Catawba people
Anthropologist Frank Speck said he 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. Speck insisted Thunder Cloud spoke the Catawba language, though Catawba leadership said he only knew "a few words," that he had learned from Speck's books. After "Thunder Cloud" died, and was revealed to be Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, public confirmation came of what the Catawba leaders had already known: "Red Thunder Cloud" was neither Catawba nor Native American, and had never had any contact with the Catawba people until Speck introduced them.