ONLY MILLIONAIRE REDSKIN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 19 September 1907, Page 4

ONLY MILLIONAIRE REDSKIN.

There has just arrived in London from the United States an interesting visitor .n the person of Quanah Parker, the mighty warrior chief of the Comanche Indians. He has journeyed to England on the personal invitation of Mr Bryce, ilis British Ambassador. He is accom pau-ed by the favorite of his three wives, Too Xieey, said to be "the pearl of the redskins' wigwam." Parker is said to be a millionaire and the richest copper-eok>red man alive. He is not a full-blood Indian, however, but it was his mother, not his father, from whom he derived his white blood. She was Cynthia Aim Parker, stolen in 18H(! by the Conianclics and searched for by Texans for years unsuccessfully until \W\, when she was recaptured in a fight between whites and Comanches. She was the wife of a chief then, and he was killed in a fight." She had forgotten English and wished to return to the tribe, which she was not allowed to do. She had two softs, who remained with the redskins. One died many years ago, the other is chief of the tribe today and is just now our visitor. For the last ten years he has lived at a little place some sixteen miles from Fort Sill, in the new State of Oklahoma. Parker frequently journeyed to Washington to see the late President McKinley on behalf of his tribe, while he has had many chats with President Roosevelt. When Oklahoma is formally admitted to the Union it is expected that one of the senators to be returned to Congress will be Parker. Indeed, there is now much senatorial talk on behalf of this famous redskin chief. But the most famous redskin now living is undoubtedly "Alec" Kennedy, who is justly proud of the two service medals he owns, and which were awarded him for the work he did in Africa during the Egyptian war. His headquarters are at Edmorton, on the upper Saskatchewan river, at the end of the railway the real jumping-off place in the Canai dian north-west. He is in the employ of the Indian Department of the Canadian Government, and ha 3 been most of the time since the Hudson Bay Company's territory was taken over. Before the change he was employed by the company. His present occupation is that of guide and interpreter to the Indian Commissioner and other Government officials who have to travel in the north-west, which he knows as well as any other man alive, either white or copper-colored. In his early days he was a bateau, or canoe man, and few can handle these long river boats more dexteriously than

When the Louis Riel rebellion broke out, Kennedy found himself at the head of a band of bateau men, whose business it was to transport the government stores and ammunition for the troops. He did his work so well as to" attract the personal attention of Wolseley, who was then in Canada. Years later when the famous soldier was in Egypt and it was decided to send an expedition to Khartoum he recalled the faithful services of the Indian, and his skill and intimate knowledge of the ways of rivers, of boats and boatmen. Wolseley sent for him and bade him come at once with a select party of bateau men to Egypt. Kennedy was under fire more than once on the Nil;, but remembers few of the accompanying circumstances—or, at least, he will never tell of them —perhaps because he has been shot at more than ence at home and ncv>r been hit. He is descendee 1 from a member of the famous party of Scots, led by Lord Selkirk, who went into the Hudson Bay territory as settlers a hundred years or more ago. His grandfather was therefore white, but the Indian blood undoubtedly predominates in Alec. He himself has married a, full-blood and has several children.