Fire Cloud - "the painter"

[gregor]

Hi,
have you ever wondered why Fire Cloud was photographed with a paintbrush in hand - how I did for a long time? Was he a painterman on the reservation?



I think this is the answer:



The associated Leslie's article (January 22, 1887) says:

"A Remarkable Indian Ceremony. Dedicating a Sacred Rock to Peace and Plenty. We give on page 385 and illustration of an interesting ceremony which took place in November last at Standing Rock, the Great Sioux Indian Agency, near Fort Yates, Dakota, when the 'standing rock' for which the agency was named by the dusky warriors, was unveiled. ...........

In order that the 'standing rock' might be preserved as the sacred idol of the tribe, Major McLaughlin, the agent, announced to Sitting Bull and his fellow chieftains that it would be placed upon a pedestal, vailed, and on a given date, with prayers and thanksgiving, it would be unvailed to the sun god, and that ever after it should there remain, undisturbed and unmolested. The pedestal was erected, and on November 27th [1886] the chiefs and their families, followed by the entire population of the Indian city, numbering over 5, 000, filed with reverential tread to the holy spot. ..........

Sitting Bull declared that none but the purest man in all the tribe should perform the sacred service. They must search and catechise until they found a man whose life had been absolutely pure, that the holy rock might lose none of its purity. A hundred chiefs had been questioned, when Fire Cloud, of Fire Heart's band, was chosen. ........

At the close of the agent's speech, Fire Cloud, ......, stepped forward, and for over an hour daubed and smeared the sacred maiden with paint, praying as he swung his brush. As interpreted, the prayer was remarkable, for it was the first time in the history of the natives that an Indian had prayed for peace. Their prayers are usually for victory with the tomahawk and scalping-knife, or for an abundance of food. But Fire Cloud prayed for peace and the purification of the Indian heart; he asked forgiveness for the sins and transgressions of his people, and promised the great Spirit that the fearless Sioux would for ever protect the holy 'standing rock.' His prayer closed with an appeal to the Great Spirit for an abundance of rain and bountiful crops in the future.
A few mysterious waves of the paint-brush, several additional daubs on the face of the neck, and the ceremony was closed; ....."

So far the article - I've omitted some of the disparaging comments.

greetings from Germany - gregor

[grahamew]

Interesting - I wondered about that! It also allows us to date the Barry portrait to late 1886 - and maybe the others with that backdrop too, rather than 1885.

amertribes.proboards.com/thread/1680/david-barry-sitting-bull-backdrop

[kingsleybray]

fantastic detective work, gregor! There is a whole tradition of sacred rocks (tunkan) being painted, usually red. Among the Mdewakanton they seem to have marked home territories for villages. The famous Standing Rock was itself originally a sacred rock in an Arikara village. So possibly a fitting concept as the Lakotas realised, like it or not, that the new reservations constituted permanent homes. And in this new world of breaking up reservations, allotting individuals and so on, perhaps the consecration of the Standing Rock was a statement of solidarity and collective, tribal ownership.

[kingsleybray]

In the Standing Rock Agency census Sept, 1881(Sitting Bull Surrender Census p. 25, Family 10), Fire Cloud age 58 is listed in Sitting Bull's own Hunkpapa band, recently enrolled after returning from Canada. Ephriam notes that Sitting Bull himself "asked Fire Cloud to take part in dedicating the Standing Rock monument with Agent James McLaughlin. Fire Cloud resided in several different Hunkpapa bands during the 1880s."

[Dietmar]

Good stuff, Gregor.

You always have to be careful with James McLaughlin´s opinions, but he tells us about Fire Cloud painting the Rock in his book "My friend the Indian" (page 35-39):

"There was one occasion when Sitting Bull appeared
to have accepted the conditions of peace, but it was
apparent afterwards that his attitude at the time of
the dedication and unveiling of Standing Rock was
inspired by a desire to take part in an affair that was
essentially Indian, and had to do with the medicine
of his people.

The Standing Rock, from which the agency at Fort
Yates took its name, was a remarkable petrifaction
or stone formation in the shape of a woman with a
child on her back. The figure was very life-like, and
the Indians had no doubt that it was a petrifaction.
I am inclined to believe that it was, myself, though
it is not life-size. The resemblance between the stone
and any one of a dozen Indian women with children
on their backs who may be seen about its site any day,
is striking enough to startle one. So many years ago
that the story of its discovery is lost in the maze of
antiquity, the Sioux found the figure and ascribed to
it a place in their spiritual beliefs. It was venerated
as a sacred relic, but I never understood that any
peculiar powers were attributed to it. It stood as a
sort of fetich and was regarded with much reverence.
It was the common property of the Teton Sioux, but
it lay for years in the section occupied by the Lower
Yanktonai, and that band was the protector of the
rock. While the agency took its name from the rock,
the petrifaction was located some five miles above the
agency. I proposed to the head men that it be brought
down to the agency, and set up on a pedestal placed
on a height overlooking the Missouri, which height
was known as Proposal Hill, owing to the fact that
much of the courting indulged in by the young people
of the Garrison occurred while strolling over its slopes.
They acquiesced in this suggestion at once, and elabo-
rate preparations were made for the setting up of the
stone.

A great council was held, and it was decided by the
medicine men that the duty of dedicating and unveil-
ing the stone could only be performed by some man
possessing all the Indian virtues, and whose life was
stainless. It was not an easy matter to pick out a
man having these qualities, and there was much dis-
cussion. While the matter was being decided, the
rock was brought down to the agency and a pedestal
erected.

Along with this rock, there was another that was
also good medicine, it being the petrifaction of a little
dog, which Indian belief declared belonged to the
woman and must be kept with her.

There was a great deal of building going on about the
agency at that time; and after the rocks were
brought down, the smaller one, becoming mixed with
the " black person- heads" used for the building of a founda-
tion wall, was built into a wall and lost. The little
dog is not far removed from the figure of the woman
at whose feet it lay for years, but it is part of the wall
upon which one of the agency residences is built, a
few rods back of the site of the standing rock.

There was so much palavering and discussion as to
the merits of various virtuous Indians, that the rock
was ready for the dedication before a selection had
been made. Eventually, it was decided that Fire
Cloud, a member of Fire Heart's band of Blackfeet,
possessed all the needful virtues, and he was desig-
nated to perform the ceremony of dedication.

Fire Cloud had been a hostile, and his peculiar
virtues were intensely Indian, and therefore not of a
character to appeal to the whites. He was known as a
clean man and a most powerful worker on the spirit
in the matter of making prayers. I have heard no-
where more powerful or eloquent pleading than Fire
Cloud was capable of when the spirit moved him. He
undertook to make the stone ready for the dedication,
and he indulged in much preparation himself. His
heart and body had to be made clean for the work,
and this required much medicine-making. The day
before the date set for the unveiling of the stone, Fire
Cloud spent in painting with much elaboration the
figure of a woman. He used many colors, and each
stripe applied meant something sacred in the symbol-
ism of the medicine men of the Sioux. These sym-
bolical figures were held secret by the medicine men,
the common people not knowing anything about
them, and some of them were undoubtedly invented
under the inspiration of the work engaged in. The
night before the ceremony, the painting was com-
pleted, except a few stripes that must be applied after
all was done, and the figure, standing on a rock pedes-
tal, was wrapped about in an ordinary blanket, and
all was ready. The next day, the people gathered for
the ceremony. Sitting Bull was there, his spirit appar-
ently tamed, and he a peace advocate for the first time
in his life.

I talked to the people ; told them how fitting it was
that the rock should be preserved and placed so that
it might be seen for miles up and down the Missouri,
to the end that travelers might know that the Sioux
lived, and were protected, on the lands that had been
their fathers'. Even the hostiles appeared to be grati-
fied. Then Fire Cloud stood by the rock, and pro-
nounced an invocation that was profoundly moving,
coming as it did from an Indian who had hitherto
shown no disposition to be at one with the whites.
Addressing the Great Spirit, he prayed for peace,
hoping that the erection of the monument would
establish a lasting peace in all the land, between the
Indians and the whites, and among the Indians as
well. He would have the Great Spirit bless the rock,
and the place, that it might be regarded as a pledge
of eternal cessation from warfare. Sitting Bull and his
people gave guttural assent in many "Hows" which
sounded like Amens. Fire Cloud prayed that the
Great Spirit would bless his red children and prosper
their crops, withholding the hail that had desolated
their fields the previous year. He turned to the In-
dians and charged them that it was their duty to
observe the laws of the Great Spirit, and those among
them who had not clean hearts and hands should
stand abashed and humiliated in the presence of the
woman of the Standing Rock and the Great Spirit;
he called on them to repent and devote themselves to
leading clean and pure lives in the future. The appeal
and the prayer were exceedingly impressive, and
must have lasted an hour. At its conclusion, I per-
formed the ceremony of unveiling by removing the
blanket, and Fire Cloud added a few more painted
symbols.

To this day, Standing Rock remains fixed on the
brow of the hill overlooking the Missouri, but it is
not as impressive in its aspect as it was originally.
On one occasion, when I was absent from the agency
for some days, the employees concluded to surprise
me by pulling down the rock pedestal upon which the
Standing Rock was placed, and to show how the In-
dians had progressed in the arts of civilization, they
built for it a modern and less attractive structure of
brick and mortar. But it stands there in all its essen-
tiality as it was; and the spirit of peace invoked by
Fire Cloud has settled down to abide over the land
of the Teton Sioux to the west of the Missouri."

My friend the Indian by James McLaughlin page 37-39

[Dietmar]

Here´s another Harper´s Weekly picture of the Standing Rock, painted with symbols, published in January 1879:

[Dietmar]

This comment seems to be by photographer David F. Barry himself:

"The big chiefs and medicine men of all tribes gathered at the Agency to arrange the ceremony of unveiling the Standing Rock, which had been mounted upon a pedestal, where it is intended it shall stand for all time. For hours they sat in council talking over the legends connected with this historical monument, and endeavoring to decide whom they should honor with the duty of offering the prayers and painting the rock. It was decided that no man should touch the rock who had been guilty of any offence or wrong of any kind. Sitting Bull said that only the purest man in all the tribes could perform this sacred service. They must search until they found a man whose life was absolutely pure, that the sacred stone might not in any way be poluted. After discussing the merits of a hundred chiefs, Fire Cloud of Fireheart's band was chosen. That afternoon the Indians gathered about the rock to perform the ceremony.
According to the Indian superstition no Indian could remove the covering, and they were in a quandry how to proceed, when Major McLaughlin stepped forward and removed the blanket. In a speech Major McLaughlin told the Indians that he had found this rock sacred to the Indian and of historic interest to the whites, frequently changed from place to place; that he had built for it a pedestal and there it should remain forever, for their children and grandchildren, for all ages to look upon. When Major McLauglin retired, Fire Cloud stepped forward and spent an hour painting the rock, praying meanwhile. The prayer was a remarkable one to issue from an Indian's lips. Fire Cloud was a late hostile and his audience consisted of Sitting Bull and his braves. Never before has an Indian been known to pray for peace; their prayers have always been for success in battle, or for the increase of game.
Fire Cloud told the Indians there that if they had done any wrong in all their lives they should be ashamed, there in the presence of the holy rock, repent and live absolutely pure lives. He thanked the Great Spirit and the rock in behalf of all his nation for the peace which they had been blessed with and prayed that it might last forever. He closed his prayer with an appeal to the Great Spirit that he should not send them any hailstorm, that the crops be good and their people be kept from any sickness. A few more strokes of the paint brush and the remarkable ceremony was ended. They instructed the Shadow Catcher that he must not take a picture during the prayer and painting of the rock; but I took Fire Cloud with his paint brush. The Siouxs claim this stone was a squaw, who turned into a rock."

-- Notation on photograph in the Burdick Collection of Barry photographs. (February 1937)

siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!92259!0

[lgarcia]

As Kingsley pointed out the Arikara originally owned the Standing Rock (Inyanbosdata=Dakota; Inyanwoslata =Lakota)
I am sure it is in "My Friend the Indian" by James McLaughlin where he says that the stone now on the pedestal is not the Holy Stone.
The people would not allow the Holy Stone to be displayed where it could be desecrated.
From my understanding the "real" stone was or is at a private museum at Shields, ND.
Here at Spirit Lake we have a similar Holy Stone of a Hidatsa woman and her baby called by the White people "Devils Tooth".
They just call it Inyanwakan (Holy Stone)because the old name has been lost.
Toksta ake,
Louie

[gregor]

Hi folks,
thanks for your additional information! I never imagined that Fire Cloud could be such an interesting person.

I think this photo should be added to this thread:



If we look at the picture and the written facts, I suppose the agenda of the celebration was like this:

- McLaughlin unveiled the sakred Stone
- Sitting Bull talked and announced Fire Cloud and
- Fire Cloud dedicated and painted the monumet

Toksha

Gregor

[ladonna]

I know that there are four so called Standing Rock located in Spirit Lake,
Fort Peck, Standing Rock and on the east side of the Missouri River in an old
Arikara camp

[grahamew]

Here's Rudolf Cronau's depiction of a painted stone at Fort Snelling at Red Rock Prarie:



More about it here: collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/36/v36i01p018-023.pdf

[grahamew]

Thanks to Kingsley's link, here's a Fiske photo of the Standing Rock, by that time, mounted on a plinth: thefirstscout.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/a-sacred-stone-as-related-to-ab-welch.html