State Dress (Shirt) Of "Chotah" (Sóta) Or Smoke
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1866
name: label: Donor Name
content: William O. Collins
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "previously ent. at 1136. Deep embroidery. From letter to S.E. Baird from Wm. O. Collins Washington, May 8, 1866: "I send you the state robe of Chotah (or Smoke), long the Head Chief of the Ogallallah band of Sioux. It is made of 2 skins of the Rocky Mt. Sheep or goat & the hair ornamenting the border is from the scalps taken by him in war, & the tails of horses obtained in the same manner.-- each cluster of black indicates a single scalp, & the yellow & blue, a horse. In his prime he had been a great warrior, having himself killed & scalped 29 of his enemies. He was a very large & fine looking Indian, weighing at least 250 lbs. And was as remarkable for his good sense as for his bravery. For more than 20 years he had been a fast friend to the whites often saying that they were too many and too strong for the red men & it was foolish to fight them. When about to die he sent for me & I went to his camp which was then about 5 miles from Ft. Laramie, my headquarters, & we had a long talk in the presence of his people. He exhorted them to be always friendly to the whites and requested me to advise & help them in return. He also asked that his remains should be deposited near the Post and the great pathway to the Pacific Ocean and added: 'Don't put me in the ground, put me up high so that all who pass by will see me and say 'That is Chotah, great Sioux chief, friend of the white man. ' I promised & at parting he gave me this robe and his red stone pipe, the most valued relics of his life. He died a few days after & his body was brought by his people to the Fort, thickly wrapped in skins like a mummy, & placed on a scaffold about 10 ft. high in the Sioux fashion, about 1 mi. west of the Fort, on an eminence..... His saddle, bridle, & other equipments were also placed upon the platform with his remains..." SEE PROCESSING LAB ACCESSION FILE 773 FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. BODY OF SHIRT IDENTIFIED AS PROBABLE CALF ELK SKINS, AND FUR PENDANTS AS SUMMER AND WINTER ERMINE, BY DR. ALFRED GARDNER, CURATOR OF MAMMALS, NMNH 1-5-2000. Neg. #99-20263 is view of front of shirt. Neg. #99-20262 is view of back of shirt.
label: Notes
content: Shirt E1851 and what appears to be leggings E1952 and moccasins E8544 appear as clothing on a mannequin representing Red Cloud which was an early mannequin (circa 1872-1873) on display at the Smithsonian, per a photo taken of it there in 1873. In a reconfigured form, the mannequin was on display at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. See Scherer, Joanna Cohan and Vicki Simon. 2017. Red Cloud's Manikin and his Uncle's Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum as Seen Through Photo Analysis. https://web.archive.org/web/20240719183628/https://indigenousknowledge.indiana.edu/scherer/RedCloud/index.htm . A stereograph photo of the mannequin at the Centennial in 1876 is also available at the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2022653168/ .
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Feb 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Fort Laramie, Near, Goshen County, Dakota Territory / Wyoming, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Sioux (Oceti Sakowin), Oglala Lakota
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 000773
label: USNM Number
content: E1851-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Shirt