sword is Japanese. It is a true samurai sword, or katana, mounted in socalled
122
handachi fi ttings. This type of sword would have been worn either
in battle or in semi-formal occasions. Handachi-mounted swords are not
common, because they were intended for serious use and were not the
model for later ‘tourist’ or souvenir swords. Like most handachi-mounted
swords, the sword on Chief Red Cloud’s wall appears to be of relatively high
quality. It also appears to be in very good condition. The handle wrapping of
silk cord is intact and the lacquered wood scabbard seems undamaged. Both
of these fi ttings are quite fragile … and easily damaged. The sword also
looks essentially unaltered, except that it is hanging on a cord tied to the
top of the scabbard. This is not authentic and certainly represents a minor
alteration made by Red Cloud or some other Indian” (Bleed 1987:113).
16. The surname is sometimes spelled Notzu.
17. Bleed (1987:115) did not mention Nozu Michitsura by name, though he
also noted that “in September of 1876 … three high-ranking offi cers of
the newly formed Imperial Japanese Army visited Camp Robinson as guests
of the United States government and included a visit to the Red Cloud
Agency, which was located near the post at that time.” Bleed is careful to
point out that “there is no record that these offi cers actually met Chief Red
Cloud, although as visiting dignitaries such a meeting seems reasonable.”
18. Information from Prof. Abe Juri (Rikkyo University, Tokyo), personal
communication to C. Marino, October 2014.
19. The three Japanese dignitaries who reached legendary Fort Laramie in
the heart of the Western frontier and later proceeded to Camp Robinson
and nearby Red Cloud Agency were the fi rst of their nationality to do so.
Members of a larger offi cial Japanese delegation to the United States, their
dual mission was to attend the 1876 U.S. Centennial celebrations and to
acquire up-to-date information on military matters.
Like the rest of foreign visitors at Philadelphia, the Japanese delegates
heard the shocking news of the Custer defeat and were also informed of
the immediate steps the U.S. War Department was to take in response
to the Custer incident against the “hostile” Sioux and Cheyenne. For the
Japanese, this presented a unique opportunity. Offi cial correspondence of
the War Department to the Secretary of State indicates that members of the
Japanese legation expressed their desire to visit the Western forts to witness
preparations for the military campaign against the Indians. Pragmatically,
the Japanese offi cials motivated their request in strictly military terms, which
would be clearly understood by their American hosts, leaving no room for
political ambiguities.
20. The story of the Japanese sword, the Indian chief, and the Japanese colonel
is likely far from over. Members of the Red Cloud family have recently
proposed to Hollywood producers that the improbable encounter between
Red Cloud and Colonel Nozu be developed into a feature fi lm.
21. The Blackfoot are a major tribe of the large Algonquian language stock.
Once a powerful equestrian culture, they occupied a vast territory on
the eastern side of the Rockies between the modern state of Montana
and the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. They called
themselves Niitsitapi, the “True/Real People,” and were loosely organized
in a confederacy comprising four main, independent groups: the Siksika, or
Blackfoot proper; the Ahkainah Kainai, or Blood; and the Ahpikuni Pikani,
or Poorly Tanned Robe. These in turn divided between a northern branch,
the Peigan, and southern one, the Piegan. The latter today occupy the large
Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana and constitute the U.S. federally
recognized Blackfeet Tribe with over 16,000 enrolled tribal members. The
other three “bands” are located in Canada, where they are collectively
called Blackfoot. They occupy their respective reserves in south-central
Alberta, namely Siksika, Blood, and Peigan reserves, with a total population
of some 17,000 offi cially registered members. The U.S. Blackfeet and the
Canadian Blackfoot share a common language, ancestral identity, traditions,
and ceremonies, in particular their annual sundance, also referred to as
Medicine Lodge.
22. According to ancient tribal oral history (Blackfeet Tribe 2014), “in the very
early days of the eighteenth century, war parties used commonly to start
out in the spring, going south to the land where horses were abundant,
being absent all summer and the next winter, and returning the next
summer or autumn, with great bands of horses. ... They say that on such
journeys they used to go to Spai’yu ksah’ku, which means the Spanish lands
…. That they did get as far as Mexico, or at least New Mexico, is indicated
by the fact that they brought back Spanish branded horses and a few
branded mules; for in these early days there was no stock upon the Plains.
… From their raids into these distant lands, they sometimes brought back
arms of strange make, lances, axes, and swords, of a form unlike any they
had seen. … A sword, described as having a long, slender, straight blade,
inlaid with a fl ower pattern of yellow metal along the back, was probably an
old Spanish rapier.”
23. Drew (1980:62) dismissed the possibility that the katana was a prop,
noting that “There is no record of Caple having brought the sword with
him and, in any event, he was in Alberta to photograph with realism, as
evidenced by some of his other pictures of the Blackfoot.”
24. “In 1895 the Reverend Canon Stocken, the resident Anglican missionary to
the Blackfoot Indians of Alberta, traveled to Japan to marry his second wife,
Gertrude Cox, who had been a missionary there for some years. After the
marriage, the couple returned to Gleichen, Alberta, and resumed missionary
work among the Blackfoot” (Bleed 1987:115).
REFERENCES
Blackfeet Tribe, 2014. Blackfeet Tribe in War. Online at: www.
accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/blackfeet/war.htm. Accessed November
21, 2019. (“Updated August 7, 2014.”)
Bleed, Peter, 1987. “Indians and Japanese Swords on the North Plains
Frontier.” Nebraska History 68:112–115.
Dempsey, Hugh A., 1996. The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other
Blackfoot Stories. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
———, 2003. The Vengeful Wife and Other Blackfoot Stories. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Drew, Daryl W., 1980. “Dog Child and the Samurai Sword.” Canada West
10(1):61–63. Republished in Canadian Cowboy Country Magazine
(February–March 2014), online (accessed Jan. 21, 2019) at: https://www.
cowboycountrymagazine.com/2014/05/dog-child-and-the-samurai-sword/
Enochs, Ross A., 1966. The Jesuit Mission to the Lakota: Pastoral Theology
and Ministry, 1886–1945. Kansas City, Missouri: Sheed and Ward.
Ewers, John C., 1956. “When the Light Shone in Washington.” Montana: The
Magazine of Western History 6(4):2–11.
Fleming, Paula Richardson, 2003. Native American Photography at the
Smithsonian: The Shindler Collection. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Books.
Fogel, Jonathan, 2018. “J. O. Lewis & The Aboriginal Port Folio.” Tribal Art
89:134–145.
Goodyear III, Frank H., 2003. Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Greene, Candace S., 2004. “From Bison Robes to Ledgers: Changing Contexts
in Plains Drawings.” European Review of Native American Studies
18(1):21–29.
Hartley, Dean S., and T. B. Buttweiler, 1976. “The Wandering Arms of Japan.”
Token Taikai: Northern California Japanese Sword Club Token Taikai ’76
Lectures. San Francisco: Northern Japanese Sword Club. (Unpaginated.)
Published online at: http://drdeanhartley.com/ColHartley/Oriental/
WanderingArms.htm
Holtom, D. C., 1941. “The Meaning of Kami: Kami Considered as Mana.”
Monumenta Nipponica, 4(2).
Horan, James D., 1972. The McKenney-Hall Portrait Gallery of American
Indians. New York: Crown.
Horse Capture, George P., 1993. “From Museums to Indians: Native American
Art in Context.” Pp. 61–92 in: George P. Horse Capture et al., Robes of
Splendor: Native American Painted Buffalo Hides. New York: The New
Press.
Houchins, Chang-su, 1995. Artifacts of Diplomacy: Smithsonian Collections
from Commodore Matthew Perry’s Japan Expedition (1853–1854).
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