kip_w: for Earth Day

kip_w (

kip_w) wrote,
@ 2008-04-22 12:10:00

for Earth Day
.

Featuring the famous Corsican-American actor, Iron Eyes Cody.

In the later days of the National Lampoon, there was an amusing cartoon with a picnicking couple: "For God's sake, Harold, pick up your Twinkie wrapper! There's an Indian crying over there."
.

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	Weird... geckoman 2008-04-22 09:29 pm UTC (link)
	Someone else was telling me just the other day that Iron Eyes Cody wasn't American Indian... (Reply to this)

	meggins 2008-04-23 10:49 pm UTC (link)
	Yet again, Native-American actors are muscled out of a job by some other ethnicity. On the other hand, you can't deny he was effective in the part. (Reply to this)

don_fitch
2008-04-28 12:55 am UTC (link)

Yup, that he was Italian was commonly accepted in LArea Indian circles, and so was he, after a fashion. As an Actor, he was strong on Promoting Himself (not considered an admirable quality in most Indian cultures), but at the same time he was always willing to help promote local Indian Good Causes (as something of a side-effect, maybe) and Indians tend to be remarkably pragmatic. So he was frequently selected to be Master of Ceremonies at LArea Indian Powwows & similar events, mostly on the theory that he'd attract non-Indian spectators who'd spend enough money to cover the expenses. And for years he was the official Big Wheel of the only local Northern Plains powwow group (with monthly dances usually held in Eagle Rock) that I knew of in Southern California (where quite a lot of Southern Plains/Oklahoma Indians settled in the Dust Bowl & WWII Eras), even though I don't recall him ever singing either Lakota or Cree Word Songs.

He was, I though, a rather bad MC -- poor sense of Timing and of Appropriateness -- but this is just a Front position, and generally he wasn't allowed to organize or run anything important. On the whole, I'd say, he was treated rather like the somewhat loopy different-ethnicity uncle-by-marriage who gloms onto some kind of conspicuous status-position in a large Extended Family. Which makes sense because his wife, Birdie, was (IIUC) a descendant of both George Eastman and Quannah Parker, and was liked & admired by just about everyone in the community for her good-heartedness & efficiency. (As in modern Reservation circles, it's the older women who wear black shawls (because they're always in Mourning for some member of their extended family) who actually Run Things and assure that The Important Stuff Gets Done -- very quietly and inconspicuously.)

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