Salt Lake Crawler

The Massasoit statue was lowered onto a pedestal at the east entrance to the Utah State Capitol this morning. When the statue of the Massachusetts Indian was removed for the renovation of the Capitol grounds it renewed an old controversy: Why is a Massachusetts Indian given a place of honor on Capitol Hill and not a representative of one of Utah's tribes?

Capitol Curator Judith McConkie patiently explained yet again that the statue was a gift in 1922 from Utah's most accomplished artist of the time Cyrus Dallin, a Springville native who made it big in Boston, and is meant to honor Dallin as much as Native Americans. Dallin meant the statute, which is based on Michelangelo's David, 'to stand for all native Americans," McConkie says.

So what we've got on a pedestal is a Utah-boy-done-good's statue of a New England woodland Indian, based on an Old Testament hero, filtered through an Italian Renaissance artist's fixation on buff Greek gods, somehow meant to honor Utah's first residents.

Still the complaints have had some effect, McConkie says, Dallin's statue has been moved from smack in front of the Capitol to a place at the public entrance on the east side. The Preservation Board would be open to installing a statue more directly honoring Utah's Indian tribes, she says.

"There places for that to happen and processes for that to happen. We would absolutely love to see a proposal."

I hope the Massasoit's tribe isn't touchy because the chief's name is misspelled on the bronze plaque. McConkie says the plaque will not be recast and the misspelling will become part of the statue's history.

I ask her, "I wonder what would happen if "Brigham" was misspelled on his statue inside the Capitol?"

McConkie just smiles.