1934: Preserving the Tribal Customs of Our Native Citizens

1934, Nov 18  The Courier Journal 

War bonnets, scalp shirts, tomahawks, war clubs, a tepee model, and hundreds of other interesting pieces of bread of quill [work] from the Plains Tribes of North America make up the collection now on exhibit at the J B Speed Memorial Museum. This fine collection from Indians of the northwest has been assembled and is owned by Frederick Weygold.

     Mr Weygold's interest in Indians was first aroused when he was a mere lad. As a small boy in Missouri, he heard the old-timers telling of the pioneer days and the Indian wars. About this same time he saw large caravans of ox-drawn prairie schooners moving westward over the Boone Lick Road, the eastern extension of the Oregon Trail. The reports of the great Custer Battle which came from the West when he was just 6 years old made a very vivid impression on this youth.

     Twenty-five years after this famous battle Frederick Weygold returned from Europe, where he had studied modern languages -- strange to say, a Sioux grammar being one of the texts he used while over there. He went to the country of the Sioux and there learned to speak their tongue. From that date, which was 1902, up to the time of the World War he was active in getting specimens and information for European museums. In 1914 Mr Weygold started his own collection, and the one now on display at the museum is the first showing he has made of it as a whole.

     The war costume of the medicine man, shown at the upper right, is an outstanding piece because of its striking headdress of buffalo horns and handsome quill work brow band. The scalp shirt, leggings and moccasins of this costume are very unusual in design and workmanship. In the same case with the medicine man costume two other costumes, a painted buffalo robe, a scalping knife and other interesting implements are shown.

     "The Last Parade," an old painting by Mr Weygold, is reproduced above and shows one of the outstanding Indian groups during the present century. In it the Sioux warriors are parading for the last time before Chief Red Cloud. This group, which is led by four of the old warriors in full war costume, is passing before the old chief who was the active leader and commander-in-chief of the Sioux Cheyenne and Arapahoe in the Indian wars of the Sixties. The painting is vivid in color and full of life -- you will like it, for it really shows you Indians as they were years ago....

1934, Nov 18  The Courier Journal