(Riverton, WY) – Driven over 2,000 miles across the country from Massachusetts to Wyoming, the sacred headdress of Chief Black Coal has now returned to the Northern Arapaho people.
Last week, there was a community celebration at the Wind River Hotel & Casino (WRHC) for its unveiling in the Hotel’s Northern Arapaho Experience Room. There, the headdress is displayed in a floor-to-ceiling glass case with information about Chief Black Coal and the journey from the East Coast.
County 10 received permission from the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office to photograph the headdress.
Last week’s celebration led to standing room only in the Spring Mountain Room at the WRHC. Cy Lee, Lloyd Goggles, and Jordan Dresser addressed attendees, and Sam Dresser provided the prayer.
Bringing home this sacred item all started in December 2019 when the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office (NATHPO) received an unexpected phone call about a man in Massachusetts with the headdress.
Temple Smith had received the item as a family heirloom. His great-grandfather, Dr. John Essig, was a dentist in Buffalo, Wyoming, during the late 1800s. He routinely traveled by wagon down to work on tribal members’ teeth, including Chief Black Coal. During his visits to the Wind River Reservation, Black Coal befriended Essig. A time came when Essig planned to move away from Wyoming, and Black Coal gifted him the headdress before he departed. Since then, it has remained a family heirloom passed down from Essig and lastly to Temple.
NATHPO staff, two descendants of Chief Black Coal and Sam Dresser, who was on the Business Council then, made up the delegation that drove to Marblehead, Massachusetts, to pick-up the headdress from Smith.
Jordan Dresser shared there have been many moments where it felt like Chief Black Coal was communicating with them. After the headdress was picked-up, they had a cedaring and a big gust of wind came out of nowhere. In February 2020, they were cleaning up after the first community unveiling at Great Plains Hall, and in the tissue of the box where Smith kept the headdress was a pair of moccasins that were not there before.
Chief Black Coal or Wo’óoseinee’ is regarded as one of the most influential chiefs of the 1800s.
“The headdress is full length with each feather showing the great things Chief Black Coal accomplished over his lifetime,” Dresser said.
When he died in 1893, he was the chief of the Antelope band of the Northern Arapaho. The Antelope band numbered about 700 people and settled around Arapahoe close to St. Stephen’s Mission.
He was buried west of St. Stephen’s Mission, and a monument placed at the grave carries the inscription: “Erected by the Northern Arapahoes in honor of a brave and honest man.”
The headdress will be displayed in the Northern Arapaho Experience Room at the Wind River Hotel & Casino, 180 Red Wolf Place, for several months.