Ka-Be-Nah-Gwey-Wence at 129 years old

Indian photo
This photo of John Smith (Ka-Be-Nah-Gwey-Wence), a Chippewa Indian from Cass Lake, Minnesota, was taken when he was supposedly at 129 years old. Sold on eBay for $29.95.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Palomino

Link says it was a “post card” but could still be an original print, I have some of my family from that era on postcard stock. Maybe the seller thought this was just a postcard, not an original print?

Great image, reminds me of the trees in Lord of the Rings.
- David Pescovitz
  
  Could be a Real Photo Postcard (RRPC), popular in the early 1900s:
  http://boingboing.net/2012/06/13/personal-photo-postcards-from.html
- Conan Librarian
  
  First thing I thought of was Tom Bombadil.
  - awjt
    
    first thing I thought was, that’s a shoop.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I have some of my family from that era on postcard stock.
  
  Isn’t it time for a decent burial?
  - i_am_at_work
    
    http://instantrimshot.com/
  - Palomino
    
    I don’t get it. ”Moderate” away.
snagglepuss

Every girl crazy ’bout a sharp-dressed man.
billstreeter

He must have been lying about his age to pick up chicks or something, I cannot believe he’s that young.
tomrigid

‘Shopped.
- awjt
  
  even had his ear pierced
wysinwyg

While I don’t think it’s completely impossible for a human being to live 129 years, I think a likelier story is that Ka-Be-Nah-Gwey-Wence just lost count a few times. Maybe more like 109 years old with error bars?
- Joseph Simmons
  
  Jeanne Calment was confirmed to have lived to 122.
Daneel

Bah Weep Graaagnah Wheep Ni Ni Bong
- PlutoniumX
  
  Damn you, I was going to say that.
- http://orbitnet.com JIMWICh
  
  You, my friend, have just won one thousand internets!
http://www.cjboco.com/ CJBoCo

“When 129 years old you reach, look as good you will not”
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo

looks like he had rhinophyma, though that’s rare outside of celtic/north european types of humanoids…

edit: hold the phone, i found a pic of him at “136!”

http://www.genealogy.com/users/w/e/l/Terry-Weller/PHOTO/0015photo.html

more info here, including how his age was roughly calculated at just under 100 when he died:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_(Native_American)

lol @ his name “translated into English as “Sloughing Flesh”, “Wrinkle Meat”, or Old “Wrinkled Meat.”
- ChicagoD
  
  Old Wrinkle Meat must have been a tough name to have as a kid. Prescient parents though.
  - Rich Keller
    
    His parents may have had high hopes for him like the mom and dad of Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss. Yeah, his given name was Doctor. (No pressure, kid.)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Willard_Bliss
sarahnocal

How did he know which year he was born?
- Navin_Johnson
  
  Not to say that he didn’t, but you would not need to know what ‘year of our lord’ it was when you were born to know how many years you had lived.
- Mark Dow
  
  “Birthdates of Indians of the 19th Century had generally been determined by the Government in relation to the awe-inspiring shower of meteorites that burned through the American skies just before dawn on 13 November 1833 …”
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_(Native_American)
- Teller
  
  The US Gov apparently used the Leonid Meteor Shower of 1833 as a benchmark. It was a spectacular experience and NA’s would be asked ‘how old’ they were when that occurred.
  
  In case you’re hard of hearing.
joojooinblue

I’m no dermatologist but it looks like this man may have spent some time in the sun?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_B6WAFG5LAPULIRSQN35PL6M3BE Daniel

This photo appeared in László Moholy-Nagy’s 1925 Bauhausbuch [Bauhaus book] Painting Photography Film [Malerei Fotographie Film]. I always found it to be a fairly bewildering inclusion.
nanner

wow, at that advanced age it looks like he nose a lot.
- Just_Ok
  
  snot funny.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1333939538 Frances Cunard

It’s too late for him to wear a hat when most of his adult life basking under the sun and the result is a dreadful wrinkled face. This should be avoided by limiting sun exposure up to 20 minutes max a day just to get enough vitamin D. Otherwise: skin cancer will develop or a horrible skin texture will surface.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  If only Doctor Oz was around to tell all those 19th century Native Americans to quit laying out at the pool.
- LaylaSV
  
  Dunno that “basking” was really the word you were looking for or, for that matter, that spending 23 hour and 40 minutes inside a teepee everyday would be a livable alternative for traditionally nomadic hunter/gatherers.
  - NatWu
    
    These are Ojibwe, not Lakota. They were not nomadic, and they lived in wigwams, not tepees.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe_people
    - LaylaSV
      
      All apologies, I saw Minnesota and assumed Sioux when, from the 1600s onward, the central part of the state was predominantly Ojibwe / Chippewa. And, you’re totally right, unlike the Great Plains Ojibwe, the Mille Lac Ojibwe built wigwams.
      
      However, the point stands – the tribe still survived through outdoor activities – fishing, hunting & gathering wild rice. And, while the wigwam is rounded in shape and covered with bark as opposed to hide, it is still a non-permanent, small dwelling unsuited for living in for 23 hours and 40 minutes out of every day.
Jake0748

He doesn’t look a day over 115.
rachel ten bruggencate

That’s nothing. I once knew a John Smith who was over 900 years old.
- foobar
  
  Who?
  - rachel ten bruggencate
    
    Precisely.
- LaylaSV
  
  Yes well, not all of us can be time lords.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1271680112 Felix Tannenbaum

what tribe was he from again?
- Rich Keller
  
  I was going to say that he looked like Hoggle from Labyrinth.
futnuh

One can only imagine what Noah (of the Ark fame) looked like in the last couple hundred years of his life.
voiceinthedistance

I can’t tell how orange he was from this black and white photo, but . . .
Halloween_Jack

This reminds me of Shirali Muslimov, an Azerbaijani man who supposedly lived to be 168. I read about him as a kid in a National Geographic article about supercentenarians, and totally bought into it because it was National Geographic and they had a lot of credibility, and hey, I was just a kid.
BarBarSeven

Hmmmm… I posted a comment to this with a vague joke allusion to Spaceballs & a reference to “The Schwartz” because I thoughy Ka-Be-Nah-Gwey-Wence has a passing resemblence to the Yoda-like character, Yogurt. But the comment was deleted? Herp?
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

He looks like he was drybrushed with overly-contrasting paint.
Mike Naylor

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/Buffalo/PB41.html
Here is an awesome write-up of the man’s life.
- chgoliz
  
  That was fabulous.
http://www.facebook.com/Thing73vw John Garside

This man named my Grandmother in 1912. A photo of him holding my grandmother was taken that day. He claimed to be 111 years old. And my Grandmother was 111 days old. My great grandparents had still not settled on what to name her for some reason. Upon his finding out, “John Smith” was shocked that this baby didnt have a name yet. So he named her on the spot. He named my Grandmother, Kee-We-Tah-Kee-Shig-O-Quay. She simply went by Kee-We-Tah Webster. Then she married my Grandfather, and she went by Kee-We-Tah Garside. I grew up knowing this story, and every member of my family has this photo of Ka-be-nah-gwey-wence holding my Grandmother the day he named her.

As the story goes, since he named my Grandmother, he felt that my grandmother now belonged to him. SO my great grandparents scooped her up and left right away.