Page 26 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

must have been something else to get an eyeful, from the main road, of a

small herd of bison on the edge of the Schiffloch forest. And for several
months, the bemused hikers of Alsace would catch sight of the Sioux—driven
by boredom out of the camp and into the town—staggering dead drunk down
the Rue de la Digue, and then drinking water from the canal.

It’s said that in Marseilles, at some point on this tour, an Indian by the name
of Feather Man had taken a bad fall. Stuntmen are prone to this kind of
mishap. He had been transported to the Hôpital de la Conception. His
condition worsened, and the troupe had to move on. So he remained, all alone,

on the other side of the world, unable to speak either French or English, in the
grip of fever and pain. On 6th January, at four o’clock in the morning, he died
after a long, solitary and painful agony. His body was taken to the Saint-Pierre
cemetery, where he was buried in section no. 8, trench no. 19, plot no. 2. The
years passed. No one claimed the body. His remains were disinterred and
thrown into a communal grave.

In every cemetery there’s a section set aside for the poor: a small, badly
maintained plot, covered by a heavy trapdoor, with no cross, no names, no
nothing. Sometimes a pebble is left on the ground, a dried bunch of flowers, a
name chalked onto the dirt, a date. And that’s all. There is nothing more
moving than these graves. They may be the graves of humanity. We owe them
a great deal of love.