Iron Tail

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century and best known for her evocative images of Native Americans. Käsebier spent her childhood on the Great Plains living near and playing with Sioux children. In 1898, Käsebier watched Buffalo Bill's Wild West troupe parade past her Fifth Avenue studio in New York City, toward Madison Square Garden. Her memories of affection and respect for the Lakota people inspired her to send a letter to Buffalo Bill requesting permission to photograph Sioux traveling with the show in her studio. Buffalo Bill and Käsebier were similar in their abiding Native American culture and maintained friendships with the Sioux. Buffalo Bill quickly approved Käsebier's request and she began her project on Sunday morning, April 14, 1898. Käsebier's project was purely artistic and her images were not made for commercial purposes and never used in Buffalo Bill's Wild West program booklets or promotional posters.[6]

Buffalo Bill Cody told Major Israel McCreight that "Chief Iron Tail is the finest man I know, bar none."

Käsebier took classic photographs of the Sioux while they were relaxed. Chief Iron Tail was one of Käsebier's most challenging portrait subjects. Käsebier's session with Iron Tail was her only recorded story: "Preparing for their visit to Käsebier's photography studio, the Sioux at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Camp met to distribute their finest clothing and accessories to those chosen to be photographed." Käsebier admired their efforts, but desired to, in her own words, photograph a "real raw Indian, the kind I used to see when I was a child', referring to her early years in Colorado and on the Great Plains. Käsebier selected one Indian, Iron Tail, to approach for a photograph without regalia. He did not object. The resulting photograph was exactly what Käsebier had envisioned: a relaxed, intimate, quiet, and beautiful portrait of the man, devoid of decoration and finery, presenting himself to her and the camera without barriers. Several days later, Iron Tail was given the photograph and he immediately tore it up, stating that it was too dark.[7] Käsebier re-photographed him, this time in his full feather headdress, much to his satisfaction.

Chief Iron Tail was an international celebrity. He appeared with his fine regalia as the lead with Buffalo Bill at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France, and the Colosseum of Rome. Iron Tail was a superb showman and chaffed at the photo of him relaxed. but Käsebier chose it as the frontispiece for a 1901 Everybody's Magazine article. Käsebier believed all the portraits were a "revelation of Indian character," showing the strength and individual character of the Native Americans in "new phases for the Sioux."[8]

Iron Tail in Scotland, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, 1904

On June 22, 1908, Iron Tail and "Buffalo Bill" Cody visited Du Bois, Pennsylvania with the Wild West Congress of Rough Riders. Twelve thousand people a day attended Cody's Wild West performances and 150 Oglalas were in town with 150 ponies. On this occasion, Iron Tail presided over the adoption of Major Israel McCreight as an honorary Chief of the Oglala Lakota and named McCreight "Čhaŋté Tȟáŋka ("Great Heart").[10] Iron Tail performed the ceremony assembled at Buffalo Bill's tent and attended by Chief American Horse, Chief Whirlwind Horse, Chief Lone Bear and 100 Oglala Lakota members of the Wild West Congress of Rough Riders. The Oglala Lakota chiefs formed a small circle around McCreight and his wife Alice, and Iron Tail began the ceremony with a speech in Lakota, a hearty handshake all around, and then placed a war bonnet McCreight's head and moccasins upon his feet. Iron Tail then presented McCreight with a tepee on which an owl had been traced with yellow chalk and told this was for him and Alice to live in. Tom-tom drums were then beaten and tribal songs put up vigorously. Concluding remarks were made by Iron Tail ending with hearty handshakes. Iron Tail and Buffalo Bill were loaded into a new 1908 Rambler touring car and driven to McCreight's town house for the banquet which followed. There, Iron Tail was presented with a new Winchester rifle as a souvenir of the event. McCreight was forever moved by the solemnity of the occasion, and carried the honor proudly and with distinction the rest of his life. McCreight later remarked that the title, honorary Chief of the Oglala Lakota, was a far greater tribute than could have been conferred by any president or military organization.

M.I. McCreight, Iron Tail and Flying Hawk, 1906

Grand Reception for Chief Iron Tail and Chief Flying Hawk, The Wigwam, DuBois, Pennsylvania, 1915

In 1915, McCreight hosted a grand reception for Chief Iron Tail and Chief Flying Hawk at The Wigwam in Du Bois, Pennsylvania. "When Chief Iron Tail was finished with greeting the long line of judges, bankers, lawyers, business men and neighbors who filed past in a receiving line just as the President is obliged to receive and shake the hands of multitude of strangers who call on New Years, the chief grasped hold of the fine buffalo robe which had been thrown over a porch bench for him to rest on drawing it around his shoulders, walked out on the lawn and lay down to gaze into the clouds and over the hundred mile sweep of the hills and valleys forming the Eastern Continental Divide. He had fulfilled his social obligations when he had submitted to an hour of incessant hand-shaking, as he could not talk in English, further crowd mixing did not appeal to him. He preferred to relax and smoke his redstone pipe and wait his call to the big dining room. There he re-appeared in the place of honor and partook of the good things in the best of grace and gentlemanly deportment. His courteous behavior, here and at all places and occasions when in company of the writer, was worthy of emulation by the most exalted white man or woman!" After Chief Iron Tail had shaken hands with the assembled guests he gathered the big buffalo hide about his shoulders, waived aside the crowd and walked away. He spread the woolly robe on the grass, sat down upon it and lit his pipe, as if to say, "I've done my social duty, now I wish to enjoy myself."[11] Chief Flying Hawk long remembered the gala festivities. "Here he himself and his close friend Iron Tail had held a reception once long ago, for hundreds of their friends, when bankers, preachers, teachers, businessmen, farmers, came from near and far along with their ladies, to pay their respects and say, How Cola!" "The historian Chief Flying Hawk reminded that when dinner was served, Iron Tail asked to have his own and Flying Hawk's meals brought to them on the open porch where they ate from a table he now sat beside, while the many white folks occupied the dining-room, where they could discuss Indians without embarrassment. This, he remembered, was a good time, and they talked about it for a long time together, but now, his good friend had left him and was in the Sand Hills."[12]