Kim C,

That was a tall tale I used for years and I was surprised to see it in J.Johnson. I used the story to introduce listeners to Woody Guthrie's dust bowl ballads.

mine: I was ridin' along in a terrible dust blow and spotted a Stetson hat on the ground. Me not being one to let a good hat go, I got off my horse and picked it up. Imagine my surprise when it had a head in it. The head looked up and me and said, "Pilgrim, I'm on horseback. Ya best get a shovel"
This was used to illustrate how bad the dust storms were out west during the earlier years of the 20th cantury.)

in Jer. Johnson: The mountain man, Del Gue (a real historical personage), is found out in the middle of nowhere burried up to his neck and spitting sand. Johnson asks him if the Indians did that to him?! Johnson was actually John Johnson--better known as "Liver Eating Johnson. As in the film, Johnson's Indian family had been massacred by Crow Indians for something Johnson had done that infuriated the tribe. J.J. killed a band of Crows in return and it became a manhood thing for individual Crows to go after him one at a time. They never were able to kill Johnson but he killed all of them and then ate a part of their liver's too. Eventually, it was all called off after the tribe decided Johnson was more of a god than a mann.

Art Thieme