Mike Cowdrey provided the following commentary on this:
A Sioux Painted Pictographic Muslin
When the various tribes of Lakota, or Western Sioux, Indians were confined to reservations in Dakota Territory following 1870, their traditional lifestyle was affected in many ways. Encouraged by government agents to abandon their traditional tipi homes, by the mid-1880s many Lakota families had been moved into mud-chinked log cabins, like those inhabited by White frontiersmen. Cabins made of split logs chinked with moss and mud required constant upkeep to replace the chinking which tended to crack and fall out. This created interior drafts which were a health problem on the frontier, especially during the winter.
Frontier housekeepers by the 1870s had adopted the expedient of lining the interior walls of log cabins with panels of muslin or canvas cloth, which blocked the worst of the drafts and also helped to keep bits of the mud chinking from falling or blowing into the interior, where sweeping up the detritus was a daily chore. Indian cabin owners learned this strategy from their White neighbors. These cloth linings might be simply tacked into position as separate cloth strips; or be sewn together into larger panels cut to cover an entire wall. An 1890 photograph of the interior of the cabin of the Oglala Lakota Chief American Horse (Figure 1) shows muslin liners extending from the roof line, about two-thirds of the way to the floor. Log cabins of other Lakota in this same period received similar linings.
Image courtesy of Denver Public Library;
Western History Collection.
An ancient, Lakota tradition was to paint the leather walls of their tipi homes, and also the rectangular linings, or draft screens, tied around the interior. In both shape and function, cabin liners were analogous to the earlier tipi liners, so it was perhaps a logical step to transfer the traditional decorative motifs when cabin liners were adopted. The tipi liners of prominent warriors commonly were decorated with painted depictions of their martial exploits.
Figure 2 shows an 1890 photograph of two young, Oglala women posed against an exterior wall of their log cabin home. Doubtless at the photographer's suggestion, the interior cloth liner has been temporarily removed and tacked to the outer wall as an interesting backdrop for the portrait. This image documents an example with the panels of muslin sewn into a solid wall covering; and also that by 1890, cabin liners covered with painted figures were an established tradition in Lakota reservation communities.
Image courtesy of Denver Public Library;
Western History Collection.
In the wonderful example considered here, created ca. 1895, note the perimeter holes, tack impressions and traces of rust, showing how the muslin was originally attached to the wall of a log cabin. Three warfare vignettes are shown at the right, while a carefully-detailed depiction of the Sun Dance ceremony fills the center and left sections of the panel. Documentary depictions of religious ceremonies were a new addition to the Lakota repertoire, which began to appear in the 1880s with the urgent sense that many of these traditions might disappear. Some were made for sale to interested non-Indians. Others, like this example, were clearly made for personal use, perhaps as instructive primers for the children of the family, documenting details of Lakota religious practice.
The family provenance is that this painted muslin was collected on the frontier by Capt. John H. Patterson, 20th U.S. Infantry, and presented as a gift to Dean Sage, in whose family it has descended. Sage was an avid sportsman, author of the fly-fishing classic The Restigouche, and Its Salmon Fishing (1888), and an associate of the famed New York architect Stanford White, who often accompanied Sage on expeditions to his New Brunswick hunting and fishing camp. White designed the buildings for Sage's Camp Harmony, opened on the Restigouche in 1896. Patterson was an early guest.
Capt. (later Brigadier General) John H. Patterson (Figure 3) was a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, for conspicuous gallantry during the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia, May 5, 1864, when he "under the heavy fire of the enemy picked up and carried several hundred yards to a place of safety a wounded officer of his regiment who was helpless and would otherwise have been burned to death in the forest." Patterson was later in command of the 22nd U.S. Infantry, when he was badly wounded during the Battle of Santiago, Cuba, July 1, 1898, resulting in his retirement from military service (see list of casualties, New York Times , July 3, 1898). During his earlier service with the 20th Infantry, he was posted to the Department of Dakota, 1881 -1897, where he served at Fort Assinniboine and Fort McGinnis, Montana Territory (see Coe, 1896: 666-672). During this period, on annual leaves of absence to his home in Ohio, Patterson would have passed by the Lakota reservations along the Missouri, doubtless stopping at forts in Dakota Territory to visit fellow officers. It is likely that from one of these he acquired the painted-muslin cabin liner which he later gave to his friend Dean Sage.
Capt. John H. Patterson
In the warfare vignettes at upper right and at right center, the attacking enemies are recognized as either Crow or Hidatsa, related tribes whose warriors wore their hair with a stiffened pompadour in front, and the forehead often painted red. In the upper scene, the artist is probably the rider at left, shown rescuing another Lakota from an enemy onslaught. Note that the two (probably Crow) enemies have emptied their quivers, firing thirteen arrows at the fleeing Lakota. One arrow has struck the artist's sorrel gelding; and another has wounded the rescued man in the left calf. The artist is wounded in the left hip. In the vignette at right, center, the artist shows himself on the horse at right, riding over a Crow man and counting coup by striking the enemy in the face with the barrel of his flintlock rifle. The Crow, who holds both a rifle and a revolver, has wounded the artist's horse in the nose. Two other Crow at far right have fired at the Lakota, missing the artist but killing his partner, seen falling from the bay horse at left. The dead Lakota has been shot through the heart and the left forearm, dropping an 1866-model Winchester carbine. His feathered bustle and roach headdress identify him as a member of the Omaha Warrior Society (compare Bad Heart Bull, 1967: 115-116).
In the vignette at lower right, the enemy is recognized as Pawnee, from his black moccasins and plucked scalp. The artist shows himself counting coup on this enemy by smashing him in the lower back with the butt of his rifle.
The extensive Sun Dance scene includes 58 figures shown in careful detail within the large, open structure created for this four-day ceremony. The Center Pole, a large cottonwood tree ceremonially felled for the occasion then erected within the circular structure, has attached offerings denoting the eventualities being prayed for: plentiful game and defeated enemies, represented by the blackened rawhide cut-outs shaped like a buffalo and a (dead) man; and numerous captured horses, represented by the horse tracks painted on the red cloth banner near the top. The horizontal bundle of greenery fixed in the fork of the Center Pole was composed of cut chokecherry branches, as a petition for plentiful, wild fruits during the coming season.
For all of these benefits, the Lakota warriors who have pledged to participate were paying in advance, and in blood. Tied to the Center Pole by a rawhide rope attached to wooden pins pierced through the skin of his chest, a red-painted dancer raises his arm in supplication. His globular headdress of owl and eagle feathers identifies him as a member of the Miwatanni Warrior Society (compare Bad Heart Bull, 1967: 106). He will arch back, throwing his whole weight and strength against the wounds in his chest, until the wooden skewers are torn from his flesh. Then the painted horse beside him will be given away, to further demonstrate his sincerity. Three other members of the Miwatanni Society may be recognized from their similar headdresses, seen from the rear: two are standing second and third from the right in the line of Sun Dancers; and the other is standing third from the left.
The other Sun Dancers standing at left and right await their own turns to make similar sacrifices. Elaborate headdresses and decorated war lances may be recognized as those of the Cante T'inza (Strong Heart), Miwatanni (Mandan), Ihoka (Badger), Tokala (Kit Fox) and Sotka Yuha (Bare Lance) Warrior Societies (compare the different ensigns illustrated by Bad Heart Bull, 1967: 104-116). A group of male singers sit on the ground at far left, providing musical accompaniment for these sacrifices, which might extend from dawn to dusk in the long days of late-June. Just to the left of the base of the Center Pole may be seen a buffalo skull, the altar for the ceremony, with a rectangular design painted between its horns. Behind this skull sit four senior priests who are directing the ceremony.
Male and female spectators are ranged across the foreground, some on horseback, each dressed in elaborate clothing for this solemn occasion. Three of the women hold parasols against the hot sun. Two women and one man are wrapped in buffalo robes decorated with narrow, horizontal stripes of porcupine quillwork. Two other women are wrapped in black and white striped Navajo blankets, prestige trade items avidly sought by the Lakota. Two women seen from the rear, on horseback at the left, wear leather dresses with fully-beaded capes. Another woman on the horse at far right wears a dress of red wool cloth, with the top covered in elk teeth. Two of the male spectators, at far left and near the center, have long strings of circular, nickel-silver hairplates attached to their scalplocks and hanging vertically down their backs.
Four other, painted-muslin panels created by this same, remarkable artist are known to survive in corporate and private collections. Two of these seen by the author, in an ecclesiastical collection, have a direct provenance from the Cheyenne River (Miniconjou Lakota) Reservation, South Dakota, c. 1900. This is only the second example of this fine artist's work to come to public sale in the past half century.
Mike Cowdrey
San Luis Obispo, CA
October 1, 2008
Bibliography
Bad Heart Bull, Amos (Helen H. Blish, ed.)
1967 A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Coe, Capt. J.N.
1896 " The Twentieth Regiment of Infantry ," in Theo F. Rodenbough and William Haskin, eds., The Army of the United States: Historical Sketches of Staff and Line with Portraits of Generals-in-Chief. New York: Maynard, Merrill Company.
Sage, Dean
1888 The Restigouche, and Its Salmon Fishing ; with a Chapter on Angling Literature. Edinbourgh: D. Douglass. Limited edition reprints were issued in 1973 & 1993.
Figure Captions
Figure 1 Interior of the log home of Chief American Horse, Pine Ridge, S.D. Photo by Clarence G. Morledge, 1890. Note the muslin cabin liner tacked to the walls, from the roof about 2/3 of the distance to the floor. Denver Public Library, Neg. No. X-31435.
Figure 2 Young Oglala Lakota women posed outside their log home. Note the painted-muslin cabin liner, which has been moved to the outer wall as an interesting backdrop for the portrait. Photo by Clarence G. Morledge, 1890. Denver Public Library, Neg. No. X-31431.
Figure 3 Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, 22nd U.S. Infantry, 1898, the man who collected this painted muslin in South Dakota.
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