FEATURE
114
FIG. 23 (below):
Japanese Embassy, Navy
Yard, Washington, D.C., by
Mathew Brady, 1860.
Albumen silver print from glass
negative. 37.5 x 48.1 cm (image).
Inscribed on mount: “Best print.
There is another illegible” and
“3549.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, purchase, The
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
gift, through Joyce and Robert
Menschel, inv. 2005.100.1115.
In 1860, the Tokugawa Shogunate
sent the so-called Man’en Gannen
Mission to the United States to ratify
the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Amity and
Commerce. Mathew Brady took this
photograph of the leading members
of the delegation at the Washington
Navy Yard.
FIG. 21 (left):
Tamaha (Healing Well,
aka Rising Moose,
Mdewakantonwan
Dakota), photographer
unknown, c. 1860.
Carte de visite, 10 x 6.4 cm.
Inscribed “Friendly Sioux in
Blackhawk War.”
Massachusetts Historical Society, inv.
170.252. From the Francis Parkman
photographs.
Tamaha (1775–1860) was a Sioux
leader who supported the United
States during the War of 1812 and
continued to do so while in captivity
with the British. Also called “One
Eye” following a childhood injury,
he was an infl uential diplomat. He
favored U.S. military dress after
having been gifted a captain’s
uniform, among other honors, by
General George Clarke in 1816. The
stovepipe hat was also signature.
(See Robinson 1904; Somerset
Publishers 2000.) The sword he
holds is diffi cult to identify since the
hilt is obscured, but it appears to be
a heavy saber.
FIG. 22 (below):
Detail of stereoview portrait
of He That Stinks, Bobtail
Bull, Yellow Wolf, and
Sitting Bear, by Stanley J.
Morrow, before June 25,
1876.
Gelatin silver print. 9.2 x 8.3 cm.
Annotated on reverse “He that
Stinks, Bobtail Bull, Yellow Wolf,
Sitting Bear.”
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, call no. 2010465.
Bobtail Bull (second from left), an
Arikara scout with the Seventh U.S.
Cavalry, holds a sword with eagle
feathers hanging from the hilt. He
enlisted April 26, 1876, and was
killed at the Battle of the Little Big
Horn two months later.
who created the Japanese manikin head one
month later. Scherer (2014) demonstrates that
this manikin head was likely based on a photograph
of Red Cloud taken by Alexander Gardner
during Red Cloud’s visit to Washington in
1872 (fi g. 30), though it is not known whether
Red Cloud knew of or consented to the creation
of the bust. Scherer goes on to note, however,
given Red Cloud’s attendance during his visit
in Washington at the performance of a play titled
Mrs. Jarley’s Wax Works that “the public in
general was certainly familiar with the language
of life-size manikins and what they represented,
and Red Cloud’s attendance at the performance
certainly introduced him to the subject of manikins/
fi gures and their popularity” (2014:229).
Thus, the simultaneous presence of these two
famous delegations, led by Iwakura Tomomi
and Chief Red Cloud, respectively,
in Washington, D.C.,
in the spring and summer of
1872, and their possible mutual
involvement in the creation
of Smithsonian manikins,
presents the possibility that
during this time Red Cloud
acquired the katana he later
displayed in his cabin. Precisely
how this acquisition might
have happened remains a matter
of speculation—did Red
Cloud perhaps meet directly
with members of the Iwakura
Mission? This would not have
been particularly surprising, as
the presence of each delegation
must surely have been known
to the other given the fanfare with which they
were welcomed in the capital. Evidence of such
a meeting has yet to be found, but if it were to
have taken place, it is entirely possible that a Japanese
sword may have been gifted to Red Cloud,
as evidenced by comparable gifts dispensed by
members of the Iwakura Mission.
There is one other photograph of an American
Indian holding a Japanese sword (though not
in situ in Indian country), as seen in fi gure 28.
This photograph, apparently from 1908, depicts
the Chippewa chief GahGosShaDeBay (with
some variant spellings of that name) commonly