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Matoska Trading Co., located just north of the Old Towne Orange Plaza, offers stones, beads and other trinkets that are used to create Native American art and jewelry.
Evelyn Lozano rummaged through a tray with dividers separating stones, beads and other trinkets in search of items to make Native American jewelry and textiles.
A Tejon Indian, her specialty is prayer shawls. And on Friday, she was looking for buttons.
She’s able to make authentic creations because of the merchandise she finds at Orange’s Matoska Trading Co.
“I come here because it’s the only Native American supply store around,” she said.
Since 2011, Matoska has operated just north of the Old Towne Orange Plaza at 123 N. Glassell St. Flanked by Tiddlywinks Toys and Games and the future home of A La Minute ice cream shop, Matoska is one of the last remaining Native American supply stores in the area.
Matoska is a Lakota word that means white bear. The walls of the store are decorated with pictures of Native Americans taken from the National Archives. Tomahawks fill the display cases. Rows of beads are stocked behind the counter, along with $198 buffalo skulls and a $4,000 bison robe painted by Lakota artist Evan Flammond Sr.
Matoska got its start in 1991 in owner Brent Schellhase’s garage. His interest in Native American culture was sparked as a boy, seeing native dancing and going to powwows as a Cub Scout. As he grew older, he kept going to powwows and started doing his own bead work and making his own clothes.
In 1990, he went to an auction and maxed out his credit card buying tribal artifacts. He later sold them for a profit, and his business was born. He started selling items at powwows and Native American shows. He launched a website in 1997 and opened the first storefront in 2003.
“I think the guiding principal for me is, I built a store I wanted to shop in as a kid,” he said.
Schellhase, 50, of Orange works as a software engineer during the day. He comes to the shop at night, working from about 7 p.m. to as late as 3 a.m.
“I’m kind of the night watchman for the downtown district,” he joked.
The closest competition he knows of is in Escondido and Vista. His clientele ranges from tourists walking through Old Towne to Chapman University students to Native Americans.
For the most part, Native Americans are receptive to his store, he said. But he has gotten some backlash for being white.
“I’ve gotten email requests that ask, ‘Are you native? Because if not, I can’t do business with you,’” Schellhase said. “We try to be very supportive of the native community. We try to be very understanding.”
Manager Randy Barnes, 52, of Orange knew Schellhase from Cub Scouts and has been with the business since the beginning. Barnes’ favorite items are the beads that date to the early 1900s.
“They’re impossible to get,” he said.
Lozano goes to the store at least once a month. Before she found the store in 2011, she had to buy beads from Jo-Ann Fabric and rely on her family to find more authentic items.
In addition to buying material to make buttons on Friday, she made what she called an impulse buy: badger claws to make a necklace for her brother.
“I was doing without,” she said of life before Matoska. “I didn’t have a source before.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3771 or rkheel@ocregister.com
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