the Shinnecock tribe since 1937. In this letter he claimed that he learned the Catawba language from his grandmother, Ada McMechen. However, he also mentions Gatschet's extensive, published work on the Catawba language, which is a far more likely source for his knowledge, as are the works of James Smith. The 19 year old West then proceeded to sign this letter with the name, "Chief Red Thunder Cloud". Red Thunder Cloud identity West reinvented his identity at this point and lived the rest of his life as Red Thunder Cloud of the Catawba tribe. Frank Speck believed West to be a genuine Catawba Indian and employed him on small projects, collecting ethnographic data and folklore among Long Island Indians. He also collected data on the Montauk, Shinnecock, and Mashpee tribes for George Gustav Heye, founder of what became the National Museum of the American Indian. In December 1943, West lived at the University of Pennsylvania for two weeks, providing what he convinced them was information on the Catawba tribe, recording music, and aiding in ethnobotanical research, despite not being Catawba himself, and having never visited a Catawba community. West only visited the Catawba Reservation in Rock Hill, South Carolina, for the first time in February 1944. He arrived with a letter of introduction from Speck. While Speck insisted that West "spoke Catawba", he seems to have been alone in this claim; Chief Sam Blue, a native speaker of the Catawba language, said West only knew "a few words of Catawba" and that this small bit all seems to have come from Speck's books. According to Chief Gilbert Blue of the Catawba Nation, West met with his grandfather, Chief Sam Blue, as well as with Sally Gordon during his second visit to the reservation, which West reported lasting for six months. Other sources claim West was met with rejection by tribal leadership and was told to leave shortly after arriving. When interviewed in 1957 by William C. Sturtevant, Chief Sam Blue and his daughter-in-law Lillian said they did not believe West was Native American. "Sam Blue thought [West] had learned the few words of Catawba that he knew from Speck's books." In a letter dated October 25, 1958, West offered assistance to Sturtevant in making contact with Indian groups in the eastern United States, notably the Wampanoag. His correspondence claimed that his mother was Catawba and his father was from Tegucigalpa,