This old post-card of the Halle aux Graines was a new addition to my collection. I was firstly surprised how run-down the building was but then intrigued to spot a poster in a ground-floor window relating to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show of all things! What was the background to this unexpected visitor to town?
Turns out he arrived on 31st October 1905 from shows in Avignon and Arles as part of his second European tour.
William Cody had rounded up 800 of performers including 100 native Americans from tribes like the Sioux and Cheyenne complete with feathered headdresses.
Along with 500 horses, they brought along 23 painted backdrops, a huge tent plus smaller ones and wigwams.
The booklet of the French tour (almost 80 pages) explains that the “aim of this exhibition is to educate the spectator by scrolling before him the living pictures of the picturesque life of yesteryear plains of the West … This exhibition is particularly interesting for the new generation who not yet travelled to such distant countries. It allows them to see the different peoples in their national costumes before they disappear.”
Lynne,
I do not know much about Buffalo Bill’s trips to Europe, let alone that his “Wild West Show” came to Marseilles on two occasions. I did know that he came to the area, having read James Welch’s book (published in 2000) “Heart Song of Charging Elk”, a fictionalized account of a true story, that of Charging Elk, a Sioux rider in the show who fell from his horse, broke a rib (or two) and was hospitalized in Marseille. When he was discharged the Wild West Show had moved on and Charging Elk found himself alone. The story is about how he survived, found work, killed a man, was sent to jail and became a model French citizen (or something like that).
I read the story some 12 or 15 years ago and then read most of everything else James Welch had written. My favorite stories were “Winter in the Blood” (adapted as a film) and “The Indian Lawyer”, which I found extremely well written (I couldn’t put it down) and directly relevant to American Indian affairs.
He received his letters of French nobility (Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres) In 1995 is widely recognized as being a founding member of the Native American Rennaissance (all of which you will find in Wikipedia).
Thanks for sharing this interesting photo, and provoking this post.
Peter
Thanks so much for all this fascinating background. All new to me….as a Yorkshire lass, the only cowboy we saw was on TV, the Lone Ranger! Will look out for James welch….thanks again.
What an interesting bit of history!
Dolgellau, Merioneth was another place where the BB circus came to town – in 1906