The sidewalks below were clotted with passersby in hats and topcoats. So many people had gathered that they spilled onto the road as they waited, not for Edgar to jump, but for him to begin his widely advertised free noonday concert. He belted out his opening number without any accompaniment, his voice drifting over the city, where conditions were mild by Canadian standards.
His rooftop stunt had been scheduled to promote further screenings of Before the White Man Came. Billed as “A Real Indian Movie Star,” he subsequently attracted lots of attention when he walked around the city and ran through some of his back catalog of tall tales. To these, he added a reference to being the “winner of the six-mile race in the Olympic Games at Greece.” Yet there doesn’t seem to have been even a flicker of skepticism in Edmonton, where he reassured the locals that he didn’t “hold a grudge against the palefaces.”
From Christmas into the new year, those palefaces flocked to his shows. Extra screenings at a movie theater in south Edmonton were hastily arranged to capitalize on his popularity. For the benefit of French Canadians, he performed one of these in French. On the basis, as he claimed, that “spiritualism was actually originated, practiced and demonstrated by the Indians long before the white man came,” he supplemented the show with a mind-reading act. He’d likely mastered the duplicitous techniques of theatrical mind reading during his time on the vaudeville and medicine show circuits.
Only in the latter half of January 1921 did the Canadian winter assert itself. Braving the icebox conditions, Edgar and Jimmy Finch—minus Burtha and Silver Star—pressed on with the last few dates in their tour. It took them to Wainwright, a small market town over a hundred miles to the southeast. Edgar performed a string of sellout shows there before he and Jimmy lit out for the city of Winnipeg. Dubbed “the Chicago of Canada,” it was the final stop on their tour. When they reached Winnipeg, Edgar appears to have bragged to the local press about having “royal Indian ancestry on both his father’s and his mother’s side.” Edgar also seems to have claimed kinship to the fictitious Long Lance dynasty of Cherokee chieftains, little realizing that Sylvester Long Lance, famous Canadian-based survivor of the Princess Pat Regiment, would soon face accusations of being a racial impostor.
In Winnipeg that February, Edgar played as many as four shows each day to rapturously applauding capacity crowds at the plush 1,200-seat Starland Theater. Milking his popularity, he crammed in several unrelated engagements, including a concert in the gymnasium at the main police station and a sequence of spiritualist shows, during which he took the well-established role of the Native American spirit guide, acting as a conduit between this world and the next.
Even after he’d played his last date at the Starland, he remained in Winnipeg, luxuriating in the acclaim. Jimmy was meanwhile set to leave for Toronto, from where he’d be overseeing Before the White Man Came’s release across eastern Canada. Despite Chief White Elk’s pivotal role in the success of the movie in the western provinces, Edgar was not going to have the opportunity to extend his collaboration with Jimmy, the two of them having probably fallen out. Prior to Jimmy’s departure, Edgar appears to have obtained informal compensation by helping himself to the trunk that Jimmy kept at the Starland. Inside were possessions worth $500—enough to bankroll Edgar’s next move.
Whatever he decided upon, he wouldn’t be joined by Burtha. She’d come to what she described as “the terrible realization” that her “tired, worn mind and body” could no longer cope with her husband’s drug addiction, that she must “submit herself to the inevitable,” that she must leave him for the sake of their baby daughter. Only then did she unburden herself in a letter to Big Foot: “I stand ALONE! All alone, with a baby’s clinging arms around my neck. Her tears were falling when I left—it broke my heart.”
Finally she confessed to her friend about Edgar’s drug addiction, describing it as the “secret that has practically ruined my whole life.” Sadness colored her references to Edgar. “The dark gulf of silence rolls between us in this life, and through Eternity perhaps that same dark gulf will roll where his hands may reach out to mine and I to his, but they may never meet,” she wrote. “I know not where his moccasined feet tread in the wilderness of despair and utter ruin.”
PART II
Continental Grift
14
By November 1922 Edgar’s moccasined feet were nowhere near “the wilderness of despair” where Burtha assumed he’d been exiled. Together with as many as thirteen hundred other passengers, he was aboard an ocean liner called the SS Regina, which had not long before peeled away from the quayside in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Looming over the harbor was a rocky outcrop crowned by a fortress that gradually shrank as the ship made her way out to sea, columns of smoke tumbling from her brown and black hooped funnels, livery of the White Star Dominion Line.
With Edgar on the Regina was Eugene Ferrio, the young French Canadian who had appeared alongside him onstage a little over eighteen months before. Until recently, Eugene had been working in one of Halifax’s hotels, and lodging with an older male lover. Now he was passing himself off as Edgar’s secretary. Of course, the threat of being arrested on a sodomy charge, which could lead to five years in a Canadian jail, offered a potent incentive to conceal the fact that Eugene’s role was sexual rather than administrative.
At present the two of them were en route to England via Portland, Maine. Not much more than three years had passed since the first nonstop transatlantic flight, yet commercial aviation between the United States and England was still well over a decade away, so the journey had to be accomplished by sea. On the grounds that he was a Canadian Indian who didn’t possess Canadian citizenship and could not therefore obtain a passport, Edgar was traveling under a Certificate of Identity, which named him as Dr. White Elk. He had lately talked the Canadian Immigration Officer into issuing it.
What prompted him to cross the Atlantic again was a desire to try his luck on the English stage. His decision followed the successful example of his theatrical model, Chauncey Olcott, and a host of other American performers who had made the trip. Knowing that his English adventure would’ve appalled his Francophile father, who detested Britain, may have made it more attractive still. Another consideration liable to have influenced Edgar was an awareness of the immediate circumstances. Salient among those was the European vogue for all things American. It had been kindled by the wartime presence of American troops who had introduced Europeans to their stylish lingo, as well as to catchy songs by Irving Berlin and others. Those troops had brought with them regimental bands, too—bands that played jazz and ragtime, the perceived idealism and youthful energy of their culture promising to revitalize a ravaged continent.
Skewing the odds further in Edgar’s direction was the British fascination with Native Americans, so famously manifested by the popularity of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. It had toured Britain three times, the last of these almost two decades earlier, whooping, war-bonneted Native Americans playing a prominent role. More recent encouragement for Edgar came from newspaper articles about the 1919 visit to the British Dominion of Canada by King George V’s son, the Prince of Wales. Often they featured a photo of the prince dressed as a Native American. Edgar must have seen these and filed them away in his head for future use.
* * *
—
First-class transatlantic tickets for both Eugene and himself would have set Edgar back about $400. Such extravagance entitled them to their own cabins and to facilities that were inaccessible to the hoi polloi. Life aboard the Regina could scarcely have been further removed from the conditions under which Edgar had made his last transatlantic voyage. Unless a one-in-a-million sequence of events culminated in another war breaking out before he completed the crossing, he wouldn’t have to worry about U-boats this time. And he’d be able to avail himself of facilities alien to the U.S. Army Transport Service.
In the Regina’s communal lounge, dining
saloon, and reading room, there were marble fireplaces, white tablecloths, and chintz-upholstered armchairs. Even the main stairway was adorned with decorative plasterwork and a mural depicting a lovely pastoral scene. These communal interiors might have been part of some classy East Coast hotel, their true location belied only by the movement of the ship, the hum of its engines, and the watery views from its windows.
After no more than a day at sea, the Regina docked at one of Portland’s three undersized wharves. Next to these were a series of vast steamship sheds as well as several derricks and grain elevators.
During the Regina’s brief layover in Portland, Edgar gave an interview to a journalist from Reuters news agency, who was presumably attracted by his name’s presence on the passenger list, accompanied by the phrase “Indian Chief.” He told the Reuters correspondent that he was head of the Indian tribes of British Columbia, that he was a graduate of Carlisle, that he worked as a lecturer, and that he’d acted in the recent hit movie The Sheik—a movie starring Rudolph Valentino, among the world’s most famous people. But Edgar didn’t stop there. Succumbing to his compulsion to see how far he could take his lies, he spoke of being on his way to England to present his people’s grievances to King George V, a concept perhaps inspired by Chief Red Fox’s talk of riding across America to petition President Wilson. Edgar explained that he was seeking many reforms, mostly with regard to the education of Indians. He also mentioned that he’d already met the Prince of Wales and toured Canada with him. The prince had, he said, presented him with a diamond tiepin. Edgar pretended to have been puzzled by how he should wear it. He claimed that he’d tried wearing it on his clothes and in his hair, but he’d eventually opted to have a skilled dentist inset the diamond into his teeth. Ostensible evidence for his story was provided every time he smiled.
Over the following few days, newspapers in America, Canada, Britain, and France carried reports of his mission to speak to the British monarch. Outlandish though the story of Chief White Elk’s journey may have seemed, it was not short of precedents. Ever since the early seventeenth century, Native American political delegations had been traveling to England. By announcing that he was chief of the tribes of British Columbia, Edgar was, however, taking a giant risk. He might easily be rumbled by some knowledgeable journalist or newspaper reader.
* * *
—
The passenger list would have been slipped under the door of Edgar’s cabin once the SS Regina left Portland. For those traveling first-class, this human inventory was essential reading. Careful perusal of its constituent names and associated titles yielded the key to a socially advantageous crossing. A word in the appropriate ear and Edgar could procure a seat at the dining table of anyone he wanted.
Etiquette dictated that Edgar’s fellow first-class passengers wore evening dress to dinner, its approach signaled by a bugle playing “The Roast Beef of Old England.” On the initial night of a transatlantic voyage, the dining saloon was traditionally sedate, even though alcohol could be dispensed immediately after the ship exited U.S. coastal waters, where Prohibition still held sway. Diners tended to devote all their energy to feigning nonchalance while their seasick companions bolted from the room.
A pageant of food and drink nonetheless formed the spine of the ship’s routine, which gave Edgar an insight into the structure and wearying predictability that he’d gone to such lengths to exclude from his life. Breakfast was served between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m., cups of hot broth at 11:00, sandwiches at noon, lunch at 1:00 p.m., plus a selection of pastries and sorbets at 3:00. Those passengers who had not already lapsed into overstuffed lethargy, more closely resembling the product of taxidermy than cooking, could then look forward to sandwiches and cakes at 4:00 p.m., fruit compote at 5:00, dinner at 7:00, then coffee, tea, or liqueurs, rounded off by fresh fruit and ice cream at 9:00.
Invariably occupying the rest of the time were epic games of bridge, poker, whist, and backgammon. There were sporting tournaments, concerts, and dances as well. Additional distraction came from wagers on anything from the captain’s age to the contents of the dinner menu. And professional entertainers were called upon to give performances. Much to his delight, Edgar wound up singing for the other passengers at a charity fundraising concert, the takings from which he probably pocketed.
“I’m the first Indian baritone,” he told his fellow passengers, among whom he made himself very popular over the next eight days. Several of the other passengers felt relaxed enough in his company to get into bantering conversations with him. His excellent command of English, his cultured accent, and his features, “which might easily be taken for an Englishman, whose complexion was well-tanned by an open-air life,” led them to tease him repeatedly about being an Englishman in disguise.
Perhaps having first spotted Major George Harrington, president of the Canada Club of Great Britain, on the passenger list, Edgar befriended the thirty-nine-year-old major, who was a pint-sized, warm-spirited raconteur. The two of them could trade war stories, because the major had served in France before becoming a deputy minister in the Canadian government. Harrington turned out to own Britain’s earliest fur farm, to which he was exporting twenty silver-black foxes, whose pelts were destined for the garment industry.
But there was more to him than business and politics. He was a passionate campaigner for better conditions in Nova Scotia’s mines, his work yielding apparent common ground with Edgar, who claimed to be a campaigner on behalf of the Cherokee. So spellbound was Major Harrington by Edgar that he offered to provide him with London accommodation as a guest of the Canada Club. Unlike many of the British capital’s other historic clubs, which had their own guest rooms, Harrington’s organization was a dining club without its own premises. When the ship docked, he’d have to book a London hotel room for Edgar.
* * *
—
At 1:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 17, 1922, the Regina entered the waters of the Mersey estuary. By then, Edgar and Eugene would have been surrounded by the ruckus that always preceded docking. Chambermaids helped the passengers pack their suitcases and trunks. Liveried cabin boys darted along the indoor corridors and outdoor gangways. Intensifying the commotion that night was the rapidly spreading news about one of Edgar and Eugene’s fellow first-class passengers. The young man in question was found lying in a pool of blood. He’d slit his own throat with a razor. Barely alive, he was treated by the ship’s doctor and then carried back to his cabin.
More unforeseen drama lay ahead of Edgar and Eugene prior to their arrival in Liverpool. As their ship skirted the righthand bank of the broad river, where chimneys and rooftops peeked over miles of dockside cranes and warehouses, several tugboats scurried back and forth through the icy waters. Only a few hours earlier, a freighter had sunk along this stretch of river. The tugs were conducting a fruitless search for several missing crewmen.
A few miles further upstream, the Regina docked at a vast floating quayside with customs offices on it and several bridges linking it to the shore. Edgar’s outfit turned heads when he disembarked. He had on a turkey feather bonnet, a scarlet coat, and a beaded white apron that incorporated a green and blue floral pattern. Completing his get-up were wide-legged bright green pants with a pale stripe down them, stippled by yet more beads.
Thirty-four-year-old Edgar—in the guise of the impressively youthful-looking fifty-eight-year-old Dr. Ray Tewanna, Chief White Elk—was given a deferential welcome by a gaggle of reporters. They worked for newspapers as disparate as the London Times and the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer. With them was a posse of press photographers. For their benefit, Edgar struck a suitably serious, purse-lipped pose.
Flashbulbs were not yet available, so the photographers brandished T-shaped holders loaded with explosive powder. Igniting at the press of a button that showered it with sparks, the powder emitted a loud, hollow whoosh, a powerful whiff of ammonia, and a glare dazzling enough to bleach
Edgar’s unsmiling face and make him squint.
He talked to the press corps about each component of his outfit. He said his feathered bonnet was part of his regalia as chief of the Cherokee. It was, he added, made sixty years ago for his grandfather. Each of its thirty-two plumes had, so his story went, been plucked from a different golden eagle. He even took the trouble to coin a name for his imaginary grandfather: “Chief Cuner Parker.”
When speaking about the apron he wore, he liked to tell people that its dark blue maple leaf stood for war, its light green leaves opposite signifying the brighter days that would come afterward, its yellow threads symbolizing the ill health brought by the European invaders, its beaded white background standing for purity, “which we possessed before the advent of the white man.” And when he moved on to the beadwork down the front of his pants, he said it depicted the mystic emblems of the Cherokee.
But his accent and comportment seem to have provoked a certain amount of distrust. His riposte was to assure the reporters that he wouldn’t have been permitted to wear his headdress and associated attire unless he were an American Indian. To explain his Europeanized manner, he said he’d been educated at Yale University and the Rush Medical Institute, earning degrees in medicine, philosophy, and the arts. He also told the reporters that he’d served in the Royal Navy during the last war and that he’d come back to England as an emissary of the Cherokee people.
“I hope to have the opportunity of pleading with His Majesty the King for a more efficient education for all the members of my race in the Dominion of Canada,” he explained. “We want better educational facilities so that we may become better citizens. The bulk of the Indians in the Dominion do not receive such chances and they are cooped up on reservations where they have no incentive to get the education which it is the privilege of the average Canadian citizen to obtain. It is the policy of the Canadian government to keep the Indians in their reservations, but not all of them have the instinct for the camp life now, and they are capable of something better. They are capable of becoming good and useful citizens and of living in towns and cities.”
King Con Page 17