Felix Flying Hawk

Felix Flying Hawk (1881–1944) was an Oglala Lakota Wild Wester, interpreter, photographer and rancher. Felix Flying Hawk was the only son of Chief Flying Hawk and Goes Out Looking.^[1] "The Story of Felix Flying Hawk: Rustler Victim" was published by Major Israel McCreight in 1943 about an Indian arrested for stealing his own horses and attesting to the honesty and integrity of Native Americans. Felix Flying Hawk's eldest son, David Flying Hawk, traveled with his grandfather Chief Flying Hawk as a performer with Wild West shows.

Felix Flying Hawk accompanied Chief Flying Hawk on his travels throughout the United States with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West.^[2] Felix was an excellent photographer and his most circulated photograph is of the legendary Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud taken in 1905. "The Story of Felix Flying Hawk: Rustler Victim" was published by Major Israel McCreight in 1943.^[3] Felix owned a small ranch in Manderson-White Horse Creek, South Dakota, and was arrested for stealing his own horses in the early 1900s.^[4] The story is about a special encounter with Major Israel McCreight attesting to the honesty and integrity of the Native American. McCreight described his conversation about Felix Flying Hawk with the famous American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher Elbert Hubbard:^[5]

Elbert Hubbard and the writer sat at the small table in The Pennsylvania Society rehearsing mutual old time experiences in the west, particularly, tales relating, and had himself been adopted into the tribe, but recently. Memory may be slightly at fault, but as now recalled, there were a couple of champagne glasses, partly full, on the same table. The letter from Felix, apologizing for the delay of repaying a $30 loan and explaining how he had made a trip to Rapid and found the letter which had lain in the post office for months, how he had corrected the address, got it on its way to discharge his obligation, this letter had just come in the afternoon mail; the writer drew it from his pocket and handed it to Hubbard to read. When he had completed the reading, and asked a few pertinent questions about the author, he folded it and deliberately placed it in his own pocket, saying it would be the subject of a new A Message to Garcia which he was going to write. Before he had accomplished this planned project for the thrill and edification of his world-wide fraternity of readers, the RMS Lusitania took America's greatest modern writer and philosopher to the bottom of the sea on May 17, 1915.^[6]