Dibbin Marris
A temporary Commission field camp. The hearing is underway. Across Pearl River, high water keeps Wash Bell from appearing. Exact camp placement, tents and equipment are staging proposals, not recovered physical descriptions.
DIBBIN MARRIS, about sixty, has been sworn. OSCAR BILLEY is credited in the surviving examination as official interpreter. The original language of each answer is not established. This audition proposes Choctaw-language performance, to be developed with speakers and advisers.
Are you acquainted with a Choctaw by the name of Wash Bell?
Yes.
How long have you known him?
I have been knowing him about fifty years, I reckon.
Is he any relation to you?
My last wife, Jennie's, full brother.
Questions continue. Family and place accumulate without a lecture.
Where does he live?
He lives in Neshoba County.
North of Pearl River?
Yes.
Is his father living?
No.
What was his name?
Robert Bell.
The name returns. No score, no certainty about its original pronunciation in Dibbin's speech.
You understand the 14th article of the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, do you not?
Yes.
Do you know whether any of the ancestors of Wash or his wife ever complied or attempted to comply with its provisions, or ever received any benefits under that article?
I don't know.
The human exchange holds. Then the written proceeding changes carrier. In the film audition, an unmistakably different, restrained American-English record voice cuts through the proposed Choctaw-language sound.
Special reference is hereby made to the testimony of Dibbin Marris, given before the Commission on this date, in support of the application of his son, Marris Marris…
…the Robert Bell, the father of Wash Bell, received some land in Neshoba County, Mississippi, from the Government of the United States…
The second Robert Bell is a Commission-carried proposition from another application, not a new assertion volunteered by Dibbin in this exchange. Cut back without a musical underline.
Do you know whether any of the ancestors of Winnie Bell owned an improvement here in the old Choctaw Nation, in Mississippi and Alabama, at the time the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was made?
I don't know.
Do you know whether any of them removed to the present Choctaw Nation, in Indian Territory, at the time of the removal of the greater portion of the Choctaw tribe of Indians between the years 1833 and 1838?
I don't know none of Winnie's ancestors anyhow.
High water. Wash Bell remains outside the hearing. The record says he intended to appear and could not cross for at least ten days.
This man Bell lives across Pearl River from the camp of the Commission…
The Commission's report is complete. Wash has not appeared.
Source and directing boundaries +
Working screenplay from the Wash Bell MCR 5156 examination of Dibbin Marris, Seale, April 4, 1902. Oscar Billey is named official interpreter; R. S. Streit certifies a translated stenographic record. English quotations are excerpted and edited, not continuous original-language transcription. Choctaw dialogue, interpretation rhythm, a camp setting, and the detached record voice remain auditions. The note describing Wash's high-water barrier and the imported government-land assertion are separate administrative voices; neither establishes the exact location or layout of the camp, or that Robert's land was Article XIV land. The separate Jane Bell administrative note reports that Jane was aware of the Commission's presence; this does not establish surveillance, hostile intent, or a danger posed by Jane.