Photo stirs memories of pageant for man

By Andrea J. Cook, Journal staff | Monday, January 21, 2008

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As a boy, George Looks Twice of Oglala spent a few precious summers in Rapid City, appearing with his grandfather Nicholas Black Elk in the Sioux Indian Pageant at Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns.

Until recently, memories were all Looks Twice, 74, had of those years in the late 1930s. Any photos his family had of summers spent entertaining tourists had disappeared long ago.

In December, Looks Twice, an avid newspaper reader, was boarding a bus in Chadron, Neb., when he picked up a Rapid City Journal.

Turning to the Black Hills Journal page, Looks Twice was surprised to see a photo of himself and his grandfather in all their pageant regalia. Looks Twice estimates he was 4 or 5 when the photo was   taken.

The photo of a small Native American lad and his lean, distinguished grandfather, both in full regalia, was submitted by a Rapid City collector Vern Ziebert.

As soon as he arrived in Denver, Looks Twice called his daughter Georgine Looks Twice back in South Dakota, telling her, "Buy the newspaper; I'm in it."

"He was pretty excited," Georgine Looks Twice said.

After seeing the photo, Georgine Looks Twice contacted Ziebert, explaining that her father would like a copy of the photo.

"He doesn't have much," she said. "A lot was lost in a fire."

Ziebert offered to give the family copies of several postcard-size photos that were apparently taken at the pageant in the late 1930s.

George and Georgine Looks Twice met Ziebert at the Rapid City Journal office Jan. 11 to accept the photos.

"I've never seen this picture," Looks Twice said, holding the original of him with his famous grandfather.

Nicholas Black Elk was an Oglala Lakota holy man. The well-known book "Black Elk Speaks" is a written account of his life and several Sioux rituals as told to author and amateur historian John Neihardt.

Looks Twice is the son of Black Elk's daughter Lucy Looks Twice.

An uncle, Ben Black Elk, was famous as the "Fifth Face" on Mount Rushmore, where he posed for tourists' pictures during the summers.

The Duhamel family opened Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns as a tourist attraction in 1934. The pageant was a dream of Alex Duhamel. Duhamel persuaded his friend Nicholas Black Elk to assist with the pageant as a way to educate white people about the Native American religion, according to the book "Duhamel - From Ox Cart ... To Television" by Dale Lewis.

The pageant was performed on the cave's property near U.S. Highway 16. The pageant was discontinued during World War II and revived briefly after the war, according to Bill Duhamel.

"We performed two to three times a day," Looks Twice recalled. As a little boy, Looks Twice danced in the pageant, and when not performing, "raised Cain."

He also remembers parades through downtown Rapid City and dancing in front of Hotel Alex Johnson.

Pageant performers from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation lived in a tent village in the gully near Sitting Bull Crystal Cave, according to Bill Duhamel.

Looks Twice was old enough to remember sitting around campfires in the evening, listing to his elders speak. Many, including his grandfather, were at the Little Big Horn.

"I cherish those times," Looks Twice said.

Looks Twice has searched for photos of the pageant years at museums but has never found any, he said.

"Having all those pictures will be something," Looks Twice said.

The photos Ziebert shared with the Looks Twice family came from a collection of artifacts he bought from a North Dakota collector. That collector acquired the photos from someone in Washington, who reportedly bought them from a South Dakota museum that closed in the 1930s, he said.

"There's a name on the back of one that says Ferry or Finny Museum," Ziebert said.

Until meeting Looks Twice, the only information Ziebert had was information printed on the top of some of the photos.

In those photos, the site is identified as the entrance to Nameless Cave on Canyon Lake Drive, but Duhamel said the pageant was never performed there.

Looks Twice, however, remembers staying in encampments along Rapid Creek.

While they visited, Ziebert encouraged Georgine Looks Twice to write down the old stories her father tells her when they travel.

"You need to write some of that stuff down, because it's lost if you don't," he said.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com