p>Skowhegan's big brave is easily the World's Tallest Indian, though he is too skinny to be the World's Largest Indian (height x radius2 x Pi).
He stands on a 20 ft. base and is 62 ft. tall. He appears to be carved out of raw pine trees, with legs like telephone poles. The World's Tallest Indian was erected in 1969 in observance of Maine's 150th anniversary, created by Bernard Langlais (1921-1977), a sculptor from Old Town who attended the local art school.
It is dedicated to Maine's Abnaki Indians, who are known to have helped the Pilgrims make it through a couple of bad winters. In their heyday, the Abnaki dressed even more comfortably than the statue's crate-like attire suggests. No tomahawk-waving Mohawk with a mohawk here -- this Abnaki gentlemen is content to clutch a fishing trap resembling too-skinny scaffolding.
The engraved wooden sign at the statue's base reads: "Dedicated to the Maine Indians, the first people to use these lands in peaceful ways." On the back of the base is a less noble message: "Copyright 1969, Skowhegan Hospitality Association."
A popular 1970s postcard has helped make this out-of-the-way Indian widely known -- although then he stood against a stark and empty blue sky. Today he is crowded by adjacent taller trees, partly obscured in the back parking lot of a Cumberland Farms convenience store and next to an optometrist's office.
