CHIEF OF REDSKINS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1930, Page 9

CHIEF OF REDSKINS

HOLIDAY IX BXCLAXD. Mr. George Heye is an anachronism. A man who has sat nightly with Sioux, Pawnee and Blackfoot, a man who has sat cheek by jowl with the Indians in the American Indian reservation, a man who has listened to awful tribal legends while the pipe-smoke curled and .wreathed round the blackened props of the wigwam—such a man says the Daily Express, should not look like a University don, well groomed, with perfect courtesy and no rough edges. The writer says: —I met ‘Mr. George Ilcyo while he was on holiday in England, and he is the greatest living authority on the Red Indians in the world. He is also the founder of the Red Indian Museum in New York.

“They are lovable,” Mr. Heye said, speaking of the Indians. “A lovable race with a sense of humour, a race which is gradually being M esternised. educated —er —improved.” “Obviously you do not think that,” the interviewer remarked. Mr. Heye frowned. “Why Westernise them?” he said. “Why ruin them? We foist our customs and religion upon them. We give them bastard ways and a bastard tongue. Wo expect them to retain their old splendour. No, wo do not think we are improving them.” “Did they give you a. name?” the writer asked, wondering what a Sioux would call this benevolent old gentleman with the gold spectacles. “Yes—and it was not ‘He Who Cracks Marrow Bones With His Gums,’ as most fiction has it,” laughed Mr. Heye. ‘I was ‘Massone —the Chief,’ ” and he smiled quite proudly. Mr. Heye is blood-brother to descendants of the most bloodthirsty redskins in America. He knows the loves, lives and hatreds o fthe Red man. But . two hours later he vvas seen in Fleet Street Mecca—happy . and impressed. at the inn which • isj the American