Post by wyandotte303 on Jul 21, 2018 20:48:02 GMT -5
I found the neighboring thread on Short Bull to be so fascinating that I looked at other drawings of the artist's in the Hood Museum of Dartmouth College. Below are three that appear nearly identical in subject and treatment. They all tell the same narrative—Short Bull's encounter with an enemy Pawnee warrior. The reason for the second drawing might be that Short Bull wanted to show the action of driving his spear into the enemy's chest, a movement he could not show in a single picture. If that's the case, the use of two nearly identical drawings to show time and action is remarkable. But, whatever his intention might have been in duplicating the first drawing, the third drawing confirms that he used a series of images to give a kinetoscopic frame-by-frame feel to a complete action, one in which he presumably kills his enemy but not without losing his horse in the process.
A couple of other drawings by Short Bull complicate any definite interpretation, however. One shows the same warriors and scene, but Short Bull has painted his horse a different color, and a fifth drawing shows him having speared three Pawnees, two warriors and a woman. In that scene he wears a war bonnet. These several drawings—at least four of them highly similar—point to some kind artistic or narrative motive, even if it's unknown. In any case, Short Bull is a remarkable artist and, so far, one-of-a-kind.
The only other instance in which I've seen a warrior-artist duplicate the same scene is in the so-called Half Moon ledger at Harvard's Houghton Library, about which Castle McLaughlin wrote her 2013 A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn. But in this case, rather than using separate images to tell his action story, the warrior-artist's three drawings represent his struggle to improve on his earlier efforts. (The first two drawings face each other on the same spread; the third comes at a later time.)
I'd appreciate learning of any other instances of repeated drawings that members here have found in Plains ledger art. The repetition of drawings may be more common than it seems.
If anyone would like exact references to these drawings in either the Hood Museum or Houghton Library websites, I'll be happy to provide them.
UPDATE: As luck would have it, I just received a copy of Ledger Narratives, which Graham mentioned in the Short Bull thread. To my surprise, it includes a ledger drawing (Plate 11 in the book) of a naked Cheyenne warrior designated Lance by his name glyph, who lies on the ground at the mercy of an enemy, probably a soldier, who trains his rifle on the fallen Cheyenne. From the Ledger Narratives image, one would suppose that Lance could only escape by a miracle—or by his sacred war paint.
In fact, an earlier drawing, quite possibly by the same artist, offers the solution to the mystery—the soldier's rifle misfires, and the sacred paint saves the Cheyenne warrior Lance. This second drawing appears in Cheyenne Dog Soldiers: A Ledgerbook History of Coups and Combat (1997). A puff of smoke arising from the hammer of the rifle indicates the misfire.
These two accounts reveal several differences: the fallen warrior in the upper drawing holds no pistol (though he grasps a powder horn), wears no waist blanket, and has a second mark on his chest besides the half moon—which could be a morning star or the imprint of the horse's hoof.
It's possible that the artist drew the lower drawing first, for it appeared in a Northern Cheyenne ledger captured by the Fifth Cavalry at Summit Springs in 1969. The date of the upper drawing is unknown, but it could have been made after 1876 and might reflect a fading memory or need to deemphasize Indian hostility toward the military in the wake of Little Bighorn. All this is speculation, but again we see another example of a revised narrative.
A couple of other drawings by Short Bull complicate any definite interpretation, however. One shows the same warriors and scene, but Short Bull has painted his horse a different color, and a fifth drawing shows him having speared three Pawnees, two warriors and a woman. In that scene he wears a war bonnet. These several drawings—at least four of them highly similar—point to some kind artistic or narrative motive, even if it's unknown. In any case, Short Bull is a remarkable artist and, so far, one-of-a-kind.
The only other instance in which I've seen a warrior-artist duplicate the same scene is in the so-called Half Moon ledger at Harvard's Houghton Library, about which Castle McLaughlin wrote her 2013 A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn. But in this case, rather than using separate images to tell his action story, the warrior-artist's three drawings represent his struggle to improve on his earlier efforts. (The first two drawings face each other on the same spread; the third comes at a later time.)
I'd appreciate learning of any other instances of repeated drawings that members here have found in Plains ledger art. The repetition of drawings may be more common than it seems.
If anyone would like exact references to these drawings in either the Hood Museum or Houghton Library websites, I'll be happy to provide them.
UPDATE: As luck would have it, I just received a copy of Ledger Narratives, which Graham mentioned in the Short Bull thread. To my surprise, it includes a ledger drawing (Plate 11 in the book) of a naked Cheyenne warrior designated Lance by his name glyph, who lies on the ground at the mercy of an enemy, probably a soldier, who trains his rifle on the fallen Cheyenne. From the Ledger Narratives image, one would suppose that Lance could only escape by a miracle—or by his sacred war paint.
In fact, an earlier drawing, quite possibly by the same artist, offers the solution to the mystery—the soldier's rifle misfires, and the sacred paint saves the Cheyenne warrior Lance. This second drawing appears in Cheyenne Dog Soldiers: A Ledgerbook History of Coups and Combat (1997). A puff of smoke arising from the hammer of the rifle indicates the misfire.
These two accounts reveal several differences: the fallen warrior in the upper drawing holds no pistol (though he grasps a powder horn), wears no waist blanket, and has a second mark on his chest besides the half moon—which could be a morning star or the imprint of the horse's hoof.
It's possible that the artist drew the lower drawing first, for it appeared in a Northern Cheyenne ledger captured by the Fifth Cavalry at Summit Springs in 1969. The date of the upper drawing is unknown, but it could have been made after 1876 and might reflect a fading memory or need to deemphasize Indian hostility toward the military in the wake of Little Bighorn. All this is speculation, but again we see another example of a revised narrative.