Biography and Autobiography

Iroquois

After Halloween 2007 I realized coming up with an picture, putting together a costume by painstakingly searching for and purchasing a variety of components, altering them or sometimes making pieces I couldn't have a place otherwise, wasn't impressing anyone. I decided that if I really wanted notice my costumes had to be cooler, had to be the culmination of my childhood interests and passions, and everything had to be as true as humanly and financially possible, and handmade so that I can take full credence.

I'll never forgot the historical paintings of several noble looking Iroquois chiefs printed in the wide hardcover The World of the American Indian lyrics from National Geographic I had as a kid. I always wondered why these "Indians" looked nothing like the ones from movies and TV, though I never had any fine point reason to pursue my interest, being raised in California, and incognizant of my ancestors' involvement with these peoples.

I've only recently discovered my forebear, Edward Riggs, who arrived from England in 1633 as colleague of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His son Edward Riggs II fought in the 1637 Pequot Indian War, which amounted to no less than genocide against the unconsumed Pequot, estimated to be no more than 3000 following the smallpox badger of 1633, and was an original settler of Milford, CT, purchased from the Paugussets (a Delaware clan). He later helped found Newark, NJ in 1666 as a associate of the Connecticut Puritans who purchased land from the Hackensack Indians (a Delaware breed). It wasn't until the late 1700's when my direct ancestors began to move west, at long last arriving in California prior to the 1848 Gold High-priority.

When I saw The Last of the Mohicans (1992) in the theater I finally realized there was a renown...

Read more...