If you’re like me.

(And you must be, or you wouldn’t be reading this stuff every week.)

Then you know the pleasures of a good junk.

• Junk (junk)  – transitive verb: to forage, to seek out, to search for treasure in unlikely locations; thrift shops, antique malls, garage/yard sales and occasionally dumpsters and even piles of trash on the side of the road.

Guilty, of all of the above,

I have been finding these little celluloid Indians on junking excursions for years now.

I love the way that time has aged each one just slightly differently.

The Chief (Chief Soaring Eagle) is the easiest to find, and my favorite by far, but occasionally I will find a maiden….

….sometimes even with a pappoose (Suzi Starving Bear) .

The St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Montana used to give these toys out in the 50’s and 60’s to people making donations to the school. This Catholic school for Indians was founded in 1884 in Ashland, Montana. When former soldier George Yoakum realized that the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indian people were left homeless because a reservation had not yet been established for them, he contacted Bishop John Brondel who immediately purchased land to establish the St Labre Indian School.

St Labre is the patron saint of the homeless.

The toy Indians weren’t the only gifts the school has offered, Through the years there were other toys – hatchets, mocassins, and pipes. There’s even been beaded items – jewelry, letter openers, and bookmarks, small blankets and plastic plaques like these,

This bright assortment has 2 little drums, a Kachina (that’s really a puzzle) and a small bowl.

The little drums are actually salt and pepper shakers,

How about these toy tepees?

Even this fish bone thermometer…..

Yeah, I had all this crap…I just didn’t realize that it was all related somehow.

You just never know what treasures a good “junk” will uncover.

I always pick these things up. No real purpose for them. I just can’t resist – especially if they are around a dollar.

I did frame a couple of the celluloid Indians in a shadow box.

Clever, clever….right?

The St Labre Indian School still offers gifts to donors. If you sign up for emails right now, they will send you a tote bag.

I suppose I could always use the tote bag, ……. to keep all this crap in.

HHmmmm,