116
FIG. 27 (above): Portrait
of Red Cloud with horn
headdress, rattle, and
pegged hand-drum (manikin
by Pollock), by John F. Jarvis,
Washington, D.C., c. 1872.
Stereograph card. 3 x 7”.
National Anthropological Archives,
Smithsonian Institution, photo lot
140, inv. 02636300.
This manikin portrait of Red Cloud
was created by the Smithsonian,
apparently shortly after the notable
1872 visit of the Sioux delegation to
Washington, D.C., of which he was a
member. The face was modeled after
the Alexander Gardner photographic
portrait taken on that occasion
(fi g. 30).
tograph by William Cross (fi g. 33), and in a series
of historic photographs taken at Pine Ridge
in the 1890s by Morledge.14 The latter also took
a second interior view of the house’s bedroom,
probably in 1891 (fi g. 32). Each of the two images
are interesting in their own right. Although
the room photographed is clearly the same, the
two views are different in many details, indicating
that they were taken at different times and
after considerable rearrangement of the room
had taken place. In the earlier view, we see the
Japanese sword in its scabbard hanging on a
wall. Bleed (1987:112–113) notes that
The photograph was collected by Major William
J. Turner, an offi cer in the Second U.S. Infantry,
which was sent to Pine Ridge in December 1890
to put down unrest caused by the Ghost Dance.
… There is a pencil note on the back of the original:
“Pine Ridge Agency, S.D. Chief Red Cloud
presented this picture to me, December 7, 1890.
Red Cloud’s wife (blind), Interior of his home.”
Thus it appears that the photograph of the
Red Cloud katana was taken before the tragic
massacre of Wounded Knee and before the
chief’s room was rearranged. In Morledge’s second
photograph of Red Cloud’s bedroom (fi g.
32), dated about January 1891, the katana is
no longer visible. Whether its removal was temporary
or permanent, or whether the Japanese
sword was simply hung on another wall outside
the camera’s view, is unknown.
Focusing on the photograph with the katana,
Bleed was able to provide a detailed description
of the sword itself.15 Bleed also pointed out the
other objects visible on the walls, including a
large American fl ag, Christian religious icons
(Red Cloud had converted to Catholicism), an
old-style blanket, a “concho” belt, and other
symbolic and utilitarian items.
A possible provenance for the katana in this
photograph was suggested by Thomas Myers
(1987:39), who published this same photograph,
crediting Bleed for pointing out the sword. Myers
pointed out the “preponderance of goods
from non-Indian sources” present inside the
house. He also noted that Red Cloud and the
Oglala had relocated to their new South Dakota
reservation just two years after a high-ranking
offi cer of the Japanese Imperial Army, Colonel
Nozu Michitsura,16 accompanied by two other
Japanese offi cials, had paid an unprecedented
visit to the Sioux Agency near Camp Robinson
in late 1876. Since the photograph with the katana
was taken before the end of the year 1890,
if indeed it was a gift of Col. Nozu, or if it had
been obtained during the Iwakura Mission, then
it is possible that, as a prized possession, the Japanese
sword might have been hanging there for a
decade or more before it was taken down, again
for unknown reasons.
The lack of interest in the elusive katana by
Red Cloud biographers is in part justifi ed by the
fact that no contemporary, detailed account of
the encounter between Colonel Nozu and Red
Cloud seems to exist. Thus it is unknown whether
such a meeting ever took place nor whether
gifts were exchanged between the two.17 Bleed
(1987:115) had earlier noted Nozu’s presence,
stating that in line with Japanese etiquette, a gift
would be presented if such a meeting happened,
“and a high-quality, traditional weapon would
certainly be suitable for an important leader
like Red Cloud.” However, we note that Lakota
customs, too, called for the exchange of gifts
between chiefs, and we are left to wonder what
Red Cloud might have presented to his Japanese
counterpart: a catlinite pipe in a fi nely beaded
buckskin pipe-bag would be typical, as would
a war bonnet of eagle feathers or a comparable
valued possession. Nozu did not record a gift of
this sort and no such American Indian objects
have yet been located in Japan, either in museums
or in the possession of his descendants,
based on inquiries among Nozu’s descendants
and family by Professor Abe Juri.18 We also
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