 Sarassani and Native American members of the circus came to the opening, and the Native Americans performed death songs for May.The museum was founded by May's widow and an eccentric Austrian named , who was a fan of May's work and had travelled to the American frontier, and liked to tell tall tales about his time there.Tobis donated a large collection of artifacts to help found the museum's collection, which included 17 scalps, some of them from Native Americans.