Who was Chief Poking Fire?
score:24
Chief Poking Fire's main claims to fame are probably owning and running an Indian museum, and founding and running a tourist village. He also apparently presented Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King with an Indian head-dress in 1948. The story that he was a Ukrainian Soviet WWII pilot who survived being shot down and escaped to Canada to become an Indian chief is pure fabrication.
According to this ancestry page, his full name was Jean Baptiste Sawatis Atsienharonkwas Macomber, and he was born in 1896. More details on his ancestry can be found in John Masiewicz's Gervase Macomber And His 26 Children in Kahnawake. His wife, Louise (or Gathering Words), in addition to assisting her husband in his varied enterprises, was also (as Louise McComber) a nurse's aide and Director of the Kateri hospital in Caughnawaga (this link downloads a pdf). According to both the ancestry page and Masiewicz's book, the couple were married in 1917.
The most straightforward account of Chief Poking Fire is probably this:
The Poking Fire "set-up" was a tourist attraction developed by John McComber, also known as Chief Poking Fire, in the village of Kahnawake in the 1930s. Originally known as "Chief Poking Fire Totum [sic] Pole Indian Village," McComber's enterprise provided visitors with a highly staged representation of Indians as exotic others.
Source: Historic Images of Kahnawake
The 1954 article The High-Flying Braves Of Caughnawaga has the following not incompatible account. The real Caughnawaga
laugh good-naturedly at John Macomber assuming the title “Chief” Poking Fire. There hasn’t been an authentic chief of the village since the tribal system of government was abolished by Ottawa in 1890. But, as they point out, there’s nothing to stop anyone from calling himself “Chief,” and Poking Fire has his own little tourist village where he parades around in Hollywood Indian costume to the delight of the tourists and the enrichment of fellow villagers who operate stalls within his compound.
The blue-eyed “Chief” is admired too for the tenacious way he built up his village from a shaky start in 1929 when, with twelve dollars to his name, he refused to ask for government help. Instead he built a wigwam and advertised with a crude sign the Indiancraft he and his wife made—they didn’t have the money then to buy the factory product. Today, thirty-two families take part in Poking Fire’s tourist village, and when the weather is good they do a thriving business.
John Macomber, not to be confused with the Harvard Business School lecturer / businessman, died in 1979, leaving his 'enterprise' to his descendants. Both T.E.D. and jamesfq have noted that some of the attire at least is not of the Kahnawake region (and Poking Fire was clearly in the tourist business with little regard for historical or cultural accuracy), but there seems to be no real evidence that he was some kind of Caucasian impostor.
One story found on the internet is that John Macomber (or John McNober) may or may not have been Ukrainian Soviet air force pilot Ivan Dodoka, supposedly shot down and killed during World War II before escaping to Canada and becoming Chief Poking Fire. He was then discovered, the story goes, by a visiting Soviet delegation who heard the Indian chief speaking Ukrainian. However, pre-war photos clearly disprove this story. For those interested, a film based on Ivan Dodoka's alleged experiences (Firecrosser) was released in 2012.
Source: British Museum (dated 1930s)
Upvote:-1
Chief Poking Fire was my grandmother's uncle John McComber. Believe me, he was Mohawk and certainly not a Ukrainian Soviet air force pilot hahaha! We had some British ancestry in our families DNA that were a result of a political marriage in the 1700's that accounts for his stunning blue eyes that my grandmother Pauline Loft also inherited. I'm sure his laughing up a storm up in his Happy Hunting Grounds at who every wrote the inaccurate genealogical research. We Mohawks do love a great laugh!
Upvote:3
This is my great grandfather and he was definitely not some white imposter. The village was the only place tourists would come, and the people of the village had the opportunity to sell goods and make money. This could have inspired our Pow Wow that we have every year here in Kahnawake(look it up) Its for tourists as well, and now we only sell authentic cultural artifacts and attract tourists with cultural dances and outfits. Think about why they used to have to change and be different to attract tourists in the first place., My grandfather's name was James Sak Atsenharonkwas (piking embers off the fire) the son of John Macomber. They have both passed away. I was given my great grandmother's name who has also passed away, Kawennaroroks Mccomber(gathering words)
More post
- 📝 What kind of slang terms were used in Massachusetts in 1947?
- 📝 Was the Volga really Russia's last line of defense before the Urals?
- 📝 What was that book that listed all the rich/influential people and defined socioeconomic status for many Americans?
- 📝 Connection between U.S. entry into WW1 and Germans sending Lenin back to Russia
- 📝 What is the back story behind the Baja California towns of "Purgatorio" and "Providencia"?
- 📝 Did any Chinese revolutionaries being helped by the Japanese get suspicious of Japan's intentions?
- 📝 How did Europeans first acquire gunpowder?
- 📝 Was Martin Luther King's leadership conference Southern Christian or Southern Baptist?
- 📝 How did the First Emperor of Qin "burn the books" prior to the invention of paper?
- 📝 What is the oldest verifiably correctly translated written work?
- 📝 Why did Japan never "apologize" enough for World War 2?
- 📝 What was Lester B. Pearson's motivation for instituting Canada's 40 hr. work week?
- 📝 Was the ancient Pontic city of Athenai (Ἀθῆναι) related to Athens?
- 📝 How did the african kingdom of Carthage adapt to their environment?
- 📝 When did Britain learn about the American Declaration of Independence?
- 📝 How did the USS Reprisal sink?
- 📝 How is it known that Xenophon saw the ruins of Nineveh?
- 📝 Did any ancient polytheistic religion hold that theirs was the only pantheon?
- 📝 What did the Romans do for Judea?
- 📝 How close did a Manila galleon ever come to Hawaii?
- 📝 Can anyone help identify this uniform /person?
- 📝 Why was the Council of Nicea held in Nicea rather than Rome or Constantinople?
- 📝 How did Henry Knox retrieve the cannons that fell into the river?
- 📝 Why didn't Ronald Reagan become Republican candidate for the President of the USA in 1976?
- 📝 Whom did Vernon Jordan help secure affirmative-action jobs in the (pre-)Clinton White House?
- 📝 How common was travelling before the invention of the steam engine?
- 📝 When did Kievan Rus' rulers become culturally Slavic?
- 📝 What kind of AA defenses did the US East Coast have around the time of Paukenschlag?
- 📝 Help identifying image of winged robed figure and young man
- 📝 Strange jeep-hold cable used during Operation Horev
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Who was Chief Poking Fire?
- 📝 Who believed the earth was flat?
- 📝 Who was the last leader of a country to call himself a dictator, or the last regime that called itself a dictatorship?
- 📝 Who was the first female ruler to be given the suffix, "the great"?
- 📝 Was there a King of England, or an heir to the throne, in 1831 who idolized Michael Faraday?
- 📝 Who governed while Alexander the Great was away conquering Asia?
- 📝 Was there a priest on the Titanic who stayed on the ship giving confession to as many as he could?
- 📝 Who was the longest lived European monarch of the middle ages?
- 📝 Who was the most successful German spy against Great Britain in WWII, from the contemporary German perspective?
- 📝 Who was responsible for the partition of India?
- 📝 Who was the last European king to actively engage in combat?
- 📝 Who was the first woman ruler?
- 📝 Who was this Roman General/figure of authority who, on his deathbed, named these two regrets?
- 📝 Who was the last US president who did not start a war?
- 📝 Who was the English Knight Templar holding command in the Mongol Army?
- 📝 Besides Mexico, who was considered as a potential ally of the Central Powers?
- 📝 Who was the first head of government to support same-sex marriage?
- 📝 Who was the last English king whose first language was French?
- 📝 Who was "Lt.-Commander R.T. Chaloner Woods"?
- 📝 Who was Frau Dr. Ebersberg?
- 📝 Why was Khomeini in France? Who allowed him to leave and why?
- 📝 Who was the last person "Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered" under British jurisdiction?
- 📝 Who was the richest person in the world at the start and end of WW2?
- 📝 Who was Richard of York at the Battle of Grunwald?
- 📝 Who was the first military force to use teppo (guns) in mass battles during the Sengoku-jidai?
- 📝 Was Ford the only person who became a US president without winning an election?
- 📝 What was the primary method the Jews used to make a fire at the time of Jesus?
- 📝 Who was the oldest woman that we know of to give birth in the Medieval Europe?
- 📝 When was King John of England given the name 'Dollheart', and who first used it?
- 📝 What was the social status of a man who failed the civil service exams in Imperial China ( 1200 - 1800 AD )?
