Author: Belinda Brooks

By: Belinda Brooks

Butte Tribe Chief Thunderstick, Rodger Collum, and his warhorse, Cochise, danced through the streets of Oak Grove, Louisiana, Saturday, April 10th, 2021.   On behalf of the Oak Grove City Council, Mayor Adam Holland invited Collum to be the Grand Marshall of the town’s first Poverty Point World Heritage parade.

Mayor Holland presented Chief Collum and Vice-Chief Brooks with City pins in appreciation for their contributions to the festivities.

Members of Butte Tribe of Bayou Bourbeaux traveled to West Carroll Parish to support the event with their chief.  The parade route was jammed packed with hundreds of sight-seers excited to see the chief in his colorful regalia riding his war-painted stud-horse, Cochise.  Collum brought with him a covered wagon in which his wife, Charla Collum, and Vice-Chief Belinda Brooks rode.  The wagon was followed by several Butte Tribe floats, decorated golf carts, and terrain vehicles.

Tribe members set up stations on the courthouse square.  While there, they taught Native American arts and crafts, tribal history,  dance, cooked Native foods, and visited with friends and family.

Butte Tribe has a long-standing history with West Carroll Parish.  Many tribal families extended Butte borders in the early 1900s to migrate to Northeast Louisiana in hopes of finding a better way of life and less discrimination of Native American culture following the Civil War and the US Indian Wars of the late 19th and early 20th century.

 

By: Belinda Brooks

As little boys, Rodger Collum and his younger cousin, Buddy Hays, were always hanging around their grandfather’s, Clarence Desadier’s aka Chief Parrain’s, home.  Of the chief’s numerous children and grandchildren, he chose his little spitfire grandson, Rodger, to lead the family after his passing.  Rodger was the son of the chief’s daughter, Olla Mae, and her husband, Duck Collum.  

These two little whippersnappers were always into something and under their grandfather’s feet.  One day, the chief called the boys into the house.  As they walked into the living room, they saw several items wrapped in cloth sitting on a table.  The chief did not let them open the package.   He had the boys store it in the old house’s attic to be forgotten about for 60 years. 

This memory was brought back to Chief Collum by Hays a year ago.  Vice-Chief Belinda Brooks began to pursue Chief Collum for evidence of this story.  Nothing goes unquestioned by her when one is talking about tribal history.   It took close to one year to talk Chief Collum into entering his grandfather’s old-crumbling house.  The danger there was real.  The walls were falling in.  Likewise, the floor and ceiling were dropping.

Finally, one night after being hounded for months to retrieve the packages, Chief Collum and his cousin, Keith Hernandez, braved the decaying old house by flashlight.  As expected, a slight touch to the ceiling and it came tumbling down, cutting Chief Collum’s hand.  Several items fell from above.   The history of the artifacts that fell from the ceiling will never be known.