Shield
date: label: Accession Date
content: 8 Oct 1892
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. James Mooney
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: Taime shield E165233-0 and headdress (Tsenbo) E165233A-0. Shield: Rawhide disk with two hide covers, pierced hide and horsehair pendants, brass bell and knitted yarn strap at back. Inner cover: Red around right perimeter, blue around left, painted yellow below red, blue and yellow geometric pattern across center, red Maltese cross at top, cow with blue forequarters at left. Side edges covered by red stroud cloth band with metal cones attached. Outer cover: Red and yellow lines across center, remaining designs obscured by stains. Headdress: Two curved sections of cow horn set in rectangular hide covering painted blue and yellow, edged with beads and hung with twisted hide thongs with remnants of feathers at ends. 17" (43 cm). See 229838-229839 for a model of this shield. See Photographs section, inventory nos. 06260100 and 06260200 for pictures of White Horse carrying this shield. Records: The shield proper is made of rawhide from the neck of a buffalo bull. The inside cover is made of deerskin, ornamented with paintings of a cow-bull. The outside cover is of buckskin. In the center of this cover is a Maltese cross representing the morning star. Below are lines and colorings symbolic of the elements and the sunlight. Around the circumference is a fringe of red cloth with metal pendants and a pendant of cow's tail from the inside. The headdress, which was detached from the shield and fastened upon the head of the owner upon going into battle, consists of a pair of horns made from the horns of a cow-bull, to which are attached several feathers and the wing of a hawk. This shield was obtained from White Horse, one of the most notorious raiders in the tribe. The shield is perhaps thirty years old and contains two bullet holes, one received in a fight with the Navahoes, the other received in a fight with the Texans. (L) (from Merrill, William L. et al. 1997. A Guide to the Kiowa Collections at the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, no. 40. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.)
label: Record Last Modified
content: 29 Oct 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 3
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Kiowa
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 026286
label: USNM Number
content: E165233-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Shield