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The shaft of pale Malacca, with a
carved ivory top depicting the head of a Native American wearing a war bonnet
of Plains type; the ivory top mounted in a silver collar, engraved,
To
W.F. CODY
From his
friend
J.M.B
1887
Overall length 35
¼”.
Exhibited in three cities in the
United States of America in 1999, as well as at the Royal Armouries Museum in
Leeds, England, in the same year, this handsome stick must commemorate the
visit of “Buffalo Bill’s” Wild West Show to England in 1887, the
year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Malacca canes and walking sticks
with tops carved in ivory in a figurative manner were extremely popular in
Britain and in the north-eastern USA at the time and, although unmarked, this
stick is very much in the style of those retailed in London and New York at the
time of its presentation.
While Native Americans had visited
London long before 1887, their visits had not been marked by the degree of
showmanship that was as much an essential part of the “Buffalo
Bill’s” Wild West Show as were the Native Americans themselves. Given
that this showmanship was largely the work of John M. Burke - who made
Cody’s shows more popular and more extravagant than they had ever been -
it could not be more appropriate than that he should be the donor of this stick
to “Buffalo Bill”. In marketing “Buffalo Bill” and his Show
to a foreign audience on the first trip outside the USA of the Wild West Show,
Burke would have thought that, if Cody was to carry a walking stick - a
fashionable and popular accessory in Britain, as in the north-eastern USA, in
1887 - what could be more appropriate than one with its top carved as the head
of a Native American? The fact that the head was of a type of
“Indian” easily recognisable as such and of the type featured in the
show - a Plains Indian in a war bonnet - could only have added to the publicity
value of the gift. After all, Cody was known to have killed, and scalped, just
such an “Indian” - the Cheyenne Chief “Yellow Hand” -
during the fighting in the aftermath of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, only
eleven years before. To have such a head on his walking stick would be just
what was expected of the great Indian fighter and, certainly, rather more
acceptable in London society than to have “Yellow Hand’s” scalp
dangling from his belt.
In 1887 “Buffalo Bill” was
probably the most famous American on the planet: his exploits as a driver for
the Overland Stage, Pony Express rider, Scout for the US Army, Indian fighter
and, as his world-famous nickname indicated, killer of buffalo having been
widely circulated through the medium of the “dime novel” throughout
the world during the preceding twenty years or so. Born in Iowa in 1846,
William Frederick Cody moved with his family to Kansas in 1853; ten years later
he was fighting with the 7th Kansas Cavalry in the American Civil War. After
the war ended, Cody spent the next eleven years as a buffalo hunter, earning
his nickname, and Army scout, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872
in an action against marauding “Indians”. His skill as a scout and as
a hunter spread and so did his fame - the first “dime novel”
featuring him, Buffalo Bill, King of the Border Men, being published in 1869.
While his killing and scalping of “Yellow Hand” in 1876 added to his
fame, it also marked the end of his life on the frontier, from which he retired
in 1877. For the next decade, Cody and a variety of associates worked in
establishing “Wild West spectaculars”, the success of which grew
rapidly as the shows toured the USA.
Much of the credit for the success of
the shows in the USA was due to the activities of “Major” John M.
Burke, the donor of this stick. Burke was an unmitigated hero-worshipper of
Cody and had, like him, been a driver for the Overland Stage. Part of the
Western legend was the ability of its heroes convincingly to tell “tall
tales”, men becoming famous for their capacity to lie convincingly, and
Burke exercised his talent in this in order to publicise “Buffalo
Bill” and his shows - attributing to Cody, and to some of the other stars
of the show, exploits that were as untrue as they were exciting. Burke was also
a consummate organiser and handled all the arrangements for the Wild West
Show’s memorable trip to England in 1887, having an amphitheatre built
that was a third of a mile in circumference, with seating for forty thousand
spectators. The English public had never seen anything like the Wild West Show
before and every performance was packed, there being little apparent need for
the “volunteers” that Burke had seated in the audience to cheer on
the performers. The Show toured England, was visited by The Queen, members of
her family and by numerous other European monarchs and princes: it was the
thing to see in 1887, a fitting accompaniment to the Jubilee celebrations and
might be said to be the event that launched what is now called “The
Special Relationship” between the USA and Britain.
The Show included several Plains
“Indians” who could have been models for the head that forms the top
of this stick, perhaps the most obvious candidate being Sitting Bull, chief of
the Oglala Sioux. It is apparent that the artist who carved the ivory for the
stick’s top was basing his depiction upon a good likeness of the Plains
“Indians’” style of war bonnet and braided hair, crossed at the
throat, but whether this was done from life or from an illustration must be
left to conjecture. Sitting Bull did not come to England in 1887, however, but
his fellow Sioux chief, Red Shirt, did - being photographed in London in
characteristic pose and clothing.
Just as “Buffalo
Bill’s” Wild West Show brought something of the Old West to the
eastern USA and to Europe, so it inspired mementoes, souvenirs and gifts that
were the homage of the Old World to those who were building the New by opening
up the western United States to European settlement. William F. Cody was one of
those pioneers, of the Old West as much as of modern showmanship, and this
highly evocative stick - once the property of the world’s most famous
American - is part of that homage: the New World as represented by the Old and
fusing the two.
Image reproduced by courtesy of Peter
Finer |
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