Indian Ned at 125 Years of Age
Indian Ned at 125 Years of Age
August 18, 2002...
This photographic postcard is of a man, Indian Ned, walking down a street
with the aid of his walking stick. Evidently Indian Ned, a Native
American, was 125 years old when this photograph was taken. The
following notation appears on the image: "Indian Ned, 125 yrs. old.
Goodrich #304". We can safely assume that Goodrich was the photographer and
additional postcards could be ordered by referencing image #304.
I like this casual portrait of Ned. He looks like a man who has seen a lot of life. It appears that Ned stopped for a minute to allow someone to take his picture. He stands there looking directly at the photographer. This portrait of Ned conveys much more than just a brief encounter with a camera.
February 23, 2010 - Indian Ned's Biography
My exciting find for today is a biography of Indian Ned. The
biography appeared on page 3 of the August 6, 1942 issue of the Yreka
Journal. The Yreka Journal of Yreka, California billed itself
as "Siskiyou's Only Countywide Weekly Newspaper".
The author researched the question of Ned's age and concluded that Ned was
born in 1828. At the time the article was written, the author believed Ned
was 114 years old. It was revealed that Ned was a Karok Indian and his
Indian name was Pa-ah-pocka-heepon, translated as "He who lives by the bank of a
clear stream". The newspaper article is illustrated by a cropped version
of the very same photographic postcard that appears above. However, the
notation is not apparent in the newspaper version. It's not clear why the
postcard gives Pa-ah-pocka-heepon's age as 125 years while the same photo
illustrates an article where the author places his age at 114 years. My
conclusion from reading the article is the photographer rightly or wrongly believed Pa-ah-pocka-heepon
to be 125 years old at the time the photo was taken. The article mentioned
that opinions of Pa-ah-pocka-heepon's age ranged from 112 to 126 years.
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Page created August 18, 2002; updated December 20, 2020
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