John Smith (Native American)

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John Smith (died February 6, 1922) also know as or Kay-bah-nung-we-wa (sloughing flesh) or Ga-Be-Nah-Gewn-Wonce (wrinkle meat) and commonly called "Old Wrinkle Meat" was a Chippewa indian who lived in the Cass Lake (Minnesota) area and is reputed to have died at the age of 137 ^[1].

The exact age of John Smith at the time of his death has been a subject of controversy. Federal Commissioner of Indian Enrollment, Ransom J. Powell argued that "it was disease and not age that made him look the way he did" ^[2] and remarqued that according to records he was only 88 years old. Paul Buffalo who, when a small boy had met John Smith, said he had repeatedly heard the old man state that he was "seven or eight", "eight or nine" and "ten years old" when the "stars fell"^[2]. The stars falling refers to the Leonid meteor shower of November 13, 1833 about which Carl Zapffe writes: "Birthdates of Indians of the 19th Century had generally been determined by the Government in relation to the awe-inspiring shower of meteorites that burned through the American skies just before dawn on 13 November 1833, scaring the daylights out of civilized and uncivilized [sic.] peoples alike. Obviously it was the end of the world. . . ." ^[3]. This puts the age of John Smith at just under 100 years old at the time of his death.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Star Tribune of February 8, 1922
2. ^ ^{a b} cited in Tim Roufs When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss: "Forever-Flying-Bird" footnote 34
3. ^ Zapffe C. The man who lived in 3 Centuries (1975, p.1) in Tim Roufs When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss: "Forever-Flying-Bird" footnote 35

[edit] Sources

• Tim Roufs When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss: "Forever-Flying-Bird" An Ethnographic Biography of Paul Peter Buffalo
• Obituary of Old John Smith in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis (Feb. 8, 1922)

[edit] Further reading

• Carl A. Zapffe, Kahbe nagwi wens: The man who lived in 3 Centuries (Brainerd, MN: Historic Heartland Association, 1975) ISBN 978-0910623001
• John Smith Chief John Smith, A Leader of the Chippewa, Age 117 Years. His Life as Told by Himself. Being the Life Story of Chief John Smith as Narrated by Himself and Interpreted by His Adopted Son, Thomas E. Smith. (Walker, MN: The Cass County Pioneer, 1921)