[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Dog Child, a North West Mounted Police scout, and his wife, The Only Handsome Woman, members of the Blackfoot Nation, Gleichen, Alberta, ca. 1890.

Interesting that the guy is holding a Japanese sword. I was curious. A little google lead me to this post on a bulletin board from a guy named "Peter Bleed"

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/13181-photos-of-amerinds-with-nihonto/#comment-137268

This whole issue seems something like an albatross. It should go away. Years ago, in my youth, i came across a photo of the the interior of Chief Red Clouds cabin and saw that it showed a handachi hanging on one wall. Then i had shown to me a photo in the NCMP archive of an identfied Blackfoot in Alberta holding a Japanese sword,

Further research showed that the Red Cloud photo was made in late 1890 and that a group of Japanese Army officers passed thru his community in about 1877 as they returned overland from the Philadelphia Bicentennial Exposition and decided to visited western forts (given the Indian fighting going on at that time, Little Bighorn and all that). While they were in the West, one US officer said something of them like, "They were nice enough fellows but they couldn't speak English so we didn't know how they liked their eggs."

Could they have given Red cloud his sword? I have no idea. But I did put some feelers out to the Pine Ridge Dakota community. AND I DID GET A CALL(!!) saying that Red Cloud's sword had been found on the reservation (!!!). I made immediate calls - many of them. And got a nakago rubbing - which revealed a . . . . Koa Ishin blade. Looks like Indian GI's like souvenirs. Red Cloud's sword is still out there in South Dakota.

The Blackfoot sword photo was undated as i recall, but (again as i recall) somehow I did discover that the missionary to the Alberta Blackfeet had spent time in Japan.

I also published a little piece in Man at Arm that showed some Japanese blades that has been bought from native folks in Alaska. Those things all dated from the very early 1900's.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that Japanese swords seem to have been in play on Japan's northern frontier. I doubt that the folks who would have been sent to Canada or Alaska, or California in the 19th century would have carried swords. I think it is more likely that after 1876, the world was awash in old Japanese arms. Lev Bogoras did collect a Japanese Armor from the Siberian Chukchi. And do I recall that another was collected from Omdurman?

Peter