An American Portrait: Chief John Grass by Bev Hamel

It is January and I am taking a break from my MFA residency at Goddard College in Vermont. I just finished trekking through snow into the town of Plainfield to visit my favorite haunt – an obscure little bookstore that bursts with endless shelves of books no longer in print.  The proprietor recognizes me as I have purchased many books from him during my almost two years at Goddard. He leads me through winding rooms into what was once a kitchen area, climbs a ladder and then brings down a heavy box. He tells me, “We just got these books in from an estate. I haven’t had a chance to catalogue them yet, but you are welcome to take a look.”

He leaves me alone and returns to the front of the store. I am in heaven and drink in the heady scent of musty old books, open the lid of the box and gingerly lift out the first book – Boston 1831 – Discovery of America and The Indian Wars. The book is hand sewn, yellowed with age though not fragile. My heart is pounding as I pull out other ancient books and read titles that have become familiar to me through research of the American Indian for a novel that I am writing.

Several books were printed by the Department of Ethnology and published as bulletins for that bureau. They are quite rare and contain native legends and lore as told directly by tribal members through oral histories. The writings include actual Native American words and their translation. I take out another small book, hardly a book at all and read its title: Descriptive Catalogue – Reproductions of Life-size Bust Portraits of Famous Indian Chiefs. It is a souvenir of the Minnesota State Fair, September 6 to 11 in 1909.

As I leaf through the books pages, I am mesmerized by the portraits. Even though they are reproduced from the original and in sepia, they are astoundingly life-like. All the portraits were done by a foremost 19^th century Indian portrait artist named H. H. Cross. On page 32, my heart skips a beat. “Daniel — Stone Eagle,” I say to no one at all. It’s my Daniel and Stone Eagle, characters from my novel in progress.

Sometimes as I write about each man I see their images as the same. Stone is an older version of the younger Daniel who has dark hair that flows gently along the back of his neck. This particular portrait captures the hair as if encased in a soft gentle breeze, then frozen in time. I add this booklet to my growing pile and try to act nonchalant about my purchases. I barter with the proprietor and gleefully hand him my credit card.

Weeks later, when I am back home in North Carolina, I pull out my books, again savor their smells and open the Descriptive Catalogue. The catalogues producer opens with the following note;

“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West; New York City, April 20, 1901. My Dear old tried and true friend Cross — The Indian portrait of John Grass. I have seen several pictures which have been painted from him, but none compare with the one you have just finished, both in color and in likeness. It looks like as though he is going [to speak to me]. You have represented in the likeness that particular expression he used to have in his eyes—”

Yes, the eyes are the windows of the soul. Even now as I study John Grass’s portrait, I feel a duality. Grass’s eyes look like Daniel’s but have a similar charisma to another character from my book, Stone Eagle. Grass wears the same garb which Stone Eagle wears and that I have described in one of my chapters; soft white doeskin leather from the prophesy deer. The jacket is finely fringed around the sleeve cuffs and neckline and in the style that white men of power wore during the 1860s, though Grass is Native American. His chieftain rank is obvious; woven medals of fine beads made from white pearls and opals crisscross in intricate patterns across the jacket and delineate his status. His face is full of action and vitality; wildly, intimately handsome. But it is his hands that throb with life. They are held open and extend out from his breast bone in a manner that makes me think he is pulling me into his portrait.

Then there is the brief biographical sketch which is beneath the image. For me, this small piece of information answers a question as to where I must take my story:

“John Grass was a great and very popular Indian— Known as the Daniel Webster of the Sioux. He spoke all the different tribal languages and was the greatest interpreter amongst the dark skinned race.”

Grass saw into the future, advocated that his people get wisdom, receive the white man’s education. He felt that it was “only a question of time” when the white man’s government would cut them off, and their children and their children’s children would suffer in consequences.

I Google John Grass hoping to find out more. He was born in 1836, the same year as my Daniel and died in 1918. his is he same year, that one daughter of the Seven Fires, dies. The women’s images are firmly fixed in my mind, but the males have eluded me and until I could visualize them, I could not bring them to life as real characters, human beings if you will.

The women are different in appearance, yet similar because my novel is of history, time travel, and parallel worlds so when I see the photograph of Grass from 1900 at the age of 64, I know why I felt that John Grass’s portrait held a duality to me because his older image is how I imagine the older Stone Eagle and the younger Daniel in the caverns of my mind. The eyes tell me so and suddenly, the men are breathed to life.

I print the photograph of the older Chief John Grass, fold it between the pages of his younger self, close the book, return to my novel in progress, and let my imagination run wild.