Red Thunder Cloud, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Red Thunder Cloud

American imposter

Date of Birth: 30-May-1919

Place of Birth: Newport, Rhode Island, United States

Date of Death: 08-Jan-1996

Profession: impostor

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Red Thunder Cloud (May 30, 1919 – January 8, 1996), born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, and also known as Carlos Westez, was a singer, dancer, storyteller, and field researcher best known as the last fluent, though non-native speaker of the Catawba language.
Of African-American ancestry, Red Thunder Cloud presented himself as Native American throughout most of his life.
Anthropologist Frank Speck believed Red Thunder Cloud to be a genuine Catawba Indian and proceeded to provide him with training in field methods of recording notes for ethnological studies.
Despite the fact that he became fluent in the Catawba language, Red Thunder Cloud was neither Catawba nor Native American by ancestry.
He worked for Speck, collecting ethnographic data and folklore from Native American groups, and collaborated with several other academic experts on Native American cultures and languages.