VIDEO: ‘Up Among the Hills’ clip portrays former Fayetteville resident Charles Von Berg
Old Scout Retires for the Evening from hayott on Vimeo.
A brief segment from the upcoming Fayetteville documentary “Up Among the Hills” was posted to the Project Fayetteville blog earlier this week.
Video still from “Up Among the Hills”
Project Fayetteville
The clip, entitled “Old Scout Retires for the Evening” portrays eccentric Fayetteville resident Captain Charles Ludwig Von Berg (who calls himself “Old Scout”).
Von Berg lived in Fayetteville in the late 1880s, and was a close friend of legendary American West figure William Cody (aka Buffalo Bill).
The voiceover for the segment hasn’t been added yet, but the narrative is posted on the Vimeo profile of University of Arkansas broadcast journalism instructor Hayot Tuychiev, who is working alongside director Larry Foley on the project.
Here’s the narrative about “Old Scout” from the film:
Captain Charles Ludwig Von Berg—who called himself the Old Scout–was among the most flamboyant characters in the history of Fayetteville. Von Berg immigrated from Germany as a teenager in 1854, and headed west where he became a hunter, Indian Scout and close friend of William F. Cody—the famous Buffalo Bill. By 1887, Von Berg had moved to Fayetteville for reasons unknown, and for a time, locals thought he “was” Buffalo Bill. When Cody brought his famous Wild West to town for two performances in 1898, he invited Von Berg to join him at the head of his rough riders and Indians as they paraded around the square to drum up business for the shows. Von Berg turned down Cody’s overtures to join his vagabond troupe because “he couldn’t make a spectacle of what we paid for with blood and heartaches.”
Von Berg married a young Fayetteville girl and bought a home on East Mountain. He painted portraits of his adventures in the west, and he became the scout master of the first Boy Scout Troop in Fayetteville. He was famous for his colorful tall tales, including his claim that he was the first white man to have discovered Custer and his dead soldiers on the battlefield at Little Big Horn.
But he was best known for his nightly serenade of taps from his “lodge” on East Mountain, as as a signal to the citizens below that the Old Scout was retiring for the evening.
“You ask me why I blow that 9 o’clock bugle call. You see, every time I blow the old bugle of mine, I am blowing tribute to Custer and his Men. Captain Charles Von Berg. The Old Scout.”
Upon learning of Buffalo Bill’s death, Von Berg was grief stricken. He died a year later in 1918, and was buried at National Cemetery.
Very Interesting
Pity that the film makers can’t consider the perspective of the Cheyenne and Sioux that stopped Custer’s massacre of their people. What does it mean, in our present day, to praise the exploits of someone that participated in the genocide of Native people? What does it say about our society and our culture? What does it say about Fayetteville?
Perhaps it says that you live in an Anglo-founded society and culture and along with enjoying its unsurpassed benefits, you have to accept its shortcomings both past and present. There are other projects which deal primarily with the perspective of the Cheyenne and Sioux. I’m sure if you Googled, you could find hundreds of them. You’d can also read about how brutal and cruel most Native American tribes were to each other in battle. Most had traditions of torturing their captives brutally.
Its unsurpassed benefits such as, polluted water, air, and soil, carcinogenic food and oh, yeah the base your standing on, white supremacy. I know I’ve missed some of these bases but feel free to let me in on the game. And please name every tribe that tortured their captives and I also want a full accounting of each tribe, individually. Can you tell me how many tribes there are in the US today? Please tell me all that you know about Native American history. And since you are so wise in the ways of the by-gone Indian, explain how inter-tribal warfare compares to the systematic genocide of a whole population of this continent based on their non-whiteness. If you get all the answers right, I’ll bake you a pie then I’ll make a documentary about how extraordinary you are for being so learned in all things that enhance your privileged place in this society.
pretty sure the Cheyenne are known (through archaeological evidence) to have slaughtered entire villages of other tribes, in a bid to steal land, resources, and women. The Apache are well known to have been brutal warriors who scalped their victims and kept human heads as trophies. Native Americans are as human as all of us, and committed atrocities against each other just like people all over the world have done forever. They certainly were outgunned and lost the battle for north america, which sure does seem “unfair”. But they were not the masters of nature, spirituality, or peace that some hippies would like to believe in. Think a little bit harder about what you *think* you know. Several once-great native north american societies have polluted, overhunted, or deforested themselves out of existence. White people aren’t the only ones who know how to ruin an ecosystem.
well said, Glut.
? got owned. Ouch
I don’t know about owned. @vandelay makes some decent points though and gives pause for thought. But using the premise of “those indians were a bunch of dicks, too” is hardly a justification for genocide. No one in this country likes to acknowledge our atrocities against Native Americans. It’s our dirty little secret.
Now if we could only keep those damn Mexicans off OUR land!
Wonderful to have my second cousin, twice removed remembered in such a poignant way. Would be very much interested in having copies of final work. Adelaide, Australia. 1Mar 2012