Journal of the church clerk and photographs, 1907-1920

Journal kept in a composition book by clerks of the Pawnee Indian Baptist Church, Pawnee, Oklahoma, and related photographs depicting Pawnee Indian members of the church and other Native Americans, 1907-1920

The journal kept by church clerks Allwilda Belle Griffith Brendel and David Gillingham, also known as Gray Eagle, documents the membership of individuals in the Pawnee Indian Baptist Church and its activities, September 1908 to July 1914. Activities and events documented in the journal include the election of deacons, baptisms, and deaths. The journal includes tipped-in typescript reports to the Oklahoma Indian Baptist Association for 1911-1914, and includes a brief discussion of mescal (peyote) eating in a 1912 report to the association

Photographs in the collection consist primarily of images of members of the church. These images include a group portrait of the congregation at the church, and a group portrait of Maggie Knife Chief and family at the Pawnee Indian Agency School, 1911; group portraits of Pawnee Indians at a meeting of the Oklahoma Indian Baptist Association in Anadarko, Oklahoma, 1912; group portraits of Pawnee Indians at the railroad station at Darrow, Oklahoma, July 1914, with men identified in a portrait as White Horse, Robert Peters, Hole in the Ground, and Lester Pratt, and a receipt for two roundtrip tickets purchased on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad from Darrow to Pawnee; and images of a baptism of a man identified as the oldest Oto Indian, 1915

Portraits of identified Pawnee Indians in the collection include David Gillingham and Hattie Smith Burns, identified as the wife of Benny Burns. Portraits related to Charles Knife Chief include images of him, his children, and of him with John Moses. A portrait of two Pawnee Indian women depicts Nettie Moses and Jenny Long Wolf, who attended the Chilocco Indian Boarding School in Chilocco, Oklahoma. An undated group portrait probably took place at a religious conference meeting and includes Harry Bock

Other images in the collection consist primarily of commercially produced postcards. Images include a group of identified Native American men and Indian Agents at the Kiowa Agency, on November 26, 1907. A postcard created by photographer Vince Dillon of Fairfax, Oklahoma, shows a group of Ponca Indians gathered in front of tipis, 1914. A group portrait at a Baptist conference includes Osage Indians in May 1919. A portrait postcard depicts a married Kiowa man and woman in Anadarko, Oklahoma

Incidental printed items in the collection consist of a program for a meeting of the Oklahoma Indian Baptist Association sponsored by the Pawnee Indian Baptist Church in Pawnee, Oklahoma, July 22-25, 1920; and a copy of "The Home Field", a magazine published by the Home Mission of the Southern Baptist Convention, April 1915, which includes two articles by Harry Bock: "Pawnee Indian Mission" and "Experience of an Oto Convert".