Roadside Journal

Shipping
Woodian Indians

By Chuck Woodbury

“Wooden Indians. We Ship.” That’s what the sign said outside the Hassayampa River Trading Company, which is along Highway 60 near Morristown, Ariz. Being a curious fellow, I decided to stop and learn how you ship a Wooden Indian.

I counted 17 Wooden Indians out front of the trading post, plus some cattle skulls, a sign that said “Authentic Indian Jewelry,” and another sign that said “American Express accepted here.”

Inside, a guy about 55 was wearing a cowboy hat and slacks, and he was looking at me coldly like maybe I was from the IRS. He was checking out my note pad and my camera, and he looked like he had a big cow chip on his shoulder.

Now, he wasn’t mean-looking in a physical way — it was just his unfriendly demeanor. Physically, he looked more like a dentist than a trader of Indian goods.

“I see you sell Wooden Indians,” I said with a friendly grin.

“Yup,” he answered with no grin at all.

“You ship ’em, too. I see that by your sign.”

“Yup.”

I figured maybe he was shy, and that was why he didn’t talk much. So I decided to walk around and let him see I was up to no harm. I found some $3 Indian dolls from Hong Kong, some domestic bull horns, a rack of post cards, and Arizona T-Shirts in various shapes and colors.

But mostly there was a lot of good Indian jewelry, and some good leather gun holsters and wallets, and lots of rocks, and a wall stacked with boxes of moccasins. It was a better Indian shop than those along the Interstates.

The guy, meanwhile, was watching me like I was going to pocket a tomahawk, or make off with this long broomstick with a skull on its end.

“What kind of skull is that?”

“Coyote.”

“Does it signify something?”

“Maybe to the Indians. Not to me.”

He was not opening up to me at all. It was time to try kindness.

“You sure do have a lot of good things in here,” I said, smiling. I waited for him to open up — to say: “Why thank you, I’m real proud of all the fine Indian crafts I’ve got here.”

But he didn’t say that. He just said:

“Yup.”

So kindness didn’t work.

“Have many Germans come in here lately?” (I asked that question because I had seen so many Germans on my own trip).

“Germans, French, and English,” he answered.

“Did you sell any Wooden Indians to the Germans?”

“Nope.”

I was losing hope that he’d tell me about the Wooden Indian Shipping Business. And I really wanted to know!
He just stood by his card table staring at me. And even though he wasn’t talking, I knew what he was thinking: “Who the heck are you, you dumb city-slicker, and why are asking all these questions?”

So I changed the subject. “I see you have a Navajo hogan outside. Do the Navajo live around here?”

“They live in Arizona.”

“But do many live around here?”

“A few.”

“I haven’t seen any other hogans around here.”

“We built this one.”

“What about the Wooden Indians? Do you make them yourself?”

“Nope, I buy ’em locally.”

“Oh, somebody around here makes ’em? In Wickenburg?”

“No, locally.”

I waited for more words. Nothing....

Well, this conversation was going nowhere, and this fellow wasn’t solving my curiosity one bit about how you ship a Wooden Indian.

I wanted to know things like: Do you ship a Wooden Indian by UPS? If so, does UPS pick up? How much does it cost to ship a Wooden Indian? And who wraps up a Wooden Indian so it can be shipped?

And, most of all, I wanted to know who buys a Wooden Indian.

That’s what I wanted to know.

That’s what I didn’t find out.

Sorry.

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