Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
June 30-July 8, 1973
Introduction:
Ten tribes of Northern Plains Indians, from the States of North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, were represented in the Native Americans section of the 1973 Festival. Their participation marked the fourth year of a six-year plan to include Indians of a different region at each Festival, with the Bicentennial Festival to feature the entire country.
Past and present culture and lifestyles of American Indians were explored in these presentations, which included samplings of traditional culture that continue to be central to life within Indian communities. Through workshop sessions, crafts demonstrations, song and dance, Indians demonstrated their traditions. Members of the featured tribes worked with the Festival staff as field coordinators to help plan, develop and carry out the program.
Indian participation in the Festival was both an opportunity for Festival visitors to become acquainted with Indian people and also an opportunity for Indian people to speak about both contemporary and traditional concerns. Among those concerns and priorities are a respect for the land, respect and care of their older members, and an arts tradition that realizes and reflects the role of man in nature.
Clydia Nahwooksy served as Director of the Indian Awareness Program, assisted by Tom Kavanagh. Major sponsors were the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Office of Education.
Participants:
Frank Backbone, 1917-2005, Crow, singer, Crow Agency, Montana
Pearl Backbone, 1922-1992, Crow, bead worker, Crow Agency, Montana
Ann Bigman, 1922-1999, Crow, bead worker, Crow Agency, Montana
Hugh Little Owl, 1910-1991, Crow, flute maker, Crow Agency, Montana
Kevin Red Star, Crow, tipi painter, Billings, Montana
John Bear Medicine, Blackfeet, doll maker, Browning, Montana
Willy Eagle Plume, Blackfeet, drum maker, Fort Macleod, Alberta
Joan Heavy Runner, Blackfeet, cradleboard maker
Tom Heavy Runner, Blackfeet, tipi sewer
Adolf Hungry Wolf, Blackfeet, singer, Fort Macleod, Alberta
Collection Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 1973 Festival of American Folklife, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Minneconjou Lakota (Minniconjou Sioux) Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographic prints
Date:
1989-1991
Summary:
This collection primarily includes newspaper clippings and pamphlets about the Chief Bigfoot Memorial Ride (Si Tanka Wokisuye) in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains pamphlets and newspapers published by the ride organizers, clippings about the Big Foot Memorial Ride and related events, and clippings related to the Wounded Knee Massacre. Also included are audio transcripts, video logs, and media releases taken during the ride. The corresponding film and audio were unsalvageable. Materials were collected by Kate Ferraro while serving as a media coordinator for the Bigfoot Riders.
Please note, some of the articles include photos of deceased individuals which may be upsetting.
Arrangement:
Series 1: Clippings
Subseries 1.1 Si Tanka Wokiksuye
Subseries 1.2 About the ride
Subseries 1.3 About the Wounded Knee Massacre
Series 2: Media Transcripts
Subseries 2.1: Audio Transcripts
Subseries 2.2: Video Logs
Series 3: Additional Materials
Subseries 3.1 Media Releases
Subseries 3.2 Commemorative Calendar
Subseries 3.3 Photographs
Si Tanka Wokisuye:
Si Tanka Wokisuye, also known as the Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride, was started by Birgil Kills Straight, Alex White Plume, and Jim Garrett to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. For five years, starting in 1986, a group of riders carrying a sacred hoop followed the original route taken by the Lakota people when fleeing from government sanctioned violence starting at Sitting Bull's camp at Standing Rock, then to Chief Bigfoot's camp on the Cheyenne River Reservation, and on to Wounded Knee. The group of riders grew from 19 the first year to over 350 the fifth year
The ride was undertaken as a spiritual experience. The sacred hoop of the Lakota people was broken by the Wounded Knee massacre and the ride was meant to mend it 100 years later, leading to the ride's slogan "Rebuilding the Nation in the Seventh Generation." Each day of the ride was dedicated to a different prayer including the earth, those who are sick or imprisoned, women, children, elders, victims of the massacre, and the next seven generations. In 1990, at the end of the ride a traditional Lakota ceremony known as "the wiping of the tears" was held at the mass grave site to end the mourning period.
Wounded Knee Massacre:
In the 1800's, Lakota communities were worried for their way of life as they were forced onto reservations and faced violence from the U.S. government. After the death of Sitting Bull, Miniconjou Lakota Chief Big Foot (also known as Si Tanka or Spotted Elk) and his people left the Cheyenne River reservation intending to join those at the Pine Ridge reservation in hopes of finding a peaceful resolution with the colonists and preserve Lakota traditions. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. 7th Cavalry led by Colonel James W. Forsyth surrounded the encampment near Wounded Knee Creek, planning to disarm and arrest them. One man, Black Coyote, refused to give up his rifle. He was deaf and didn't understand the orders being shouted at him. Soldiers grabbed him from behind and the gun accidentally went off. The army responded by opening fire on the unarmed Lakota. The soldiers followed and killed anyone who tried to escape, leaving more than 250 Lakota men, women, and children dead. The deceased were placed in a mass grave overlooking the encampment. 19 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their roles in the massacre.
Provenance:
Gift of Kate Ferraro, 2019.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Chief Bigfoot Memorial Ride, image #, NMAI.AC.409; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
50 Stereographs (circa 50 printed stereographs, halftone and color halftone)
1,000 Stereographs (circa, albumen and silver gelatin (some tinted))
239 Prints (circa 239 mounted and unmounted prints, albumen (including cartes de visite, imperial cards, cabinet cards, and one tinted print) and silver gelatin (some modern copies))
96 Prints (Album :, silver gelatin)
21 Postcards (silver gelatin, collotype, color halftone, and halftone)
Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, cliff dwellings, and grave mounds and excavations. The collection also includes images of prisoners at Fort Marion in 1875, Sioux Indians involved in the Great Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, the Fort Laramie Peace Commission of 1868, Sitting Bull and his followers after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
There are studio portraits of well-known Native Americans, including American Horse, Big Bow, Four Bears, Iron Bull, Ouray, Red Cloud, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Three Bears, and Two Guns White Calf. Depicted delegations include a Sauk and Fox meeting in Washington, DC, with Lewis V. Bogy and Charles E. Mix in 1867; Kiowas and Cheyennes at the White House in 1863; and Dakotas and Crows who visited President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Images of schools show Worcester Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma; Chilocco Indian School; Carlisle Indian Industrial School; Haskell Instittue, and Albuquerque Indian School.
Some photographs relate to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876; World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893; Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1903; and Centennial Exposition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod, 1876. Expedition photographs show the Crook expedition of 1876, the Sanderson expedition to the Custer Battlefield in 1877, the Wheeler Survey of the 1870s, Powell's surveys of the Rocky Mountain region during the 1860s and 1870s, and the Hayden Surveys.
Outstanding single views include the party of Zuni group led to the sea by Frank Hamilton Cushing; Episcopal Church Rectory and School Building, Yankton Agency; Matilda Coxe Stevenson and a companion taking a photographs of a Zuni ceremony; John Moran sketching at Acoma; Ben H. Gurnsey's studio with Indian patrons; Quapaw Mission; baptism of a group of Paiutes at Coeur d'Alene Mission; court-martial commission involved in the trial of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, 1877; President Harding at Sitka, Alaska; Walter Hough at Hopi in 1902; and Mrs. Jesse Walter Fewkes at Hopi in 1897.
Biographical/Historical note:
George V. Allen was an attorney in Lawrence, Kansas and an early member of the National Stereoscope Association. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Allen made an extensive collection of photographs of the American West, mostly in stereographs, but also including cartes-de-visite and other styles of mounted prints, photogravures, lantern slides, autochromes, and glass negatives.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Powder River campaigns and Sawyers Expedition of 1865 a documentary account comprising official reports, diaries, contemporary newspaper accounts, and personal narratives edited with introductions and notes by LeRoy R. Hafen ... and Ann W. Hafen
Writer of added commentary:
Hafen, LeRoy R (LeRoy Reuben) 1893-1985 Search this
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Stereographs
Scope and Contents:
They are sitting in the tent.
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.09898800
Other Title:
"Near Okmulkie, September 1875, Indian Territory"
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Stereographs
Scope and Contents:
The item is number 29 in the series Illustrations of Indian Life.
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.09839800
Other Title:
Indian Territory Series
Illustrations of Indian Life
"A temporary camp while at the Grand Coucil, 1875. Interpreter standing, G.W. Ingalls holding papoose cradle to put in good humor the mothers who had been scolded by the photographer."
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection is open for research. On-site access to the collection requires an appointment.
Series Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Series Citation:
Photo Lot 59, Library of Congress Copyright Office photographs, Series 2: Edward S. Curtis, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Volumes
Ledger drawings
Date:
bulk ca. 1903-1904
Scope and Contents:
Notes and drawings by Native artists relating to heraldry, as Mooney termed tipi and shield designs. Also some myths and linguistic data from these and other Plains tribes. The manuscript is a compilation of materials created over a period of years, assembled under the current number by the BAE archivist. Bound volumes (since disbound for lamination) were placed under this manuscript number; loose notes and drawings on the same topics were primarily assembled under manuscript number 2538.
Biographical / Historical:
James Mooney (1861-1921) was a self-taught ethnologist. He was employed by the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1885 until his death. In this capacity, he worked extensively among the Cherokee and Kiowa. Among the Kiowa his studies focused on pictorial calendars, the peyote religion, and heraldry, the term he used to refer to the designs on shields and painted tipis. In the course of his study of Kiowa and Cheyenne heraldry, he commissioned illustrations of shield and tipi designs, as well as miniature shields and tipis. For additional biographic information on James Mooney see: Christopher Winters, General Editor, International Dictionary of Anthropologists, Garland Publishing, 1991. Neil M. Judd, The Bureau of American Ethnology - A Partial History, University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. L.G. Moses, The Indian Man - A Biography of James Mooney, University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2531
OPPS NEG 57,508-A---521-A
OPPS NEG 71-3046-A
OPPS NEG 71-3046
OPPS NEG 72-1801 CN-1818 CN
Local Note:
The John M. Seger Referred to in Vol VIII (and also in Mooney's peyote files) was a teacher of agricultural methods. Walter Campbell edited his autobiography, "Early Days among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians," Univ. of Okla. press. Genevieve Seger, his daughter, lives at Geary, Okla.; she may be a trustee of the Okla. Historical Soc. --Information from Althea Bass, here May 1959.
Mrs. J. H. Bass (Althea Bass) here May 6, 1959, thinks that the "Paul" referred to occasionally in Vols. III, IV, and V may be Paul Boynton, an interpreter who spoke both Cheyenne and Arapaho. His family still lives at El Reno. His father had something to do with the Agency. Paul Boynton is mentioned in one of the letters in Mooney corresponence for 1902-06 (Smithsonian Institution - Bureau of American Ethnology correspondence files.)
Date written on several pages by Mooney; almost certainly drawings done by same artist at same time and place as Ms. 2531, Vol. 10, identified by Mooney as "Drawn by Nakoim' eno = Bear Wings/alias Charles Murphy, Cheyenne Cantonment, Okla."
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Ledger drawings
Date:
1904-1906
Scope and Contents:
Tablet containing 16 drawings including pictures of tipi designs, camp scenes, games, and Sun Dance ceremony. Inscribed, "Cheyenne Indian Sketches, Tipis No. 2" and "Drawn by Nakoimens = Bear Wings, alias Charles Murphy. Cheyenne, Cantonment, Okla"
Arrangement:
Subgroup
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2531 Vol. 10
Place:
United States Oklahoma Territory Cantonment.
United States Oklahoma Canton.
Album Information:
MS 2531-10 000
Genre/Form:
Ledger drawings
Collection Citation:
Manuscript 2531, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection consists of a book of fourteen (14) drawings on eight (8) leaves of unruled paper in a commercial drawing book. The book was rebound by the Bureau of American Ethnology and the original covers are no longer visible. The drawings depict hunting, travelling, and camp scenes. The inside front cover is inscribed "Drawn by Buffalo Meat." The inside back cover is inscribed "Soaring Eegle [sic]." Buffalo Meat and Soaring Eagle were among the Cheyenne men imprisoned at Fort Marion. Although both men were artists, the drawings in this book are Kiowa, not Cheyenne.
Although the drawings were originally cataloged as Cheyenne by Buffalo Meat, neither Candace Greene nor Karen Daniels Petersen agree with this attribution. They note that the drawings can be identified as Kiowa based on elements of clothing, as well as shield and tipi designs. Furthermore, Greene compared the drawings with other works by Buffalo Meat and determined that they do not correspond with the artist's style. Both Greene and Petersen note that the drawings are the work of at least two artists. The inside of the front cover is inscribed, "Drawn by Buffalo Meat, Cheyenne." Petersen notes that the handwriting matches an inscription written inside the cover of MS 39-b, a drawing book that is known to have been collected at Fort Marion by George Fox, who inscribed the cover and captioned the drawings. (Candace Greene and Mike Jordan compared the inscriptions in MS 4656 and MS 39-b and agree that the handwriting is the same.) George Fox worked as an interpreter at Fort Marion until March 26, 1877. Consequently, the book dates between May 21, 1875, the date the prisoners arrived at Fort Marion, and March 26, 1877, the date George Fox departed.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Historical Note:
Fort Marion, also known as Castillo de San Marco, is a stone fortress in St. Augustine, Florida. Between 1875 and 1878, seventy-two prisoners from the southern plains were incarcerated in the fort. Captain Richard Pratt supervised the prisoners during their incarceration at Fort Marion. The prisoners consisted of 27 Kiowas, 33 Cheyennes, 9 Comanches, 2 Arapahos, and a single Caddo. With the exception of one Cheyenne woman, all the prisoners were men. They had been accused of participating in the recent Red River War, earlier hostilities, or both. With the exception of the wife and daughter of one of the Comanche men, the prisoners families were not allowed to accompany them to Fort Marion.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 4656
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Works of art
Ledger drawings
Citation:
MS 4656 Book of anonymous Kiowa drawings, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection consists of one (1) ledger book, now disbound, containing seventy-six (76) drawings by Cheyenne artists, two (2) additional drawings, and two (2) letters.
The ledger book contains drawings of scenes of warfare, courting, camps, and geometric figures. Many of the drawings have identifying captions in an unknown hand. Some of the drawings have been identified as having been created by a different, most likely non-native, artist. Two additional drawings were received with the ledger book: a drawing on sheet from a small ruled tablet, now torn in two, and a broadside sheet, now torn in two, with site plan and perspective drawing of the trading post of N. W. Evans and Co., Fort Reno, Indian Territory. The collection also includes letters regarding the purchase of the collection from Mr. Dorsey Griffith.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 4653
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Works of art
Ledger drawings
Citation:
MS 4653 Book of drawings by anonymous Cheyenne artists and related drawings and letters, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
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