Antique Bronze Bust of Two Guns Phoenix AZ

Antique bronze bust of Two Guns (1872-1934). Son of White Calf, last chief of the Pikuni Blackfoot. His image is said to be that of the portrait on the Indian head nickel. 9 3/4" high and 6 1/2" across. Feather is removable. John Two Guns White Calf (1872-1934) may indeed be memorialized in a way few other Native Americans have been - on a piece of American money - the buffalo nickel to be specific.  But then again....maybe not....there is a very interesting mystery.  So sit down and pull up a mug of something to drink.... Two Guns White Calf was born near Fort Benton, Montana, son of White Calf who was known as the last chief of the Pikuni Blackfoot. Two Guns White Calf, also known as John Two Guns and John Whitecalf Two Guns, was also, in time, a Blackfoot chief.  He provides one of the most readily recognizable images of a Native American in the world as impression of his portrait appears to appear on a coin, the Indian head nickel. His visage was reportedly used along with those of John Big Tree (Seneca) and Iron Tail (Sioux) in James Earl Fraser's composite design for the nickel.  Notice the chief's signature in the photo below taken by T.J. Hileman. After the coin's release around the turn of the century, Two Guns White Calf became a fixture at Glacier National Park, where he posed with tourists. He also acted as a publicity spokesman for the Northern Pacific Railroad*, whose public relations staff came up with the name "Two Guns White Calf."  He died of pneumonia at the age of 63 and was buried at Browning, Montana in a Catholic cemetery. Chief Two Guns White Calf and the Indian-Head Nickel Story, below, was summarized from "Twisted Tails," by numismatist Robert R. Van Ryzin, Krause Publications, 1995. "John Two Guns was born in 1871 and adopted at an early age by White Calf, a prominent warrior chief who was responsible for many of the Blackfoot Tribe's treaties. After the death of White Calf in 1902, Two Guns became a tribal leader. When Two Guns first saw the buffalo/indian-head nickel (released in 1913) he was convinced that it was his own likeness on the coin. However, the sculptor, James Earle Fraser, always insisted that the head was a composite of several models. He specifically named Two Moons (a Cheyenne) and Iron Tail (a Lakota Sioux) and "one or two others" (in his later years, he mostly said, "one other"). The Great Northern Railroad, always interested in promoting tourism to its Glacier Park Hotels and passenger traffic on its trains, sought to encourage the idea that Two Guns was the model. The argument raged from 1913 to the death of both figures in 1934 and continues to resurface even now. The question would seem to have been put to rest by a letter from Fraser to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1931, in which he denied ever having seen Two Guns. But Charles Bevard, an auctioneer who had come into possession of a number of Two Guns' personal effects which led him into extensive historical research on the subject, suspected that the US Government wanted Fraser to "discredit" Two Guns as a coin model because they were afraid of the great influence he had on the tribes.

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