The Inconvenient Indian (6 page)

Early film directors such as D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, Raoul Walsh, and Jay Hunt used White actors to play Indian roles in their melodramas, but they also used a surprising number of Native actors as well. William Eagle Shirt, a Lakota, was a regular in films made during this period. Elijah Tahamont, an Abenaki from Okanak, Quebec, whose stage name was Dark Cloud, played one of the leads (White Eagle) in D.W. Griffith’s
The Squaw’s Love
(1911). James Young Deer and his wife Lillian St. Cyr (Princess Red Wing), Nebraska Ho-Chunks who worked with Griffith on a number of projects, also had their own film
company, which turned out over thirty films. The majority of their movies were made in a five-year period between 1909 and 1914, but now Deer and St. Cyr have been forgotten except by die-hard movie buffs and scholars, whose job it is to keep such esoterica alive in print and available on video.

The use of “real” Indians in film was not without its difficulties. Chauncey Yellow Robe, a Lakota from the Rosebud reservation, played an Indian in a number of movies, including the 1930 silent film
Silent Enemy
. A bright guy, he understood the issue of image and cultural degradation. Speaking to the third annual conference of The Society of American Indians in Denver in 1913, Yellow Robe argued that Wild West shows and films distorted Indians and Indian culture.

“We see the Indian,” Yellow Robe said. “He is pictured in the lowest degree of humanity. He is exhibited as a savage in every motion picture theater in the country. We see the Indian, in his full native costume, stamped on the five-dollar bills as a reminder of his savagery. We see a monument of the Indian in New York harbor as a memorial of his vanishing race. The Indian wants no such memorial monument, for he is not yet dead. The name of the North American Indian will not be forgotten as long as the rivers flow and the hills and the mountains shall stand, and though we have progressed, we have not vanished.”

I didn’t know that any Indian had been “stamped” on North American currency, so I went looking, and there he was. Running Antelope. The bill in question is the U.S. five-dollar silver certificate, which was released in 1899 and remained in circulation until 1914, when Running Antelope was replaced by Abraham Lincoln. While there are several examples of American coins that feature
Indian iconography—the 1907–33 ten-dollar gold coin (which is really Lady Liberty in a headdress); the 1913–38 five-cent Buffalo nickel; and the 1859–1909 Indian Head penny—the five-dollar silver certificate is, to my knowledge, the only piece of North American paper money that has an Indian as the central design.

Canada produced a Voyager Canoe dollar that featured a fur trader and an Indian in a birch-bark canoe. It was produced from 1935 to 1939, discontinued for World War II, and then returned to circulation from 1946 until 1967. In 1958, the country minted the Totem Pole dollar, which created a stir because the central figure on the pole was that of a raven, and for some Indian groups the raven is a symbol of death. The coin was issued to commemorate the founding of British Columbia and the hundredth anniversary of the British Columbia gold rush, neither of which was a high point in Canadian Native history, so the nickname that the dollar wound up with—the Death Dollar—wasn’t completely unwarranted.

And then there are the iconic Indian postage stamps, which include a 1898 four-cent “Indian Hunting Buffalo” stamp, a 1907 five-cent “Pocahontas” stamp, a 1968 six-cent “Chief Joseph” stamp, and a 1989 twenty-eight-cent “Sitting Bull” stamp, all courtesy of the United States. North of the border, Canada was slower off the mark, issuing a “Plains Indians” eight-cent stamp set in 1972, an “Iroquoian Indians” ten-cent stamp set in 1976, a “Native Indians” seventeen-cent stamp in 1981, and a “Great Peace” forty-seven-cent stamp in 2001. A “Chief Tecumseh” stamp was issued in 2012, just in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

Circling back for a moment, there are several delightful stories connected with the Running Antelope five-dollar silver certificate.
The first says that, during the sitting for the image, Running Antelope was asked to wear his full feathered headdress, but that he thought it was inappropriate and refused. The second story has it that Running Antelope wore the headdress, but that it was too tall to use on the bill. The third describes Running Antelope coming to the sitting without a headdress and being given a Pawnee headdress, which he refused to wear, the Pawnee and the Lakota not being on the best of terms. Whichever story is true—supposing that one of them is—the engraver, perhaps fed up with a recalcitrant Indian or knowing what an Indian should look like better than an Indian did, “photoshopped” Running Antelope and the Pawnee headdress, hit “merge,” and stuck the image on the certificate.

Fact, fiction. Fiction, fact. I’m reasonably sure that the image on the certificate is that of Running Antelope, but admit that I can’t tell whether the feathered headdress is Lakota or Pawnee. All I know is that it looks exactly like the headdress Anthony Quinn wore when he played Crazy Horse in the film
They Died With Their Boots On
.

And that’s what is important, isn’t it?

The engraved certificate itself is a thing of beauty. I really wanted one for the wall of my office until I found out that, in good condition, the bill can cost thousands of dollars.

Running Antelope was a major figure among the Lakota. He was a chief of the Hunkpapa, an advisor to Sitting Bull, and, from all reports, a gifted orator. But I’m curious to know why Sitting Bull himself, or Crazy Horse or Geronimo or Chief Joseph or Osceola, weren’t immortalized as well. Perhaps one Indian was more than enough.

No one has yet asked me which famous Indian I’d like to see on a piece of currency. It would be a tough choice, but since we’re talking about entertainment and film, I’d probably go with Will Rogers.

Rogers was a Cherokee who worked as a cowboy, as a vaudeville player, and as an actor. He performed in the famous Ziegfeld Follies and Texas Jack’s Circus, did a stint with Buffalo Bill in Cody’s Wild West show, and hosted the 1934 Academy Awards. He began acting in 1918 with a picture called
Laughing Bill Hyde
and went on to make well over fifty films. By the mid-1930s, he was the highest-grossing, highest-paid actor in Hollywood.

An Indian.

But Rogers’s real reputation was as a social commentator. He was, for his time, the unofficial voice and conscience of America. The man had a fine sense of humour. “An onion can make people cry,” he joked, “but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.” On the matter of humour and politics, Rogers said, “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you,” while on the subject of diplomacy, he reminded us that “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”

He also said, “We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.” This last adage isn’t particularly funny, but then Rogers wasn’t always funny. Sometimes he was hilarious.

Rogers wrote more than four thousand columns that were syndicated in over six hundred newspapers. He had his own radio show, wrote six books, and was declared “Ambassador at Large of the United States” by the National Press Club. In 1928, five
years before his death in a plane crash,
Life
magazine started an editorial campaign to put him on the ballot as the Anti Bunk Party candidate for president.

The cover of the May 31, 1928, issue of
Life
shows an artist’s rendering of Rogers with the caption, “Will Rogers Accepts the Nomination.” Rogers wrote a byline story for the issue, in which he promised to resign if elected, a promise that, unlike most politicians, he most certainly would have kept.

Rogers didn’t want to be president, would probably have been appalled by the prospect, but I would have voted for him. I’ve always liked Rogers a great deal. We’re both Cherokee, so there’s probably a bit of tribalism at work here, but what I most admire about the man is his honesty and intelligence, along with a wit that was so sharp and gentle he could cut and heal you with the same stroke.

In the 1930s, he was the most famous man in America, Indian or White, and today he’s hardly known outside his home state of Oklahoma. But all is not lost. I figure that if we made a film about his life and revealed that he was the brains behind the victory at the Little Bighorn, he’d be back on top again.

Maybe get Johnny Depp to play Rogers.

Of course, Rogers was not at the Little Bighorn. He was born three years after that battle took place, but if the geniuses at Disney can fling Pocahontas into the arms of John Smith, they’ll have little difficulty green-screening Rogers onto a Pinto pony and racing him across the Montana prairies, with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull at his side.

There’s only one problem with this plan. In the fifty-odd films that Rogers made, I don’t think he ever played an Indian. I don’t
recall that he ever put on a headdress or tossed a tomahawk, ever led a charge against a column of cavalry, ran down a herd of buffalo, or rode off with a White woman slung across his horse. The irony is that, to Hollywood’s eye, he didn’t look Indian enough to play an Indian on the big screen.

Still, Rogers is one of only two Indians to get a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. And he got two, one for motion pictures and one for radio. There’s a Helen Twelvetrees on the Walk of Fame with a star. I thought, because of her last name, that she might be Native. But she wasn’t. And Iron Eyes Cody has a star. Cody, who claimed to be Cherokee or Cree but was really Sicilian, made a good living playing Indian roles because he looked more Native than Rogers. Since I delight in absurd bits of information, I have to point out that there are more cartoon characters—Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, Big Bird—and more dogs—Strongheart, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin—who have stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame than Indians.

At the same time, there are other celebrities with stars, such as Clint Walker and Cher, who are purported to be part Indian, so perhaps I’m wrong about my figures.

Canada is somewhat more sedate. On its Walk of Fame in downtown Toronto, while there are only two Natives who have stars—the Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, and singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie—there are no dogs or cartoon characters.

And while I’m at it, I should mention Santa Clarita’s Western Walk of Western Stars in downtown Newhall, California, which has one Indian with a star, the Canadian actor Graham Greene (Oneida), who is surrounded on the sidewalks of the town by a wagon train of cowboys.

The only Indian besides Rogers who has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame is Jay Silverheels. Unlike Rogers, Silverheels did get to play Indians. A Canadian Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Brantford, Ontario, Silverheels’s real name was Harold J. Smith, and he began his film career as a stuntman and an extra. He played in films with Tyrone Power, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara, Anne Bancroft, and Bob Hope. He had a substantial role as John Crow in the 1973 film
Santee
, starring Glenn Ford, and made a momentary appearance in
True Grit
(1969), as a condemned man about to be executed.

But Silverheels’s most famous role was as Tonto in the long-running television series
The Lone Ranger
. The show started off on the radio in 1933 and moved to television in 1949. For the radio show, Tonto was originally played by the Irish Shakespearean actor John Todd, who first uttered the famous phrase “Kemo Sabe,” which was supposed to mean “faithful friend.” Over the years I’ve wondered if Todd was really trying to say “
que no sabe
,” which in Spanish—with apologies for syntax—translates as “he knows what?” Or, in a less literal translation, “he knows nothing.” I could be wrong, of course. My Spanish is lousy.

When the series was brought to television, Todd, who was bald and didn’t much look like an Indian, with or without makeup, was dropped, and Silverheels got the job. But Tonto was not about the actor who played him. Tonto was North America’s Indian. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Some of you might recognize these terms of reference as parts of the Boy Scout Law, but they are just as relevant for Indian sidekicks.

Tonto was the Indian that North America had been waiting for, the Indian that North America deserved. After all, Europeans
had
brought civilization to North America. They
had
shared it with Native people, who hadn’t been as gracious about the gift as they might have been, and one could argue that Tonto was North America’s way of thanking itself.

For 221 episodes, viewers got to watch Tonto stand shoulder to shoulder with the Lone Ranger, the two
compañeros
fighting crime and/or evil. And sometimes Indians, for that matter. Call me sentimental, but the relationship shared by the masked man and his faithful Indian friend has always struck me as a close bond, friend-friend, brother-brother, United States—Canada.

Silverheels has been criticized for playing a Stepin Fetchit role in the
Lone Ranger
series, but this is a small and mean complaint. Silverheels was an actor and Tonto was a job, and a very good job at that. And it was the first time that you had a White and an Indian on almost equal footing. Sure, the Ranger called the shots, but Tonto rode as well, fought as well, shot as well as the Ranger, and he had skills that the Ranger did not. Yes, it’s easy to get grumpy about the pidgin English that Tonto was forced to speak, and, as far as I’m concerned, the producers could have dropped his leather headband in the nearest Goodwill donation bin. I’ll even admit that there were those of us who fantasized that Tonto would, one day, shoot the Ranger for cause and ride off into the sunset by himself.

Or, as Lyle Lovett imagines in his song “If I Had A Boat,” Tonto might tell the Ranger to kiss his ass as Tonto leaves the Wild West behind, buys a boat, and goes off on his own adventure.

Still, even with an Indian as the co-lead in a television series,
The Lone Ranger
was not about rewriting history. Tonto’s character
simply affirmed North American history and celebrated the forward thrust of progress. It was proof positive that as Indians were gently pressed through the sieve of civilization, they would come out looking and sounding like Tonto. Well, maybe not sounding like Tonto, but at least possessed of that pleasant, helpful, and obsequious demeanour so prized in ethnic folk.