Today, or that to share a little bit about i would like to share about the history of native americans and the culture of native americans in texas. Its very appropriate to begin with the contemporary. I am standing next to a magnificent piece of sculpture by the noted artist alan houser, who was apache. And he was born in oklahoma. He was a descendent of removeds band who was to oklahoma after geronimo and his band was captured. He later became a terrific artist. As you can see, one of the main foci of this particular piece is a native american on horseback. And that is truly the story of native americans in the Southern Plains region and in the panhandle especially. When horses became available to them in the 1600s, particularly the comanches and some of the apache people, they were able to tradersorses from the in santa fe. Stealing some of them as well. They were able to utilize the environment much more efficiently because they could cover much longer distances. The bison hunting culture really became the strong suit, the highlight of the area, and it became a culture of mobility. What im going to do today is to share with you some of the objects associated with that mobility. Objects such as clothing, beaded with glass beads obtained through trade. I would like to begin by starting out looking at some moccasins. Because moccasins are really a diagnostic feature of plains indian people. And everybody understands, youve got to wear something on your feet. Each tribe throughout the plains in the historic period, and by that i mean the 1800s until the early 1900s, every tribal group had its own distinctive style of moccasins. Be it the way they were cut and shaped and also decorated. Some folks would bead them completely on the top. Others would also incorporate porcupine quill work. And here on the Southern Plains, quite frequently you can see on this particular pair, either comanche or kiowa, they were partially beaded but also decorated with green paint in this particular instance. And then the wonderful tin cones that would make a pleasant sound as one would be walking. At the heel, there was oftentimes a little bit of leather fringe. People used to say, oh, this is to obscure the tracks as they are walking, but that is not necessarily the case. Because these people did not spend much time walking. They were on horseback. Really what was is that fringe was decorative to hang off the back of the moccasin as the person was on horseback or to flitter off as they were galloping on horseback. It was purely an aesthetic kind of thing. I would like to move from here and show you some other specific kinds of things that were characteristic of the Southern Plains folks like the kiowa, like the comanche. The moccasins we were looking at a moment ago were made for men. But for women, it was generally boots. So you had the moccasins with leggings on them. Sometimes they were all made up in one piece. In this particular instance, it is two pieces. You can see the wonderful geometric designs to the beadwork and the purple, maroon color things, those were used for decorative purposes as well. Those are actually beans that were used for decorative purposes as well. The glass beads on the Southern Plains with the comanche and the kiowa, they took beadwork to an enormously fine art and oftentimes it showed up in the objects that were associated with the native american church. And here are some of these kinds of things. The little pouch there with the figure in the center of it, very tiny beads. Each one painstakingly put on. The fans that people carried into the teepees during the ceremonies. And the rattles used to keep time with for the songs. And each one of those handles is wonderfully beaded. Although in some instances, as we see here, it was just wrapped with thread instead of beadwork. And adapting all of the different materials they had with them. Ins, in this area of ains, what we have is a great deal of veneration for children. Not only do we see wonderful toys such as the dolls and the small cradles which were seen as toys but instructional toys because they were teaching young girls how to care for their own young when that time came. And, then, of course, this magnificent kiowa cradle we see here. This is a fullsize cradle, fully beaded. And its very interesting to note that oftentimes with kiowa cradles, there would be a completely different design from one side to the other. Even the complete shift in color and designs, this is very typical of the late 1800s, early 1900s for kiowa as well as comanche cradles with wonderful wooden frames often painted. This one has elaborate decoration in terms of the tacks added as well. What i would like to do is show you probably our most significant single object in our native american collection at the museum. It is a headdress that belonged to the comanche chief Quanah Parker. Parker was the son of a white captive who rose through Comanche Society to ultimately become the leading chief. He was involved with the red river war along this area against the United States government as the native people were being pushed out. He was considered to be a great leader. He was also involved with both of the battles of adobe walls in 1864 and again in 1874 and he lived well into the 20th century. And ultimately became an incredible advocate for the comanche people and other tribes. And he was an early leader of the native american church. This is a photograph of him taken around 1900 or so. You can see he is at his full glory as an adult, wearing his finest clothing. And the headdress behind us here is really a remarkable example of these kinds of objects that were worn by men of high rank and high status. The golden eagle feathers that are topped with horse hair on them, the red woolen cap. And then, the wonderful sort of metallic rick rack along the brow. For many of the people of the comanche nation, a full trailer bonnet like this would have signified great importance, high, high ranking status for anyone who had the opportunity to obtain one, to own one, and earn the right to also wear it. This truly is one of the great pieces we have in the collection at the museum. We are very grateful to the families of Quanah Parker who continue to visit and examine this piece as part of their family heritage as well. What we are trying to do is not only educate the public about historic native american arts and culture, but we are also reaching out and working with contemporary native people to help educate us even more about traditional native american heritage. And particularly here on the panhandle we are specifically , looking towards our kiowa and comanche friends for that. You can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country at cspan. Org. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. , nephew oft turing world war ii british codebreaker alan turing, talks about his book, x, y z the real story of how enigma was broken. He chronicles how french, british, and polish spies and mathematicians were able to decipher the german enigma code during world war ii. The International Spy museum in washington, d. C. , hosted this event. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the International Spy museum. I am chris costa, executive director. Im very excited to introduce the program with author dermot turing about his new book, x, y z the real story of how enigma was broken. He is also the author of a number of other books. He is the nephew of the famous