Dressed Skin With Native Drawing
date: label: Accession Date
content: 31 Dec 1867
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Department Of War
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "LARGE DRESSED SKIN ORNAMENTED WITH COLOR DRAWINGS BY NATIVES. U.S. WAR DEPART. HIDATSA? LOANED: DENVER MUSEUM, MARCH 15, 1965. RETURNED: 10/6/65. LENT TO THE MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS, 8-13-92. LOAN RETURNED: AUG 26 1993. " FIGURATIVE DECORATION.
label: Notes
content: Entered in the original ledger catalog as from the War Department with location of Upper Missouri. Pictographic scenes of warfare and row of quirts painted on buffalo hide.
label: Notes
content: This object is illustrated in Fig. 151 on p. 195 of Maurer, Evan M., and Louise Lincoln. 1992. Visions of the people: a pictorial history of Plains Indian life. Minneapolis, Minn: Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This publication identifies it as a robe with war exploits, Upper Missouri, ca. 1835, native-tanned buffalo hide, and brown, red, yellow, and green pigment. The painted motifs are described in detail on p. 194 of the same publication.
label: Notes
content: This artifact is visible hanging in the upper center of photo copy negative # 90-7266, "Centennial Exposition, Indian Exhibits", 1876 photo of Smithsonian exhibit of American Indian and other artifacts in the United States Government Building at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia; original in Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 95 Box 61 Folder 5. See also https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_400408 .
label: Notes
content: Note re photos: CT Neg. # 2003-3465 and BW Neg. # 2003-3467 are a view of back (undecorated) side of the hide. All other images are of the front, decorated, side.
label: Notes
content: Illus. Fig. 11, pp. 46 and 47 in Penney, David W. 2012. The American Indian: art & culture between myth & reality. Amsterdam: Museumshop De Nieuwe Kerk. It is identified there as a pictographic buffalo robe, circa 1830, tribe unknown, Upper Missouri Region, and also described on p. 46: "The owner of this robe painted it with several different episodes of combat, perhaps the record of a lifetime. He is the figure most often repeated (seven times) in the various scenes and often scaled larger than the others. He wears a shirt with black shoulders and red underneath, short red breechcloth, fringed leggings, and a 'roach' or headdress of red deer hair, an eagle feather and a long braid hanging behind. Twice he holds a smoking pipe (vertically with the stem up and the red stone bowl down) identifying him as a leader of two war expeditions. As pipe carrier, he claims honors for all the enemies slain under his leadership, the four shadowy half figures in a row behind him. In the lower center of the robe, he confronts an enemy to the left who wears a spectacular feather headdress and a red cloth coat, and fights with a spear and shield hung with eagle feather pendants. This same scene is repeated in another robe now in Berlin clearly painted by the same artist."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Oct 2024
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Upper Missouri River, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 67A00050
label: USNM Number
content: E2130-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Hide Painting
physicalDescription: label: Unknown - Object
content: 160 cm
label: Unknown - Object
content: 178 cm