Headdress Heist Gone Wrong

Just before Christmas it hit the headlines: we’ve stolen a Native American chief’s headdress. We, as in England generally, but also Hastings and its Museum specifically. Now, I know a Hastings boy did once stain his skin with tea and head out for Canada to pretend to be ‘one of them Red Injuns’. That happened, more or less. But I’m pretty sure he didn’t nick a headdress and pop it on himself before returning home for the subsequent lecture tour many years later. Well, it wasn’t this headdress anyway. So what’s the story?

Technically, the apparent crime wasn’t stealing so much as… immorally holding on to an artefact of cultural significance to some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Our accuser is self-described model/activist/artist Hooso Tacam, aka Hooso Ramos, aka Gabriel Clark-Faust, aka Bear. A young man of many identities, with 276,000 Instagram followers. In theory, that means more people than the population of Hastings were immediately notified of our being in questionable possession of an indigenous artefact when he made his post.

“Remember that England continues to keep the headdress of Lakota Chief Iron Tail, rather than returning it to his tribe.”

Below the post it specified the location of the headdress at Hastings Museum, whose Instagram replied that they’d be happy to return it, in accordance with their indigenous repatriation policies, if someone from the Lakota got in touch to ask for it.

(N.B. I haven’t yet got a straight answer from them whether any Lakota have asked for it – but the implication is that no-one had)

Claws Out

Bear was raised as a Spanish/European but later embraced his indigenous roots. As far as I’m aware, he is not a Lakota nor a representative of their community. His response to the museum was to post a gif from National Treasure. In the scene depicted, Nicholas Cage has just summarised a passage from the Declaration of Independence as “if there’s something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action”, and then he says, as written in the gif, “I’m gonna steal it.”

This response earned a lot of likes. Someone added “To give it back, right? Let’s be clear. It’s already been stolen.” While it is strange to be holding an item like this in a distant museum, away from the people who might make best use of it, or indeed most value it, the story is a little more nuanced than you’re being led to believe.

The headdress was apparently given or sold fair and square by Chief Iron Tail to a Tex McCloud. This was while they were both performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a pseudo-historical travelling show mixing stage and circus. Tex later sold it to budding historian Colin Taylor in Brighton, who eventually gave it to Hastings Museum. I’ve asked to see the details of this paper trail (and am waiting for that info to be delivered) but no-one seems to have implied the headdress was stolen until now.

It only gets more complicated from here.

Who was Iron Tail and why is he important?

Iron Tail, or Siŋté Máza, likely grew up around famous Lakota war leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but he was a peace-time chief himself, adapting to the fact of defeat and assimilation at the hands of the US. He was one of many people doing their best just to keep any part of their indigenous culture alive through very turbulent times.

He eventually followed the example of many Lakota and spent some years touring with Buffalo Bill, the famous scout, Buffalo slaughterer and campfire-tale-embelllisher. They travelled the US, Britain (including Hastings) and sometimes Europe, re-telling historical events or just showing off their skills. A lot of Lakota warriors, possibly on the run from the US military, ended up in Bill’s Wild West.

Iron Tail was also one of the models for the Buffalo Nickel, a coin in common usage for 25 years. He seemed to get along well with a number of notable Americans like Bill and Major Israel McCreight, without fully Americanising himself. My sense is that he was important for remaining, very noticeably, very publicly, and pretty affably Lakota, a Native American at a time when a lot of people in the US wanted them wiped off the face of the earth.

The headdress we have, sometimes called a war bonnet, has substantial ceremonial and cultural significance attached to it, but as I’ve said it is possible that Iron Tail parted with it willingly as a gift to a friend or colleague. I don’t think the museum’s done anywhere near enough work on it, or on Iron Tail as a significant historical figure, but then again, there is another headdress that belonged to Iron Tail, over in Colorado, which has a bit more significance attached to it.

Yep, the Buffalo Bill Museum in Golden, Colorado, is much nearer to Lakota territory than Hastings. The war bonnet there also has much clearer links to Iron Tail than ours. Historian Richard Green actually thinks there’s no proof that Iron Tail ever wore our headdress, certainly not in any photographs, and so doubts that we can make a substantial connection between it and him. It’s perhaps more ‘an important headdress’ rather than ‘his important headdress’.

Wait, so who did the crime, who do we condemn?

To recap, we didn’t steal it, and the half-Britisher (Tex McCloud) who got in the first place apparently didn’t steal it either. Iron Tail, the man who originally owned it (and possibly wore it) made his name, or honoured his name, as an Oskate Wicasa, a performer, spent a lot of time around white American colonisers, and the headdress more closely associated with him is in Colorado.

“Remember that England continues to keep the headdress of Lakota Chief Iron Tail, rather than returning it to his tribe.” I don’t know. I think there’s something missing there.

Since the furore, I understand that Hastings Museum have taken it upon themselves to get in touch with representatives of the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota (LDN) Nation, but we’re waiting for them to release more info on how that goes. You can read their indigenous engagement policy right here. I think it has some issues, which I’ve tried to raise with them, but the fact that they’re ultimately willing and able to repatriate anything in the collection is a pretty good sign.

Apart from the museum, I wanted to find out more about Bear, so I went onto his youtube channel and started watching old live streams. A year ago he had some odd things to say about African-Americans, like they’re somehow hindering indigenous rights work with their own responses to racism and their historical culture being deleted. At one point he says it’s the indigenous peoples of Latin America whose identity has been uniquely challenged or erased. This kind of ‘us, not them’ attitude clearly isn’t clever or helpful.

Which is where it’s handy to know the kid’s about 25, he went to uni but by his own admission he’s maybe not the best person to speak on these topics. He’s represented by Storm Management, which seems to be a fairly swish modelling agency. And when you have more than a quarter of a million followers, it’s easy to let the altitude go to your head.

I figure he just wants to raise the visibility of indigenous or native Americans, particularly those people living as Americans who aren’t aware of their intrinsically indigenous history. Most of what he posts are short pieces contrasting folk history with pop culture, which is all well and good I guess.

You could say he’s following in the tradition of oskate wicasa, parading his native truth while spitting in the face of ignorant invaders who don’t realise how comprehensively they’re being insulted. Apparently the Lakota in Bill’s Wild West would shout nasty things at the crowd, but obviously the crowd didn’t understand and thought it was all part of the show.

I’m just not sure he needs to target the public museum of one of the more deprived towns in the UK. A town that seems to be unusually interested in and perhaps even sympathetic to indigenous American culture. Maybe not the best way to advance the cause?

Are we the criminals, you and I?

This incident is part of a bigger issue: influencers with access to a massive audience aren’t required to operate by even the most basic journalistic standards (nor are journalists it seems). And likewise their followers tend to absorb whatever they’re told without so much as a raised eyebrow.

You can find pretty much anything on the internet. Case in point, I knew nothing about the content of this article before I wrote it. You can also spend hours doomscrolling and learn nothing, occasionally commenting on things that get an emotional rise out of you. I’ve done that as well. I don’t think the internet can be regulated (yet), so it’s really up to you as a user of the technology to work out what style you prefer. Do you want to try and find out what the truth is, or do you want your next hit of serotonin?

I’ll write an update with the fate of the headdress when I hear back from the Museum (they’re preparing a blog/press statement at the moment). Thinking about uploading my research notes here as well, if anyone wants to know more about this kind of history.

Featured image: Chief Iron Tail wearing a headdress (probably not ours), unknown photographer, sourced from forum folk.