Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

I don't know when it all started, but I do remember it happening from my very first recollections in the late 1940's.  I would have been 3 or 4 years old at that time.  I remember many times being left  in our old log house to go to sleep all alone with just the coal oil lamp burning.  That made things worse because the flame of the lamp would flicker and wave around and cause shadows to also move around.  Of course, my young mind would just go wild watching those shadows, especially after recalling all the sneenah and ghost stories mom used to tell me.

Anyway,  everyone else was going  to the chief's house where every night many people from around the village gathered for their favorite evening entertainment - gambling.  This went on every night of the week and usually lasted from seven o'clock until about eleven.  Now, I wouldn't really call it gambling in todays terms because the pots hardly ever went over a couple dollars.  It was mostly an entertainment.  In those days, there was no TV yet, and very few homes even had radios.  For those that had it, it was the main form of entertainment.  It was not unusual to have flocks of kids gathered at homes with radios listening to programs like "The Lone Ranger", "The Cisco Kid" or "Dragnet".

 The gambling games at the chief's house only accommodated up to seven players at one time.  Others just stood behind the players and watched.  As soon as one player ran out of money another one from the back was ready to take his seat to play.  Participation wasn't limited to just the older folks. Kids were allowed to join as long as they had money and knew how to play the many different poker and blackjack games that were played.

 The chief, James Louie, never played.  He just sat in his seat which was reserved just for him at the head of the table and played solitaire all night.  Chief Louie very rarely ever said a word.  The only time he ever vocalized was if anyone started to get out of hand or started to raise a ruckus or came in under the infuence of alcohol.  Even then he did not need to raise his voice in order to restore peacefullness to the room.  He was a quiet yet highly respected man.

Ellen, the chief's wife, on the other hand was more vocal.  She controlled the gambling and there was no game unless she was there.  She did not hesitate to let anyone know if she thought they were out of line.  She was forever on the kids for making too much noise.  One of her favorite sayings was, "I never had kids, so I got no use for kids".  This would put some fear into the kids and the noise would stop for a while.  One of our favorite memories of Ellen was one of her habits during the games.  Almost inevitably, during every other game, she would reach into the pot of money in the center of the table and take a nickel or two.  She would announce, "This is for the lights".  Different players would grumble under their breath, but no one dared take it any further after all in an evening she would only take thirty or forty cents.   All these rituals went on night after night after night.  That was one of the ways people entertained themselves in the old days.  Sadly, this tradition stopped after the Department of Indian Affairs instituted Chief and Council elections and James Louie was no longer chief.

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