"Scalp Dance of the Dacotahs"
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: OPPS NEG.3711 C
label: Local Note
content: Eastman made a sketch and oil painting of this subject while at Fort Snelling (McDermott, page 52); the oil painting was sold and Eastman's water color made in 1850 for the engraving in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes of the United States (Volume II, plate 12) was based on his sketch at Fort Snelling. (McDermott, page 52, 61, 85).
label: Local Note
content: Black and white copy negative
name: label: Creator
content: Eastman, Seth
label: Engraver
content: Burt, S.
topic: label: Topic
content: Sioux
creator: label: Creator
content: Eastman, Seth
label: Engraver
content: Burt, S.
culture: label: Culture
content: Dakota -- Mdewakanton
label: Culture
content: Indians of North America -- Great Plains
label: Culture
content: Sioux
setName: label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives
label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives / Additional Materials / Eastman, Seth
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Bushnell, SMC, volume 87, number 3, 1932, page 8, states that the Dakota Indians sketched and painted by Eastman at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, 1841-1848, were Mdewakanton.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Photograph (8x10 in)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1852
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
originalsloc: label: Existence and Location of Originals
content: Eastman's water color is now in the Karolik Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Eastman's list of pictures sent to the American Art Union describes the dance: (from McDermott, page 52) "After the Sioux return from the battle with the scalps they have taken the scalps are dressed, the inside rubbed over with blue clay or vermillion they are then stretched out to a hoop fixed to a pole it is then ready for the dance The scalp is fixed entirely by the Squaws. The medicine men beat time on skins stretched over a keg or made something like a tambourine at the same time singing a monotonous gutteral song. The squaws dance around the scalp in concentric circles. The scalps are carried on the shoulders of some squaws who have lost relatives in battle. After dancing five, ten or fifteen minutes they stop & one of the squaws will state to the assembly that her father, son, brother or husband was killed by a Chippeway [,] Soc or some tribe. She will conclude by saying-"Whose scalp have I got on my shoulder?" Then a grand war whoop is given [and] the dance recommences. The dance continues two or three months until it goes through every village of the tribe. After which the scalp is buried with a good deal of ceremony. Their richest dresses are worn in this dance."