Talk:John War Eagle

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Grushenka in topic Birth name etc

Birth name etc

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This article gives, with no reliable source whatsoever, his birth name as "John Edwin Worley Eagle" and birthplace as Leicestershire, then states he grew up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Not the absolutely most unlikely sequence of events, but certainly enough to raise an eyebrow. The only birth record matching this is the John Edwin W. Eagle born at Loughborough, Leicestershire, recorded in June 1900 (not 1901). Unfortunately for whoever came up with this rather convoluted theory, John Edwin W. Eagle also DIED at Loughborough, Leicestershire, shortly after his birth (recorded in the July to September quarter). Given there's literally NOTHING else indicating John War Eagle to have been anything other than a Native American born and bred there, and this evidence conclusively removes "John Edwin Worley Eagle" from the picture, it shouldn't remain in the article.

For what it's worth, articles in 1976 and 1978 (in News Report collected issues 66-97 and in The Indian Historian collected vols 11-13, respectively, as can be seen on Google books) state that his birth name was actually "John St Pierre", born 1902 in South Dakota; Who's Who Among the Sioux (1988) also lists him as "St Pierre, John (War Eagle)". Whether he was born John St Pierre or John War Eagle, it's absolutely certain that he wasn't born "John Edwin Worley Eagle" in Leicestershire. The most likely birth record, if he was John St Pierre born South Dakota, is he born 24 September 1901 to Gilbert St Pierre and Carrie Anderson. Original research notwithstanding, that included in the article currently I intend to redact, since it's clearly 100% incorrect as outlined above. It appears to derive from IMDB, which is... FAR from reliable, to say the least, certainly based on https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#IMDB

A few relevant points I omitted: the John St Pierre birth record giving his parents as Gilbert St Pierre and Carrie Anderson specifically gives "Charles Mix, South Dakota", which per the Wikipedia article "The easternmost approximately 60% of the county comprises the Yankton Indian Reservation"- this is strongly corroborative. Further, the "News Report" I previously mentioned was, per Google books, produced by the Institute of Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota- which makes it a perfect academic, reliable source to now cite in favour of the details it gives of John War Eagle's life as opposed to the fictional IMDB version, which seems to have been based on nothing more than a user's whim.

Yes, this is confusing. According to imdb the John War Eagle who appeared in The Man from Laramie was born in Leicestershire, but that seems unlikely. Grushenka (talk) 20:11, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply