Strike Up the (Native American Peoples?) Band!

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I can't tell you how many, or if ANY of the players here are first nation performers, but there were authentic Native American bands.  Along with other enforced cultural changes, some had instruments forced on them.  On thing I do know is that there were not too many tribal trombones until not long before this picture was taken.

Curious Concert Band  Anonymous Photograph circa 1900?  Collection Jim Linderman

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Meet Me at the Nebraska Fair ! No Native Americans Allowed

Welcome to the Nebraska County Fair in 1905. 

30 years or so before this postcard was created by hand and mailed, the Nebraska Legislature, realizing the land they had forced numerous tribes to live on was even more valuable than they thought, petitioned Congress for the extinction of the old treaties to create even worse treaties...with the following documented bile:

"Whereas, the Indians now on special reservations in Nebraska hold and occupy valuable and important tracts of land, which while occupied will not be developed and improved; and Whereas the demand for lands which will be improved and made useful, are such that these Indian lands should no longer be held, but should be allowed to pass into the hands of enterprising and industrious citizens;...[W]e urge upon our delegation in Congress to secure the removal of all Indians now on special reservations in Nebraska to other... localities, where their presence will not retard settlements by the whites."

Okay!  I wonder how many McDonald's and Wal-Marts have been created by enterprising and industrious citizens on that land by now.

Enjoy the fair!

Original hand drawn promotional postcard, Nebraska 1905  Collection Jim Linderman

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Early Native American Reenactors Windians on no Warpath

Considering we spent a century trying to eliminate the Native American, it sure is odd how many organizations and imbeciles try to effect their dress. Why appropriate a culture you met with genocide? The answer is beyond me, and I really don't want to spend the time looking it up.


"Indian reenactors" are even bigger in Germany of all places. Go figure. I think it is like the Brits digging Delta Blues before we did. While we were suffering with Fabian and Pat Boone, the nascent Rolling Stones were already kicking ass and sounding better at it than Jimmy Reed, if not Muddy Waters. At least they were sincere...read Keef's autobiography. However, until I find an explanation way better than "Dancing with Wolves" I'm going to have to figure these guys as insensitive boobs.

Of course we started the trend as far back as the Boston Tea Party, when the colonists dressed up as "Mohawks" before climbing on board and dumping tea. Some scholars have tried to explain it away claiming they were using "the Mohawk image as a revolutionary symbol of liberty" and such, but I suspect they were just cowards hiding their identity. I'm not alone. Attempts to deny that the colonial costume party came about to deflect blame, hide the perps and an early example of racism are seeming somewhat lame. But again, I'm no expert, and lean toward iconoclasm as a rule. What they taught it in school, I've spent a lifetime trying to shed.

At any rate, this is one the most extravagant displays of "Windian" behavior I have seen. No less than 25 of them, and they are armed to boot!

I don't think all would fit in the sole tipi (Lakota and made of hide, often decorated with spiritual images, not tent canvas like this one), but maybe they took turns getting in. It also appears they have clogged the smoke hole with a crumpled American flag...and if you look close behind the tent, some kid and his Dad are watching the big event in street clothes. Could this be a very early film still with the tribe coming from Brooklyn?

By the way? Halloween as an "indian?" Also not cool.

Other than that? This is a pretty cool photograph.

Untitled (Early Native American Reenactors) original silver photograph, 8" x 6" (Original mount 12" x 10" circa 1890? Collection Jim Linderman

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