have no one to ask if we don't know it now,” Berryhill Johnson said at Thursday's birthday party at a Creek Nation retirement center in Okmulgee.

Speaking a dying language
Family members and friends say Berryhill was a fiercely independent woman in her youth who loved to walk miles and miles to pick wild onions and blueberries. She used them to make traditional foods and cobblers, they said, and she would take the homemade treats to older members of the tribe who lived nearby.

Berryhill is a fluent speaker of the tribal language, Mvskoke, and loves to sing and once played the guitar, they said.

While a Methodist singing group performed for her Thursday, Berryhill swayed and sang along in her native language. She sat at a long meeting table at the front of the room, and tapped on it with her hands.

Berryhill lives with her daughter, Ruby Mauk, 87, who said she can't speak the Creek language at all.

Mauk said she once could speak bits of the language, but then she went to a girls' boarding school in Eufaula where English was taught. Teachers would punish the students for speaking their native languages, she said, and eventually she lost all knowledge of the Creek language.

Monte Randall, a University of Oklahoma graduate student working with the nation's Mvskoke language program, said this is a turning point for the Creek language. Elders hold most of the knowledge, and they're dying off, said Randall, who was part of a group that trained children to sing in Mvskoke for the birthday party.

Berryhill said a few words in English at Thursday's celebration, thanking Jesus for blessing her. When presented with gifts, Berryhill's eyebrows rose up nearly to her thinning hair line, and a huge smile came over her face. She nodded and thanked her guests.

She was dressed for the occasion, with a new lavender dress (her favorite color) and magenta-painted nails. She walked in and out of the party with the help of a walker.

Mauk said such outings are rare for her and her mother, especially since Mauk gets dialysis treatments three times per week. But every week they make a trek to Walmart —one of Berryhill's favorite pastimes.

"She just likes to go up and down the aisles looking at everything like she's never seen it before,” Berryhill Johnson said.

Pictures of Berryhill in her younger years were posted on a felt board at the party. A sepia-tone photo shows Berryhill in a polka dot dress with a smirk on her face, head cocked slightly to the side. Another shows her standing in a field of flowers in Tulsa, a scarf tied over her dark hair.

Berryhill's hair is now gray and thinning. Up until a year ago, she dyed her hair black, said Berryhill Johnson.

Relatives realize that Berryhill's life is nearing its end.

They're proud of Berryhill's efforts to carry on her Creek culture, while also adapting seamlessly to a world that's dramatically different now than it was in 1900.

In keeping with Creek and Christian traditions, they say Berryhill will never be gone.