Joe Rogan Experience #1397 — S.C. Gwynne Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Three, two, okay. Because we didn't figure out what it was. And he did the audio version Look at that, ladies and gentlemen. It's incredibly dramatic. horrors of it all it's like you know um and i'd never seen i had no i knew that that kind of stuff I wasn't sure what the plains were or why they were different But so I got into this and then lo and behold, there's this – I find out because I live in Texas that there's this principle that lives on this, that lived on this land, the Comanches, that determined everything that happened in the American West

4:18 1836, who ends up becoming the mother of the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Now she's, we have her on the wall. Right. Right. If you were a baby, you were killed. eight, nine, 10, 11, 12-year-olds. You know, that was the assumption of a raid. It was almost like the golden rule in reverse, This is the Comanche culture in particular or Native Americans in general?

8:15 horse basically altered the entire balance of power in the plains. And the tribe that got the What is his other book about the various large land animals that went extinct here in North America? Yeah. and they kick the Spanish out, and like tens of thousands of horses get fe when there's a great pueblo revolt and they kick the spanish No one exactly knows what it was in the heart and soul of a Comanche that could do

11:14 And even though the Apaches were the first ones to actually get that technology from the Spanish, and they raised havoc with it. out in mid-America, and that was the buffalo herds. And they were in the southern plains. Right, and the things that we all would associate with Native Americans, you know, this wonderful War-conveyed numbers of ponies and status and the thing.

13:57 That was theirs. book's about the um you know the rise and fall the comanches is a tribe which we've been talking And you had Spanish in New Mexico, but nothing but Comanches and Apaches between where these people were and that. It was also right at a part where the rainfall drops below 30 inches, where we go from around the 98th and they're touching right at this point, and neither has any idea what the other one is.

17:58 I mean, but also so recent. the Connecticut kid came to Texas was that where I grew up, Indians had been, well, when I say subdued, usually killed off most of my family came from boston and so the the difference between that and and what if you go to So really striking. this was just a wild way It was a fact that if you go back in time, these Native American tribes, that eventually got crushed, as the Comanches did, and put on a reservation somewhere and had their livelihood taken away from them.

22:10 and extremely and killing them and then eating only buffalo meat and then doing very little of becoming agricultural Indians, It's the most sad part of the story and the ground and that there was gods that were looking out for them and that they could she's captured in 1860 and is dragged back and she has to show that she's white so that they So she – her kind of greasy looking and, you know, didn't look like a white farm – you know, white God-fearing farm woman from Dallas.

26:03 suffused with magic everywhere you looked. There was magic in everything. But one of the things that also was, and this was relayed by actually male captives of the Comanches. There they are sitting there. wolves obviously you know when kevin costner gets assimilated into that tribe there's something And just the fact that it's so recent.'s what's really crazy really talking about the urban sprawl and barb meyer and things

29:31 And the public land states just – there was – for one thing, there was a lot more of apparently sort of useless land in the western states. Although the book itself is based on lots and lots of interviews come from all of these interviews. horrific. I mean, if you look at the Comanches, the Comanches are a pretty small tribe. For example, Chickasaws and Choctaws are in range of DFWs, so their casinos there

32:23 And in terms of Plains Indians and Comanches and Arapahos and Cheyennes and Sioux and everybody else, No reservation at all? No. So they're in danger of having their culture probably get erased. So if you go, for example, I spent some time with the Chickasaws a few years ago. Yes. the last of the starving have all the buffalo have been killed now and so And so they're coming in and it's 1875. You know, that very year,

36:05 It's such a great story. what comanches did yeah well so wise of him also to not talk about right and not only comanches he and what a catastrophic, titanic change one of the things he did is he went to New York. I mean, went to Washington and he testified I mean, this guy who was this great free warrior on the plains. And so what you have, what you do have are, you know, flashes that are seen by, say, the

39:34 It's so stunning. if you're writing about them, He's setting up cattle leasing deals. Now, was that a natural, normal part of Comanche life, or is this something that he adopted from other tribes? this for. And so there was this great, a place I would really like to go back to in American That's Star House. from everybody from the Comanche Nation. Now, I've been in it, but it's gotten so beat up now that they don't let you go in it anymore,

42:34 He had six wives. by one individual? Yes. But it's a historical landmark and no one's preserving it? They're Was it taken apart? this amusement park, it was like something out of a, I don't know, a Spielberg movie. I mean, Now, it is his. Wayne. There it is. What is it? So, now, I don't know. Right, of course. And there's things like, you know, there's that famous, it's in my book,

47:34 But until the owner, because it's his, until the owner decides to do something to it. giant part of history i mean and particularly after you read this story um read your book it's They didn't want to have the braids, the long, long braids. made sure he had that one um buttoned up and he was challenged continuously i mean there was there is that these were largely unknown things.

50:29 Everybody should know. that was created to effectively combat the Comanche. I don't see him. And what's happening is Texas, which now owns Texas, having won its independence, is giving out what they call head rights. And they evolved as Comanche fighters, fighting like Comanches did. They had Kentucky long rifle, bang, and two single-shot pistols. he went back and he just researched it.

54:13 Anyway, look at the Anderson video. with a prototype of a, So, Jack Case. understood what it meant. It meant equalizing the warfare against the Comanches. It meant, shocking, was that the U.Ss soldiers would try to get off their horse Nobody had seen this kind of ability before nobody had seen this kind of fingers that he researched did he research that from Native Americans or was that ever utilized

58:25 this incredible nomadic life and didn't really have a lot of interaction with other people from of being able to shoot so many arrows in a row, had been – They couldn't believe their abilities with horses breaking them yeah See how – right, minimal, yes. So they would kind of climb off the saddle and hang on the side? But people, so the question there, I don't know the answer to that.

1:00:54 Look at that picture right there of them doing the interaction. And again, this was something that trick riders after in the Wild West shows and beyond would do these sorts of things. There was no such thing almost as standing still and shooting. He says, you mind if I move or something, or I'm better if I move? That's a real shame that they don't have a written history.

1:02:56 into my book of people of the time who saw them and who described it yeah that's all you can do Show up. it's hard to believe There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Yeah, he's showing you that you can do things. Two. It's continuous movement. Jumps in the air, gets off an arrow before he hits the ground. Yeah, that's why I have that archery range back there.

1:05:23 But I know enough to know that what this guy's doing is pretty special. clustered bunch in your hand. Look at this. He hits three targets on a bike as he's riding by, this ability to shoot from from a moving horse now did they have a particular prowess with archery Yeah. And the first screenwriter was Larry McMurtry. Maybe we can get your hair on fire again.

1:08:39 to do a two-hour movie about that. The budget was so high, I think, It's just, it changed the way I felt and thought you have the bury my objectively speaking, yeah you have you have and and any number of great massacres perpetrated against, well, Comanches and other Indian tribes. There were really not very many books at all before it Let's see. and Northern Plains Indians.

1:12:21 But anyway, it preempted me on some of the choices I might have made. But I'd love love the answer is indians and what happened but you get this sort of weird version of it where i mean in high school they barely taught you need to hear it was it is it is a bit of i mean i think from my point of view it's a bit of me being Larry McMurtry wrote a pretty good book about Crazy Horse? Not that I can. Larry McMurtry wrote a pretty good book about Crazy Horse, a small volume.

1:15:27 So, Jack Hayes was something, because he continues to intersect which is one of the, 5'9", slender, the high voice high voice you know just a bad motherfucker man was he bad and and who just didn't give a shit about anything. I mean, how many 41-year-olds you know want to do that? is it told you what happened in the American West on some level Well, that was painless.