Lakota Muslin Tipi Liner by Red Bear (?)

[grahamew]

Description:
Sioux
Pictographic Painted Muslin Tipi Liner, Late 19th Century
Probably Sioux Hunkpapa

Constructed of four pieces of muslin in a rectangular form, finely drawn in black ink and painted in yellow, orange, brown and purple, depicted in seven registers and documenting life and ceremonies of the Sioux, the majority of images relate in particular to various battles, war raids and skirmishes involving the Sioux, the two uppermost registers reading from left to right show Sioux Indians charging on horseback, scalping their enemy, scouting their enemy, engaged in hand to hand combat on horseback, the central register elaborately portrays the Sioux attacking an enemy's campsite, scouting their enemy and hunting, the bottom three registers again depicts Sioux engaged in various stages and situations of battles, including horse raiding, all figures wear typical costume including some figures wearing war headdresses, split horn headdresses, roaches, leggings, war shirts, breech cloths and carrying shields, rifles, knives, lances, bows and arrows, throughout the entire pictograph inscriptions in the Sioux language accompany various images.

This elaborate pictographic muslin has been attributed to Mato Luta (Red Bear), a Sioux Hunkpapa. During the Sioux-Cheyenne campaign, the leader of the Hunkpapa was the famous chief, Sitting Bull, known for defeating U.S. Military in 1876 in the battle of the Little Bighorn. It is believed that this work was created at Fort Yates, on the west bank of the Missouri river, in North Dakota during the final years of Sioux-Cheyenne campaign.

69 x 127 in. (175.26 x 322.58 cm.), Frame: 82 x 140 x 3 in. (208.28 x 355.60 x 7.62 cm.)

Provenance:

Christie's New York, Western & American Indian Art, 30 November 1998, Lot 501

Private Collection, New Mexico

www.santafeartauction.com/auction-lot/a-sioux-pictographic-painted-muslin-tipi-liner-l_A0E4192A1E

You can see plenty of different scenarios - scenes of individual combat between Crow and Lakota; Lakota attacking a Crow village and running off horses; Lakota surrounding something, yet there is no one there (Isn't there a story of the Lakota surrounding the Crow on a butte, but the Crow slip away and when the Lakota arrive, non-one's there?); Crows surrounding a group of Lakota; and at the right a series of numbered pictures that apprear to be unrelated to the conflicts depicted elsewhere. Unfortunately, there's no key for the numbers. 

[grahamew]

Many of the names are difficult to read, but Mato Luta features at the top here



Tatange (Tatanka) komini?


Heraka (Hehaka? Iroka?) Ciqala

[Californian]

thanks Graham for sharing this, I don't know how this one has escaped me, being sold right here in Santa Fe last year  . I know a descendant of Mato Luta, Dawn Red Bear who lives at Cheyenne River. Her paternal grandfather, Joseph Red Bear, who was married to a daughter of One Bull (Sitting Bull's nephew) relocated from Standing Rock to Cheyenne River in the early 1900's. 

[Californian]

the artist was Joseph Red Bear's father, a Hunkpapa, born about 1843 and who died 16 Jan 1929 near what is today the town of Bullhead on Standing Rock Reservation on the South Dakota side. 
[Source: Indian Census, Standing Rock, Indian Reservation death record July 1, 1928 through June 30, 1929]

[grahamew]

There's a Hunkpapa Red Bear in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census (1881) - a member of Thunder Hawk's band, aged 34, already listed as a farmer, though I suppose that means nothing because the events portrayed could relate to ten years previous; there's another - One of Grass' Sihasapa this time - listed as Policeman, aged 38. There's also an Oglala Red Bear who surrendered with Big Road and Low Dog who is also in the Surrender Census. To complicate matters further, there's a notation to suggest he was Cheyenne...

I wish there'd been more about the provenance of this - and that more of the annotation was clearer (or reproduced more clearly in the images on the site!).

This might be pushing my luck, but I wonder if the man on the left is Kangi Ohitika or Brave Crow...

[carlo]

Very nice find Grahame.

One of the names would be Hehaka Chincala = Young Elk

[grahamew]

Thanks, Carlo.

Here are a few more close-ups:


I wonder if all three images tell of Young Elk - success in battle and at stealing horses - and then killed by the enemy...


I find this section interesting - the man in the red short looks like one of those formal photographs of leaders taken in the late 1870s, with dark waistcoat, pipe and bag. If you look on the necks of the horses, there seems to be a mark on most of them


Again, the marks are on the horses in this section too.


Here we have a figure with a name glyph instead of written annotation - looks like a fox or wolf skin garter.

[Californian]

to complicate things even further, there seems to have been yet another Hunkpapa named Red Bear who remained in Canada, participated in Riel Rebellion, was imprisoned for it and died while incarcerated in 1887 ...


I am a Half-Breed, half English and half Sioux. My mother is Hunkpapa, Sitting Bull’s Band (Teton Sioux). We came up here after the Little Big Horn fight. We were at Willow Bunch, and then we came up here (Wood Mountain). In the Riel Uprising they (the Metis) talked my people into joining with them. Mato Wakakesija, one of my grandfathers, was killed in battle. He was shot in the leg and died of the wound. Another grandfather (Red Bear) was captured and died in prison.


excerpts from a text titled "Dakota and Lakota in the 1885 Northwest Resistance" (see the attached PDF for the entire text)


After Sitting Bull left Canada in 1881, “a few Hunkpapa, Minniconjou, Brule and Oglala remained. Some were located at Wood Mountain and Willow Bunch. Others had gone to the Old Wives Lake and the Dirt Hills southwest of Moose Jaw to hunt. Many Lakota had relocated near Prince Albert. About fourteen families, including William Lethbridge’s grandparents, Mato Luta (Red Bear) and Tasunka Topa Naunkewin, along with Kangi Tamaheca (Lean Crow) were at Moose Woods, where they worked for Metis ranchers. The next summer Mato Luta’s family moved to Bathoche where they worked as domestic servants or farm labourers for the Metis. Their loyalty to the Metis was established, so when the Resistance of 1885 became a battle they fought on the side of the Metis.”


Matoluta (Scarlet Bear): (c. 1840-1887)

Red Bear (in the court records) was a Lakota Sioux living in the Batoche area. He is mis-identified as Mah-to-dota or Red Bean in the court records. Sacarlet Bear was involved in the battles at Duck Lake, Tourond’s Coulee and Batoche. Scarlet Bear and his wife Tasunketopanaunkewin (Woman whose horse gallops four times) came to Canada in 1877 after the Battle of the Little Big Horn. In 1881 they moved to Batoche. Scarlet Bear and his brothers fought at Tourond’s Coulee, Batoche and Duck Lake. He was arrested on May 19, 1885 but only charged for his participation at Duck Lake. He was found guilty at the Regina trials and sentenced to three years. This sentence was later reduced to one year. He later died while imprisoned, probably as a result of tuberculosis. He was a veteran of the Little Big Horn Battle. After 1885 his wife and children went to Standing Buffalo reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, then to Moose Jaw and then Wood Mountain Reserve.


In 1972, Peter Lethbridge gave the following oral history to James H. Howard:

I am a Half-Breed, half English and half Sioux. My mother is Hunkpapa, Sitting Bull’s Band (Teton Sioux). We came up here after the Little Big Horn fight. We were at Willow Bunch, and then we came up here (Wood Mountain). In the Riel Uprising they (the Metis) talked my people into joining with them. Mato Wakakesija, one of my grandfathers, was killed in battle. He was shot in the leg and died of the wound. Another grandfather (Scarlet Bear) was captured and died in prison.



In Mountain Penitentiary Mato Luta suffered from an untreated gunshot wound. Through the efforts of Father Lacombe, he was sent back to Regina and was about to be released from prison when he died from blood poisoning. After he died his wife took the family from Batoche to Moose Jaw, then to Fort Qu’Appelle.

Mato Luta and his wife Tasunka Topa Naunkewin came to Canada in 1877 after the battle of Little Big Horn. They were among the Lakota families who remained in Canada after 1881. Along with several other families, Mato Luta traveled north to the Prince Albert area about 1879. He continued to live along the Saskatchewan River; often he worked for Metis families and soon became loyal to his Metis employers. Thus he was active on the Metis side at Batoche during the resistance. After Mato Luta died his family moved to the Qu’Appelle Valley.


Dakota_and_Lakota_in_the_1885_Northwest.pdf (277.47 KB)

Mar 20, 2023 15:41:04 GMT -5 grahamew said:

There's a Hunkpapa Red Bear in the Sitting Bull Surrender Census (1881) - a member of Thunder Hawk's band, aged 34, already listed as a farmer, though I suppose that means nothing because the events portrayed could relate to ten years previous; there's another - One of Grass' Sihasapa this time - listed as Policeman, aged 38. There's also an Oglala Red Bear who surrendered with Big Road and Low Dog who is also in the Surrender Census. To complicate matters further, there's a notation to suggest he was Cheyenne...

I wish there'd been more about the provenance of this - and that more of the annotation was clearer (or reproduced more clearly in the images on the site!).

This might be pushing my luck, but I wonder if the man on the left is Kangi Ohitika or Brave Crow...

[Californian]

after some checking around, this muslin was acquired by Donald Ellis Gallery of New York. I have communicated with Don Ellis, he mentioned that further research into this muslin shed some doubt that the artist was really Red Bear, even though he figures prominently thereon. It would be interesting to find out who inserted the names thereon. I feel that it likely was created by commission, possibly for Frances Densmore who had worked extensively with Jaw/Cepuha (a.k.a. His Fight), a traditionalist, winter count keeper and renowned ledger artist. Jaw and Red Bear lived near one another in the Bullhead district

[grahamew]

Hmmmm. I think you may be on to something there. It couldn't have been the Canadian guy because he stayed in the north, but Jaw... There's a muslin tipi liner at the Hood by Jaw and a robe depicting the battle of Rainy Butte on which several people are named - other commissions, perhaps. The man was prolific, to put it mildly

www.naaer.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/plains/tools-technology/work-3
amertribes.proboards.com/thread/1224

[Californian]

I asked Don Ellis to let me know whom he thinks this muslin should be attributed to. He had items by Jaw at his gallery for sale at one time and would certainly be familiar with him. My gut feeling is, that it is a work by Jaw and would be dated to around 1910-1912

[Steve White-Provost Oizumi]

I am challenging this website. Card carrying American Indians are under attack from expired green cards. This site now has responsibility to ACT appropriately in response. Get moving. Steve White Provost Elam Oizumi. Oglala. Thank you.

[grahamew]

Here's a link on to an incident involving the Hunkpapa Red Bear, where he counted second coup on the Arikara Red Bear - Story No. 2: The Stone by the Road
www.welchdakotapapers.com/2011/12/war-drums-genuine-war-stories-from-the-sioux-mandan-hidatsa-and-arikara/#story-no-5

[shan]

grahemew,

I'm pretty certain that the artist was "His Fight.' I base this on the way he portrays horses. He has a very idiosyncratic way of drawing or painting their heads, so that to me at least, they appear to resemble the heads of swans. He can't help it, his hand just goes ahead and does it whether he wants it to or not. Most artist suffer a version of this, myself included, you think your in charge of your hand, but it just goes ahead and does it its way.

Shan

[Californian]

good point Shan, I am not an expert, I figured that this liner was made by commission and possibly for Frances Densmore with whom His Fight (a.k.a. Jaw) had considerable contact and interaction with around 1912/1913 - the writing thereon is similar as is evident on other pieces that have been attributed to him, perhaps by Densmore herself. There are differing opinions about who the artist is, I would think that documenting the provenance from current owners back to the original owners might lead to some ideas about it. Currently the provenance is very limited, that is from Christy's Auctions in 1996 to a private collector in Santa Fe to the Santa Fe, New Mexico Auction of February 2022 to Donald Ellis Gallery in New York, where it is now available for purchase.