The Hekawi Tribe and Tribal Members
The Hekawi live an indeterminate distance from Fort Courage, though the directions to the camp are shared in one episode: "Make right turn at (the) big rock that looks like (a) bear, them make left turn at big bear that look like rock". The Hekawi tribe supposedly derived their name from an incident in which the tribe became lost mid-migration, and after wandering the plains for weeks and falling off a cliff, one of the braves asks "Where the heck are we?", which then became "We're the Hekawi" The original name for the tribe, 'Fugawi', was to be changed after the censors discovered the sentence "Where the Fugawi?" They are partners in O'Rourke Enterprises and produce most of the company's products. They are a peace-loving tribe, (mainly due to cowardice). The chicken-hearted braves of the Hekawis, "the tribe that invented the peace pipe", are "lovers, not fighters", according to their leader. Agarn has to teach them how to do a war dance. They have a 50/50 deal with O'Rourke and have a still which produces the whiskey for the saloon. As a sly jest based on the myth that Native Americans are the 13th tribe of Israel, many of the Hekawi Indians were played by veteran Yiddish comedians using classic Yiddish shtick. The regular "Indian" characters (none of whom were played by Native American actors) include:
- Chief Wild Eagle (Frank Dekova) – the shrewd, cranky but essentially good-natured leader of the Hekawi tribe, and business partner in the illegal O'Rourke Enterprises scheme. Like all the Indian characters portrayed in F Troop, he speaks in a Burlesque-Indian, broken English dialect. Often O'Rourke, Agarn, Parmenter, and Jane come to him for advice when they have a problem. Wild Eagle has an old Indian saying for every occasion, which even he sometimes admits he does not know the meaning of. He is portrayed as being the brother-in-law of Sitting Bull and the cousin of Geronimo. Wild Eagle once said that the peaceful Hekawis originally lived in Massachusetts, until the Pilgrims arrived and "ruined the neighborhood". DeKova's contribution to the series was deemed so important that, beginning in the second season, he is listed in the opening credits.
- Crazy Cat (Don Diamond) – Chief Wild Eagle's assistant and heir apparent. He often speculates on when he will become chief, and is subsequently rebuked by Chief Wild Eagle. He is not a featured character until the second season. "Craze" (as O'Rourke and Agarn sometimes call him) does become "acting chief" in an episode titled, "Our Brave in F Troop" (when O'Rourke and Agarn have to somehow sneak Wild Eagle into Fort Courage to see the army dentist so he can get his tooth pulled). Crazy Cat humorously comments on the situation, "When Wild Eagle away, Crazy Cat play."
Read more about this topic: F Troop, Regular Characters
Famous quotes containing the words tribe, tribal and/or members:
“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)