Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

The Tonto and the Lone Ranger movie features Johnny Depp playing a Comanche native but the first actor to play the role was a Mohawk of the Six Nations territory in southern Ontario.  His stage name was Jay Silverheels and this is how he came to be a performer in Hollywood movies.

In the 1930’s the sport of lacrosse was very popular, particularly those games played in hockey arenas during the summer. The sport was sponsored by the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, which led to the formation of a professional box lacrosse league.  Its high speed, exceptional stick handling skills and brutal checking appealed to the Mohawk-Iroquois inventors of the game who were concerned the field version of the game had become rigid and bound by too many rules. To those players lacrosse was a little brother to war and it was designed to hurt.

Within a few seasons the Mohawks were taking back their game. Among the best players of that era was Angus George of Akwesasne. His Mohawk name was Sohahiio, “Shining Path” or ‘Shine” as his fans and opponents came to call him. He was a six foot tall, 220 pound lumberjack of exceptional strength, solid as a boulder with a shot that could drive a ball into an arena’s plywood boards. He looked the part of a Mohawk, his face distinctly Native and instantly recognizable in those days before helmets.

Shine was one of the first professional players highly recruited by many teams before electing to play on the North Shore Indians team across the harbour from Vancouver, BC.

After two seasons there Shine elected to form his own team and took his players on the road as the “Red Devils,” who filled arenas in New York, Montreal, Toronto and along the Pacific coast. He selected the best Native players, almost all of whom were Mohawks.

Shine had heard of a skilled stickhandler from Buffalo, a young man from the Ohsweken territory named Harry Smith. He liked Smith not only because he was a lacrosse player but also a Golden Gloves boxer who could be called upon to defend his team with his fists during the brawls, which became an anticipated part of the contests.

Shine’s all Native team reached Los Angeles, California and helped spark the creation of a short lived Pacific lacrosse league. He had been there before, in 1932, when lacrosse was an exhibition sport during the Olympics, having been removed from the Games in 1908 in part because of the Native dominance. The lacrosse matches of the 1930’s attracted many celebrities to the games including movie stars and film producers.

Shine told the story of meeting Clark Gable and other actors but he was approached by Joe E. Brown, then one of Hollywood’s best known comedians with a job offer.

Mr. Brown liked Shine’s “look” and said he could get him work as a Native extra in western movies. My uncle was interested as it was the Depression era and secure jobs were hard to come by, particularly for minority groups. Mr. Brown assured Shine the pay was good, upwards of $50 per day. Shine asked what exactly he would have to do: Brown told him he would be riding on a horse, charging at something and when the director signaled for him to fall off the horse (as Natives did by the thousands) he was to do so in as dramatic style as possible.

Shine thought about the offer for a few minutes and told Brown that he would not take the job as he needed to go home to Akwesasne to help his mother, Josephine Kanenratirontha George, make splint ash baskets.

Brown was disappointed since he thought he had found the perfect Indian. My uncle did offer him an alternative. He drew Brown’s attention to one of younger lacrosse players, the handsome and athletic Harry Smith.  

“Why him?” asked Brown.

“The job would be very easy for Smith”, replied Shine, “because he does not know how to ride a horse.”

Harry Smith got the part but being named Smith did not fit the Hollywood image of Native names so he reached back into his history and found he had an ancestor named Silverheels, a veteran of the War of 1812. Harry Smith became Jay Silverheels and after bit parts in movies such as “Western Union” and “Valley of the Sun” he got his first speaking role as Tom Osceola in “Key Largo” featuring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In that movie he has a very pronounced Mohawk accent which he would later use when cast as Tonto in the Lone Ranger series.

It is said that Silverheels spoke Mohawk as “Tonto” and taught the other Native cast members to respond in his language.

Jay Silverheels went on to become the most recognized Native actor of his generation before passing into the spirit world in 1980.

 Sohahiio, true to his word, returned to Akwesasne, continued to play lacrosse, laboured as a high steel worker and, yes, he did help his mother make baskets. He died in 1992, a lacrosse legend among his people.