"The peaceful Hopi was one the Pueblo culture tribes living in the American South West.  The bust depicts a Hopi maiden with the characteristic 'squash blossom' hair style denoting her unmarried status. She's wearing the 'manta' ­ the traditional red and white shawl of the Hopi maiden ­ over the black dress of the Pueblo womenfolk. Her shell and turquoise jewelery is typical of the Pueblo style."

"The Great Chiefs" Series.  A great collection of busts dedicated to the men who made Native American history. Included with each kit are a brief history of the subject, a wooden base ready to be varnished and a nameplate. 1:8 scale. Approx. height: 10 cm (4 in.) w/base.

Depicted in full Crow regalia, as he appeared at a Washington conference in 1880. He wears a green painted buckskin war shirt embroidered with beads and decked with ermine tails. His necklace is made of seed beads with, on either side, a large clam shell. The eagle feather hanging at the back is tied to a small braid of hair (scalp lock) with a red cloth ribbon. His hair, in the Crow fashion, is cut in a short fringe over his forehead, smeared with glue and colored clay and combed to stand upright. 

Alongside Little Wolf, another Northern Cheyenne leader, took part in one of the most remarkable feats in the American Indian History. In retaliation for the Little Big Horn defeat, the US Army attacked Dull Knife’s camp, captured the Cheyenne and deported them to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Faced with the threat of starvation and disease, Dull Knife (then 68) and Little Wolf undertook to lead the remnants of their tribe back to their ancestors’ land in what is now Montana. Thus began an epic 1500 mile trek back North as Dull Knife’s band, mostly women and children, endured the harsh cold winter as well as constant harassment by the US Army. The Indians were finally caught up, rounded up at Fort Robinson (Nebraska) and exterminated during a bloody escape attempt in the night of January 8, 1879. Dull Knife along with some others survived the massacre and joined the Crow in their Tongue River reservation where he died four years later in 1883. 

“We are going by you without fighting, if you will let us; but we are going by you anyhow.”  This warning during the Nez Perce War of 1877 sums up the character of Chief Joseph, a peace-loving man drawn into bitter conflict to become the ‘Indian Napoleon’, considered by many as one of the greatest strategists in military history.  Led by Joseph, the outnumbered Nez Perce engaged the US Army over an epic 1700-mile exodus to the Canadian border, earning the respect of their enemies and praise from the press. After 108 days of battling retreat, his people exhausted and famished, Joseph surrendered, a mere 60 miles from Canada.  Though spending the rest of his life in exile, Joseph was never subjugated, possessing a kind dignity that won his people many supporters, even among the white communities.  He died on 21st September 1904 ‘of a broken heart’, still an exile from his beloved Wallowa valley.

Express rider, army scout, buffalo hunter and international showman, William Cody popularly known as Buffalo Bill epitomizes for many of us the image of the Westerner.  Hailed by many as a living legend, debunked by the others as a fake and little more than a cardboard figure on his own giant show posters, he surely did not accomplish all the feats attributed to him by popular writers of the time. One fact remains certain: touring extensively with his Wild West show during nearly 30 years, he brought his own romantic vision of the Old West to the industrialized world. Audiences all over America and Europe gathered to watch a glamourised version of the conquest of the West reenacted by real life cowboys and Indians among whom were some of the actual participants in the Indian wars such as Sitting Bull, the great Lakota chief.  Thus Buffalo Bill Cody contributed almost singlehandedly to introduce the image of the Indians to the hearts and minds of millions of people. For this feat alone, his place in the present series is righfully deserved.

It has been said that Quanah Parker had two lives. Born in 1845, the son of the leader of the Kwahadi, the most warlike division of the Comanche tribe, and a white captive, Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah spent the first half of his life as a ferocious opponent of the white man’s expansion and at the head of 700 warriors of allied tribes, struck terror in the Texas Panhandle region. When US troops entered the conflict, Quanah kept his band out on the Staked Plain in Texas for two years and finally surrendered.  From that time on he became a powerful influence in leading his people along the “white man’s road”, encouraging education, house building and agriculture. He died peacefully in 1911 and was buried alongside his mother in Fort Sill, OK.  The model depicts Quanah Parker with his hair in braids wrapped in otter fur and wearing a Comanche-style shirt of painted buckskin. Hanging from his scalp lock is the so-called silver hair plates ornament (nickel-silver discs on a hide strap) much favoured in the Southern Plains.

The son of a Shawnee chief, Tecumseh (the Crouching Panther) was born in 1768 near what now is Springfield, Ohio. He soon distinguished himself as a leader and for his humane qualities in persuading his people to discontinue the then common practice of torturing prisoners.  In the pursuit of his vision of a Great Indian State as an opposition to the white man’s advance, he visited tribes from Florida to the headwaters of the Missouri River trying to bring them into his union. His plans collapsed after his brother Tenskwatawa’s defeat by American troops in the untimely Battle of Tippecanoe.  Tecumseh went to Canada and sided with the British in the War of 1812. He was made a brigadier-general in command of 2000 warriors of allied tribes and finally met defeat and death at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813.  The model depicts Tecumseh in hunting coat and ruffled linen shirt. He wears the silver gorgets and a George III medal presented by the British. His headgear is a gastoweh typical of the Shawnee and other related Eastern tribes. Draped over his shoulder is a wampum belt, a symbol of authority representing treaty signing between the tribes.

Probably the most widely known Indian leader, Sitting Bull was revered as one of the greatest leaders of the Sioux nation. While still a young man, he developed a reputation as a medecine man devoted to the guidance and the protection of his people. A stubborn partisan of the resistance to the white man, he was held responsible of Custer’s defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876. After the battle, Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada and stayed there until 1881 when he surrendered to the U.S.government and was placed on the Standing Rock Reservation, South Dakota. For a year, he went on tour with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Later on, he was falsely accused of introducing the Ghost Dance cult to the reservation and was murdered by Indian policemen on December 1890.
The model is loosely based on a contemporary photograph made in 1883 during Sitting Bull’s reservation period. It shows the old chief in white man’s clothing with a butterfly pinned to his hat. The Indian touch is given by the otter fur wrapped braid, the brass ring pendant and the brown-and-white horsehair hat band.

"The Man 'O War" Series.  Warriors throughout the ages.  A series of "super busts" with carefully researched and detailed weapons and equipment.   1:6 scale. Approx. height: 15 cm (6 in).