Download or read book Native Performers in Wild West Shows written by Linda Scarangella McNenly and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that the West is no longer so wild, it’s easy to dismiss Buffalo Bill Cody’s world-famous Wild West shows as promoters of stereotypes and clichés. But looking at this unique American genre from the Native American point of view provides thought-provoking new perspectives. Focusing on the experiences of Native performers and performances, Linda Scarangella McNenly begins her examination of these spectacles with Buffalo Bill’s 1880s pageants. She then traces the continuing performance of these acts, still a feature of regional celebrations in both Canada and the United States—and even at Euro Disney. Drawing on interviews with contemporary performers and descendants of twentieth-century performers, McNenly elicits insider perspectives to suggest new interpretations of their performances and experiences; she also uses these insights to analyze archival materials, especially photographs. Some Native performers saw Wild West shows not necessarily as demeaning, but rather as opportunities—for travel, for employment, for recognition, and for the preservation and expression of important cultural traditions. Other Native families were able to guide their own careers and even create their own Wild West shows. Today, Native performers at Buffalo Bill Days in Sheridan, Wyoming, wear their own regalia and choreograph their own performances. Through dancing and music, they express their own vision of a contemporary Native identity based on powwow cultures. Proud of their skills and successes, Native performers at Euro Disney are establishing promising careers. The effects of colonialism are undeniable, yet McNenly’s study reveals how these Native peoples have adapted and re-created Wild West shows to express their own identities and to advance their own goals.
Download or read book Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians 1883 1933 written by L. G. Moses and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the lives and experiences of Show Indians from their own point of view.
Download or read book Wild West Shows written by Paul Reddin and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wild West: a term that conjures up pictures of wagon trains, unspoiled prairies, Indians, rough 'n' ready cowboys, roundups, and buffalo herds. Where did this collection of images come from? Paul Reddin exposes the mythology of the American frontier as a carefully crafted product of the Wild West show. Focusing on such pivotal figures as George Catlin, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Tom Mix, Reddin traces the rise and fall of a popular entertainment shaped out of the "raw material of America." Buffalo Bill and other entertainers capitalized on public fascination with the danger, heroism, and courage associated with the frontier by continually modifying their presentation of the West to suit their audiences. Thus the Wild West show, contrary to its own claims of accuracy and authenticity, was highly selective in its representations of the West as well as widely influential in shaping the public image of life on the Great Plains. A uniquely American entertainment--colorful, energetic, unabashed, and, as Reddin demonstrates, self-made--the Wild West show exerted an appeal that was all but irresistible to a public hovering uncertainly between industrial progress and nostalgia for a romanticized past.
Download or read book Spectacular Native Performances written by Linda Scarangella McNenly and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation engages with anthropological debates of the representation of Native peoples in performance through a series of comparative case studies that examine Native North American participation in wild West shows. Using multi-sited ethnographic and ethnohistorical approaches, it investigates the experience of some Native performers with the top wild West shows historically (1885-1930), of three Mohawk families who performed in a variety of spectacles (early 1900s), and of contemporary performers in wild West show re-creations at EuroDisney (France) and Buffalo Bill Days (Sheridan, Wyoming, U.S.A.). This research focuses on Native performers' perspectives and experiences in order to complicate the picture of exploitation and commercialization in this context. In this dissertation, rather than focusing solely on the production of stereotypes, I trace the extent and various forms of Native agency and expressions of identity through a series of encounters that occur in a wild West show "contact zone." Drawing on the concept of transculturation, I argue that Native performers adopted and used contact zone encounters as a space to express their opinions or to maintain, express, and/or contest Native identity. I thus elucidate the various forms of agency that Native performers wielded, whether expressive, communicative, performative, or agency of cultural projects. A "cultural projects" approach to agency considers Native performers' own goals and social relationships in addition to the socio-political constraints and power relations that structure their lives. Native performers had their own cultural projects; they actively pursued the opportunities and benefits of working in wild West shows. I argue that narratives of opportunity, success, and pride found in the employment encounter, in oral histories of Mohawk performers' experiences, and in interviews with contemporary performers, represent agency of cultural projects. Oral histories from Mohawk performers' descendants and their interpretations of the archival record were crucial for revealing and substantiating these alternative perspectives of Native experiences in wild West shows and spectacles.
Download or read book Presenting Buffalo Bill written by Candace Fleming and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone knows the name Buffalo Bill, but few these days know what he did or, in some cases, didn't do. Was he a Pony Express rider? Did he serve Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Did he scalp countless Native Americans, or did he defend their rights? This, the first significant biography of Buffalo Bill Cody for younger readers in many years, explains it all. With copious archival illustrations and a handsome design, Presenting Buffalo Bill makes the great showman come alive for new generations. Extensive back matter, bibliography, and source notes complete the package. This title has Common Core connections.
Download or read book Life in a Wild West Show written by Stephen Currie and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses life in a Wild West show, including its origins, the show content, the performers, its relation to Native Americans, moving the show, daily life, and the death of the Wild West.
Download or read book Lakota Performers in Europe written by Steve Friesen and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-06-08 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From April to November 1935 in Belgium, fifteen Lakotas enacted their culture on a world stage. Wearing beaded moccasins and eagle-feather headdresses, they set up tepees, danced, and demonstrated marksmanship and horse taming for the twenty million visitors to the Brussels International Exposition, a grand event similar to a world’s fair. The performers then turned homeward, leaving behind 157 pieces of Lakota culture that they had used in the exposition, ranging from costumery to weaponry. In Lakota Performers in Europe, author Steve Friesen tells the story of these artifacts, forgotten until recently, and of the Lakota performers who used them. The 1935 exposition marked a culmination of more than a century of European travel by American Indian performers, and of Europeans’ fascination with Native culture, fanned in part by William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West from the late 1800s through 1913. Although European newspaper reports often stereotyped Native performers as “savages,” American Indians were drawn to participate by the opportunity to practice traditional aspects of their culture, earn better wages, and see the world. When the organizers of the 1935 exposition wanted to include an American Indian village, Sam Lone Bear, Thomas and Sallie Stabber, Joe Little Moon, and other Lakotas were eager to participate. By doing this, they were able to preserve their culture and influence European attitudes toward it. Friesen narrates these Lakotas' experiences abroad. In the process, he also tells the tale of collector François Chladiuk, who acquired the Lakotas’ artifacts in 2004. More than 300 color and black-and-white photographs document the collection of items used by the performers during the exposition. Friesen portrays a time when American Indians—who would not long after return to Europe as allies and liberators in military garb—appeared on the international stage as ambassadors of the American West. Lakota Performers in Europe offers a complex view of a vibrant culture practiced and preserved against tremendous odds.
Download or read book Hostiles written by Sam Maddra and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Hostiles? Sam A. Maddra relates an ironic tale of Indian accommodation - and preservation of what the Lakota continued to believe was a principled, restorative religion. Their alleged crime was their participation in the Ghost Dance. To the U.S. Army, their religion was a rebellion to be suppressed. To the Indians, is offered hope in a time of great transition. To Cody, it became a means to attract British audiences. With these "hostile indians," the showman could offer dramatic reenactments of the army's conquest, starring none other than the very "hostiles" who had staged what British audiences knew from their newspapers to have been an uprising.".
Download or read book Wild West Shows written by Source Wikipedia and published by University-Press.org. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 59. Chapters: Adam Bogardus, American Exhibition, Annie Oakley, Arizona Charlie, Bee Ho Gray, Bill Pickett, Brushy Bill Roberts, Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane, Fannie Sperry Steele, Frank E. Butler, Gabriel Dumont (Metis leader), Georgian horsemen in Wild West Shows, Joe Bowman (marksman), Jones Bros.' Buffalo Ranch Wild West, Ken Maynard, Lillian Smith (entertainer), List of Wild West shows, Lucille Mulhall, May Lillie, Mexican Joe, Miller Brothers 101 Ranch, Pawnee Bill, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Red Shirt (Oglala), Ruth Roach, Samuel Franklin Cody, Show Indians, Sitting Bull, Texas Jack (South Africa), Texas Jack Omohundro, Tom Mix, William Frank Carver. Excerpt: Show Indians, or "Wild West Show Indians," were Native American performers hired by Wild West Shows, most notably in Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders. The Show Indians were primarily Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota. Performers took part in reenacting historic battles, demonstrations of equestrianism, and performing ceremonial dances for audiences. Veterans from the Great Plains Wars chose to offer their services to Colonel "Buffalo Bill" Cody and appreciated that Wild West Shows preserved Native American heritage during a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation. Often central to the popular image of the American West are American Indians, specifically northern Great Plains tribes popularly characterized as dwelling in tipis, skilled in horseback riding, and hunters of bison. The shaping of the western myth was aided in part through the Wild West Shows of William Frederick Cody, whose show toured the United States and Europe between 1883 and 1917. Native Americans were hired from the earliest stages of the show, first drawn from Pawnee and then Lakota. For many Indians who chose to offer...
Download or read book The Red Man s Bones George Catlin Artist and Showman written by Benita Eisler and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography in over sixty years of a great American artist whose paintings are more famous than the man who made them. George Catlin has been called the “first artist of the West,” as none before him lived among and painted the Native American tribes of the Northern Plains. After a false start as a painter of miniatures, Catlin found his calling: to fix the image of a “vanishing race” before their “extermination”—his word—by a government greedy for their lands. In the first six years of the 1830s, he created over six hundred portraits—unforgettable likenesses of individual chiefs, warriors, braves, squaws, and children belonging to more than thirty tribes living along the upper Missouri River. Political forces thwarted Catlin’s ambition to sell what he called his “Indian Gallery” as a national collection, and in 1840 the artist began three decades of self-imposed exile abroad. For a time, his exhibitions and writings made him the most celebrated American expatriate in London and Paris. He was toasted by Queen Victoria and breakfasted with King Louis-Philippe, who created a special gallery in the Louvre to show his pictures. But when he started to tour “live” troupes of Ojibbewa and Iowa, Catlin and his fortunes declined: He changed from artist to showman, and from advocate to exploiter of his native performers. Tragedy and loss engulfed both. This brilliant and humane portrait brings to life George Catlin and his Indian subjects for our own time. An American original, he still personifies the artist as a figure of controversy, torn by conflicting demands of art and success.
Download or read book Legends of Our Times written by Morgan Baillargeon and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the world, the cowboy is an instantly recognized symbol of the North American West. Legends of Our Times breaks the stereotype of 'cowboys and Indians' to show an almost unknown side of the West. It tells the story of some of the first cowboys -- Native peoples of the northern Plains and Plateau. Through stories, poetry, art, and reminiscences in this lavishly illustrated work, Native people invite the reader on a fascinating journey into the world of ranching and rodeo. The book also presents the special relationship between Native people and animals such as the horse, buffalo, deer, and dog, which have always played an important role in Native spiritual and economic life. By the mid-nineteenth century, Native people were highly valued for their skills in horse breeding and herding, and could take advantage of new economic opportunities in the emerging ranching industry. Faced with limited resources, competition for land, and control by governments and Indian agents, many Native people still managed to develop their own herds or to find work as cowboys. As the ways of the Old West changed, new forms of entertainment and sport evolved. Impresarios such as Buffalo Bill Cody invented the Wild West show, employing Native actors and stunt performers to dramatize scenes from the history of the West and to demonstrate the friendly competitions that cowboys enjoyed at the end of a long round-up or cattle drive. The popularity of rodeos also grew within Native communities, and arenas were built on many reserves. Native rodeos are still held, while many Native competitors ride in professional rodeos as well. Today, Plains and Plateau peoples proudly continue a long tradition of cowboying. Legends of Our Times is a celebration of their rich contribution to ranching and rodeo life.
Download or read book Little Sure Shot written by Jennifer Silate and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2003-12-15 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1885, sharpshooter Annie Oakley has to prove herself to Buffalo Bill Cody, owner of a popular Wild West show.
Download or read book The Life of Hon William F Cody Known as Buffalo Bill the Famous Hunter Scout and Guide written by Buffalo Bill and published by . This book was released on 1879 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Buffalo Bill s Wild West written by Joy S. Kasson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buffalo Bill's Wild West presents a fascinating analysis of the first famous American to erase the boundary between real history and entertainment Canada, and Europe. Crowds cheered as cowboys and Indians--and Annie Oakley!--galloped past on spirited horses, sharpshooters exploded glass balls tossed high in the air, and cavalry troops arrived just in time to save a stagecoach from Indian attack. Vivid posters on billboards everywhere made William Cody, the show's originator and star, a world-renowned figure. Joy S. Kasson's important new book traces Cody's rise from scout to international celebrity, and shows how his image was shaped. Publicity stressed his show's "authenticity" yet audiences thrilled to its melodrama; fact and fiction converged in a performance that instantly became part of the American tradition. But how, precisely, did that come about? How, for example, did Cody use his audience's memories of the Civil War and the Indian wars? He boasted that his show included participants in the recent conflicts it presented theatrically, yet he also claimed it evoked "memories" of America's bygone greatness. Kasson's shrewd, engaging study--richly illustrated--in exploring the disappearing boundary between entertainment and public events in American culture, shows us just how we came to imagine our memories.
Download or read book Buffalo Bill s America written by Louis S. Warren and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the most famous American of his age. He claimed to have worked for the Pony Express when only a boy and to have scouted for General George Custer. But what was his real story? And how did a frontiersman become a worldwide celebrity? In this prize-winning biography, acclaimed author Louis S. Warren explains not only how Cody exaggerated his real experience as an army scout and buffalo hunter, but also how that experience inspired him to create the gigantic, traveling spectacle known as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. A dazzling mix of Indians, cowboys, and vaqueros, they performed on two continents for three decades, offering a surprisingly modern view of the United States and a remarkably democratic version of its history. This definitive biography reveals the genius of America’s greatest showman, and the startling history of the American West that drove him and his performers to the world stage.
Download or read book The Heartsong of Charging Elk written by James Welch and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2001-10-02 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning author of the Native American classic Fools Crow, James Welch gives us a richly crafted novel of cultural crossing that is a triumph of storytelling and the historical imagination. Charging Elk, an Oglala Sioux, joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and journeys from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the back streets of nineteenth-century Marseille. Left behind in a Marseille hospital after a serious injury while the show travels on, he is forced to remake his life alone in a strange land. He struggles to adapt as well as he can, while holding on to the memories and traditions of life on the Plains and eventually falling in love. But none of the worlds the Indian has known can prepare him for the betrayal that follows. This is a story of the American Indian that we have seldom seen: a stranger in a strange land, often an invisible man, loving, violent, trusting, wary, protective, and defenseless against a society that excludes him but judges him by its rules. At once epic and intimate, The Heartsong of Charging Elk echoes across time, geography, and cultures.
Download or read book Staging Indigeneity written by Katrina Phillips and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As tourists increasingly moved across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a surprising number of communities looked to capitalize on the histories of Native American people to create tourist attractions. From the Happy Canyon Indian Pageant and Wild West Show in Pendleton, Oregon, to outdoor dramas like Tecumseh! in Chillicothe, Ohio, and Unto These Hills in Cherokee, North Carolina, locals staged performances that claimed to honor an Indigenous past while depicting that past on white settlers' terms. Linking the origins of these performances to their present-day incarnations, this incisive book reveals how they constituted what Katrina Phillips calls "salvage tourism"—a set of practices paralleling so-called salvage ethnography, which documented the histories, languages, and cultures of Indigenous people while reinforcing a belief that Native American societies were inevitably disappearing. Across time, Phillips argues, tourism, nostalgia, and authenticity converge in the creation of salvage tourism, which blends tourism and history, contestations over citizenship, identity, belonging, and the continued use of Indians and Indianness as a means of escape, entertainment, and economic development.
