The family room of Rene Battinau’s home in Greenwood was a miniature museum of Native American artifacts culled from across the country.
Daily Journal Archive Photo
News from around Johnson County as reported on Aug. 17 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 1991, the main story on the front page of the Daily Journal was about a Greenwood man and his collection of Native American artifacts.
The story begins with Rene Battinau sitting on a sectional sofa in his family room, looking at arrowheads and spear tips and hundreds of other Native American artifacts on the walls, trying to envision the people they represented.
“I’d give a day of my life to be able to go back in time and find out who made that and what they looked like, and what their lives were like,” Battinau said.
This would mean meeting an awful lot of people.
For more than 30 years, Battinau had studied and collected artifacts having to do with Native Americans. His quest had taken him from Indiana to the Ozark Mountains to the Great Plains to the Mayan ruins in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
Now the family room in the Greenwood home, Battinau, his wife, daughter and son share was a teeming history of Native Americans.
“He has what I would call the Cadillac of Indiana artifact collections,” said Steve Owen of Moscow, Indiana, a friend and fellow collector. “He’s got one of the most fabulous collections that I’ve ever seen that was not encased within museum walls.
More than 50 airtight display frames of artifacts line the walls in Battinau’s home. More are in storage. Also on display are peace pipes, bags, pouches, tomahawks, various items of jewelry — and a salmon smacker used by Northwestern Native Americans, who would put boards in the water during salmon runs.
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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
1973
The “energy crisis” struck deep into Johnson County as the Indiana Gas Company told six businesses their natural gas supply would be cut off for 10 days.
1963
A man who reportedly escaped from a Virginia “chain gang” was being held at the Johnson County jail after he was arrested outside a Greenwood police station.
1943
A war-time blackout as part of a simulated test in Johnson County was a success, even as firefighters had to respond to a real fire in Franklin.
