Ross Frank, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic
Studies, University of California, San Diego. The research for this essay
was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University sponsored
by the Mellon-Sawyer Faculty Seminar in Comparative Race and Ethnicity.
I am indebted to the History Department at Stanford for its hospitality.
This paper was presented on March 16, 1996 at: The Business of Borderlands:
Commerce and Culture on North American Frontiers Shelby Cullom Davis Center
for Historical Studies, Princeton University.
Comments can be sent to
RFRANK@Weber.ucsd.edu
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Stanford Home Page
Ross Frank Home Page
Endnotes:
1 Herbert Eugene Bolton, "The Epic of Greater America,"
in John Francis Bannon, Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1964, 301-332. BACK
2 Ibid., 311. BACK
3 John Francis Bannon, The Spanish Borderlands Frontier,
1513-1821. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1974, 232-238. BACK
4 David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, 334. BACK
5 Howard Hawkes, Red River, (1948) with John
Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Du, and Walter Brennan. Based on Borden
Chase, "The Chisholm Trail," Saturday Evening Post. My
thanks to Alex Nemerov of the Department of Art History, Stanford University
for pointing out the parallel historical text of this cinematic gem. For
a different, yet related criticism of Spanish failure see Félix D.
Almaráz, Jr., "An Uninviting Land: El Llano Estacado, 1534-1821,"
in Ralph H. Vigil, Frances W. Kaye, and John R. Wunder, eds., Spain and
the Plains: Myths and Realities of Spanish Exploration and Settlement on
the Great Plains. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1994, 83-85.
BACK
6 The Spanish word Vecino used here refers to
the non-Indian settlers of New Mexico. The term, literally meaning "neighbor,"
took on a meaning that included a sense of belonging to the province in
late colonial New Mexican documents. Settlers were commonly referred to
by Franciscans or provincial officials as "Vecinos" in distinction
to "Indios," the inhabitants of the Pueblos, who also represented
a type of neighbor. BACK
7 Chapter 3, Ross H. Frank "From Settler to Citizen:
Economic development and cultural change in late colonial New Mexico, 1750-1820."
Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley, 1992. BACK
8 The expansion of silver mining during the last decades
of the eighteenth century produced a heightened demand for foodstuffs, livestock,
textiles, and clothing, which stimulated economic activity especially in
regions most accessible to the mining centers. The relation between New
Mexico and the mining regions of Chihuahua and northern presidios provides
a pale analogy to the example of the Bajío provided in David A. Brading,
Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajío: León, 1700-1860.
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1978, 13-38. Eric Van Young, Hacienda
and Market in Eighteenth Century Mexico. Berkeley: University of California,
1981, shows that haciendas in the Guadalajara region became more stable,
and direct farming more profitable, in the final quarter of the eighteenth
century. He also documents increasing conflict between Indian communities
and haciendas over both agricultural and monte (marginal areas used
primarily for wood and other resources) lands. A number of other hacienda
studies support similar broad trends for the late colonial period: Brading's
study of large-scale agricultural production and markets in the Bajío
reveals both the shift towards cereal production and the intensification
of demesne production at the expense of tenant farmers. The Oaxaca region
followed the same general pattern, although the Indian position in this
case due to a dense Indian population, a strong sense of cultural cohesion,
and the lack of resources or markets during the early period of colonization
to encourage the formation of viable hacienda agriculture after the demise
of the encomiendas. See William B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial
Oaxaca. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. New Mexican economic
development, although later and more sudden, bears comparison to aspects
of each of these regions. BACK
9 Villaseñor, Teatro Americano (Madrid,
1748); Fray Andrés Varo (1749-50) [AFBN #1772, 28:552.1, ff 1-99V,
also Bonilla, AGN:HI, 25, 129r (Archivo General de la Nacíon, México,
DF)]; Fray Atanasio Domínguez (1776) [Adams and Chavez, 1956] and
Antonio Bonilla (1776) [AGN:HI, 25]; Fray Augustín de Morfí
(1782, for 1779) [Alfred Barnaby Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers: A Study
of the Spanish -- Indian Policy of Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of New
Mexico, 1777-1787. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932, 87-113];
Census (1802) [AGI:MEX, 2737 (Archivo General de las Indies, Sevilla)];
Governor Melgares (1820) [SANM II (Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Santa
Fe), TW# 2950, reel 20:498-99]. BACK
10 Oakah L. Jones, Jr., Pueblo Warriors and Spanish
Conquest. Norman, 1966, 131-169. BACK
11 Charles L. Kenner, A History of New Mexican-Plains
Indian Relations. Norman, 1969, 23-77; Alfred Barnaby Thomas ed., The
Plains Indians and New Mexico, 1751-1778. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1940, 21-55, and 111-211. BACK
12 See Frank, From Settler to Citizen, 167-210.
For the sheep trade, see John O. Baxter, La Carneradas: Sheep Trade in
New Mexico, 1700-1860. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1987, 41-80. BACK
13 See the argument of Frank, From Settler to Citizen,
Chapter 6, 316-388. BACK
14 Katherine A. Spielmann, "Interaction Among
Nonhierarchical Societies," in Farmers, Hunters, and Colonists:
Interaction Between the Southwest and the Southern Plains. Ed. Katherine
A. Spielmann. Tucson, 1991, 7-13. BACK
15 See the fuller discussion of these considerations
in John D. Speth, "Some Unexplored Aspects of Mutualistic Plains-Pueblo
Food Exchange," in Farmers, Hunters, and Colonists: Interaction
Between the Southwest and the Southern Plains. Ed. Katherine A. Spielmann.
Tucson, 1991, 18-35. BACK
16 See Katherine A. Spielmann, "Coercion or Cooperation?
Plains-Pueblo Interaction in the Protohistoric Period," in Farmers,
Hunters, and Colonists: Interaction Between the Southwest and the Southern
Plains. Ed. Katherine A. Spielmann. Tucson, 1991, 36-50. BACK
17 See the complaint of Fray Estevan de Perea against
Juan Lopez, Oct. 30, 1633, and declaration of Captain Andrés Hurtado,
Santa Fe, Sept. 1661 in Charles W. Hackett, Historical Documents Relating
to New Mexico and Nueva Viscaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773. Carnegie
Institute Publication. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1937, 3:129-131
and 186-193. BACK
18 Frank Gilbert Roe, The Indian and the Horse.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955, 74-76. BACK
19 Governor Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta to Don
Teodoro de Croix, Santa Fe, January 14, 1772, AGN:PI 103:1, 177R-182R. BACK
20 Spielmann, "Interaction Among Nonhierarchical
Societies," 1-7, discusses the latter term. See the discussion of internal
Comanche concepts of community and groups in Morris Foster, Being Comanche:
A Social History of an American Indian Community. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1991, 65-74. BACK
21 Fray Atanasio Domínguez, in The Missions
of New Mexico, 1776. Ed. Eleanor B. Adams and Fray Angelico Chavez.
Albuquerque, 1956, 112. BACK
22 Governor Francisco Antonio Martín del Valle
to Marqués de Amarillas, July 31, 1758, May 12, 1759, May 31, 1760,
AGN:PI 102:8, 281R-294V. Governor del Valle described the difficult conditions
of 1758 and 1759, and the renewed hostilities of the Indians, but does not
explicitly draw any connection. For the 1770s, see Report of Governor Mendinueta
to Viceroy Bucareli of March 30, 1772, AGN:PI 103:1, 185V; Governor Mendinueta
to Viceroy Bucareli of May 14, 1772, AGN:PI 103:1, 220V; Report of Governor
Mendinueta to Viceroy Bucareli of June 20, 1774, AGN:PI 103:1, 249V-250R,
and September 14, 1774, AGN:PI 103:1, 245R, V. BACK
23 See Francis Haines, "The Northward Spread of
Horses Among the Plains." American Anthropologist 40 (1938),
429-437; Francis Haines, The Plains Indians. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell, 1976, 91-104; Frank Raymond Secoy, Changing Military Patterns
on the Great Plains (seventeenth-century through Early nineteenth-century).
Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1953, 34-38. Secoy over emphasizes
the role of the Apache in the early spead of horses into the Plains, in
part due to his identification of the Padouca as an Apachean group. It most
often was used in Spanish and French accounts to identify a Comanche group.
BACK
24 Governor Mendinueta to Viceroy Bucareli, Santa Fe,
August 19, 1775, AGN:PI 65:3, 414R. BACK
25 See Foster, Being Comanche, 42-44; Elizabeth
A. H. John, Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of
Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795. College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1975, 590-591. BACK
26 Michael M. Smith, "The "Real Expedición
Marítima de la Vacuna" in New Spain and Guatemala," Transactions
of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 64:1 (1974), 8 and
see Donald B. Cooper, Epidemic Disease in Mexico City, 1761-1813.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965; Marc Simmons, "New Mexico's
Smallpox Epidemic of 1780-81." New Mexico Historical Review,
41.4 3 (1966), 19-26. BACK
27 Elizabeth A. H. John, "Inside the Comanchería,
1785: The Diary of Pedro Vial and Francisco Xavier Chaves." Southwestern
Historical Quarterly 98:1 (1994), 49. BACK
28 General Report 1781 by Teodoro de Croix, Arispe,
23 April, 1781, No. 735. AGI:GUAD 253, published in translation in Alfred
Barnaby Thomas, ed., Teodoro de Croix and the Northern Frontier of New
Spain, 1776-1783. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941, 105-114.
BACK
29 See the discussion by Thomas, ibid., 35-58
and Oakah L. Jones, Nueva Viscaya: Heartland of the Spanish Frontier.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988, 1265-172. BACK
30 Don Velez de Cachupín to Viceroy Conde de
Revillagigedo, October 17, 1757, translated in Thomas Plains, 130.
Thomas lists the document from AGN:PI 102. BACK
31 Thomas, Croix, 113. BACK
32 Jacobo Loyola de Ugarte to the Marqués de
Sonora, No. 43, "An account of events which have occurred in the Provinces
of New Mexico concerning peace conceded to the Comanche Nation and their
reconciliation with the Utes since November 17 of last year and July 15
of the current [1786]," translated in Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers,
295. Thomas lists the document from AGN:PI 65. BACK
33 Ugarte to Anza, Chihuahua, October 5, 1786, SANM
II 11:1056-1078, TW# 943, published in translation in Thomas, Frontiers,
342. BACK
34 The documents relating to the request approval and
transmission of funds for the "Indian Allies" for 1787 and 1788
reside in AGN:PI 65:1, 6R-59R. BACK
35 The accounts of the "gastos extraordinarios"
are divided into general accounts that were sent to higher officials to
be audited, and collections of supporting receipts. The general accounts
cover the years 1786 through 1793, as follows: 1786 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 32R-34V;
1787 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 112R-120V; 1788 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 203R-214V; 1789 --
AGN:PI: 67:1, 216R-223V; 1790 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 488R-497V; 1791 -- AGN:PI:
204:15, 337R-341R; 1792 -- AGN:HI: 427:8, 5R-8V; 1793 -- AGN:HI: 427:8,
9R-12R. The individual receipt cover the years 1786 through 1791, as follows:
1786 -- AGN:PI: 65:1, 259R-261V, 67:1. 36R,-76R; 1787 -- AGN:PI: 65:1, 268R-278V,
67:1, 84R-109V, 67:1, 122R-198RV; 1788 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 228R-390V, SANM
II 12:440-455, TW# 1100; 1789 -- AGN:PI: 67:1, 224R, 67:1, 391R-473R; 1790
-- AGN:PI: 67:1, 500R-595V; 1791 -- AGN:PI: 204:15, 342R-419V, AGN:HI 427:8,
1R-4R. BACK
36 See the piece on medias in Simmons, Coronado's
Land, 8-11; and Marc Simmons, "Footwear on New Mexico's Hispanic
Frontier." Southwestern Culture History: Collected Papers in Honor
of Albert H. Schroeder. Ed. Nancy Fox. The Archeological Society of
New Mexico 10 (1984), 223-231. BACK
37 See for example . John, "Inside the Comanchería,"
36. Jean Louis Berlandier. The Indians of Texas in 1830. John Canfield
Ewers, ed. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969, 122. BACK
38 Thomas, Forgotton Frontiers, Anza to Ugarte,
329-330, and Ugarte to Anza, Chihuahua, October 5, 1786, SANM II 11:1056-1078,
TW# 943, published in translation in Thomas, Frontiers, 340. Eueracapa
also entrusted his younger son, Tahuchimpia, to Goveror Anza's household
for his education in Spanish language and customs while he went on a campaign
against the Apache, ibid., 313-314. BACK
39 This pueblo is the one mentioned by Thomas, Frontiers,
386, note 133, as San Carlos de los Jupes. See also Alfred Barnaby Thomas,
"San Carlos: A Comanche Pueblo on the Arkansas River, 1787." Colorado
Magazine VI (1929). BACK
40 Mapa Geográfico del Gobierno de Nueva Granada
ó Nuevo México: con las Provincias de Nabajo y Moqui, por
D. Juan Lopez, Pensionista de S. M. ... Año de 1976. Photograph courtesy
of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM, negative #92061. BACK
41 Marc Simmons, trans. Border Comanches; seven
Spanish colonial documents, 1785-1819. Santa Fe: Stagecoach Press, 1967,
33-34. Translated from SANM II, TW# 1925. BACK
42 AGN:PI 67:1, 424R. BACK
43 See individual receipts in AGN:PI 67:1, 244R, 307V,
406R, 424R, 429R, 432R, 443R, 455R,V, 521R,V, 532R, 538R, 540R, 541R, 549R,
552R, 555R, 568R; AGN:PI 204:15, 368V, 380R. BACK
44 José Cortés, Views from the Apache
Frontier: Report on the Northern Provinces of New Spanish. Elizabeth
A. H. John, ed., John Wheat, trans. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1989, 82. BACK
45 See the following documents concerning this period
of Antonio El Pinto's career: Governor Concha to Commandant General Ugarte
y Loyola, #55, Santa Fe, 26 VI 1788. AGN:PI 65:1, 221V-225V; AGN:PI 65:1,
Report of Vicente Troncoso to Concha, Santa Fe 12 IV 1788. AGN:PI 65:1,
227R-244R; Ugarte y Loyola to Viceroy Flores, #13, Chihuahua, 31 VII 1788.
AGN:PI 65:1, 246R-250V. See also J. Lee Correll, Through White Man's
Eyes: A Contribution to Navajo History. Window Rock, Arizona: Navajo
Heritage Center, 1979, 6 vols., 1:84-86. BACK
46 Report of Vicente Troncoso to Concha, Santa Fe 12
IV 1788. AGN:PI 65:1, 240V-241R; Alternative translations of portions of
the report are in Correll, White Man's Eyes, 86; and Joe Ben Wheat,
"Early Trade and Commerce in Southwestern Textiles Before the Curio
Shop," in Reflections: Papers on Southwestern Culture History in
Honor of Charles H. Lange. Ed. Anne V. Poore. Papers of the Archaeological
Society of New Mexico 14 (1988), 62. See also the mention of Navajo weaving
and commerce in 1799 by José Córtes, Northern Provinces,
60-61. BACK
47 Cortés, Views, 60-61. BACK
48 The following case appears in AGN:PI 204, 458R-483V.
BACK
49 Jones, Pueblo Warrior, 160-164. BACK
50 Plains Indians, often children, who were captured
by other Indian tribes, ransomed to the Vecinos, and adopted into the Vecino
social and cultural environment, were referred to as Genízaros, a
term derived from the Moorish word Janissary. Captured Plains Indians
also became Genízaros, entering the services of their captor. After
a period of service, Genízaros generally were freed from any obligation.
Beginning in the 1740s, groups of landless Genízaros petitioned for
and received permission from the Governor to settle on lands in frontier
areas, as bulwarks against the Plains Indian incursions. Abiquíu
and Belén were two early Genízaro settlements. See Steven
M. Horvath Jr., The Social and Political Organization of the Genízaros
of Plaza de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Belén, New Mexico,
1740-1812. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Providence: Brown University
(Anthropology), 1979, chapter V, 68-108. BACK
51 Personal communications, 11/2/95. BACK
52 Personal communications, 10/27/95. BACK
53 Barton Wright, Pueblo Shields: from the Fred
Harvey Fine Arts Collection. Flagstaff: Heard Museum/Northland Press,
1976, 4-5, and see figure 2a-c. Figure 2a and 2b are from Mummy Cave and
Aztec, respectively, both in New Mexico. BACK
54 Ibid., 1-2, and figure 1b-d. BACK
55 Alexander MacGregor Stephen, Hopi Journal of
Alexander M. Stephen. Colunbia University Contributions to Anthropology,
Vol. 23 (1936), part II: 1029, and figure 36, quoted in Ibid, 2.
BACK
56 Gottfried Hotz, Indian Skin Paintings from the
American Southwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1970, 53-61. Republished
as Gottfreid Hotz, The Segesser Hide Paintings: Masterpieces Depicting
Spanish Colonial New Mexico. Thomas Chavez, ed. Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 1991. BACK
57 Ibid, 6-7, and see 5, figure 2d-e. See also
Ronald McCoy, "Circles of Power," Plateau, 55:4 (1984)
which includes photographs of two of the Pectol shields. BACK
58 See Oakah L. Jones, "Pueblo Indian Auxiliaries
in New Mexico, 1763-1821." New Mexico Historical Review Apr.
1962; 37:2, 81-109; and Jones, Pueblo Warriors. BACK
59 See these petroglyphs pictured in Evan M. Maurer,
and Louise Lincoln, Visions of the people : a pictorial history of Plains
Indian life . Seattle: Distributed by the University of Washington Press,
1992, 27, figure 15, 16. BACK
60 See recent studies of religious and social significant
in Cheyenne and Kiowa decoration in: Michael Kan, and William Wierzbowski,
"Notes on an Important Southern Cheyenne Shield." Bulletin
of the Detroit Instiute of Arts 57:3 (1979), 125-133; Imre Nagy, "Cheyenne
Shields and their Cosmographical Background." American Indian Art
19:3 (1994), 38-47; Imre Nagy, "A Typology Of Cheyenne Shield Designs."
Plains Anthropologist 39, FEB:147 (1994), 5-36; Green, Candice. "The
Tepee with Battle Pictures." Natural History. 1993 Oct; 102(10):
68-76, 104; Joyce M. Szabo, "Shield and Lodges, Warriors and Chiefs:
Kiowa Drawings as Historical Records." Ethnohistory. 1993; 41(1):
1-24. BACK
61 Berlandier. Indians of Texas, Plate 3. BACK
62 William H. Treuttner, The Natural Man Observed:
A Study of Catlin's Indians. Washington DC: Smithsonian; 1979, figure
86, cat. # 51. BACK
63 Ibid, 158, cat. # 51. BACK
64 Hotz, Indian Skin Paintings, 172-225. BACK
65 See Greene "The Tepee," and Szabo, "Shields
and Lodges.". BACK
66 For important discussions of santo origins and santero
(saintmaker) styles, see E. Boyd, Popular Arts of Colonial New Mexico.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1974; Larry Frank, The New Kingdom
of the Saints. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books, 1992; William Wroth, Christian
Images in Hispanic New Mexico. Colorado Springs: The Taylor Art Museum,
1982; William Wroth, Images of Penance, Images of Mercy. Southwestern
Santos in the late nineteenth century. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1991. BACK
67 Kenner, Charles L. A History of New Mexican-Plains
Indian Relations. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969, 53. BACK
68 Odie B. Faulk, The Leather Jacket Soldier: Spanish
Military Equipment and Institutions of the Late eighteenth-century.
Psadena: Socio-Technical Publications 1971, 58. BACK
69 Pueblo shields clearly stem from two traditions,
one influenced by Plains shields, the other by Spanish shield-making techniques.
The Pueblo shields made from one-ply of hide are essentially Plains-style
but made in a larger Pueblo size, and strung with a neck loop and well as
a hand grip instead of only the Plains neck loop. The attachment holes for
the neck loop are also generally distinctive, appearing in sets of four
on each half of the shield. Almost all of the Pueblo shields that are made
of Buffalo hide are also of the one-ply variety, also showing Plains influence.
The Pueblos also made round shields of the Pueblo size using techniques
adapted from the Spanish adarga construction. Pueblo blind stitching
in concentric circles comes from the Spanish shield-making technique. Sometimes
the hidden leather lashes are looped through slits creating a decoration
on the outer surface of the shield, just like the decorative technique used
in the Spanish officer's adarga. The majority of Spanish style, Pueblo-made
shields were collected at Acoma. This type of Pueblo shield was a Pueblo
adaptation of the Spanish rodela. The rodela was a round shield,
the defensive weopon of choice for those who could not afford the cost or
have the prestige to own an adarga. This type apparently dropped out of
usage among the Vecino by the mid-eighteenth-century, but the tradition
was preserved within the Pueblos. BACK
70 For an adarga with the concentric target-type design
and a Spanish coat-of-arms, see Faulk, Leather Jacket Soldier, 60.
BACK
71 See Curtis M. Hinsley Jr., Savages and Scientists:
The Smithsonian Institution and the Development of American Anthropology,
1846-1910. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. BACK
72 Clark Wissler. "Some protective designs of
the Dakota." Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural
History. 1907; vol. 1, pt. 2: 22. BACK
73 Evan M. Maurer, Visions of the People: A
Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life. Minneapolis: The Minnesota Institute
of Arts; 1992, 115. Photo from Peter T. Furst, Jill L. Furst, North American
Indian Art. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.; 1982,
plate 182. BACK
74 See the excellent discussion of the cosmological
meaning embodied in the Cheyenne shield, belonging to Yellow Nose, a Ute
captive among the Northern Cheyenne, 1880s in Nagy, "Cheyenne Shields".
The shield was collected by George H. Broadhead at Camp Supply, Indian Territory
and also is called the Broadhead Shield.. BACK
75 Wissler, "Protective Designs," 30. BACK
76 See Secoy, Changing Military Patterns; Haines,
"Northward Spread of Horses;" Haines, Plains Indian; Roe,
Indian and the Horse; Preston Holder, The Hoe and the Horse of
the Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970; Clark Wissler,
"The Influence of the Horse in the Development of Plains Culture."
American Anthropologist 16:1 (1914), 1-25; and, Clark Wissler, "Riding
Gear of the North American Indians." Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History 17:1 (1915), 4-38. BACK
77 Examples include:
Matatope Robe, Mandan, c. 1850, image: Wolfgang Haberland, The Art of
North America. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.; 1964, 149. On the bottom
tier at the center of this robe the warrior on horseback carries a shield
with circles of blue, yellow, and red arranged in the earlier target-style
design described by Wissler. Chief Matatope of the Mandan painted the shield
around 1850, in a style that had absorbed some Euro-American influences
from his contact with both Karl Bodmer and George Catlin in the 1830s.
Warrior Shirt, Mandan, c. 1830, image: Visions, 186, plate 145. Another
painting on hide, this time a war shirt, also shows a warrior on foot holding
a shield with green, yellow and red painted circles. Alphons Schoch, a Swiss
merchant visiting the prarie tribes along the west bank of the Missouri
river collected this shirt in July of 1837 and records the number of enemy
killed or successful coups performed by its Mandan or Santee Dakota (Sioux)
owner. These warriors carry flintlock rifles along with powder horns, bow,
quivers, arrows, and occasionally shields. Although Schoch acquired the
shirt in 1837, the stylistic similarlies of the drawing of this robe to
the Robe with Exploits (below) and other similarly dated pieces connects
this work to designs of the early 1800s.
Robe with Exploits, Mandan, 1797-1805, image: Visions, 188, plate 147. collected
in 1805 by Lewis and Clark, suggest that the war shirt come from the Mandan
as well, and could date earlier in the nineteenth-century. The buffalo robe
commemorates a battle fought in 1797 by the nomadic Sioux and their Arikara
allies, against the semi-sedentary village peoples of the Mandan, Hidatsa,
and Amahami. The figures have been painted in distict groups of suggesting
a narrative of the larger engagement. Twelve warriors hold shields, nine
of which ride horses. The shield designs include a number of target types,
and a few display more complex animal or other figurative emblems.
The Grand Robe, Paris, image: George P. Horse Capture, Anne Vitart and W.
Richard West. Robes of splendor: Native American painted buffalo
hides. New York: New Press; 1993, #5 and details on 24-25. These earlier
shield styles appear on every early painted skin or hide of the early nineteenth-century,
including the "Grand Robe"at the Museé l'Homme in Paris.
Paintings done by Catlin in the 1830s add to the impression that the target
style design dominated during this period:
(1) Catlin, Mystery Lodge, Mandan, 1832. Shields hanging up along the inside
walls;
(2) Catlin, Medicine Man, Blackfoot, 1834? Shows the ceremony performed
by Wun-nes-tow (White Buffalo), a Blackfeet shaman, to confer the newly
fashioned shield to the warrior.
Images: Masterpieces of the American West: Selections from the Anschutz
Collection. Denver, 1983, Plate 3; Harold McCracken, Geeorge Catlin and
the Old Frontier. New York, Dial Press, 1959, 74.BACK
78 Elizabeth A. H. John, "An Earlier Chapter in
Kiowa History." New Mexico Historical Review 60:4 (1985), 379-397;
Haines, Plains Indians, 70-104, 120-142, 153-182.BACK
79 On the historical reconstuctions of Plains age-graded
and military societies see: Clark Wissler, "Societies and Ceremonial
Associations in the Oglala Division of the Teton Sioux." Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11:1 (1916), 1-99;
Robert B. Lowie, "Military Societies of the Crow Indians." Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11:3 (1916), 143-358;
Robert B. Lowie, "Societies of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians."
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History
11:4 (1916), 359-460; Robert B. Lowie, "Sun Dance of the Shoshone,
Ute, and Hidastsa." Anthropological Papers of the American Museum
of Natural History 16:1 (1919), 387-431; Robert H. Lowie, "Plains
Indian Age Societies: Historical and Comparative Summary." Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11:13 (1916), 877-1031;
Robert H. Lowie, "Societies of the Kiowa." Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11:11 (1916), 837-851.
For an analogous argument linking nomadic and agricultural Plains cultural-religious
traditions in dynamic modelling and adaptaion, see Howard L. Harrod, Becoming
and Repaining a People: Native American Religions on the northern Plains.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.BACK
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