John Joseph Mathews (c. 1894-1979) became one of the Osage Nation's most important spokespeople and writers, and served on the Osage Tribal Council during the 1930s. He studied at the University of Oklahoma, Oxford University and the University of Geneva after serving as a flight instructor during World War I.
Matthews' first book was Wa'kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man's Road (1929), which was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club as their first by an academic press; it became a bestseller. His book The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961) was a life work, preserving many collected stories and the oral history of the Osage.
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Mathews was born at Pawhuska, Oklahoma as the only son among five children of William Shirley and Eugenia (Williams) Mathews. His father, a banker was the son of Bill Mathews, a notable mountain man and trader.[1] His mother Eugenia was descended from A-Ci'n-Ga, a full-blood Osage, and "Old Bill" Williams, a noted mountain man who lived with the Osage.[2] One-eighth Osage by ancestry, as well as Anglo-Scots-Irish, the young Mathews and his sisters attended local schools.[1]
Service in World War I came before college, and Mathews became a flight instructor and second lieutenant after time in the cavalry.[2] Afterward, he went on to the University of Oklahoma, then studied at his own expense at Oxford University in England, graduating in 1923. He studied international relations in the University of Geneva and traveled in Africa before returning to the United States, determined to study the culture and traditions of the Osage.[1]
In 1924 in Geneva, Mathews married Virginia Winslow Hopper. They first settled in California, where they had two children, John and Virginia. The couple divorced.[2]
After returning to Oklahoma, where he stayed the rest of his life, Mathews married Elizabeth Hunt in 1945. She worked with him on much of his research related to the Osage and their forced migration from Missouri to Oklahoma.[2] He considered her son John Hunt a stepson.[1]
Mathews began writing in the 1920s and published his first book in 1929, by the University of Oklahoma Press. It was the first work by an academic press to be selected by the new Book-of-the-Month Club, whose secondary publication of it became a bestseller.[1]
His most famous work is Sundown (1934), his only novel. The semi-autobiographical work is about a young Osage, Challenge "Chal" Windzer. After leaving home to study at the University of Oklahoma and having served in the military, Chal feels estranged when he returns to his tribal community. As his life takes a downward turn, Chal suffers from alienation and hopelessness . The novel is set against the turbulent backdrop of the oil boom that took place on Osage land in Oklahoma beginning in the first two decades of the 20th century, bringing great wealth to the people who had headrights. It depicts the frictions within the tribal community which resulted from this bonanza, as well as the swindles and numerous murders of Osage during the 1920s as white opportunists tried to get control of the headrights of wealthy Osage.
During the 1930s and the Great Depression, Mathews was also politically active within the Osage Nation. As the people took advantage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act, Mathews helped the Osage Nation restore its self-government. He served on the elected Tribal Council from 1934-1942. He helped found the Osage Tribal Museum, which opened in 1938 in Pawhuska.[2]
In 1940, he served as the United States representative to the Indians of the Americas Conference at Michoacan, Mexico.[2] From 1939-1940 he lived and studied in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship.[3]
Later, he concentrated again on his writing. His works Talking to the Moon (1945) and The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961) combined research and the collection of oral histories from his people, to preserve and interpret their culture. His biography Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland (1951) was his only book written in this genre, about one of the notable figures of the oil boom in Oklahoma.