INDIAN SWORDS
FIG. 26 (below): Detail of
fi g. 25 compared with a
helmet and breastplate in
Smithsonian storage.
Armor: National Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution, inv.
E14171. Smithsonian Institution
Museum Support Center, Suitland,
Maryland.
Armor photo: Robert Pontsioen,
2019.
115
FIG. 24 (above):
“Washington. Presentation
of the Japanese Embassy to
the President and Cabinet,
in the East Room of the
Executive Mansion.” After
a drawing by James E.
Taylor, 1872.
From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper, Saturday, March 23,
1872 (v. 34, no. 860).
Led by Iwakura Tomomi, a key fi gure
in the Meiji Restoration and cousin
to the new emperor, the “Iwakura
Mission” delegation (Embassy)
had three main objectives. These
were “to present a credible face
to the Western powers following
the Restoration and thereby
secure recognition; secondly, to
investigate the social and economic
conditions of the various powers
and clarify the basis of their
‘enlightened civilization’; and,
fi nally, to investigate the possibility
of renegotiating the unequal tradetreaty
provisions existent at the
time” (Swale 1998:7). Although
the mission would meet with only
partial success in achieving its goals
(the treaty renegotiation never took
place, for example), the Japanese
visitors were met with signifi cant
fanfare, media coverage, and
curiosity among the public when
they arrived in Washington, D.C.,
on February 29, 1872 (Scherer
2014:241). Indeed, considering
Japan’s recent emergence from the
long period of self-imposed isolation
from the rest of the world, these
visitors from the East surely struck
their American hosts as wonderfully
exotic and enigmatic.
FIG. 25 (bottom):
“Japanese warrior”
(manikin by Pollock), by
C. Seaver Jr., Washington,
D.C., 1873.
Stereograph card. 10 x 17.1 cm.
Henry and Nancy Rosin Collection
of Early Photography of Japan.
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C. Partial
purchase and gift of Henry and
Nancy Rosin, 1999–2001. Inv. FSA
A1999.35 502.
Courtesy of Paula Fleming.
The inspiration for this manikin in
the Smithsonian was likely related
to the widely publicized Iwakura
Mission of Japanese diplomats,
which visited Washington, D.C.,
in 1872.
known as Chief Joe Broad, who was part of a
1908 Chippewa delegation to Washington. He
was photographed by De Lancey W. Gill (1859–
1940), who was a photographer for the Bureau
of American Ethnology (Smithsonian) from the
1890s to 1930. The provenance and ownership
of the sword in this photograph are unknown.
It is possible that Gill took (or allowed Broad to
select) a “long knife” from the Smithsonian collections
to use as a prop for the photo. Among
many Japanese swords in the Smithsonian’s ethnology
collection, some appear rather similar
to the one in this photograph (see fi g. 29, for
example, although the handguard, or tsuba, a
rare and specifi c type on this example, is not exactly
the same), though the sword has yet to be
located.
CONCLUSIONS ON
RED CLOUD’S KATANA
Together with Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and
Spotted Tail, Red Cloud (Mahpiya Luta 1822–
1909), is one of the better-known historic Sioux
Indian chiefs, and his life has been extensively
documented.13 There is no reference to the katana
hanging in the famous Oglala chief’s house
in any of the classic biographical sources on Red
Cloud. To date, the Clarence Grant Morledge
photo (fi gs. 1 and 31) is the only known image
of the katana associated with Red Cloud, and
no other photograph has yet been found actually
showing Red Cloud in proximity with his
Japanese sword. Goodyear (2003) compiled a
comprehensive (but not exhaustive) volume of
the known Red Cloud photographs, but did not
reproduce the chief’s bedroom view with the
hanging katana, nor did he mention in the text
the unusual and unique possession of a Japanese
sword by the famous Indian leader.
Red Cloud’s lifelong wife, Mary Good Road
Red Cloud (earlier known as Pretty Owl), portrayed
in the 1890 katana photograph, survived
him three additional decades and died a nonagenarian
in 1940. She was buried next to him. For
years, the couple had lived in a traditional Sioux
tipi but moved into their “two-story board and
batten dwelling” built at Red Cloud’s request by
the Indian agent in 1879, a year after his arrival
at Pine Ridge in 1878, with improvements made
the following year. This appears in an 1891 pho-