The Origin of Them Athabaskan Bastards

I just received the following letter from Nikolaas van der Merwe, who recalled when he first heard Them Athabaskan Bastards. Oral history is something we should definitely support in archaeology, nonetheless for being our own:

Dear Kris,

Re: Athabaskan Bastards

One of my former Harvard students, Nora Reber at UNC Wilmington, alerted me to the fact that my name had been immortalized in song on your website, or at least, in regard to a song. I should add to these oral histories of American archaeology.

As a South African student at Yale in the 1960s and later on the staff of Binghamton University (your correspondent Randy McGuire was not there yet), I was introduced to the culture of American archaeologists. Graduate school classmate Richard Krause (now U of Alabama) invited me to help with the 1969 field school of the University of Missouri at the Utz site in Hamilton State Park. I set up a soil chemistry lab and we did earthshaking things, such as analysing the chemical differences between postmolds and rodent burrows. (Incidentally, I am not a ceramic specialist as you wrote, but an archaeological chemist; well, they both start with C.) Part of the enjoyment of the school was the singalong sessions. Since I am a guitar player, I ended up leading these sessions and learning all the words to Plains Archaeology songs. Most of them were pretty raunchy, like “Charlotte the harlot” and “My brother’s a poor missionary, he saves fallen women from sin, he'll save you a broad for five dollars”, etc. Of particular interest was that someone distributed the words of these songs to all the field schools in the Plains that summer on roneoed sheets. Essentially nobody knows the roneo process anymore: you typed on a plastic-backed sheet of carbon paper and cranked it in a machine that turned out purple print. Sound primitive? Well, yes, but Apollo 11 landed on the moon that summer.

On the 4th of July, archaeologists from all the Plains field schools gathered on a farm in Kansas, where the U of Kansas had their field school. About 200 people attended. When we crossed the bridge at Kansas City, the tollkeeper asked: “What’s going on? This is the seventh vehicle I have seen today with Archaeology painted on the door.” (The spelling was presumably different from mine.) The barbecue party went on till all hours and many songs were sung. Eventually, people just rolled into sleeping bags wherever they dropped. At about the same time, of course, Woodstock Jazz festival was happening in upstate New York (near Binghamton). Yes, it was that time in history, and those who claim they can remember all of it were probably not there.

The Athabaskan Bastards definitely came from the Arizona field school at Point of Pines. It is politically incorrect, of course, but there were many other songs to even up the sides. Of those I can remember, there was a particularly strong one against “The Reverend Colonel Shivington, who took a bloody ride”. It involved a massacre of Native Americans, but my American history is pretty shaky and I don’t know to which event it refers. One song that sticks in my mind goes like this:

General George F. Custer, with his hair of golden lustre:
The general he don’t ride well anymore--
The general now is silent
Since he done got barbered violent
Yes, the general he don’t ride well anymore.

Most songs were of the type that just had a chorus and the verses were made up on the spot to fit individuals around the fireside. Of these, the most common ones had the choruses “Hi hi hi hi, in China they do it for chilies” and “Hey ladiladiladi, Hey ladiladilo”.

Another feature of the 1960s archaeology scene was the professional and semi-professional singer-songwriters who joined field projects during the summer months and attended Plains Anthropology conferences to work on new material. They had been archaeology students at some point. Of these, I remember Gordon Cleveland, who was an excellent guitarist and folk singer and was making a living at it. Another feature was the presence of--wait for it--archaeology groupies! i kid you not.

I don't suppose that that singalongs and jamborees are still a feature of American archaeology, and the groupies have probably evaporated. I think someone should record some of this history and I know just the man: Richard Krause in Tuscaloosa. Somebody should go bug him about it.

Greetings,

Nikolaas J. van der Merwe
Professor of Natural History, University of Cape Town
South Africa

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