Nipo T. Strongheart

Nipo T. Strongheart (May 15, 1891 – December 31, 1966) was an American performer in Wild West shows, technical advisor to Hollywood film producers, and lecturer on the Chautauqua circuit. Throughout his life, which spanned several careers, he was an advocate for Native American issues. He spoke on religious issues several times, and late in life he became a member of the Baháʼí Faith.

Strongheart's mother, Chi-Nach-Lut Schu-Wah-Elks, was reportedly of Native American descent; his father was European American. According to some sources, Strongheart lived with his white father for most of his childhood away from the reservation and Indian culture. Another source says he was adopted after his mother's death by a Yakama woman and brought up and educated in her family on the reservation. Although there was no written proof of his tribal membership, the tribe granted him "honorary" membership and he proudly carried around his card displaying his status. Strongheart performed with his father in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and its successors.

Strongheart's public performances began in 1917, when he was in his twenties and worked for the YMCA War Work Council. He toured military camps across New England, where he gave presentations on Native American culture and praised military service. His recruiting talks encouraged hundreds of men to volunteer for war service. After World War I and his job ended, Strongheart moved briefly to the Yakama Indian Reservation.

He soon left and had a successful career in the Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits of fairs. He gave presentations on Native American culture and often spoke against the problems of life of reservations as enforced by government policy. He played an important role in the development of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans who did not already have it; the bill was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Strongheart believed the bill would help end reservations and empower Indian culture.

In his early youth, Strongheart had some experience with the fledgling film industry. As the audiences for the lecture circuit declined, he became involved in filmmaking. He was involved in a number of projects in silent film (especially Braveheart) and the developing talkies (Pony Soldier).

He also helped develop or found a number of organizations to support or represent Native Americans, including the Los Angeles Indian Center for urban Indians and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Through Strongheart's involvement in film production, he countered stereotypes about Native Americans; he helped translate movie scripts into the languages of the Native American peoples portrayed. He also dealt with wardrobe and props.

When Strongheart died, his will included provisions for seed money and materials to enable the Yakama Nation to build a library and museum; they developed the Yakama Cultural Center. In 2014 the Yakama established a permanent exhibition about Strongheart. Scholarly interest in him arose in 1997 when researchers were studying military service by Native Americans and in 2006 when other scholars analyzed issues related to portrayal of and participation by Native Americans in the Hollywood film industry. Named George Mitchell, Jr. by his European-American father, also George Mitchell, and later known as Strongheart, the boy was believed to have been born to a Native American mother named Chi-Nach-Lut Schu-Wah-Elks. She was also known as Lenora (née Williams) Mitchell.: p42  Strongheart's mother reportedly died when the boy was young.

According to an article in the Encyclopedia of the American Indian in the Twentieth Century, after his mother's death, Strongheart was adopted or raised by one of his mother's relatives for several years, living with them and attending the reservation boarding school at Fort Simcoe. This was in keeping with Yakama tradition.These biographies—and others—agree that Strongheart and his father were employed as bareback trick riders for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Pawnee Bill traveling shows. Full families, including women and children, were employed by these shows and traveled on tour. They often set up and lived in encampments on the road similar to the traditional Indian camps. In a sense this helped them preserve their culture at a time when it was being suppressed elsewhere. One biography states that he acquired the name Nipo (short for Nee-Ha-Pouw) during a show after he fainted and regained consciousness. It was as if he had risen from the dead, and the name is interpreted as "he lives!" or the imperative "live!" He added "Nipo" to his Yakama name, Chtu-Tum-Nah, which he translated as "Strongheart". Another biography states that the name "Nipo" was given to Strongheart in his infancy by his adoptive mother.At some point his official status as a member of the Yakama Nation ended. At a performance in 1927, he said that when his military service ended, he had been given the choice of returning to the reservation or losing his tribal rights. He did return but soon left the reservation again.In the 1930s, when the government was encouraging tribes to reorganize their governments under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Strongheart attempted to document his Yakama lineage.Strongheart was an honorary member of the Yakama tribe : p42  during the administration of the 1946 Yakima Enrollment Act -->: p42  after having helped the Tomaskin family.Leonard Tomaskin would have been 22 yrs old in 1946. Some 22 years later he was elected Chairman of the General Council of the Yakama Nation, their tribal government, serving from 1968 to 1983.Strongheart wrote an article in 1954 that dates his involvement in what he called "historical ethnological studies" to around 1905, perhaps between seasons of the Buffalo Bill show. He claimed to have attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. He also claimed to have participated in a Lubin film company production of the silent film The White Chief. Because he spoke enough English and a smattering of other Indian languages to act as a translator, he played a crucial role as a liaison between the non-Indian production staff and the Indian children they had picked for the movie.In 1910 Strongheart was reported to be in Oklahoma, which had recently been admitted to the Union. He was serving in the 5th Cavalry Regiment during the period of the United States' Border War (1910–1919) with Mexico, when it was engulfed in its own civil war. In 1910–12, he again worked in the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Pawnee Bill traveling shows as a bareback trick rider.Later newspaper coverage reports that Strongheart was serving in the military in the West in 1914; it may have been with the 16th Infantry Regiment, which was stationed there. Strongheart was reportedly wounded and his service ended.Strongheart said that in 1915 he advised David Belasco on the story used in the production of the silent film Heart of Wetona (1919), played the part of Nipo the Medicine Man, and appeared on stage between acts to tell the audience a portion of the true story. A May 1916 Logansport, Indiana newspaper article reported an Indian actor named Strongheart in connection with a silent movie variously named Indiana, Historic Indiana, or The Birth of Indiana, which was released in mid-1916.In 1916 Strongheart joined the Society of American Indians, a progressive group composed mostly of Native Americans. It was organized to improve health, education, civil rights, and local government, and address the problems they faced.