Tilton and Grace Entokah: An Osage Story offers an episodic history of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma as told through the life narratives of Anthony Lookout's great-grandparents Tilton and Grace Entokah, whose son Fred Lookout served as the principal chief of the Osage Nation from 1916 to the early 1940s. Anthony Lookout grew up hearing the stories of his relatives. His father, Morris Lookout, methodically recorded the oral traditions and tribal stories of Osage elders and relatives on reel-to-reel tapes from 1965 to 1971. The recordings preserved generations of Osage history, religious practices, and cultural traditions reaching back to the mid-nineteenth century. To write this story of his family and Osage history, Anthony Lookout did additional research in archival collections, newspapers, and magazines and interviewed elders. From the perspective of a participant rather than an observer, Lookout tells the tribal history of the Osage Nation's removal from their Kansas homelands in 1865 and relocation to Oklahoma's Indian Territory from 1872 to the early 1940s. The heart of the story revolves around Lookout's great-grandmother Grace Entokah, who grew up as a traditional Osage woman, and adapted through traumatic and uncertain times, staying true to her Osage culture. She went from riding horses to riding in automobiles, eventually meeting the president of the United States. Lookout covers the family history of the Entokahs, the Allotment Act of 1906, Oklahoma statehood, the depredations of mining and oil companies on Osage lands, the establishment of tribal government and courts, Principal Chief Fred Lookout's journeys to Washington, DC, to meet top government leaders, as well as tribal stories of the infamous 1920s Osage murders and other key episodes in Osage history. Tilton and Grace Entokah is not only the story of the Entokahs but also an Osage history written from the collective memory of those on the Osage reservation.
Anthony Lookout is an Osage songwriter and musician from Tulsa, Oklahoma. His Osage name is Hunkathali, meaning "good eagle," from the Hunka clan. He has spent his life playing music as a multi-instrumentalist performing and recording songs and music videos and producing other local artists. Also an actor, he worked for two years with the Native American acting troupe Mahenwahdose.
"Through the riveting family saga, Tilton and Grace Entokah: An Osage Story shows the complexity of traditions and change in an evolving world. The focus on family ties, Indigenous food knowledge, pride, and courage show successful adaptations while preserving core values. Storytelling is a way of maintaining community, and this account makes the story of the Osage community richer, warmer, heartfelt, and memorable."--Denise Low, author of The Turtle's Beating Heart: One Family's Story of Lenape Survival "Tilton and Grace Entokah: An Osage Story is both engaging and authoritative. The author's voice is remarkable--he manages a storytelling manner and, best of all, he manages a tricky balance of entering the minds of historical characters, his kin, and stating what they likely thought and felt without presuming to know their opinions or deepest feelings. He is able to travel through history with these characters."--Marcia Haag, coauthor of Osage Language and Lifeways "So much of our Native American culture is now beyond our experience, having left our world with only memories for us. We live in a time and a place in which a new culture alien to the Native American has begun to influence everything. The bridge to preserve the customs of the ancient ones is so strained that we fear its collapse. Because of this, deep sadness resides in the hearts of those among us who can still hear the sounds of the native language and the voices of the ancients. It is good to remember there were those who lived and loved the days and nights of their time. Anthony Lookout brings us into those times and they are worth remembering."--Geoffrey M. Standing Bear, principal chief of the Osage Nation "This book is a collection of stories Anthony Lookout heard growing up in an Osage community embedded in white society. Readers of the stories will find them both familiar and perplexing, at times even strange. But isn't that true of all good stories?"--Peter G. Stromberg, professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of Tulsa
