Medicine Bear

[ftpeckpabaksa]

That is interesting. To see Medicine Bear in a picture with leaders of the Three Affiliated Tribes. Alfred Bowers book, I got to read it before. Not too much mention of where he got the information from. Our family has paper's where Medicine Bear and his two son's were given permission to visit their relatives among the Mandan's.

[ftpeckpabaksa]

Dietmer....what year was the picture taken where Medicine Bear is with the Three Affiliated Tribes?

[lgarcia]

Hi gang:
I had the famous Mike Cowdrey look at the this photo.
He siad the man on the far right is Pierre Garreau.
The log buildings in the background is the trading post at Berthold.
The photo is from the Sully Expedition visit of 1867.
later,
Louie

[kingsleybray]

Bad Gun, aka Charging Eagle, was the son of Mato Tope the Mandan chief painted by Catlin and Bodmer. He and Red Buffalo Cow were joint village chiefs of the Nuptadi Mandan (to whom Medicine Bear the Pabaksa chief was related). Bad Gun seems to be wearing similar paint to the Morrow photo of him and Red Buffalo Cow you can see in the Old Mandan photos thread. Anyone know what the paint signifies?

There is a good sequence of photos of the Arikara chief Son of the Star aka Rushing Bear, spanning the 1870s and into the 80s - see the Old Arikara Photos thread. To me he looks younger in this fabulous group shot, suggesting that it may indeed predate 1870. Same for Crow's Breast (Hidatsa). Its an historic image, worthy of very close attention.

Wonder if the army officer can be identified?

Thanks so much for posting this - its my current desktop background!!

Happy New Year to All

Kingsley

[philrob]

Fantastic pictures. Always amazes me there are gems like this to be discovered. The link Medicine Bear had with the Mandan is very interesting, I was not aware of that before. This might explain what ftpeckpabaska calls his "unique" use of shaved sticks in his headgear. In fact Bodmer painted the famous Mandan Four Bears in the winter of 1833-34 with exactly the same kind of painted shaved sticks in his hair representing various coups along with a wooden knife representing his hand to hand combat with a Cheyenne. Maximillian must have purchased these off of Four Bears because they reside in the Linden Museum in Germany. There is a close up photo of them in the English Westerners Brand Book of 1972-73 in an article on the Okipa by the late Colin Taylor. The sticks are shaved half way down and the shavings kept on and look like fluff just like in the Medicine Bear photo. So maybe medicine Bear saw this among the Mandan and adopted the idea for himself.

[grahamew]

Is the officer De Trobriand? He was in Dakota from 1867-9 at Fort Stevenson. He'd be about 51 at the time.

[kingsleybray]

Id thought this officer seemed too young to be De Trobriand, but Im not good at faces like you Grahame

[grahamew]

I thought so too at first, but now I'm not so sure. There must be someone who can say he is/is not wearing the correct uniform or whatever...

[kingsleybray]

good point, philrob, about the shaved sticks worn as coup symbols by Mato Tope and forty years later by Medicine Bear. I think they must have been a fashion among the Village Tribes and some of their neigbours e.g. Yanktonai, Northern Teton Lakotas. Several of the 1872 delegates from Grand River / Fort Peck agencies (A. Gardner portraits accessible on various threads here on A-tribes) seem to wear these sticks. In fact the coup heraldry (sticks, painted feathers etc.) in these 'Northern Sioux' images seems much more developed than contemporary images of Southern Lakotas like the Brules and Oglalas. Got to think its ongoing influence from the Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara connection - but thats a question that Colin Taylor would have been so good at answering.

[ftpeckpabaksa]

I think I posted this in the thread earlier. But, Wanatan, upon his return from the War of 1812. Where he was wounded, he used the sticks to signify his wounds. I think he may have adopted this from one of the tribes he was affiliated with. I thought, that this trait carried on by Medicine Bear...also, the moccasins and the grizzly bear claws and the right given to the bravest warrior of the tribe. This seems unique to the Pabaksa.

[angellica100]

Bad gun's mother was Woman in the Water, Father was Four Bear, Mato Tope ( Mato: Bear, Tope: Four) .. and Bad Gun was aka Stink Gun, before he was just Bad Gun.

[clouds]

Aug 12, 2010 20:16:46 GMT -5 wacintanka said:

Does anybody know who Mato Wakan's Parents were?

On his headstone