Indian headdress where water meets land in west Michigan

Near the Grand River's delta into Lake Michigan are many bayous: lawn ornament.

In many parts of USA until the 1990s or 2000s sometimes a cast-iron and smartly painted African-American lawn figure dressed in the livery of a carriage driver or attendant could be seen. Originally some of these were sold with large metal ring in the hand as a convenient anchor point for a horse rider to secure her or his horse when visiting the property owner. Still today there are a few left here and there at relics rather than tie-ups for people who travel by horse, but there are not so many of the cast-iron figurines as before.

The photo on this page is much less common, since the subject is an imagined representative for Native Americans (men). And yet the prestigious headdress in not universal, but pertains to a place and time among only certain societies. Similar to the coachman or carriage attendant described above, this lawn figurine is diminutive and non-threatening to the owners, their guests, and neighbors. Apart from its physical properties, what might be meant by the property owner positioning it far from the house (top left of the photo) near the place that water meets land, facing the approach to the house?

Without talking to the residents and neighbors, it is hard to know which meanings are foremost, and what significance is indirectly expressed at the same time. But here are a few lines of meaning that could potentially intersect in 2020 at this location near Grand Haven, Michigan.

1. Heritage: perhaps the owner has some lineage connected to the Plains Indians.
2. Honor: perhaps the owner has no personal stake, but studies deeply and respects the Native ways of life then and now.
3. Habit: perhaps the owner today is following an earlier generation's lawn decorating decision and maintains the property's look little changed from the 1970s or 1950s.
4. Satire or parody: perhaps the owner sees a conflicted double-meaning. The injustices of past and present are given a visual reminder, even as the pop culture attaches heroic or noble symbolized meanings.
5. Abstracted aspirations: taking the figure to stand for many appealing things, instead of as a person in a social setting and moment of history, perhaps the owner chooses this figure from the lawn ornament retail lot to symbolize things like: living off the land, unfettered by tax collectors, judicious, wise, ancient, embodiment of 'liberty', strong and governed by integrity.
6. Class project: perhaps the owner or family or friend created the statuette as art project and this is the display space it occupies now from that day to today.