James Willard Schultz

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James Willard Schultz with his son Hart Merriam Schultz (Lone Wolf) 1884

James Willard Schultz (* 26. August 1859 in Boonville in the US state of New York ; † 11. June 1947 in the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming ), Native American Apikuni called, was an American writer who lives in his early years as a hunter and traders in the American West and lived for a time with a Black Footed Indian tribe in northwestern Montana . He also discovered an Ice Age glacier area that was later placed under protection as the Glacier National Park . Moved by all these impressions, James Willard Schultz began to write about them, first articles for newspapers and then books, of which well over thirty were published during his lifetime, with both factual and fictional content.

Streak of life

Boonville, the birthplace of James Willard Schultz, was a parish in Oneida County . Here he grew up and accompanied by his father and experienced hunters, he made many hunting trips through the Adirondack Mountains , which were up in northeastern New York State , as a child and teenager . - In the summer of 1877, his parents gave him their consent to go on a hunting trip to Montana. His mother gave him $ 500 for this on the condition that he return in the fall and then go to West Point , but he did not return at the agreed time. (Much later he came back to his hometown, but the mental constriction there and the longing for his Indian wife Natahki made him return to the wilderness after a few months.)

In Montana, James Willard Schultz first went to Fort Benton on the Missouri and then hunted bison in the Great Plains .

Around 1880, the hunter also became a trader when he and a partner founded a trading post somewhere on the Marias , and then an Indian in a tribe of the Black Feet, the (southern) Piegan , in the north-western part of Montana on the outskirts the Rocky Mountains were home. He was adopted by a chief and was given the Indian name Apikuni, which, according to the English translation, means something like 'spotted robe'. For two to three years he probably lived among the Piegan, who were also called Blackfeet, and his adaptation to Indian life is even said to have gone so far that he took part in military expeditions against hostile tribes. And at some point during this time he also married an Indian from his tribe: Natahki, who accompanied him into civil life and whom he later immortalized in literature.

An illustration from the 1916 book Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park by JW Schultz

In 1885 he sent an article to Forest and Stream , a magazine which, in general terms, dealt with nature experiences such as fishing, hiking, camping, etc. and which was already strongly advocating conservation. This made him acquainted with George Bird Grinnell , who was the editor of Forest and Stream at the time . Under the leadership of Schultz, Grinnell got to know the region during several hunting trips in the near future and he was later one of the most active initiators for the establishment of the Glacier National Park in 1910. The two men also took pleasure in naming conspicuous natural features such as mountains, lakes, glaciers, etc. and in the years to come, James Willard Schultz as a professional guide will have many other visitors - probably well into the 1930s - showed us around this region and earned his money with other articles. In addition to Forest and Stream , he has worked for the two youth magazines Youth's Companion and The American Boy , and in 1902 he was a reviewer in California for the Los Angeles Times .

In 1907 his first book was published, in which he describes his life among the black-footed Indians, with particular mentioning of Natahki. The book came out in Germany in the 1920s in two volumes, both of which were provided with book decorations and explanations by the American painter and ethnographer Frederick Weygold . After that, James Willard Schultz was still quite productive and had published over thirty books by 1940 (always with the Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston).

James Willard Schultz and Hart Merriam Schultz in 1920

Natahki, his Indian wife, had died in 1903. He then remarried twice more. His last marriage was in 1932 with Jessie Louise Donaldson, a professor at Montana State University who took a lot of part in his literary work and wrote several articles about him after his death. He probably only had one son in terms of children, whom Natahki had born to him in 1882: Hart Merriam Schultz (Lone Wolf), who has become a recognized painter and sculptor in his life and also illustrated some of his father's books.

In 1931, James Willard Schultz, whose health is said to have been very unstable in the last three decades of his life, was seriously injured in his spine. In treating this injury, he became addicted to morphine , but he fought it and got over it after a year. He suffered further injuries in the 1940s and after a particularly severe one in September 1944 at his home in Denver , he moved after treatment (probably for care reasons) to somewhere in the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

James Willard Schultz died on June 11, 1947 on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. At his request, he was buried in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana at the burial site of Natahki's family.

Works by JW Schultz

English editions
  • My Life as an Indian: The Story of a Red Woman and a White Man in the Lodges of the Black Feet , Verlag Doubleday, Page & Co, New York 1907 (digital copy)
  • With the Indians in the Rockies , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1912 (digitized version)
  • Sinopah: The Indian Boy , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1913
  • On the Warpath , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1914
  • Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1916
  • Apauk-Caller of Buffalo , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1916 (digitized version )
  • The Gold Cache , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1917
  • Bird Woman: The Guide of Lewis and Clark , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1918
  • Lone Bull's Mistake: A Lodgepole Chief Story , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1918
  • Rising Wolf: The White Blackfeet, Hugh Monroes Story of his first year on the plains , Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1919
  • In the Great Apache Forest , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1919
  • The War-Trail Fort: Further Adventures of Thomas Fox and Pitamakan , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1921
  • Seizer of Eagles , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1921
  • Trail of the Spanish Horse , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1922
  • The Danger Trail: A Thrilling Story of the Fur-Traders , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1923
  • Friends of My Life as an Indian , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1923
  • Plumed Snake Medicine , published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1924
  • Questers of the Desert , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1925
  • Signposts of Adventure: Glacier National Park as the Indians know it , Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1926
  • Sun Woman: A Novel , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1926
  • William Jackson: Indian Scout , Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1926
  • A son of the Navahos , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1927
  • Red Crow's Brother , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1927
  • In Enemy Country , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1928
  • Skull Head The Terrible , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1929
  • The White Beaver , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1930
  • Sun God's Children , co-author Jessie Louise Donaldson, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1930
  • Friends and Foes in the Rockies , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1931
  • Alder Gulch Gold , published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1933
  • Gold Dust , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1934
  • The White Buffalo Robe , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1936
  • Stained Gold , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1937
  • Short Bow's Big Medicine , published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1940
German editions
  • Natahki and me. My life among the black-footed Indians , Harvest Verlag, Hamburg 1922 (reprint: Cologne 1974)
  • In Natahki's tent. My life as an Indian , Harvest Verlag, Hamburg 1925 (reprint: Cologne 1974)
  • The white buffalo and other stories from the black-footed Indians , Verlag Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1926
  • Indian women , excerpt from In Natahki's tent , series: Deutsche Jugendbücherei No. 377, Verlag Hermann Hillger, Berlin and Leipzig 1931
  • Son of Navaho I , Small Youth Series , Verlag Kultur & Progress, Berlin 1960
  • Son of Navaho II , Small Youth Series, Verlag Kultur & Progress, Berlin 1960
  • The Error of the Lonely Bison , Small Youth Series, Verlag Kultur & Progress, Berlin 1960
  • Find me on the prairie. My life as an Indian , Verlag Scherz, Bern and Munich 1983
  • Find me on the prairie. My life as an Indian , Ullstein publishing house, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1985

Web links

Commons : Schultz, James Willard (1859-1947) Photographs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James W. Schultz: Find me on the prairie. My life as an Indian , Ullstein publishing house, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1985, pages 99-101
personal data
SURNAME Schultz, James Willard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Apikuni; Spotted robe; Far Off White Robe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Boonville (New York)
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1947
Place of death Wind River Indian Reservation