'Omaha Charlie' Bristol and the Kickapoo Medicine Company

[Dietmar]

Everyone knows Buffalo Bill. But who ever heard of Omaha Charlie?

David Charles Bristol alias Omaha Charlie (sometimes spelled Charley) was one of the many performers and showmen who wanted to turn his experiences on the American frontier into money. Bristol was never as famous as others, but he had a steady career and over time collected a large collection of Native American materials, now filed at the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Charlie Bristol was born on March 17, 1834 in Canandaigua, New York, and died at his home in Homer, Nebraska on September 14, 1925.
According to his own accounts, he started his showman career as manager and costumer in Cody´s Wild West in the 1870s and/or 1880s while living permanently in Rushville., S.D. However, if so, he didn´t stay long with Buffalo Bill and soon joined the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. Despite the name, no Kickapoos are known to had been with the troupe, but mainly Winnebago Indians. Hence, Bristol eventually married a Winnebago woman.

I haven´t found exact dates, but Omaha Charlie after a while left the company and went on his own to tour cities and present his collection of Indian artifacts under the name ‘Omaha Charley and his Band of Wandering Sioux’, joined by former Winnebago comrades and other Indian performers.

What drew my attention to him was a group picture that I happened to notice on the Internet. It shows Bristol with some Indian performers.
Now, you don´t take long to realize that these are Lakota. I searched the internet, but haven´t found any hint, who they were or when they had joined Omaha Charlie. It seems, that this was his time with the Kickapoo Medicine Company, because the boy in front holds a bottle of ‘Sagwa’, a curious ‘Blood, Liver, Stomach and Kidney Renovator’, sold by the company´s founder John Healy & Charles Bigelow.

I would be interested in any list, who reveals names of Indian performers with Bristol or the Kickapoo Company.
According to my own identifications of the people in the photo, Oglala chief Long Bull (aka Daniel Long Bull aka Big Nose) was with Bristol, as well as Real Bull, a Lakota who later went to live with his wife among the Cheyenne in Oklahoma. The man in front possibly is a man named ‘Wankel Akicita’(?), as he is shown in another picture with Real Bull.



Btw, the Indian far left holds a club which is very similar (the same?) to the club we have seen earlier in a portrait of Three Strikes. This club is in the Bristol collection at the Nebraska State Historical Society.


'Sagwa'

[grahamew]

That's really interesting and the strange thing is I felt certain he's been mentioned before on the board but I can't find anything in the search. I agree with you about the knife club. I wonder if Real Bull went to live with the Cheyennes or whether he was photographed in Oklahoma while he was with Charlie. It's a terrific photo.


Real Bull and his wife


One of Bristol's associates, Riley Miller, with booty he'd looted from dead Lakota during the Ghost Dance period.

Wonder when your photo was taken. Got to be late 1880s at least.

[Dietmar]

This is the best article I´ve found on Omaha Charley:

Tina Koeppe, “‘Omaha Charley’ and the Bristol Collection of Native American Artifacts,” Nebraska History 90 (2009): 180-189

history.nebraska.gov/sites/history.nebraska.gov/files/doc/publications/NH2009Charley.pdf


I think we mentioned Charlie earlier in the Spotted Tail thread, referring to the necklace he collected from Young Spotted tail:

history.nebraska.gov/blog/omaha-charley-bristol-collection


another page:

history.nebraska.gov/blog/omaha-charley%E2%80%99s-native-american-artifacts

[Dietmar]

According to this page, Brings Plenty was another Lakota performer with Kickapoo Indian Medicine Show:


Brings Plenty, Sioux Indian South Dakota, Porcupine Tail Creek Pine Ridge Agency with the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company, Through Texas New Mexico
Dr. T.C. SoRille Manager Season 1894

www.sideshowworld.com/43-SO-MS/Old/Indian-Tonic.html

[grahamew]

Do you think this man is actually called Three Strikes or has somebody given this name because of the club he holds? I wonder if he was with the troupe.

At the bottom of the photo above is a pipe bag. Here's the Standing Bear Pipe Bag in the Omaha Charlie collection. I know representation of colours is deceptive in old photos (don't red and yellow look dark?) but if you blow up the Three Strikes photo, it could well be the pipe bag by his feet. I wonder if the photo of Three Strikes doesn't show other objects from Charlie's collection.





Also in the collection is the beaded waistcoat worn by the man with the knife club. There's a dress in the collection that when reversed, looks a little like the top that Three Strikes wears - if the feathers have been removed. That's probably a long shot, though his outfit does look strange.

[Dietmar]

Right, I've been thinking about that, too. In fact, I wonder if Three Strikes, if that was his name, even looks like a Lakota at all.

[grahamew]

Real Bull taken in Longdale, Oklahoma -further evidence that he went to live in Oklahoma


And again...


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[grahamew]

From the Living Bear and Plenty Horses thread:




Omaha Charlie with Many Wounds and Black Bear

The three-bladed club is the same on that features in two of the photos above and is in the Bristol Collection at the Nebraska State Historical Society:

[Dietmar]

I know we got members here who are descendants of the Janis family, so note that Ben Janis is the man standing second from right.

I believe the Lakota standing far left later went with Buffalo Bill´s show under the name Red Hawk.

[Dietmar]

Here´s another photo from the Nebraska History site of Ben Janis while he was with Omaha Charlie:


Too Too Long Neck & Bennie Geneece (aka Ben Janis)

Too Too Long Neck is as i believe the man who later got the name Edward Two Two and who died while touring Germany in 1914.

He looks different than the man in the above group photo, so I wonder if he was identified correctly there.

[grahamew]

Is this Charlie again? Some of the people with him don't appear to be Lakota (Winnebago?), though the man to Charlie's right (our left) is wearing the same shirt as Black Bear in one of the images above.


This time, Yellow Eyes carries the three-bladed club. Wouldn't surprise me if the ball-headed club held by Lone Elk is the same one resting against the leg of the man sitting at the right in the photo above.

[grahamew]

I think...


that this is Omaha Charlie and the second from the left may be Many Wounds






Here are a number of items collected by Omaha Charlie, some of which you can see in the images above - Three Strikes' pipe bag is at left and the waistcoat worn by by the man in the hat in the first image Dietmar posted is at the top between the two dresses. Yellow Eyes, in the image below, also wears that waistcoat. You can also see the jacket worn by Too Too Long Neck and the fringed pants worn by Ben Janis over the right.


Yellow Eyes, Charlie, G.H. Maxwell, Brave Bear, Wooly[sic] Chief. I wonder if Wooly Chief isn't Lone Elk from the photo posted upthread...

[Dietmar]

I´m pretty sure I´ve seen at least three of the Lakota in the Kickapoo b/w photo with W.F. Cody, but I don´t know their names anyway.

[grahamew]

Am I right in thinking this was some kind of franchise - started by Texas Charlie Bigelow and maybe someone else - and that there were several such shows around the country all aimed at selling Sagwa? I do get the impression that a lot of Lakota in these shows (Cody, Carver, Bristol, Pawnee Bill etc) went from one to another for the employment.

[Dietmar]

I would agree, Grahame.

It seems many Lakota were hired for different shows. Some were already mentioned in this thread.
Tom American Horse is another example. He at least performed for Cody, Cummins and Hagenbeck‘s Tierpark in Germany. We coud easily list more examples.