Iron Jacket
As I remember, in the movieDances With Wolves (1990) one of the Sioux has a Spanish helmet and/or body army handed down for a few centuries.
And in the novel Dances With Wolves by Michael Blake (1988) Lt. Dunbar meets and joins a tribe of Comanches, "the Lords of the Southern Plains", who as the title suggests lived much farther south than the Sioux, in lands which were visited much more often by the Spanish and where Spanish gear was much more likely to have been passed down from generation to generation and from tribe to tribe.
"Iron Jacket (Comanche: Puhihwikwasu'u, lit. 'metal shirt'; born c. 1790 – died 1858) was a Native American War Chief and Chief of the Quahadi band of Comanche Indians.[1]
"Iron Jacket was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man whom the Comanche believed had the power to blow bullets aside with his breath. His name probably resulted from his habit of wearing a Spanish coat of scale mail into battle, which protected him from most light weapons fire.[1][page needed]"
"On May 12, 1858, the jacket (likely inherited from his ancestors) failed to protect him, and he was killed on the bank of the Little Robe Creek tributary of the South Canadian River in the Battle of Little Robe Creek where his band of Quahadi Comanches fought a combined force of Texas Rangers and Brazos Reservation Indians led by John S. Ford, Shapley Prince Ross (the father of Lawrence Sullivan Ross), and Plácido, a Tonkawa chief.[2]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jacket
Fort Parker was a log stockade protecting a small settlement in Limestone County Texas. On May 19, 1836 it was attacked by Comanches and their allies. Five men were killed, 5 women and children were captured, and about 15 escaped.
The captured Cynthia Ann Parker was adopted and raised by a Comanche family and eventually married a chief, Peta Nocona, (c. 1820-186_). Their son Quanah, born about 1845, died 1911 was the leader of the last Comanche band to surrender after the Red River or Buffalo War in 1874-75. He is usually known as Quanah Parker, and spent time with his mother's relatives to learn English after going on the reservation. The government appointed Quanah Parker head chief of the Comanche on the reservation.
Peta Nocona was a son of Iron Jacket, making Quanah Parker his grandson.
In The Comancheros (1961) set in 1843, 59-year-old George S. Lewis (1903-1995) plays Iron Jacket, who is killed in the final battle.
In Texas Across the River (1966), set in 1845, 44-year-old-Michael Ansara plays Iron Jacket, who is still alive, and has a son Yellow Knife, who seems far different from Peta Nocona.
As far as I know Peta Nocona has not appeared in any movies, but Quanah Parker was played by 48-year-old Kent Smith in Comanche (1956) set in 1875, and by 49-year old Henry Brandon in Two Rode Together (1961) reportedly set in the 1880s. share