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NH Secrets, Legends & Lore
The New Hampshire Legacy of Walter Richard West Sr. - Wah Pah Nah Yah
Walter Richard West Senior was born in 1912.
West was not born with that name. His name was Wah Pah Nah Yah, translated into english, “Lightfoot Runner”. He was born in a Tipi near the Darlington Agency in Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory, a member of the Southern Cheyenne Nation.
If you are wondering how a Native American, born halfway across the country, figures into the “Secrets, Legends and Lore” of New Hampshire you will find out in the next 35 minutes and you will meet one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed artists who left a legacy that touched the Granite State in a profound and lasting way.
The West family has a long and storied history. His grandfather “Thunderbow” fought Custer at what the Cheyenne and the Sioux knew as the Green Greasy Grass river battle, today referred to as the Little Bighorn. Both of Wah Pah Nah Yah’s sons, Rick and Jim, would also establish their own NH legacies as you will hear. Each would make their own respective marks, both here and throughout their lives: Jim as the director of “Futures for Children” working with native children to help them achieve a college education; Rick (W. Richard West Jr.) would become the founding director of The Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
From 1936 to 1938, Wah Pah Nah Yah attended Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma,[1] where he earned an associate's degree. At Bacone he played football and worked in oil fields.
West then enrolled at University of Oklahoma (OU), where he would earn a BFA degree in 1941. He later returned for graduate work, earning the very first MFA degree ever awarded to a Native American artist in 1950.
It was during his years as a student at Bacone that his connection to New Hampshire began when his friend and teacher Edmund Shaw introduced him to Alcott Farrar Elwell, a retired WWI Army Colonel who was the Assistant Director of Mowglis, School of the Open, a camp for boys on the shores of Newfound Lake. Established in 1903 by Elizabeth Ford Holt.
Elwell had an abiding interest in Native American people, possibly as a result of serving, at 20, as a camp cook in 1908 for the U.S. Geological Survey in Wyoming where he met many Native people while serving on the USGS mission.
A future episode of NH Secrets will feature Elwell, but one interesting aside from this story is that Elwell had NO experience as a cook! It happened that the only position open to join this great adventure was as a cook so Elwell applied and was hired. Elwell, an East Coast boy had never been west before.
Edmund Shaw, who would be Wah Pah Nah Yah’s best man at his wedding, and the godfather of Wah Pah Nah Yah’s two boys later on, had been spending his summers teaching photography at Camp Mowglis and he encouraged Colonel Elwell to invite Wah Pah Nah Yah to join the staff of Mowglis.
Wah Pah Nah Yah arrived in 1939 and remained through three successive seasons. Returning twice more in the 70’s and 1990’s for extended visits.
The boys who were campers during his staff years became keenly aware of the Cheyenne traditions, and some of them became quite proficient at the dances he taught them. In later years both his sons Rick and Jim would share the same skills and traditions with the boys of Mowglis. Tim Coons, a music producer who introduced and produced “The Backstreet Boys” to the world was one of those boys. Tim recalls creating full regalia for each boy in the dance club, under Dick’s son Jim West, and being taught many of the unique dances of the Cheyenne.
Stories of Wah Pah Nah Yah have taken on legendary proportions over the years. The late Frank Punderson recalls a game of capture the flag in 1939. "I was hiding in the bushes waiting to capture someone from the other side as they approached our flag, I peered out of my hiding place and realized that Wah Pah Nah Yah had just run by and I had never heard his footsteps . . . never realized he was near, until I saw him running by at full speed. It’s no wonder, then, that his Cheyenne name translated to “Lightfoot Runner”.
In 1942 Dick joined the Navy, became a commissioned officer, and continued in the U.S. Naval Reserve until his retirement in 1962. Through it all he continued to document the culture of plains Indians. As one of his colleagues has written, he was "on the cutting edge of the Native American art movement that added vibrance, fluidity and dimension to the flat-painting style of the early 1900s, a style in which he was schooled and which he admired."
Stories of Wah Pah Nah Yah have taken on legendary proportions over the years. Stories of his ability to fire his bow from beneath the belly of a galloping horse, or his ability to accurately shoot five arrows into a 5 of spades card placed on a target at 50 yards flawlessly.
The late Frank Punderson recalled a memorable game of capture the flag in 1939. "I was hiding in the bushes waiting to capture someone from the other side as they approached our flag, I peered out of the hiding place and realized that Wah Pah Nah Yah had just run by and I had never heard his footsteps . . . never realized he was near, until I saw him running by at full speed. It’s no wonder, then, that his Cheyenne name translated to “Lightfoot Runner”.
Wah Pah Nah Yah inspired young boys and staff members at Mowglis during his days as a counselor. Creating both a sense of pride and respect for the cultures of Native American people. He also created a number of his most unique works at the camp, including several depictions of scenes from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books.
Wah Pah Nah Yah's years at Mowglis came at a very important time to both Mowglis' own traditions and the legacy of this great man.
In 1937 Mowglis had experienced a terrible fire that had leveled the main gathering place at Mowglis. The fire destroyed the entire building including a mural called the "Lone Wolf" on the stage of the building. Two staff members perished in the fire.
1938 was the year of the fateful 1938 Hurricane that swept through New Hampshire. The late Myron Braley described the effects of the hurricane on the area around Newfound Lake in his hometown of Hebron: “Trees were down everywhere. I could travel the half mile between Route 3 and the lake walking on the trunks of trees and never need to set foot on the ground,”
The hurricane was a tragedy but ultimately provided all of the timber that would be required to rebuild the main building that had burned the summer before. A local craftsman was brought into the camp and milled the beams and boards right on site to rebuild the large hall.
The rebuilding of the hall created a new curtain, but without the uniqueness of the original. Wah Pah Nah Yah created a mural depicting the scene of Mowglis' admission to the wolf pack as the central scene as well as depictions of Mowglis with Kaa, the Rock Python; and Mowglis with Baloo the Bear and Bageera the Black Panther on either side of the main scene. The original paintings were modified in 1976 when Dick West and his wife Rene visited Mowglis again to provide needed repairs to the work.
Another example of the legendary sense of humor that characterized Wah Pah Nah Yah came in the latter years of his life when he was asked by the Guggenheim museum to provide three paintings that represented examples of abstract art.
Wah Pah Nah Yah submitted three pieces to them and the director wrote to thank him, saying that they would be using two of the paintings but could not use a third, entitled “The Red Pond”, because it did not fit the kind of representational abstract painting that they were featuring which required colors to be accurate, within the context of an abstract image. “A red pond” , wrote the Director, “was just not realistic.” Wah Pah Nah Yah read the letter and said nothing as he walked out the door of his home in New Mexico and scooped up two fist fulls of red clay, dumping them in a box destined for the Gugenheim. A few days later a sheepish letter arrived from the Gugenheim’s director announcing that they would be including The Red Pond in their exhibition.
Throughout his life Wah Pah Nah Yah continued to grow and develop his art, pushing the bounds from the original - but exquisite - examples of early Native American “skin or hide” painting to the more sophisticated, yet authentic, style that would characterize his later work and secure his place in the firmament of great 20th century painters.
With his rendering of the Kipling scene at the Council Rock and the mural of Mowgli with his friends, Kaa, Baloo, and Bagheera, New Hampshire has a priceless remembrance of W. Richard West’s affection for this place and his great talent as an artist.
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