Long before Iron Eyes Cody was outed as non-Native American, silent film actress Josephine Workman claimed full Native American heritage, though only her maternal grandmother was actually Native American. Accentuating her dark, exotic looks and embroidered background, she took the screen name Princess Mona Darkfeather to gain fame as an Indian maiden in moving pictures in the mid-1910s, following after actual Native American Lillian St. Cyr, who had christened herself Princess Red Wing a few years earlier.
Perhaps realizing the success of Red Wing in moving pictures, Workman had decided to follow suit. St. Cyr had been performing on stage since the mid 1900s under the name Princess Red Wing, and was the first to appear on film in 1908, soon starring in shorts eponymously named and produced and directed by her husband James Young Deer, born James Young Johnson. In these shorts, Red Wing set the standard for decades worth of portrayals by Native American women – though stars, their characters often sacrificed themselves for white people who had befriended them, virtually never getting a happy ending or being the herioine of their own story. Continue reading
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