1. Chapter 27: Pacific Northwest to Artic: Native American Encounter A slide set supporting Humanities 103 and Gloria Fiero’s The Humanistic Tradition Instructor Beth Camp, LBCC, Spring 2006 [email_address]
Interactive map of Berengia: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/stsmith/classes/anth3/courseware/Mesolithic/movies/Berengia.html
Postcard, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Seattle Art Museum
Postcard, Alaska
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Postcard, K’san Village
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, Alaska
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, Alaska
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, K’san Village
Postcard, Alaska
Postcard, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Catlin was a big fan of Choctaw lacrosse, which he witnessed in Indian Territory in 1834. He described ball-play as "a school for the painter or sculptor, equal to any of those which ever inspired the hand of the artist in the Olympian games or the Roman forum." Lacrosse was a physical, even violent, game called "little brother of war" in Choctaw that included no-holds-barred scuffling and wrestling as players struggled desperately for the ball.
Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull's Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe , 1832 Blackfoot/Kainai oil 29 x 24 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. This magnificent portrait was painted at Fort Union "from the free and vivid realities of life" rather than "the haggard deformities and distortions of disease and death" Catlin noted among frontier Indians. Buffalo Bull's Back Fat (named after the most delectable cut of bison) was a chief of the Blackfoot, a tribe of the northernmost Plains whose territory straddled the present-day border between the United States and Canada. Catlin considered the people of the northern Plains the least corrupted by white contact, and helped establish their image as nature's sovereign nobility in Europe as well as America. This commanding portrait, for example, was exhibited to favorable notice in the Paris Salon of 1846.
Pigeon's Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington , 1837–39 Assiniboine/Nakoda oil 29 x 24 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. Eighteen months later, the artist met Pigeon's Egg Head on his return home to the northern Plains. In this before-and-after portrait, Catlin shows the Assiniboine arriving in Washington in a splendid buckskin suit, as noble and classic in its own way as the architecture of the Capitol in the background. On his return, dressed in a "general's" uniform accessorized with umbrella, fan, and bottles of whiskey, all gifts of the government, he made a far less harmonious sight. The final indignity was "a pair of water-proof boots, with high heels, which made him 'step like a yoked hog.'" His tribesmen rejected his descriptions of the white man's cities, and his persistence in telling "evil lies" eventually led to his murder. Catlin's message—civilization destroys Indian culture—doesn't get much clearer than this.
Rattle , mid 19th century object no. 55.256 wood; leather unknown Haida; Tsimshian The expressive face on this rattle is thought to represent the sun or the moon, in part because of its roundness and in part because of the raylike encircling band. Rattle consists of two halves joined together by thongs.