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Post by grahamew on Jul 5, 2018 13:59:28 GMT -5
Is this a sash or (with some artistic licence) a fox/colt/calf-skin cape? Drawing by Short Bull
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Post by carlo on Jul 5, 2018 14:09:30 GMT -5
Hmm, from the overall shape, the tail dangling at the end, and the white feet/socks, I'd venture to say it's a fox skin... ie. warrior society badge.
From which ledger is this? I don't think I've seen this one before.
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Post by grahamew on Jul 5, 2018 16:35:54 GMT -5
Fox was my first thought - though I would expect a white-tipped reddish tail, but then that just might reflect my knowledge of foxes native to the UK. The Hood Museum has a collection of Short Bull's drawings; it's referred to (and this drawing is published in - through the pursuing Indians are identified as Crow) Ledger Narratives: The Plains Indian Drawings of the Lansburgh Collection at Dartmouth College, edited by Colin Calloway.
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Post by Historian on Jul 9, 2018 10:02:21 GMT -5
Is this a sash or (with some artistic licence) a fox/colt/calf-skin cape? Drawing by Short Bull 1. The writing on the ledger reads "Craze Horse figths shoshones" which would translate as "Crazy Horse fights Shoshones." I'm not certain why it would then be thought that the group depicted on the right would be Crow instead. If it was perhaps because of the unique hair style, with the front hair push up, this is not unique to the Crow, as seen by many old photos of Shoshone wearing this similar hairstyle, including the Shoshone man known as Gorasimp, photographed by Baker & Johnstone around 1890.
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Post by Historian on Jul 9, 2018 10:05:06 GMT -5
2. In my opinion, the animal depicted on the back of the subject is an American Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes fulvus). As you can see from these two photos of American Red Foxes, not all American Red Foxes have a white tip on the end of their tails. 3. In my opinion, the Fox pelt on the subject's back could be a personal war medicine, but I'm inclined to think that it is more likely an arrow quiver made from a tubed Fox pelt.
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Post by grahamew on Jul 9, 2018 10:46:45 GMT -5
The quiver angle's an interesting one. I'd just assumed it was some kind of medicine. Yeah, I know about the Shoshone/Crow thing; I wonder if the (mis)identification was just someone unfamiliar with Shoshone style or maybe they thought the face paint resembled the face paint associated with Crows in other Lakota ledger art.
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Post by carlo on Jul 9, 2018 16:36:28 GMT -5
Yes, Crows were often (very often in battle scenes) drawn with red painted foreheads. This was a distinct feature in Lakota drawings of the Crows that was not used for other tribes. I assume therefore that the enemy was indeed the Crows, in addition to the hero being Short Bull and not Crazy Horse (see other thread.)
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Post by carlo on Jul 9, 2018 16:41:16 GMT -5
I personally doubt that the fox skin is an arrow quiver as he has no bow and no arrows are shown. The other pictograph (see other thread) also does not show him with a bow. I tend to believe it’s a warrior society badge of office.
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Post by grahamew on Jul 10, 2018 6:31:55 GMT -5
Of course, if it is Short Bull and this is a fox skin...
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Post by carlo on Jul 10, 2018 14:06:11 GMT -5
Bingo!
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Post by grahamew on Jul 11, 2018 11:13:23 GMT -5
I'd still like to know why the reference to Crazy Horse on the drawing above and the possible one in the ledger drawing (if that's what it says) in McCoy's article. Maybe he was leading the fight that Short Bull took part in... faculty.washington.edu/kbunn/short_bull.pdf Is that the fox tail on this drawing too, visible over his sash? I wonder if this is the fox medicine wrapped around his hat:
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Post by carlo on Jul 13, 2018 11:18:05 GMT -5
I'd still like to know why the reference to Crazy Horse on the drawing above and the possible one in the ledger drawing (if that's what it says) in McCoy's article. Maybe he was leading the fight that Short Bull tool part in... Could be. Or maybe just to hike up the selling price?
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Post by Historian on Aug 13, 2018 11:09:39 GMT -5
Meanwhile in Anadarko, Oklahoma.... A photo of Kiowa military veterans who are members of the Kiowa Black Leggings Warrior Society, known in the Kiowa language as the Ton-Kon-Gah (Black Legs Group), wearing red capes. The photo was taken by the Kiowa/Otoe-Missouria photographer, Lester Harragarra, who has been the official photographer for the Kiowa Black Leggings Warrior Society since 2005. It is said that the red capes the men wear, pays tribute to a historical member of the Kiowa Ton-Kon-Gah, who took a similar cape from a Mexican army officer during a battle in the early 1800s. During a 2017 interview, Lester Harragarra was quote as saying, "They [the Kiowa] were pretty nomadic and they traveled all over the Southwest part of the United States, even down into Mexico. They at one point had a conflict with the Mexican army and captured and killed one of the general's officers in the Mexican army, and that's where they got the red cape."
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Post by carlo on Mar 3, 2019 2:47:03 GMT -5
Meanwhile in Anadarko, Oklahoma.... Not sure how I missed this post! These are indeed nearly identical to the Lakota style red capes. Given the origin of the Kiowa capes, I wonder if they were the first to make use of them (in the early 1800s) and that the ‘fashion’ travelled north to the Lakotas in the years after. Note that by the late 1700s the Cheyennes and then the Lakotas had pushed the last of the northern Kiowas out of the Black Hills and onto the Southern Plains (joining their Kiowa relatives already there), but the Kiowas still clashed often with the Cheyennes and less frequently with the Lakotas until about 1870. By the early 1800s the Kiowas had joined the Comanches in their raids deep into Mexico, creating havoc there for the better part of the 19th Century, fighting first the Spanish and after 1821 General Santa Anna’s Mexican Army. While evidence is scarce, a quick search online shows that both these armies has soldiers and officers wearing red coats or jackets.
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Post by carlo on Mar 3, 2019 2:55:06 GMT -5
Btw, looking at the second drawing in the 'Sitting Bear' thread, I strongly feel this depicts the same event as the two drawings in this thread with the caped man in the bushes shooting his pistol at the enemy. I now think this could be His Fight, and that he was rescued from his predicament by a comrade on horseback. I have recently studied several of His Fight’s drawings more closely and came to the conclusion that the man depicted in the bushes is indeed Sitting Bear and that he was rescued by another man, possibly His Fight himself.
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