The claim

Sioux Chief Big Snake is said to have said at Karl May's grave: “You big dead friend! You have erected a lasting monument to our dying people in the hearts of the youth of all nations. We would like to set up totem poles for you in every Indian village, because the red man never had a better friend.”

Our conclusion

Yes, these words were spoken that way in 1928 in English or Lakota as part of what was called “Indian homage.” The Sioux were under contract with the Sarrasani Circus and were hired for further advertising appearances in the same year. Therefore it is doubtful whether the words came from the heart.

The current debate about the film “The Young Chief Winnetou” has a richer facet. This started when Ravensburger Verlag took two children's books out of the program. The accusation: racism, clichéd representation and trivialization of the genocide against the American indigenous people. In response, tempers flared on social media: cancel culture and wokeism were demonized and conspiracy theories were created as to why ARD no longer broadcasts Karl May films. We reported on the background and the phantom debates .

What is currently making the rounds, particularly on Twitter, is an event that already took place in 1928. A Sioux chief traveled to the event, later known as “ Indian homage You have erected a lasting monument to our dying people in the hearts of the youth of all nations. We would like to set up totem poles in every Indian village. Your picture should hang in every wigwam, because the red man has never had a better friend than you!”

Fact check completed? Not quite.

We wouldn't be Mimikama if we were just content with these superficial details. What is really behind this event? Who actually were these “Indians” who appeared at the homage at the grave in Radebeul near Dresden?

Reconstructed silent film fragments from the Saxon State Archives

The story behind the story

The discoveries of modern times after Christopher Columbus aroused two desires: a greed for the treasures of the newly discovered peoples and their labor, and a curiosity about foreign countries, animals, plants and cultures. The former led to centuries of violent relationships between colonial masters and the exploited, the latter to a series of further voyages of discovery. The names of Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook and Alexander von Humboldt are remembered in this way.

The people from the newly discovered worlds and their culture aroused the curiosity of those who stayed at home. However, they initially had to be content with colonial reports - riddled with misunderstandings and prejudices. Fine art and literature discovered the “noble savage” who lived in a “state of nature” as a projection surface for themselves. But ordinary people were also eager for the exotically new. So that they “around the world for fifty pfennigs ,” not only animals and objects from the colonies were shown, but also living people as part of so-called “ people’s shows .”

The first indigenous people from North America were brought to Germany in 1910 by Carl Hagenbeck, who combined wild animals with large groups of people from the animal trapping areas authentic shows As early as the spring of 1913, the Sarrasani Circus – then even larger and better known than the Krone Circus – followed this example. He crowned his performance with “a group of authentic Indians from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, led by the old chief Edward Two-Two,” who died just a year later.

After a trip around the world, the Sarrasani Circus returned to Germany in 1927 with a new program; Also included: a number of “peoples” such as another group of indigenous people from the Pine Ridge Agency reservation in South Dakota. The parade to the German premiere in Berlin on March 3, 1927 was led by the Sioux chief Susetscha Tanka (Big Snake). The idea for visiting Karl May's homestead and grave came from Hans Stosch-Sarrasani and Patty Frank , the director of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul:

It will certainly interest you to know that my Indians feel the same enthusiasm for your husband's works as the German readership and the rest of the world. The Redskins have expressed a desire to know the home of your husband, who was such an ardent and passionate admirer of their race. Full of gratitude, they want to pay homage to the grave of the man who was their most spirited admirer.

Letter from Hans Stosch-Sarrasani to Klara May, December 4, 1927

The “Indian homage” in Radebeul

MIMIKAMA
CC BY-NC-SA @ Karl May Museum gGmbH. (2022-01-13). Postcard booklet “Indian Homage in Radebeul”, January 1928; 12 shots. Retrieved from https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1099396

Already in Dresden, when the Sioux got into several cars in front of the “Sarrasani” circus building, an unmissable crowd had gathered. The convoy was cheered along the way. In Radebeul, countless people waited in front of the Radebeul-Ost cemetery. Press representatives had already positioned themselves inside the cordoned-off cemetery, including a reporter from the New York Times: “American Indians honor Karl May” – under this headline the newspaper was to publish its cable report the next day.

Sarrasani's Argentine gaucho band marched in front, singing a chorale. The procession moved solemnly towards Karl May's tomb. Among the guests were the Dresden Consul General of the United States, Arminius T. Haeberle, circus director Stosch-Sarrasani, Euchar Albrecht Schmid as head of the Karl May publishing house and Patty Frank.

“We stand here at the grave of a man who was the greatest friend of the Indians,” Patty Frank began his welcoming speech in English. “All his thinking, all his doing was that of an Indian. In more than thirty books, distributed all over the world, he tells how he adores his red friends. His skin was white, his face was white, but his heart was red like those of the red men.”

With drums beating, some Indians approached the tomb, sang a lament and laid two wreaths. Big Snake stood on the steps of the tomb and gave a gestural speech in the Lakota language, which Mr. Shoultz translated: “You great dead friend! …You have erected a lasting monument to our dying people in the hearts of the youth of all nations. We would like to set up totem poles in every Indian village. Your picture should hang in every wigwam, because the red man has never had a better friend than you!”

In front of the “Villa Bärenfett” Klara May greeted her guests in English. The Indians thanked her with a dance. Patty Frank showed them the treasures of Indian culture stored in the log cabin.

Excerpt from “The Indian Homage in Radebeul” in the Karl May Yearbook 1929

Context, criticism and other perspectives on the event

The log building “ Villa Bärenfett ”, Patty Frank’s home, and Villa Shatterhand , Karl and Klara May’s home, have housed the local Karl May Museum .

The foundation of the Karl May Museum goes back to Karl May's wife Klara May, who founded the museum "in honor of her husband" and for the purposes of presenting his works. The artist and collector Patti Frank as curator told visitors stories around the campfire and “celebrated the cowboy and Wild West culture”. In the year the museum was founded, an “Indian homage” was staged at Karl May’s grave. Deputies from the Sarasani circus made a procession and gave scripted speeches glorifying Karl May.

Robin Leipold, current director of the museum in Radebeul as part of (UN)SICHTBAR #4 From the colonial exhibition to the human zoo, can be heard on Soundcloud

The New York Times printed a brief report on the event on January 18, 1928:

American Indians honor Karl May. Twenty Lay Wreath on Grave of German Writer of Wild West Stories.
Berlin, Jan. 17.

Headed by a band of music and followed by a large crowd of children and curios men and women, twenty American Indians attached to the Circus Sarrasani and wearing full war dress drove this afternoon to the village of Radebeul, near Dresden, in cars to deposit a wreath on the grave of Karl May, the most famous German writer of Wild West and travel stories, who died sixteen years ago.
The redskinned guests were greeted at the mausoleum by Dr.
Schmid, publisher of May's works and administrator of his estate, who recalled that just twenty years ago the late author at Buffalo laid flowers on the grave of the great Indian Chief Sagoyewatha. Patty Frank, caretaker of a Wild West log-house near May's villa 'Shatterhand', welcomed the guests from North Dakota in English and Indian speeches, closing with the Indian salute to the dead.
After a mourning chant accompanied by the beating of drums, Chief Zuzeca Tanka made a speech in Indian, extolling May's friendship for the Indian race.
The chief said the German writer was known to all American redmen, who would like to erect totem poles to his memory in every village, because his heart was red although his skin was white. A reception by Mrs. May, the writer's aged widow, and a luncheon for the Indian and other guests followed the ceremonies, which were attended by Consul General Haeberle as representative of the American Government.

New York Times , 18. January 1928

Hans Reimann ( Die Feuerzangenbowle also wrote about “Indian homage” in his autobiography My Blue Wonder . Reimann was friends with the May couple and was invited as a member of Klara May's “coffee table” on January 17, 1928. Reimann claimed "that the 22 Indians got drunk while visiting the Indian Museum and had to be replaced by Sarassani with costumed white people."

The fact that it was Sioux of all people who honored Karl May was also a surprise to his widow, who mused about it during a trip to America

The Siuox have always been the mortal enemies of the Apaches [in Karl May's stories], including Winnetous and Old Shatterhands. And nevertheless! A strange quirk of fate seems to have prevailed here. It was not Apaches, nor the Navajos or Shoshones who were friends of them, who paid homage to the dead friend of the Indians at his grave in Radebeul, but rather former enemies of Old Shatterhand, warriors of the Sioux, the tribe that Old Shatterhand was still his opponent had to appear in the last of Karl May's works. (sic)

Klara May (1931): Through America with Karl May. p.22f

One last but very important detail: Susetscha Tanka and his people were under contract with the Sarrasani circus. As did a number of other groups that were considered exotic at the time. The North American Indians were booked for a number of further performances in 1927-28. The Wiener-Karl-Brief, issue 2-3/2013 shows, among other things, pictures from an appearance at Dresden-Hellerau Airport in 1928.

Conclusion

The Sioux chief Big Snake pronounced the quoted words this way in 1928. However, he and his people were under contract with the Sarrasani circus and not only appeared in the circus, but also in other advertising appearances. The honor at Karl May's grave was arranged by the circus director and later director of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul. A contemporary witness spoke of drunken Sioux, and the widow was also surprised that representatives of the mortal enemies of Karl May's fictional characters came to the honor. We can no longer know today, but there is a reasonable doubt as to whether the chief's short speech came from the heart. The strange choice of words doesn't make it any better.

Reading tip: current interview with Gonzo Flores , a descendant of the legendary Apache leader Geronimo

Sources:
https://www.karl-may-wiki.de/
https://www.karl-may-museum.de/de/
https://www.karl-may-gesellschaft.de/kmg/seklit/ kmjb/karl-may-jahrbuch_1929.pdf (Karl May Yearbook 1929)
http://www.circopedia.org/Circus_Sarrasani
https://sachsen.museum-digital.de/object/37337 (Pictures of homage as postcards)
https: //www.weiterdenken.de/de/2017/03/15/unsichtbar-4-von-der-kollegienbörse-zum-menschenzoo
https://www.nytimes.com/1928/01/18/archives/american-indians -honor-karl-may-twenty-lay-wreath-on-grave-of.html
https://www.freiburg-postlokal.de/Seiten/rez-dreesbach-2005.htm

Featured image: CC BY-NC-SA @ Karl-May-Museum gGmbH. (2022-01-13). Postcard booklet “Indian Homage in Radebeul”, January 1928; 12 shots. Retrieved from https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/1099396

More on the topic: Winnetou and Karl May not banned!


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