Many Feathers and Much Paint Don't Make an Indian

"War whoops echoed through Minnesota [April 18, 1949] as outraged Indian protested an art exhibit at Minneapolis Institute of Arts.           "The Indian were on the war path both as art critics and red-blooded, genuine Indians.           "The exhibit consists of 36 crudely drawn pictures of the New Ulm Indian "massacre" of 1862. It is being shown in connection with the Minnesota territorial centennial celebration.           "The pictures are the work of the late James Stevens of Rochester, Minn, who is supposed to have painted them in 1875, when relations with the Indians were anything but cordial.            "They are owned by the Minnesota Historical Society and portray Indians engaged in scalping paleface women and tomahawking children.            "Minnesota;s present-day Indians don't think much of the exhibit - both as art and history. An...

1937, Nov 24 - The Times - Indians Resent Movies            The American Indian surveyed the movie, stage and fiction version of his forefather.. and said figuratively: "Ugh!"   So Chief Fred Eitawageshik, leader of the Michigan Indian Defense association announced he is preparing an active campaign to gain the backing of the 9000 Michigan Indians in a program to stop portrayals of "phony Indians" in fiction and plays.  1939, March 20 -  The Rhinelander            Hollywood - Looks as if Hollywood still might be given back to the Indians. All over town there are frontier pictures in the making and the Indian Actors' Association is sending up smoke signals inviting tribesmen to the north and east to come to this land of plenty jobs and wampum.  1939, May 7   The Pittsburgh Press  1939, Dec 3 - Democrat and Chronicle - Indians Protest Hollywood's Casting Snub    ...

Around 1962, the US Post Office where Frank Mechau's mural had hung for more than a quarter century, was being remodeled. They were boxed up, and they might have been forgotten if it wasn't for Mechau's wife who, in 1970, went to a government employee and asked about saving her husband's canvas murals that were dirty, frayed and with holes and slashes. The General Services Administration (GSA) spent time locating, cataloging and sometimes transporting all of the lost art that had been commissioned over the years - mostly 1933 to 1943. 1967, May 7  Denton Record Chronicle  "Dangers of the Mail" was moved to Colorado Springs. Several years passed, and a new Environmental Protection Agency headquarters was being built in DC, and some of these old murals were brought in to cover the walls. Shortly after employees moved into the new EPA building, in the Federal Triangle, a Native American from the Blackfeet Nation in Montanta was "flabbergaster" ...

In 1938, Frank Mechau was again commissioned to paint murals for a courthouse in Texas. He continued with his romanticized wild west images, scenes he became famous for,  1939, Feb 19.   St Louis Post Dispatch  1943, Jan 10  The Decatur Herald  Frank A. Mechau Jr , noted painter and thrice held Guggenheim fellowships, died suddenly of a heart attack after he collapsed outside his parents home. He was 42. 1946, March 10  The Salt Lake Tribune  Next: What became of Franks mural?

In addition to Mr Manchu's earlier responses to Mr. Collier, he also had this to say: "As for Mr. Collier's comments themselves, they are a perfect example of superficial approach, but even taken into their own field of historical fact, they still cannot stand up.           "The plausibility of the three nudes being taken captive is backed up by the Bureau of American Ethnology, which stated in a publication that Indians west of the Mississippi made a practice of taking white women alive.           "It seems extraordinary that Mr. Collier, undoubtedly familiar with the history of Indian warfare and massacres, should take exception to such a mild scene as the denuding of white women captives. Were I to bear down on history, the actual picture of a massacre would be gruesome indeed."   - Source: 1937, Oct 14. Arizona Republic. 1937, Oct 14. Arizona Republic.  Do you see what he did there? He basically said these typ...

On October 7, 1937, John Collier, commissioner of Indian affairs, commented on the mural, by literally making fun of it and it's depiction of the nude women being pillaged by Indians.  " That's the craziest thing I ever saw," he said. "There could not be any fact to this ."  and " It starts out being a slander against the pioneer women, as I view it. Obviously, from this picture they were riding along naked and the Indians scalped them for indecency. " .... and "The presumption might be the Indians were so shocked by this party of nude ladies with some gentlemen riding across the desert in a large bus that they scalped them."   Collier also pointed out that stage coaches that carried the mail, which is what this mural is supposed to depict, generally carried only 4 to 6 people, while this one had at least 15. Source: 1937, Oct 8. Albuquerque Journal.           And responding to Frank Mechau's "historic fact...

In 1935, Frank A. Mechau of Colorado Springs, Co, an up-and-coming talented 31-year old who won the Guggenheim Fellowship the year before, was chosen - out of 142 artist entries - to paint murals for the new Post Office Building at Washington that were to honor the Pony Express. Mechau submitted the two drawings below, with a "Wild West" theme. He said he was attracted to native scenes and native people, after traveling the west in 1932. The below sketch "shows a massacre by Indians who had attacked one of the stage coaches which traveled the Pony Express road," a quote from St Louis Post Dispatch, Dec 1, 1935.  Mechau claimed he had done a great deal of research to ensure all of the details were historically accurate. "He has also been soaking up the atmosphere of the present West, which retains something of the day when riders of the Pony Express thundered over the Central Overland route."  1935, Dec 1    St Louis Post Dispatch     The firs...