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THE MUSEUM
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
PHILADELPHIA

October 12, 1926.

Mr. M. R. Harrington,
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,
New York City.

Dear Harrington:

If you are still in this neck of the woods, may I annoy you by a few questions?

First of all, we are gunning for an Indian. We had one here as my assistant, possibly you know him, Don Whistler, a well educated man without much of the Indian about him, but he knew enough to out on a good program with a good costume and with five-making, sign-language, drumming and singing, etc., which went over big with the school children. As a result his scheduled lectures are very well patronized and we have reservations for 2500 schoolchildren for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, November 17, 18 and 19 at 2.30. Now Whistler has written from Oklahoma where he has been on leave of absence for the summer, asking an extension for the winter so we are bereft of a real Indian and don't want to disappoint the kiddies. Colonel Cummings has a Wild West show at the Sesqui here and we have appealed to him but he can't let them off for the afternoon, though he might if we shifted the hour to the morning, but his braves are real range bucks who might take a scalp if they took the notion.

So do you know any house-broken Amerind who could put on a good show which would delight a gang of kiddies? Generally there are a number of them hanging around New York; I think I remember reading about the formation of a central Indian agency in New York for the employment of Indians, with an office somewhere. We want, of course, someone who is a real Indian and looks like one in a real Indian costume (possibly we could supply part of the costume), who can do some typical Indian stunts and explain them to the children in simple language, You will get what I mean without my explaining further. Do you happen to know of anyone around?