A Guide To American Wandlore

Shikoba Wolfe

Shikoba Wolfe (1897-2009), was a famed American wandmaker and herbologist of Choctaw descent who famously discovered the tail feather of a Thunderbird as a wand core. Wolfe was famous for her intricately hand-carved wands with the core of a Thunderbird tail feather.

Shikoba was born half-blood on July 16, 1897, in what is now Choctaw County, Oklahoma. She had a very large family, with 7 brothers and sisters. Ever since Shikoba was a young girl, she had a thirst for adventure, constantly straying away from home and would return late at night. When she was 8, her life changed forever when a terrible epidemic of Dragon Pox hit her tiny village and wiped out almost everyone. Shikoba survived but her large family did not. Orphaned and paralyzed by sorrow and grief, she was sent to live with her magical grandmother in Mississippi. One night in 1909, a raven came to her house and gave her her letter to say that she was accepted into Ilvermorny. She was sorted into Thunderbird and would call the school her home for 7 years from 1909 to 1916, excelling in Transfiguration and wand-making classes, deciding that she wanted to become a wandmaker when she grew up. After graduating, Shikoba decided not to return to Oklahoma, as it was the last sobering reminder of her tragic childhood. Instead, she headed west and settled in Sedona, Arizona, where she set up a tiny shop with the wands that she made and hand-carved herself at Ilvermorny. They didn't sell very well, but it was enough for her to get by. What she needed was a new core for her wands and then, she got it by an accidental discovery.

On a hot summer day in 1919, she was exploring Cathedral Rock when suddenly, she came across a flock of nesting Thunderbirds. She had never seen one before, especially up close. She scared them off but they left a large number of feathers and she brought all of them home and then she got struck by lightning. After she recovered, she began fiddling with the wand that she had received at Ilvermorny and discovered that the core, which was a dragon heartstring, had died out long ago. So she made a new wand out of a log of Black Cottonwood, hand-carved it herself and paired it with her potential new core. She discovered that it was extremely powerful and made the following notes in her journal:

" Extremely powerful, but very difficult to master, possibly taking years, and are great for Transfiguration. It may take a lifetime to get a full grasp of its power. Once it has chosen a master, it is unlikely to change allegiances, though a few have been known to favor new masters either closely related to, or closely associated with their current master. Thunderbird tail feathers can occasionally be aloof, and prone to fluctuations and accidents, leaving it potentially hazardous to those with little experience. However, it also tends to perform quite well for witches and wizards of conviction. When paired with the right wood, it packs a more serious punch than the more common wand cores."

Another day, Shikoba's wand began to glow yellow. The wand had sensed that a fire had broken out nearby. Shikoba then noted that the new wand can sense danger whenever it is near. Happy with her discovery, Shikoba started making new wands with her new core and opened up a new shop in cities all across the West, where her popularity was building up.

In 1920, Shikoba went to New York on a business trip to hopefully gain a little more money for her wand making. She opened a new shop in New York City, where she hoped to make a name for herself, and opened a new, much bigger wand shop than her original in Sedona. One of her customers was a young 19-year-old Auror looking for a new wand. She was ambitious, practical, level-headed, courageous, and persistent, with a burning desire to stand up for what's right, in true Thunderbird fashion. Her name was Porpentina Goldstein. Word of her work spread across the continent, and then around the world when she was approached by a young wandmaker named Garrick Ollivander who invited her to come and study with him in England, where she lived for 21 years and would later return home to Arizona, spending the rest of her days making her beautiful hand-carved wands and traveling across the West looking for new wand woods to use. One such wand she made was used by the infamous 20th-century criminal Bartholomew "Coyote" Woodson made from Foxtail pine, a fascinatingly clever wood endemic to California. He used this wand to create illusions of entire streets, blocks, and alleys to confuse pursuing authorities. This wand later ended up in the hands of a young paranormal investigator and adventurer and the co-leader of The Voyageurs named Melissa Evercreetch, the twin sister of James Evercreetch. They are the last living descendants of Isolt Sayre. Shikoba later found out that Melissa's wand and James's were twins and requested to meet them. They would become the first pair of wizards since Harry Potter and Voldemort to own wands that share the same core. She would also go on to discover several more new kinds of wand woods. She died on July 16th, 2009 on her 112th birthday. She's remembered by many as the most beloved Native American wandmaker of all time.