pegleglooker
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- Jun 9, 2006
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Hey all,
The story of Willie boy ( real name was Billie boy ) is best told by one of the deeper researcher's along with a native view... Hope you like it...
PLL
First a Native view
Cliff Trafzer is currently working on a reinterpretation of Willie Boy, whose story was popularized in a 1969 Robert Redford film, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Boy, a Chemehuevi or Southern Paiute native of Southern California, was accused in 1909 of murdering both William Mike, a Chemehuevi headman and shaman from the Twenty Nine Palms Band, and his daughter, Carlota Mike. The “hunt” for Boy led to what some scholars have called the West’s last and most famous manhunt. According to legend, Boy was not allowed to marry Carlota, his sweetheart, because he was too closely related to the Mike family. In retaliation, Boy killed the elder Mike and later raped and murdered Carlota when she slowed his flight from authorities. However, Dr. Trafzer’s archival and community-based research on the Willie Boy case has revealed a radically different version of events. According to Dr. Trafzer, Carlota was shot by the posse sent out to find Willie Boy. Through oral interviews, Dr. Trafzer has determined that Willie sang Salt Songs on the night of Carlota’s murder, which is customary for Chemehuevis, and then set a trap for the posse, shooting one of them and then watching the rest flee. Although the posse claimed to hear one more shot and were convinced that Boy had committed suicide, oral history interviews with Southern California Indians has revealed that Boy escaped and later died of tuberculosis in Nevada. Secundo Chino (Cahuilla and Chemehuevi), a member of the posse, related to Katherine Saubel and her father, Juan Siva, that because Boy’s body could not be located, law enforcement personnel were told to lie about the suicide. Dr. Trafzer’s work on this case has opened up renewed interest in collecting oral narrative and challenging the historical archive. Despite the publication of Jan Vansina’s influential Oral Tradition as History (1985), scholars continue to marginalize oral narrative as an unimportant aspect of the historical record. Even the prominent scholars who have worked on the Willie Boy case – Harry Lawton, Larry Burgess, and Jim Sandos – elided the key oral testimony of Native Americans who had intimate knowledge about Boy’s escape. Because oral narrative is so central to many Native American communities, especially those in Southern California, Dr. Trafzer’s work is a significant contribution to the field. During the fellowship period, Dr. Trafzer hopes to conduct more interviews, revisit the narratives he currently has on file, present his work to the group for feedback, and publish his findings.
And another view
Harry Lawton, 77; wrote of American Indians
By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times | December 6, 2005
LOS ANGELES -- Harry W. Lawton, an author and historian who wrote a nonfiction novel about a manhunt for an American Indian fugitive wanted for murder that served as the basis for the 1969 movie ''Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here," has died. He was 77.
Mr. Lawton was a reporter for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in the 1950s when he first heard accounts of what has been called the ''last great manhunt" of the Old West from Indians on the Morongo Indian Reservation.
In 1909, Willie Boy, a 28-year-old Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian, fell in love with Carlota Boniface, his 16-year-old distant cousin. Her father, William, a shaman known as Old Mike, forbade the marriage. Willie Boy shot Old Mike to death on a ranch in Banning, then fled with the girl. The couple stayed ahead of a posse for a dozen days as they circled and backtracked over nearly 600 miles of desert in 100-degree heat.
In the end, although the circumstances are disputed, the girl was shot and killed, and Willie Boy killed himself.
''Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt," Mr. Lawton's 1960 nonfiction novel, was based on three years of research that included interviews with surviving posse members. The book received the James D. Phelan Award in Literature for best nonfiction, and the Southwest Literature award for a historical work.
Mr. Lawton later served as technical and historical consultant for the movie, which starred Robert Redford as the deputy sheriff in charge of the posse, Robert Blake as Willie Boy, and Katharine Ross as the girl.
One of Mr. Lawton's sons, George, told the Los Angeles Times last week that his father's book ''was praised at the time as a breakthrough -- a sympathetic portrayal of Indians and their culture in the white world."
But James A. Sandos and Larry E. Burgess, the authors of the 1994 book ''The Hunt for Willie Boy," accused Lawton of being careless with the facts, including changing the name of the girl from Carlota to Lolita to capitalize on the popularity of Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a sexually precocious young girl.
In their book, Mr. Sandos and Mr. Burgess wrote that by ''accepting the views of an Indian-hater in [his interpretation] of Willie Boy," Mr. Lawton became an ''unconscious" one himself.
Mr. Lawton filed a libel suit, seeking $25,000 in damages. The suit, according to a Los Angeles Times account, was settled without money changing hands. Mr. Sandos and Mr. Burgess were ordered to write a correction in any undistributed copies and future editions retracting the Indian-hater charge and other points of contention.
The elder Mr. Lawton had long ties with the local Indian community. He was instrumental in founding the Malki Museum on the Morongo Indian Reservation, the first American Indian museum established at a California reservation. He also helped start the nonprofit Malki Museum Press, which publishes books and pamphlets about California Indians.
The story of Willie boy ( real name was Billie boy ) is best told by one of the deeper researcher's along with a native view... Hope you like it...
PLL
First a Native view
Cliff Trafzer is currently working on a reinterpretation of Willie Boy, whose story was popularized in a 1969 Robert Redford film, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Boy, a Chemehuevi or Southern Paiute native of Southern California, was accused in 1909 of murdering both William Mike, a Chemehuevi headman and shaman from the Twenty Nine Palms Band, and his daughter, Carlota Mike. The “hunt” for Boy led to what some scholars have called the West’s last and most famous manhunt. According to legend, Boy was not allowed to marry Carlota, his sweetheart, because he was too closely related to the Mike family. In retaliation, Boy killed the elder Mike and later raped and murdered Carlota when she slowed his flight from authorities. However, Dr. Trafzer’s archival and community-based research on the Willie Boy case has revealed a radically different version of events. According to Dr. Trafzer, Carlota was shot by the posse sent out to find Willie Boy. Through oral interviews, Dr. Trafzer has determined that Willie sang Salt Songs on the night of Carlota’s murder, which is customary for Chemehuevis, and then set a trap for the posse, shooting one of them and then watching the rest flee. Although the posse claimed to hear one more shot and were convinced that Boy had committed suicide, oral history interviews with Southern California Indians has revealed that Boy escaped and later died of tuberculosis in Nevada. Secundo Chino (Cahuilla and Chemehuevi), a member of the posse, related to Katherine Saubel and her father, Juan Siva, that because Boy’s body could not be located, law enforcement personnel were told to lie about the suicide. Dr. Trafzer’s work on this case has opened up renewed interest in collecting oral narrative and challenging the historical archive. Despite the publication of Jan Vansina’s influential Oral Tradition as History (1985), scholars continue to marginalize oral narrative as an unimportant aspect of the historical record. Even the prominent scholars who have worked on the Willie Boy case – Harry Lawton, Larry Burgess, and Jim Sandos – elided the key oral testimony of Native Americans who had intimate knowledge about Boy’s escape. Because oral narrative is so central to many Native American communities, especially those in Southern California, Dr. Trafzer’s work is a significant contribution to the field. During the fellowship period, Dr. Trafzer hopes to conduct more interviews, revisit the narratives he currently has on file, present his work to the group for feedback, and publish his findings.
And another view
Harry Lawton, 77; wrote of American Indians
By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times | December 6, 2005
LOS ANGELES -- Harry W. Lawton, an author and historian who wrote a nonfiction novel about a manhunt for an American Indian fugitive wanted for murder that served as the basis for the 1969 movie ''Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here," has died. He was 77.
Mr. Lawton was a reporter for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in the 1950s when he first heard accounts of what has been called the ''last great manhunt" of the Old West from Indians on the Morongo Indian Reservation.
In 1909, Willie Boy, a 28-year-old Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian, fell in love with Carlota Boniface, his 16-year-old distant cousin. Her father, William, a shaman known as Old Mike, forbade the marriage. Willie Boy shot Old Mike to death on a ranch in Banning, then fled with the girl. The couple stayed ahead of a posse for a dozen days as they circled and backtracked over nearly 600 miles of desert in 100-degree heat.
In the end, although the circumstances are disputed, the girl was shot and killed, and Willie Boy killed himself.
''Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt," Mr. Lawton's 1960 nonfiction novel, was based on three years of research that included interviews with surviving posse members. The book received the James D. Phelan Award in Literature for best nonfiction, and the Southwest Literature award for a historical work.
Mr. Lawton later served as technical and historical consultant for the movie, which starred Robert Redford as the deputy sheriff in charge of the posse, Robert Blake as Willie Boy, and Katharine Ross as the girl.
One of Mr. Lawton's sons, George, told the Los Angeles Times last week that his father's book ''was praised at the time as a breakthrough -- a sympathetic portrayal of Indians and their culture in the white world."
But James A. Sandos and Larry E. Burgess, the authors of the 1994 book ''The Hunt for Willie Boy," accused Lawton of being careless with the facts, including changing the name of the girl from Carlota to Lolita to capitalize on the popularity of Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a sexually precocious young girl.
In their book, Mr. Sandos and Mr. Burgess wrote that by ''accepting the views of an Indian-hater in [his interpretation] of Willie Boy," Mr. Lawton became an ''unconscious" one himself.
Mr. Lawton filed a libel suit, seeking $25,000 in damages. The suit, according to a Los Angeles Times account, was settled without money changing hands. Mr. Sandos and Mr. Burgess were ordered to write a correction in any undistributed copies and future editions retracting the Indian-hater charge and other points of contention.
The elder Mr. Lawton had long ties with the local Indian community. He was instrumental in founding the Malki Museum on the Morongo Indian Reservation, the first American Indian museum established at a California reservation. He also helped start the nonprofit Malki Museum Press, which publishes books and pamphlets about California Indians.
). At the time, Willie Boy was 27 ( Willie Boy was born around 1882 near Pahrump NV ) and Isoleta ( or Carlota or Lolita )....was 14-15. From what I have been told she was seeing Willie Boy without Daddy knowing and they actually " eloped " and was setting up house when dad found out and broke them up by gunpoint. Isoleta then returned to her family. The Mike family later went to Banning for the yearly fruit harvest. They camped at their usuall spot under a tree.Willie Boy was already working in the area as a cowboy and was considered a good one as well. He was not known to be a drinker or hard to get along with. But a " Caucasian " friend wanted to drink and went to Riverside to get the booze ( Banning was a dry town ) after a couple of hours of drinking his friend was too drunk and passed out. Willie Boy being " very " liquored up ( and probably feeling VERY brave ) figured now is the time to get Isoleta back. Of course Dad said no and a argument ensued and dad was shot in the head -dead-. Willie Boy then took Isoleta and told the rest of the family he was going to be watching in a ravine, and if anyone went for help he would kill them. 
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