Miami Chiefs and Muffler Men

I’m enjoying a brief respite, while awaiting a week’s worth of work at Miami University of Ohio later this month, and hoping that the short break will provide me with some time to update the blog and solicit your thoughts on a few stumbling blocks in my research. A project that began as an attempt to better understand the life of Miami war chief Francis Godfroy, has morphed into an exploration of history and memory in the state of Indiana. Nowhere is this clearer to me than the example of Cyrus Dallin’s statue “Appeal to the Great Spirit” in Muncie, Indiana. As I’ve written previously, the city adopted the imaginary “Chief Munsee” as it’s municipal symbol despite the fact that the statue and its subject have no connections to local history. I’m not going to recount that story here, but the more that I’ve dug into this topic the more confused I get. Most of my academic work centers on the production of local knowledge and the construction of imagined communities, but rarely have I encountered so many strange stages in how stories are constructed. In the case of Muncie, Indiana, the involvement of a single gentleman has thrown my initial interpretations on their head.

In the 1970s, William F. Hale, also known as Miami Chief Mon-Gon-Zah, attended many of the historical pageants and parades held in Muncie, Indiana (he is the gentleman pictured above). Hale had been chosen as chief of the Miamis in 1961 at an election held in Marion, Indiana. Hale’s tenure as chief marked a period in Miami history when three separate individuals claimed to be chiefs of the Indiana Miamis. I don’t want to pass judgment about William Hale’s claims as chief or his ancestral ties to the Miami community. Instead, I’d like to better understand his role in validating the fictional narrative of Chief Munsee and the local stories that the Muncie community told itself about its indigenous past. In most of the communities that I've studied, whites have erected fantastical fictions about their region's indigenous past. In almost all of these cases, they've done so alone. It seems, however, that William Hale actively participated in the construction of Muncie's local history.

Chief Mon-Gon-Zah provided the white Muncie community with an “authentic Indian voice” as they composed local pageants, participated in parades, and rewrote their history. Even in the community’s veneration of the “Appeal to the Great Spirit,” Hale was not a passive bystander. In fact, he directly participated in consecrating the statue as THE symbol of the community by serving on a committee that chose the image as the centerpiece of the municipal flag. As I’ve dug deeper into William Hale’s life and his participation in these events, things get even more complicated. In the 1960s and 1970s Hale attended many, if not most, of the historical celebrations held in Muncie, despite not being from the city (he lived in nearby Eaton—half-way between Muncie and Montpelier). At those events, he set up an “Indian village” where he displayed Indian objects and told stories to anyone who would listen. The “village” consisted of a large teepee marked with his name, Mon Gon Zah, on the door flap (the image above is taken of his village at one of these events).

Hale also befriended academics at Ball State University (along with local radio and television personality Chris Schenkel) and “adopted” them into the Miami tribe—giving them Miami names and honorary titles. Ball State Professors Frances Fox Miller (English) and Althea Stoekel (after whom the university archives are named) used their association with Hale to advance their own narratives about local history. They also served with him on the flag commission and many of the historical pageant committees. Miller even penned a romanticized play about "Indian Jim" and "Indian Sallie" that was performed across Indiana. All of these individuals became instrumental in shaping local knowledge about Muncie’s indigenous past and the veneration of Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit." They did so as "Indian experts." So what to think about this process? How should William Hale be viewed in his role of crafting local stories and images? What was his motivation?

It’s clear that William Hale was interested in preserving local indigenous history, but it’s less clear about what he thought that history comprised. How can I explain his use of plains-

style teepees; his participation on committees and commissions that elevated Dallin’s statue to a state of local adoration; and his business card (see right)? Could he have been attempting to keep AN indigenous history alive in Muncie despite anachronism? It’s fictions? Was there some other motive? One thing is certain: white members of the community used his “Indianness” to validate their stories. As long as he approved, they adopted those fictions as fact.

Well, this explains the first half of today’s blog title, but not the second. As I’ve written before, I find that serendipity guides my research as much as anything else. I've become pretty adept at gaming the system when it comes to securing hotels for research--move over William Shatner, there's a new Priceline negotiator in town. Part of my success involves weekend stays at the homes of friends and relatives (when rates go up and libraries are closed). After conducting research in Muncie on Dallin's "Appeal to the Great Spirit," I drove from Indiana to Ohio and spent a few nights at my parents' house. Over beers and a ballgame, I described to my father what I had found. "Yeah, I think I've seen that statue," he said.

"When have you been to Muncie?" I replied.

"I'm not sure it was Muncie. I was at an auction a few years ago and remember seeing a big Indian statue, but I don't think it was that far," he responded. "You have a map?"

My father is a salt-of-the-earth farmer and factory worker with a high school education. I was surprised at first with his interest in my project--since he normally could care less about my scholarly pursuits--but something told me he wasn't going to stop until he figured out where he had seen a "giant statue of an Indian."

It soon became clear that we were talking about different statues.

"It takes up a city block and is, oh, about twenty-five feet tall, right?"

"Not even close," I responded.

Eventually our map quest led us to Montpelier, Indiana. After opening the wikipedia page, I was stunned at both the image and the description. My father was right. In the center of town, occupying an entire city block, resides a twenty-five foot tall statue of a Native American warrior, arm raised to the sky.


The description provided by Wikipedia declares that the statue is of former Miami chief Francis Godfroy; a historical marker signifying the former site of the Godfroy Reserve rests directly in front of the behemoth fiberglass monstrosity (the marker was erected by the Francois Godfroy chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution). Holy Cow!! My side adventure in Muncie, which had very little to do with the person I went there to study (Francis Godfroy) had led me to. . . .Francis Godfroy.

After a little side research, I discovered that the city of Montpelier claims that the statue was donated to the city by Miami chief Larry Godfroy (who was one of the three Miami chiefs of Indiana at the time that William Hale served as chief). The statue purportedly stood in front of the old "Indian Museum" at Eagle Creek in Indianapolis (many of the objects in that collection were forwarded to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art).

The statue certainly is not a statue of Francis Godfroy. Instead, it's part of a genre of outdoor advertising called muffler men. You may have seen one or more of these while motoring across the United States--they appear as giant Paul Bunyans, cowboys, lumberjacks, and stereotypical plains warrior Indians They were created in the 1960s for gas stations and auto repair shops to attract business--because nothing says "get your car fixed here" like a giant ax-weilding Paul Bunyan. In many ways, they are the 1960s equivalent of the wacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube man.

Like Muncie, the community in Montpelier, Indiana, has come to adopt the statue as their own--developing a localized history and incorporating it into their city webpage. I'm not sure what to make of Montpelier's story just yet, although I may be able write an entire book on local imagery of Native Americans in Indiana before this is all finished. Something is at work is this state, where a remarkable number of local communities remake their indigenous history and replace it with fictionalized foundation narratives with ahistorical statues as illustrations.

Nor am I certain what to make of Miami leaders, like William Hale or Larry Godfroy, who aided communities in the construction of these localized histories. Clearly I've got much more work to do. I'm heading back to Muncie in April and plan to visit Montpelier at that time. The best I can do for now is start to deconstruct these local narratives and images and ask the larger internet community for help. So, whatcha say?