Buffalo Tipi Model
date: label: Accession Date
content: 18 Mar 1904
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. James Mooney
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: Buckskin cover painted on exterior. White with red section at ears and around bottom, row of buffalo at baseline, those at each end with heart line and bird perched on back, figure of elk with heart line and pipe at center, horsehair pendant. Unpainted hide door. Set of poles. 54" (137 cm). Records: Origin of tipi unknown. The model is from dictation by daughter of former owner. The shield represented with large and small tripods and "leaner" is a variant of the buffalo shield carried by Hanguapa. Illustrated in Ewers 1978: 23. (C). Associated names: Hanguapa. (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: Notes
content: Illustrated and described on p. 240 of Torrence, Gaylord. 2014. The Plains Indians Artists of Earth and Sky. Skira. Candace Greene's catalogue entry notes about it: "In 1867, dozens of painted tipis were proudly displayed in the great Kiowa camp circle; by 1892 only a single painted tipi remained in use. With the imposition of the reservation system and the loss of the buffalo, tipi painting all but disappeared. The designs, however, were not lost. Although inactive, they were preserved by families as an important form of intangible property, as the Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney learned. Between 1895 and 1904, he was able to secure information on ninety designs, and he had over half of these recreated in miniature, each painted by or under the authorization of a close family member in keeping with tribal custom. Authorization for the Buffalo Tipi came from the daughter of Never Got Shot, the last owner of the design. She either did not know or chose not to share information about its spiritual origins and meaning. Like other tipi designs, it must reference a spiritual encounter with a group of bison and an elk (wapiti). The pipe next to the elk was used to supplicate the spirit world, and the elk and two bison bulls show banded lines reaching from deep within their bodies to their mouths, representing the path by which spirit power was conveyed from within through exhaled breath."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Dec 2024
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Oklahoma, 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: 042431
label: USNM Number
content: E229905-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Tipi Model