Saddle
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Feb 1973
name: label: Collector
content: Bishop Henry B. Whipple
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Margaret J. Gilpin
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: ""V" shaped wooden frame with a high flat, backcurved back extension, and upright front one in shape of horse's head. Entirely covered with leather, with some red painting and heavily studded with brass tacks on front and back. Fastened to each side are heavy leather plaques and once leather strips (only part of one left). Beneath this is a leather covered hair pad. Belonged to Chief Cut Nose. This was much deteriorated when received, and Conservation Lab. worked on it. The leather saddle pads, with nails with which they were earlier attached to saddle, retained in NMNH collection because they were made later than saddle which was loaned to the Renwick Gallery. Loaned to the Renwick Gallery 3-26-74. Returned 6/29/1976. Illus.: Ewers, John C. Plains Indian Sculpture; Fig. 204, pg. 205. Identified there as saddle with horse effigy pommel; presented to Bishop Henry B. Whipple by Santee Sioux Chief Cut Nose in 1888; wood frame, painted leather cover, brass tacks, metal rings."
label: Notes
content: Illus. and described p. 128, pp. 130-131 in Ahlborn, Richard E. 1980. "Man Made Mobile: Early Saddles of Western North America." Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, (39) 1–147. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810258.39.1 . Saddle is attributed there as Santee Dakota (Eastern) Sioux by John C. Ewers. However he notes in Footnote 5, p. 136: "[The only other Indian-made saddles with horse head pommels I know of are from the Menominee, neighbors of the Eastern Sioux, J.C.E.]."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 5 Jun 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 3
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Minnesota, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Sioux (Oceti Sakowin), Santee (Isanti) Dakota
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 304671
label: USNM Number
content: E415511-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Saddle