Page 70 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

whom the Colosseum had been judged too small, was beginning to grow old.

His routines are suddenly unsuited to the coming world. And, by the same
process that relegated the Indians to imperceptibility, he in turn is slowly
being drawn into the shadows. The clutch of words that he hurls at the
spectators and the doffings of his Stetson no longer cut it. Buffalo Bill, who in
France had been the model for the anonymous gardian in the Rhone delta—
when, fascinated by the spectacle, which he saw in Arles, Baron Folco de
Baroncelli-Javon kitted out his cowherds in costumes copied from the Wild

West Show, thereby enabling the show to transmit its folklore to a real place,
the Camargue (but who knows whether Greek theatre didn’t inspire the dress
of the hoplites of Sparta?); Buffalo Bill, whose circus animals are the
ancestors of the herds of wild bison in Yellowstone Park; Buffalo Bill, whose
face was at one time going to be carved on the National Memorial of the

United States, which later became Mount Rushmore; Buffalo Bill, who had
set the tone for a whole world, and who had set in motion the implacable
commercial culture that will polish up a face, make it lovable and make it
famous, before suddenly dropping it, was himself now beset by the void.

Very early on, right at the start of his career, Buffalo Bill had decided that
each performance of the Show should begin in the following manner: a rider
would do a lap of the arena brandishing the US flag, and then an orchestra of
cowboys would play “The Star-Spangled Banner”. The tune would later
become the national anthem of the United States—and you can see how

History bows down before spectacle. But that’s not all. On one of his tours in
England, the rider halted in front of the queen. Victoria rose to her feet and
saluted the American flag. It was the first time that an English monarch had
ever done such a thing. Which turns a two-bit circus act into a contribution to
an unhoped-for diplomatic triumph.

*

All that’s over now. The old ham is surrounded by his clapped-out wagons
and his rusting rifles, exhausted, wrung out, always short of cash, with a knot

in his stomach and sweating palms, suddenly gripped by real anxiety attacks.
And, like all stars, having lived beyond his means, he’s increasingly at the
mercy of other people. Barnum’s descendants have bought him out. But it’s
not enough; he’d borrowed too much. So, a huge tour is announced, a final
Show. To clear his debts.