Shirt (Sioux or Cheyenne)

A chance meeting in 1874 would influence the life of Kalamazoo, Michigan born James Cook for the rest of his life. On an 1874 cattle drive that took him north to Fort Robinson and Red Cloud Agency, home of the Oglala Lakota, James Cook met paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. Marsh was in need of his knowledge of the Lakota language and Plains Indian sign language to secure access to fossils beds near the Agency. Marsh would spark Cook’s interest in fossils, which were prevalent on his Nebraska cattle ranch. It was also at this time that James Cook met Chief Red Cloud. Developing a mutual trust and respect for one another, this was the beginning of a friendship that would last 35 years.

Red Cloud, along with his family and friends, would journey 150 miles from Pine Ridge Reservation to Cook’s Agate Springs Ranch multiple times from the 1880s to the early 1900s. During these visits, they would present the Cook family with gifts, some made specifically for family members, others of personal significance to Red Cloud’s family. This shirt belonged to Red Cloud, and was the last gift given to James Cook in 1908 by the Oglala Lakota Chief, who passed away shortly after. James Cook preserved and displayed many of these gifted Northern Plains Indian items, including this shirt, in his ranch house turned museum, showing them to neighbors and visitors as a way of honoring the memory and culture of his old friend.