Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and the Artifacts They Left Behind

274 Pages·2017·62.763 MB·English

by  Steve Friesen, Walter Littlemoon, François Chladiuk

L A KO T A P E R F O R M E R S
I N E U R O P E THEIR CULTURE AND THE
ARTIFACTS THEY LEFT BEHIND
STEVE FRIESEN FRANÇOIS CHLADIUK
WITH FOREWORD BY WALTER LITTLEMOON
LAKOTA PERFORMERS IN EUROPE
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LAKOTA PERFORMERS
IN EUROPE
THEIR CULTURE AND THE
ARTIFACTS THEY LEFT BEHIND
STEVE FRIESEN WITH FRANÇOIS CHLADIUK
LETTER TO THE AUTHORS FROM WALTER LITTLEMOON
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS : NORMAN
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ALSO BY STEVE FRIESEN
A Modest Mennonite Home: The Story of the 1719 Hans Herr House,
an Early Colonial Landmark (Intercourse, Pa., 1990)
Buffalo Bill: Scout, Showman, Visionary (Golden, Colo., 2010)
Buffalo Bill Center of the West sponsorship of The William F. Cody Series
on the History and Culture of the American West is generously funded by
the Geraldine W. & Robert J. Dellenback Foundation, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Friesen, Steve, 1953– author. | Chladiuk, François, author.
Title: Lakota performers in Europe : their culture and the artifacts they left behind /
Steve Friesen, with François Chladiuk ; letter to the authors from Walter Littlemoon.
Description: First edition. | Norman, OK : University of Oklahoma Press, [2017] |
Series: William F. Cody Series on the history and culture of the American West ;
volume 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016049902 | ISBN 978-0-8061-5696-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Exposition universelle et internationale (1935 : Brussels, Belgium)
| Lakota Indians—Material culture—Catalogs. | Lakota Indians—Biography. |
Indians of North America—Material culture—Catalogs.
Classification: LCC T468.G1 I63 2017 | DDC 978.004/9752440074493—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049902
Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and the Artifacts They Left Behind
is Volume 3 in the William F. Cody Series on the History and Culture of the
American West.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources, Inc. ∞
Copyright © 2017 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing
Division of the University. Manufactured in China.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or
108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior written permission of the
University of Oklahoma Press. To request permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive,
Norman, OK 73069, or email [email protected].
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CONTENTS
Series Editors’ Foreword VII
A Letter to the Authors, from Walter Littlemoon IX
Acknowledgments XI
PROLOGUE 3
1. RISE OF THE WILD WEST SHOWS 7
2. OSKATE WICASA: ONE WHO PERFORMS 13
3. EXTERMINATION OR CIVILIZATION: THE REFORMERS 23
4. THE LAKOTAS IN EUROPE, 1902–1914 35
5. DELEGATIONS AND CIRCUS ACTS, 1918–1934 49
6. EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE ET INTERNATIONALE
DE BRUXELLES: THE PERFORMERS 65
7. EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE ET INTERNATIONALE
DE BRUXELLES: THE COSTUMES 79
8. EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE ET INTERNATIONALE
DE BRUXELLES: THE VISITORS 89
9. BACK TO THE RESERVATION 99
10. LIKE A TIME CAPSULE 105
11. THE TIME CAPSULE OPENED 115
EPILOGUE 237
Notes 241
Bibliography 249
Index 253
V
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SERIES EDITORS’ FOREWORD
In 1887 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West traveled to Europe to perform in London,
England, marking the first of three overseas tours that reintroduced
Europeans to the American frontier experience. While the overall
performance emphasized conquest of the American West through the
military defeat of American Indians, the exhibition also introduced a new
generation of Europeans to American Indian cultures. In the arena, Lakota
performers from the Pine Ridge reservation, under contract with Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West, re-created their defeats on the Great Plains, but outside
of the arena, within the Plains Indian encampment, they interpreted their
culture to curious European spectators. In the decades to come, many other
traveling shows would follow, enacting the very themes popularized by
Buffalo Bill throughout Europe.
The experiences of these American Indian performers traveling Europe
have been represented in various forms, most notably in John G. Neihardt’s
recounting of his interviews with Black Elk, which appear in the now classic
Black Elk Speaks. In the stunningly illustrated volume before you, Steve
Friesen, with François Chladiuk, examines the cultural influence of Lakota
performers such as Black Elk on Europe by highlighting a recently recovered
collection of Lakota performers’ artifacts, used in Brussels in 1935, that had
been acquired by August Hermans, a Belgian butcher fascinated by the
indigenous peoples of North America. This book, or “biography of artifacts,” as
Friesen and Chladiuk term it, showcases artistic objects used by Charles High
Hawk, Sam Lone Bear, White Buffalo Man, and other Lakota performers, and
suggests the lasting impact Wild West tours had upon European spectators.
Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and the Artifacts They
Left Behind provides an intriguingly intimate view of the American Indian
performers’ contribution to public impressions of the mythical American
West on an international stage. The artifacts highlighted in this volume offer
cultural insights into Lakota performers and their work during the Brussels
International Exposition and reveal European fascination with American
Indian cultures, a phenomenon that persists to the present day. The use of
these American Indian artifacts by Lakota actors and European reenactors
offers a unique perspective not only on the transnational impact of Wild
West shows and American Indian performers, but also on the ways that
Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War affected European perceptions of
American Indians.
VII
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The William F. Cody Series on the History and Culture of the American
West is pleased to offer this visual study of American Indian influence on
European culture. Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and the
Artifacts They Left Behind, by Steve Friesen, with François Chladiuk,
provides readers a rare glimpse of the Wild West exhibition’s legacy as
embodied by Lakota performers, a Belgian family, and their material record
of transatlantic cultural exchange.
JEREMY JOHNSTON
FRANK CHRISTIANSON
DOUGLAS SEEFELDT
VIII FOREWORD
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A LETTER TO THE AUTHORS
My friends François and Steve,
Thank you for preserving a most positive event in our tribal history and, in
particular, my family’s history. I am so grateful for all your dedication and
hard work.
There have been so many negative memories for our people, beginning
in the mid-1800s, during my grandparents’ lives and continuing on through
mine. So much of who we are has been lost and destroyed. Wars and broken
treaties have greatly reduced our land base. Living under restrictive laws
on reservation lands and being subjected to acculturation through “Indian”
boarding schools destroyed much of our culture as well as our identity and
our understanding of what it means to be tribal people. In fact, there are
days in which I fear we are on the verge of extinction. The old time people
used to say, “It’s hard to be Indian.” I agree. The life we have been born into
has been confusing, and it has been hard to hold to who we are.
The preservation of artifacts and physical things by caring individuals
is so important for the survival of all tribal people because those acts of
kindness remind us and encourage us during hard times that we are human
beings. We are a part of the brotherhood of life.
Pilamaye,
WALTER LITTLEMOON
Wounded Knee, South Dakota
April 17, 2016
IX
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