I knew Jim Welch and my former husband (Bob Scriver) was his father’s playmate when they were young kids.  I talk about it in “Bronze Inside and Out,” the bio of Bob.  Jim Welch was not just a “junior.”  His father and grandfather were both named James Welch.  The grandfather was an enrolled Cherokee.  It was Jim’s mother who was full-blood or nearly so.  Jim was quite frank about having white blood.  I suppose he could be described as “metis,” which is the category produced by the Hudson’s Bay factors taking tribal wives in early days.  Jim’s widow is white, a college professor in Missoula.

Darrell Norman in Browning has a German wife and so did Buster Yellow Kidney.  In both cases their tie was partly their interest in traditional ways.  Neither was a fan of Karl May.  I don’t know whether they even read his books.  Germans have had a long-time interest in North American tribes, not necessarily about Karl May.  They form clubs that make “authentic” artifacts that are pretty tough to tell apart from tribally made materials from a long time ago.

So — now that you’ve taken on Karl May, are you going to take on Zane Grey (whose wife wrote some of his books) or some of the other writers of Westerns who were far from what people thought they were like?  

Prairie Mary
Mary Scriver
Valier, MT