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Topic: Ouray´s son... or not? (Read 2,363 times)

Dietmar
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Ouray´s son... or not?
« Thread Started on Aug 19, 2008, 11:12am »

Many months ago I started a thread on the littlebighorn.info boards about a photograph at the Smithsonian called “Ouray´s son” (if anyone remembers

).

The photo is an individual portrait of a member of the 1873 delegations of Cheyenne and Arapaho, who visited Washington at the time.

[image]

I have doubted that the photo really showed the son of Ouray, who was a Ute leader. The inscription on the photo says “Arapaho”.

Well… apparently I was wrong!

Ouray, who later would be recognized by the whites as head chief of the Utes, married his first wife Black Mare in about 1853. In 1857 she bore him son, who they named Queashegut. He was also called by Ouray “Paron” (apple) or “Cotoan” by his cousins.
Black Mare died shortly after she gave birth to her son and the boy was raised by Ouray´s second wife Chipeta, who he married in 1859.

In June 1863 tragedy struck Ouray again. While on a buffalo hunt, Lakotas attacked his camp. Paron, whom Ouray had tried to hide under blankets in his tent, was taken captive. Later he was captured or traded by Arapahos, who raised him and changed his name to “Ute Friday”. Some sources say Northern Arapaho leader Friday had the boy in his lodge and treated him as a son, some say it was Friday´s brother Neva.

For more than 10 years Ouray knew nothing of the whereabouts of his son. When white officials in 1873 wanted Ouray to sign a new treaty and make peace with neighbouring tribes, they promised him to help him finding his lost son.
When the Arapaho/Cheyenne delegation visited Washington in autumn 1873, a seventeen-year-old boy named Friday (not to be confused with Chief Friday who also was part of the delegation) was found and brought with them. It was arranged that Ouray, his wife Chipeta and eight other Utes went to Washington either and met the Arapahos under Powder Face and the boy Friday.
This meeting turned out quite dissatisfying for Ouray. Friday wanted to know what his name was in the Ute language, but Ouray answered that he should know. One other Ute went to the boy and said they were cousins and he had called him “Cotoan”, when they played together as children.
But Friday only said he couldn´t understand the Utes and Ouray himself wasn´t sure if he indeed was his son. Moreover, the two parties couldn´t agree where the boy had been captured exactly and if perhaps another boy back in the Arapaho camp could be instead the lost son.
So Friday returned to the Arapahos and spent all his life with them.

Unfortunately they all didn´t talk about a forked scar, which had definitely proven the boy´s identity. When Ouray´s son was five years old, he rode his father´s war horse. The horse ran under a dead limb of a tree which speared the boy. This accident left a jagged, forked scar on his right shoulder.
However, Friday was left-handed as was Ouray´s son. And most people who saw these two together recognized a remarkable resemblance.

So you can decide for yourself if he could be Ouray´s son or not. 8-)

Dietmar

« Last Edit: Aug 19, 2008, 11:13am by Dietmar »

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jinlian
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Re: Ouray´s son... or not?
« Reply #1 on Aug 19, 2008, 12:30pm »

Hi Dietmar,

the young man looks pretty much like Ouray, doesn't he?

Besides, it seems that the Utes have acknowledged the parentage between Ouray and "Cotoan":

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20050911/ai_n15368222

The Southern Utes have recognized brothers Harold, Alex, John and Clarence Smith in a special ceremony as the great-great grandsons of Chief Ouray, according to research by the tribe....

The Smith brothers are all members of the Arapaho Tribe, and live on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The Smiths' link comes through Ouray's only son, Coaton, who was kidnapped as a child from the Utes and raised as an Arapaho.

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Dietmar
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Re: Ouray´s son... or not?
« Reply #2 on Sept 16, 2008, 8:45am »

Here is the comment in W.H. Jackson´s Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs on the portrait of Ouray´s son:

Living with and brought up with the Southern Arapahos, but claimed by Ouray, chief of the Utes, to be his son, captured in battle several years since. Ouray has made an appeal to the Government for his restitution, but the young man prefers his present home

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