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  • Performance on the Plains: Staging the Great Sioux War in Buffalo Bill's Red Right Hand, 1876
  • Kato Buss (bio)

In Cody, Wyoming, the past is present. The small, frontier town at the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain still retains the frontier spirit embodied by its namesake, the Honorable William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. This spirit is encouraged at the Cody Chamber of Commerce, which promotes Cody as "what America was, where cowboy culture thrives, and where the new West begins."1 On the western edge of town stands the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC). The BBHC is more than a museum dedicated to the memory of Buffalo Bill; its mission "seeks to interpret his story in the context of history and myth of the American West." Upholding this mission is the McCracken Research Library. Above the entrance to the McCracken's archive is a quote by American Indian author N. Scott Momaday, which reads, "The West may need to be seen to be believed, but it must be believed to been seen." The same was true of Buffalo Bill.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Cody was an international celebrity. Over a million people in the United States and Europe had experienced Buffalo Bill's Wild West and, for many, he was living history. Few men did more to popularize the mythic American frontier than Buffalo Bill. He remains, today, one of the most prominent figures in cowboy scholarship.2 Cody not only staged the western frontier hero, he embodied him, and is credited as a precursor to representations of the cowboy in twentieth-century film and television.3 Yet, so much has been written about the King of the Border Men, that it is difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. One of the most telling descriptions of Cody is that "he blurred the line between fantasy and reality."4 Indeed, when considering the scope of Cody's career, from scout to showman, it is clear that, for most of his life, he walked a line between man and myth. Cody, like the west, needed to be seen to be believed, and through live performance, he made the west and himself come true.

Cody rarely forgot the public to which he played. In the introduction to The Life and Adventures of "Buffalo Bill," Colonel William F. Cody (1917), one of his thirty-three biographies, Cody acknowledged "the generous American and English peoples" who witnessed "the small part [he] had taken in redeeming the West from savagery": [End Page 129]

I here pour out a full measure of profound thanks and hearty appreciation, and shall hold them gratefully in my memory as a remembrance of old friends, until the drum taps "lights out" at the close of the evening of my eventful life.5

Cody's life was performance, and he used performative language to describe it. He theatricalized his frontier heroics on stage, and off stage, he dramatized the rest, that is, from a very early point in his career. Cody was not only aware of his heroic persona, he perpetuated it.

Cody wrote his first autobiography when he was only thirty-two years old. The Life of the Honorable William F. Cody Known as Buffalo Bill, the Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide: An Autobiography (1879) is a tale that wanders between fact and fiction, often leaving the reader to wonder which is which. Across the book's three hundred and sixty-five pages, Cody recounts his life on the western plains with a sense of theatricality. The opening sentence of the first chapter, for example, states, "My debut upon the world's stage occurred on February 26, 1845."6 Even so, Frank E. Bliss asserts in the introduction, "There is no humbug or braggadocio about Buffalo Bill" and, "while no literary excellence is claimed for the narrative, it has the greater merit of being truthful, and is verified in such a manner that no one can doubt its veracity."7 Even in the publication of his own autobiography, Cody felt compelled to have a literary "authority" defend the legitimacy of "Buffalo Bill."

The effort continues today. Since the turn of the twentieth century, scores of publications have been...

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