Sections Of Painted Buffalo Skin
date: label: Accession Date
content: 27 Oct 1917
label: Collection Date
content: 1848 to 1849
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. David I. Bushnell Jr.
label: Collector
content: Dr. John Evans
label: Donor Name
content: Mr. David I. Bushnell Jr.
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "ORIGINALLY COLLECTED BY [Dr.] JOHN EVANS, THE GEOLOGIST, IN 1846 [sic, should probably be circa 1848-1849?, with 1849 the more likely date, though Evans was also back in the area in 1853] ON THE UPPER MISSOURI. SKIN HAS BEEN BURNT. THE [9 FRAGMENTARY] SECTIONS BEAR PICTURES IN INDIAN ART DEPICTING WAR PARTIES, COMBATS, ETC.."
label: Notes
content: The original museum records do not indicate how Bushnell acquired these hide fragments, or knew that they came through John Evans. A biographical sketch of John Evans published in 1935 by Richard Evans (relationship to the subject unknown) provides information on Evans' acquisition of the original robe as well as its subsequent passage to the Smithsonian. The author gives no sources but reports a story that Evans received a robe as a gift in appreciation for his treatment a Native man, the “son of a chief” suffering from cholera, and that “a small portion of this valuable relic was purchased in 1919 in New Orleans, La. from descendants of Dr. Evans to be presented to the Smithsonian Museum” (p.86). No sources are given but this sounds like a story passed within a family. In support of it, Evans was trained as a physician, cholera was epidemic on the Plains in1849-50 as noted in Sioux winter counts, Evans' son Richard (1837-1914) lived in New Orleans, and Bushnell would likely have visited that city around that time in association with his work on the Louisiana Choctaw. A minor discrepancy is that the hide fragments were received from Bushnell in 1917, not 1919. Attribution to some division of the Sioux is plausible but unconfirmed and records do not reveal whether that information also came from the family or was assigned by the museum. Evans, Richard X. 1935. "Dr. John Evans, U. S. Geologist, 1851-1851." The Washington Historical Quarterly 26 (2): 83-89
label: Record Last Modified
content: 20 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 9
place: label: Place
content: Upper Missouri River, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Sioux (Oceti Sakowin)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 061724
label: USNM Number
content: E300856-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Hide Painting