(This is the first in an occasional series about the American Indian - specifically, Mandan Indian - ties to Germany.)

BERLIN - A life-sized figure of a colorful, typically-Hollywood American Indian man - shirtless, painted and saluting - greets visitors to a museum here of world cultures.

The first room in this exhibit - North American Indians in Berlin's Ethnological Museum - is covered in the crass and contentious caricatures of American Indians: A Redskins cap sits in a display across from a toy Smurf wearing a headdress, while Lego men and women gather around a tepee, complete with painted faces and feathers.

Hollywood-style posters feature a famous German literary figure called "Winnetou," created by German author Karl May in the late 1800s.

"Kids are still growing up with toys about Indians, learning that Indian villages have tepees and totem poles," said curator Peter Bolz.

Due in part to Winnetou's popularity and the dramatization of the Wild West, there are generations of Germans whose perceptions of the culture mimic the same stereotypes American Indians fight to change.

For the dismantling of bogus imagery in this city, one only needs to look to Bolz and the collections from German explorers of the 1800s.

"This is the concept," Bolz said. "Work against stereotypes, but show that Indian cultures are different."

The lesson begins with North Dakota.

The rest of the exhibit - after the stereotypes and another room displaying "typically Indian" artifacts, as Bolz describes - starts with a room of the Plains Indians. And the first item in this room is a bison robe from Mandan Indian Mato-Tope, circa 1830.

The museum has about 50 items from Prince Maximilian of Wied, a German explorer whose travels and studies took him through the Dakotas and, specifically, to the Mandan Indians. The walls of the exhibit also are lined with prints from Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who traveled with the prince, painting profiles and recording artifacts.

Most striking from the Maximilian collection are the bison-skin robes, two of which are Mandan. The first is Mato-Tope's, and the second is a lighter-skinned robe painted with animals and mythical beings.

"The buffalo hides from his collection is one of the largest (collections) in Europe," Bolz said, adding that the museum has 11 of them.

In 1844, Maximilan offered part of his collection for sale to a professor in Bonn, Bolz said. When that professor couldn't afford it, the prince then offered it to the royal museum. Of the sale, the Ethnological Museum has a third and the Linden Museum in Stuttgart has the rest. His personal collection remains at his estate.

David Borlaug, president of the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, recently visited the exhibit with Clay Jenkinson, humanities scholar.

"While we had expectations of good things in their collections," Borlaug said, referring to both museums in Berlin and Stuttgart. "We were both astounded at the breadth and depth. Peter Bolz's display was especially surprising, with several Mandan and Hidatsa buffalo robes that just blew us away."

Bolz - who has a degree in ethnology and American Indian culture - is crossing the pond to discuss his exhibit during the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation's symposium on Maximilian and Bodmer, scheduled for Oct. 23-27.

He's studied the culture nearly all of his life, having been intrigued by American Indians as a boy. Bolz has traveled to powwows and sundances, collected extensive current and historical pieces and continues to try to erase the stereotypes that fill the first room of his museum.

He's still looking to round out his Plains Indians collection with a modern powwow outfit to contrast with original, 19th century garb. He lights up when describing influences and the changes in styles, describing everything from function to modern fashion. The museum, however, doesn't have the money for him to purchase one.

At the very least, perhaps, after his visit to North Dakota, he could add a Fighting Sioux jersey to the collection in the first room.

(Tribune reporter Crystal R. Reid is reporting from Germany. She is on a two-month International Center for Journalism fellowship in Berlin. Visit her blog at www.bismarcktribune.com.)