MI0322 F

Sotheby's
Arts of the American West

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 1
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE WESTERN COLLECTION
TWO FINE PAIUTE POLYCHROME PICTORIAL LIDDED COILED BASKETS BY
LUCY TELLES (1885-1955)
possibly made as a pair, of slightly compressed globular form, each tightly woven in sedge
root, bracken fern root and redbud on willow foundations, each with a frieze of alternate
designs including butterflies, flowers and hummingbirds surmounted by traingles edged in
flame-like serration, additional hummingbirds descend from the rim; each lid centering a
large butterfly, one with a flower.
6 3/4 in. and 6 7/8 in. height by 10 3/4 in. and 11 1/4 in. diameter
ESTIMATE 70,000-100,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Collection of Mrs. Morgan Smith, Reno NV
LITERATURE
These baskets are illustrated in a black-and-white photograph, ca. 1924, provided by Mrs. John Telles in Bates and
Lee, Tradition and Innovation: A Basket History of the Indians of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Area, 1990, p. 173, pl. 323.
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of Lucy Telles and related examples of her baskets see Bates and Lee, 1990, pp. 172-177: "Lucy
Telles (Paiute name Pa-ma-has, meaning meadow) was born near Mono Lake...Lucy Telles learned the art of
basketry from her mother, and as a young girl wove traditional baskets...Lucy Telles' reputation as a weaver was
established by the 1920s...She entered her baskets in the Yosemite Indian Field Days basketry competitions and was
a frequent prize winner, winning the first prize for best basket in 1924."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 2
PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
POMO PICTORIAL COILED BOWL
of globular form, very finely woven in bulrush against a sedge ground, with a double frieze
of standing male and female figures.
5 3/4 in. height by 8 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired Sotheby's Parke-Bernet New York, April 1980, lot 272
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 3
THE BALENE MCCORMICK COLLECTION
PANAMINT POLYCHROME PICTORIAL COILED BOWL
of oval form, finely woven in red yucca, black bulrush root and dyed-yellow willow against
a willow ground, with a large butterfly in the basin, surmounted by a pair of goats flanked
by pairs of bows and arrows.
10 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired from John Kania in 1989
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 4
YOKUTS POLYCHROME COILED BOWL
with small flat base and flaring sides, finely woven in sedge, bracken fern and redbud, with
alternating panels of vertical and horizontal rattlesnake bands.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 5
WASHOE POLYCHROME COILED BASKETRY BOWL
degikup, with flaring sides curving inwards at the rim, finely woven on a three-rod
foundation in willow, bracken fern and redbud, with stepped panels alternating with sharply
serrated medallions.
10 1/4 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 6
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE CALIFORNIA COLLECTION
YOKUTS POLYCHROME BOTTLENECK COILED JAR
with slightly flaring sides, flattened shoulder and tall cylindrical neck, woven in willow, red,
yucca root and devil's claw, with a series of rattlesnake bands.
8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 7
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DAVID C. COPLEY, LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
GRACE CARPENTER HUDSON
1865 - 1937
HELP ON THE DOW
signed G Hudson (lower right); also signed G Hudson, titled "Help on the Dow" and
inscribed "Ukiah Cal / 114 on the reverse
oil on canvas
16 by 24 inches
(40.6 by 61 cm)
Painted in 1898.
LITERATURE
Searles R. Boynton, The Painter Lady: Grace Carpenter Hudson, Eureka, California, 1978, no. 114, p. 102, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 8
WASHOE POLYCHROME BASKET BY DAT SO LA LEE (LOUISA KEYSER)
degikup, of globular form, very finely and tightly woven on a three-rod foundation in willow,
bracken fern and red bud, with a series of vertical columns composed of stacked triangles,
alternating with fields of stylized butterfly designs; two labels on the interior, one reads
"LK #58/1; the other "LK about 1st Dec 1915."
4 1/4 in. by 6 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Sold The Emporium Company, Carson City Nevada, December 1, 1915
CATALOGUE NOTE
The lot is accompanied by the original receipt of sale for the basket from The Emporium Company. On the receipt is
written: "Interpretation of symbols in the decoration, as intended by the weaver. Our Men Are Always Happy." On the
reverse of the receipt is a legend explaining the designs on the basket. The stacked triangles are identified as
"Generation Marks," the H-shaped devices as "Butterflies" and the pairs of attenuated diamonds as "Men."
For a discussion of the Washoe basket making tradition and Dat-so-la-lee, see George Wharton James, Indian
Basketry, Rio Grande Press, 1903, p. 61: "The Washoes are a small remnant of once powerful tribe that inhabited the
eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada in the region of Reno and Carson City."
Ibid, p. 115: "The 'queen' of the Washoe weavers is Dat-so-la-lee, a full-blooded Indian...whose work is wonderful in
its shape, symbolization and weave. Though heavy and plump, her delicacy of touch, artistic skill and poetical
conception excite admiration. Her hand is symmetrically perfect, her fingers plump and tapering and her nails beautiful
'filberts.' She is fully conscious of the sensations and emotions that her work arouses in the hearts of connoisseurs."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 9
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DWIGHT AND LORRI LANMON
MIWOK GEOMETRIC COILED BOWL
finely woven in sedge and richly variegated willow, with a panel of triangles beneath the
flaring rim.
15 in. height by 20 1/2 in. diamter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Wayne Anderson, Seattle, WA in 1989
CATALOGUE NOTE
For related examples identified as Miwok see Bates and Lee, 1990, p. 38, fig. 53.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 10
POMO TWINED BURDEN BASKET
of expanding conical form, finely woven in willow, sedgeroot and redbud, with swirling
zigzag bands.
20 in. height by 24 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Cecil Stoner Collection, New York City
Acquired from Eleanor Tulman Hancock, New York, 1990
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 11
MISSION PICTORIAL COILED TRAY
of flaring form, woven in natural and black-dyed juncus over grass, with a coiling
rattlesnake poised to consume a lizard, two butterflies in the open field.
17 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Sandra Horn, Mill Valley, in 2001
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 12
similar to the preceding, with an encircling zigzag band centering a snake and a spider.
12 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Sandra Horn, Mill Valley, in 1993
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 13
similar to the preceding, woven against a white ground of split spring redbud shoots.
12 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from D. Eros in 1989
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 14
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NEW JERSEY COLLECTION
MISSION PICTORIAL COILED BOWL
similar to the preceding; professionally mounted for hanging on the wall.
8 1/2 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 15
CAHUILLA MISISON POLYCHROME COILED BOWL
of circular form with raised sides, woven in typical material against a lushly variegated
juncus ground, with a star in the basin, surmounted by four pronged devices centering
diamonds.
13 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Mrs. Edson C. Oak Collection, Wellsville, NY, reportedly bought the basket in Palm Springs, CA about 1905
Acquired by Kania-Ferrin Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2000
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 16
WASHOE COILED BOWL
of flaring form, woven with a pattern of radiant columns alternating with trios of attenuated
diamonds.
17 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 17
CONRAD SCHWIERING
1916 - 1986
FALL CHANGES
signed © C. Schwiering (lower right); stamped with the artist's copyright notice on the
reverse
oil on board
30 by 40 inches
(76.2 by 101.6 cm)
Painted in 1965.
PROVENANCE
Mr. Robert Stewart, Mt. Dora, Florida, 1965 (acquired directly from the artist)
Sold: Santa Fe Art Auction, November 14, 1998, lot 142
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale
LITERATURE
American Cowboy, November-December 2001, illustrated in color p. 65
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 18
ANOTHER PROPERTY
YOKUTS POLYCHROME PICTORIAL COILED BASKET
finely woven in sedge, bracken fern root and redbud on a willow foundation, with a broad
encircling zigzag band surmounted by a frieze of human figures, alternating male and
female, in a dance formation, flanking a stack of three inverted triangles, the basin with a
richly variegated field; attributed to Mary Dick Topino, Mrs. Britches.
7 in. height by 21 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Harmsen Collection, Denver, CO
Acquired by the present owner from the above
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 19
EANGER IRVING COUSE
1866 - 1936
PUEBLO INDIAN GIRL AND FIRELIGHT: A PAIR OF PAINTINGS
each: signed E-I-COUSE-N.A. (lower left)
each: oil on panel
each: 8 by 10 inches
each: (20.3 by 25.4 cm)
PROVENANCE
Collection of Robert E. and Evelyn McKee, El Paso, Texas
The Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation, El Paso, Texas, 1964 (bequeathed from the above)
Acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 1986-87
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 20
EANGER IRVING COUSE
1866 - 1936
#2 MEXICAN HOUSE (ARTIST'S TAOS STUDIO) AND TAOS CANYON CAMP: A PAIR OF
PAINTINGS
The first: signed COUSE (lower right) (Artist's Taos Studio)The second: signed E. I. COUSE
(lower right); also inscribed "Taos Canyon Camp" / Painted by E. Irving Couse, N.A. / c.
1920 on the reverse (Taos Canyon Camp)
The first: oil on panel (Artist's Taos Studio)The second: oil on board (Taos Canyon Camp)
The first: 10 by 8 inches; The second: 9 by 12 inches
(The first: 25.4 by 20.3 cm; The second: 22.9 by 30.5 cm)
The first: Painted in 1912.The second: Painted in 1910.
PROVENANCE
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1996
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 21
ORRIN SHELDON PARSONS
1866-1943
AUTUMN NEAR SAN JUAN
signed Sheldon Parsons (lower right)
oil on board
16 by 20 inches
(40.6 by 50.8 cm)
PROVENANCE
EXHIBITED
Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix Art Museum, Paintings from The McKee Foundation, May-September 1976, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 22
JULIUS ROLSHOVEN
1858 - 1930
VIEW OF TAOS PUEBLO
signed J. Rolshoven and inscribed Taos Pueblo (lower left)
pastel on paperboard
12 by 15 inches
(30.5 by 38.1 cm)
PROVENANCE
EXHIBITED
Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix Art Museum, Paintings from The McKee Foundation, May-September 1976, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 23
ACOMA POLYCHROME JAR
with concave base, slightly globular body and tall neck, finely painted in burnished orange,
and two shades of brown and black against a cream slip, with panels of oblique split
squares framing highly stylized foliate motifs, wide curving bands above and below.
PROVENANCE
From the Estate of Ida Fisher, who operated a gallery in Albuquerque, NM
Acquired from Cowan's Auction House, Cincinnati, OH in 2004
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2013, The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, fig. 9.15
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 24
ACOMA POLYCHROME PICTORIAL JAR
with concave base and globular body, finely painted in burnished orange and dark brown
against a cream slip, with heartline deer enclosed by rectangular framing lines, one poised
to consume a berry-laden branch, the other with its head turned, all enclosed by typical
geometric motifs; attributed to Marie Iteye Rey/Juanico (b. about 1866-68).
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 2011
LITERATURE
"Some Newly Identified Potters Working at Acoma Pueblo around 1900," American Indian Art Magazine, Spring 2013
CATALOGUE NOTE
A photograph, circa 1906, of this lot with the potter is reproduced in Lanmon and Harlow, 2013, The Pottery of Acoma
Pueblo, fig. 25.67.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 25
with concave base and sharply flaring walls, painted in burnished orange and dark brown
against a white slip, with a narrow frieze of birds, with exaggerated plumage, capped
spirals above and below, the tapering neck decorated with a "dagger" motif.
PROVENANCE
Acquired at Kohlberg's, Denver, CO in 1980
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2013, The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, fig. 14.10a,b
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 26
with concave base and high shoulder, painted in burnished orange and dark brown against
a cream slip, with a series of split arcs, surmounting a pair of fine parallel bands.
11 1/2 in. height by 12 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Rick Dillingham, Santa Fe, NM in 1991
LITERATURE
"The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, Part Two: Acoma Polychrome (c. 1840-present)," American Indian Art Magazine,
Winter 2012, p. 73, fig. 11
CATALOGUE NOTE
Gladys Pacquin, a potter at Laguna Pueblo, had made several copies of this jar. One is in the collection of the Indian
Arts Research Center of the School of American Research in Santa Fe, NM.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 27
ACOMA POLYCHROME CANTEEN
of typical form, painted in red-orange and brown against a cream slip, with a bold scrolling
design.
6 3/8 in. height by 7 in. width
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Richard M. Howard, Santa Fe, NM in 2003
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 28
with concave base, compressed globular body and slightly flaring rim, finely painted in red,
burnished orange and dark brown against a cream slip, the mid-body with abstract flowers
or seed pods alternating with triangles, each enclosing scalloped elements, the neck with
slanted leaf forms.
height 10 1/2 in. by 12 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Collected at Acoma in 1884 for the Bureau of American Ethnology by Colonel James Stevenson (BAE no. 110225),
and illustrated in the acession book.
Lucy Peabody
By descent from her mother, Alicia Irvine III (d. 1947), Denver, CO
LITERATURE
Hood, 1995, The Art of America's Southwest Indians, p. 49
Fig. 1
Illustration of lot 28
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 29
ACOMITA POLYCHROME JAR
with concave base, globular body and vertical neck, painted in brown and orange against a
cream slip, with capped spiral designs beneath a scalloped band.
9 / 1/2 in. height by 10 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Collected by Colonel James Stevenson in 1879-80 for the Bureau of American Ethnology, no. 110234 and illustrated
in the accession book
Given or traded to Dr. James M. Kober, Dean of the College of Medicine, Georgetown University about 1900-1920
Acquired from Christopher Selser, Santa Fe, NM in 1987
LITERATURE
CATALOGUE NOTE
For more information on Colonel James Stevenson please see Neil M. Judd, The Bureau of American Ethnology: A
Partial History, 1967, pp. 11, 12, 19, 20, 56, 63, 64, 66, 67.
Colonel Stevenson, an old time survey man, was employed by the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879, after serving several
years as a member of Dr. F. V. Hayden's United States Geological Survey of the Territories. It was during this period
that he became acquainted with the Indians of the Dakotas and Northern Rockies. When Hayden's explorations were
discontinued in 1879, Stevenson was named executive officer of the new Geological Survey, and soon thereafter was
detailed for research in connection with the Bureau of Ethnology.
That first year, at the direction of Major Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, Colonel Stevenson was sent
to the Southwest on an exploring expedition along with Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Smithsonian Institution, J. K.
Hillers, the survey photographer, and others, to study at Zuni Pueblo. Fascinated with his first glimpses of the
Southwest, Stevenson permanently transferred his interest in Indian languages and customs from the Dakotas and
Blackfoot to the Pueblos.
In subsequent years Stevenson typically departed on his explorations from Fort Wingate, escorting Victor and Cosmos
Mindeleff, the surveyors and explorers, to Canyon de Chelly and the various Hopi Villages, and Cushing on his travels
throughout the region. Stevenson was credited with naming Canyon de los Muertos, the northwest branch of Canyon
de Chelly, on the strength of two desiccated bodies he found there.
Stevenson disliked writing, and left this tedious task to his wife. Nevertheless, he compiled three lengthy catalogs of
specimens collected in New Mexico and Arizona, and wrote a short but informative paper on Navajo sand painting
(Judd, 1967).
For a comparable see Sotheby's New York, May 2007, lot 81.
Fig. 1
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 30
ACOMITA POLYCHROME JAR
with concave base, compressed globular body and slightly flaring rim, painted in red, white
and dark brown against a cream slip, with a frieze of foliate motifs beneath a scalloped
band.
PROVENANCE
Probably collected by Colonel James Stevenson for the Bureau of Ethnology, no. 107210, and illustrated in the
accession book
Alicia Irvine III (d. 1947), Denver, CO, from her mother, a friend of Lucy Peabody
LITERATURE
Fig. 1
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 31
with concave base, low flaring walls and wide opening, painted in two shades of brown, tan
and burnished orange against a cream slip, with concentric rectangles flanked by abstract
avian motifs, possibly representing a turkey with splayed tail feathers, comprising scrolls
and tapering ovals with radiant projections in alternating colors.
PROVENANCE
Reportedly sold Butterfield's, San Francisco, late 1980s or early 1990s
LITERATURE
School Arts Magazine, vol. 43, no. 3 (Nov. 1941)
CATALOGUE NOTE
This jar was published in School Arts Magazine along with two other jars with related decoration and an Acoma parrot
jar, two of which are in the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM. A related jar was collected for the BAE
(Smithsonian Institution, Dept. of Anthropology) in 1884 by James Stevenson (no.109973).
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 32
EARLY ACOMITA POLYCHROME CANTEEN
with a bulging body, ring handles and a short cylindrical neck, painted on the front and
back in tan and dark brown against a cream slip, and red under body, with a concentric
rectangle flanked by arched devices.
6 7/8 in. height by 8 1/4 in. width
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Ancient Arts, Scottsdale, AZ in 1995
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2013, The Pottery of Acoma Pueblo, fig. 21.24a,b
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 33
ACOMITA POLYCHROME BOWL
painted in dark brown against a red-orange slip, with pairs of rectangles with rounded
terminals, alternating with pairs of feather designs connected to a spiral with capped
triangles.
5 7/8 in. height by diameter 11 1/2 in.
PROVENANCE
"Museum" Collection of the Crazy Horse Trading Post
Acquired from Cowboys and Indians Antiques, Albuquerque, NM in 2004
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 34
with concave base and tall tapering neck, crisply painted in tan and dark brown against a
cream slip, with a frieze of rectangles alternately enclosing split rectangles and confronted
black triangles, surmounted by arching triangles, each enclosing fine hachure.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from William E. Channing, New York in 1985
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 35
ACOMITA POLYCHROME BOWL
painted in dark brown against a cream slip, with pairs of capped spirals, the cream slip
extended below the thick encircling framing line.
PROVENANCE
Private Colorado Collection
Robert Ashton, Santa Fe, NM
Henry Monahan, Santa Fe, NM
Acquired from Morning Star Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 2007
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2013, The Pottery of the Acoma Pueblo, fig. 7.16
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 36
ACOMA POLYCHROME BOWL
painted in dark brown against a cream slip, with an encircling frieze of arching triangles,
above and below; the interior with reddish-brown slip.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dewey Galleries, Santa Fe, NM in 2000
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 37
ZUNI POLYCHROME BOWL
painted in typical colors with stylized feather motifs.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Adobe Gallery, Albuquerque, NM in 1999
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 38
ZUNI POLYCHROME JAR
with concave base and compressed globular body, finely painted in two shades of brown
against a cream slip, with a classic capped spiral design.
PROVENANCE
CATALOGUE NOTE
The capped spiral design occurs with great frequency on Zuni pottery after about 1850; this example was made soon
after the transition from Kiapkwa Polychrome to Zuni Polychrome, about the time of the introduction of the design. For
a further discussion of the capped spiral design see Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, pp. 176-183.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 39
ZUNI POLYCHROME MUG
painted in red and dark brown against a cream slip, with heartline deer; attributed to
We'Wha (1848-1896).
8 in. height
PROVENANCE
Teal McKibben Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Acquired from Robert Gallegos, Albuquerque, NM in 2012
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example, probably signed by We’Wha, see Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, p. 525, fig. 34.50.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 40
ZUNI POLYCHROME JAR
with concave base, high shoulder and slight encircling groove beneath the flaring neck and
rim, painted with a classic Rain Bird motif.
PROVENANCE
Hudson River Museum Collection, Yonkers, NY (received in 1933 as a gift from the Ludlow estate, Yonkers, NY)
Phillips Auction House, New York City, November 1980, lot 28
Collection of Harry Bober, New York City
Sotheby's New York, May 1989, lot 28
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of Rain Bird motifs see Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, pp. 188-191: "The complex figure on the body
was named a "Rain Bird" by Mera, who published a study of these fascinating jars in 1938. Every turn, step, and bend
of the classic Rainbird figure is faithfully reproduced in virtually all the Rainbird jars made from the inception of the
style."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 41
KIAPKWA POLYCHROME BOWL
painted in two shades of brown against a cream slip, with a concentric rectangle in the
basin with four projections, each with fine hachure and terminating in capped spirals, the
interior rim decorated with a band of small squares.
PROVENANCE
C.G. Wallace Collection, Zuni Pueblo, NM
Larry Frank Collection, Arroyo Hondo, NM, 1960s
Francis Harlow Collection, Los Alamos, NM, 1971
Fred Boschan Collection, Philadelphia, PA
Sold Sotheby's New York, November 1988, lot 31
Roy Wixson Collection
Acquired Sotheby's New York, May 1998, lot 378
LITERATURE
Harlow, 1973, Matte-Paint Pottery, pp. 264, 267, pl. 33F
Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo, p. 132, fig. 7.28
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 42
EARLY AND RARE TABIRA POLYCHROME CANTEEN
from the Salinas Pueblos, possibly Las Humanas Pueblo, of massive scale, painted in two
shades of matte brown against a grayish slip, with a bird, its head in profile, wings and tail
feathers spread, and talons extended.
PROVENANCE
Robert Gallegos Collection, Albuquerque, NM
Robert Whiteside Collection, Phoenix, AZ
Sotheby's New York, November 200, lot 81
Acquired from Morning Star Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 2001
CATALOGUE NOTE
The rounded projection emerging from the center of the canteen face and positioned on the body of the eagle
suggests that it was intended to represent the bird's penis. A Sikyatki polychrome canteen (ca. 1400-1625) with a
similar projection, but in this case representing the nose of a kachina figure, is in the collection of the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 43
painted in the basin with a massive red quartrefoil.
PROVENANCE
Acquired Sotheby's New York, April 1982, lot 146
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo, p. 298, fig. 21.10
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 44
ZUNI POLYCHROME CANTEEN
painted in reddish brown and outline black against a cream slip, with a continous spiral
design.
5 1/2 in. length by 10 in. width
PROVENANCE
Washington County Historical Society Collection, PA
Garth's Arts and Antiques, September 2004, lot 681
Acquired from Spanish and Indian Trading Company, Santa Fe, NM 2004
LITERATURE
Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo, p. 303, fig. 21.29; see also pages 295-310
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 45
very finely painted in red and brown against a cream slip, with a radiant medallion in the
basin, surmounted by a frieze of concentric diamonds, the exterior with expanding panels
enclosing typical split geometric devices; attributed to We'Wha (1848-1896).
PROVENANCE
Christopher Selser, Santa Fe, NM
Acquired from Sotheby's New York, October 1983, lot 123
EXHIBITED
ACA Indian Crafts, NY
LITERATURE
Lanmon, 2006, We'Wha: A Zuni Man-Woman and His Pottery, Walpole Society Note Book, p. 96, fig. 6
Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, The Pottery of Zuni Pueblo, p. 525. fig. 34.52
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of We'Wha see Lanmon and Harlow, 2008, pp. 522-525: "The Zuni lhamana (a man who dressed
and lived as a woman), We'Wha became one of the most trusted informants of Colonel James Stevenson and his
wife, Matilda Coxe Stevenson, in their work for the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) at Zuni after 1879. They
invited him to Washington DC, in 1886 where he was feted by the wealthy and powerful, including by President
Grover Cleveland. At about that time, George Wharton James noted that We'Wha's "pottery fetched twice the price of
that of any other maker." Because of his skill as a potter, the Stevenson's commissioned We'Wha to make pottery for
the BAE, but unfortunately, they did not record which pieces he made."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 46
ZIA POLYCHROME PICTORIAL JAR
of classic form, painted over a cream slip in greenish-tan and dark brown, with large birds
and classic feather motifs; attributed to Harviana Toribio.
PROVENANCE
LITERATURE
Harlow and Lanmon, 2003, The Pottery of Zia Pueblo, fig. 14.131
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 47
TRIOS POLYCHROME PICTORIAL JAR, ZIA PUEBLO
of rounded form with flaring rim, painted in brown, red and cream slips, with a pair of large
triangular panels with finger-like projections, the alternating fields with additional triangular
motifs, the neck with a series of birds.
PROVENANCE
Frank Sorauf Collection, Minneapolis, MN
LITERATURE
Harlow and Lanmon, 2003, The Pottery of Zia Pueblo, pp.184-185, figs. 11.9a,b
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 48
ZIA POLYCHROME JAR
of classic form, painted in yellow and brown against a cream slip, with a frieze of split
rectangles flanked by scalloped designs.
PROVENANCE
Haley Collection
Acquired from Alice and John Aweeka, Littleton, CO in 2006
CATALOGUE NOTE
Zia potters rarely used yellow slip during the early 1900s. The presence of a wide stone-stroked red band below the
mid-body decoration is indicative of a date around 1920.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 49
TRIOS POLYCHROME JAR, ZIA PUEBLO
with small concave base, broad flaring body, tapering neck and thick walls, painted over a
cream slip in black and red, with a series of spirals enclosing trefoils, surmounted by a pair
of parallel bands, the rim with a scalloped band.
PROVENANCE
English Private Collection
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 50
HOPI JAR
of deeply carinated form with convex base and short neck, painted in dark brown pigments
against a cream slip, with a thick encircling band surmounting four vertical framing lines,
each enclosing spirals and stylized wing designs; attributed to Nampeyo (1860-1942).
PROVENANCE
Mrs. Jerold L. Collings, Phoenix, AZ
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rowe, Phoenix, AZ
Acquired from Gallery 10, Scottsdale, AZ in 1991
CATALOGUE NOTE
This jar is a revival of the Tusayan style and an example of the type of pottery for which Nampeyo was renowned. For
a discussion of Nampeyo see Ashton, 1976, pp. 24-33: "Nampeyo was born in the village of Hano on First Mesa
around 1860. Little was known of her childhood, however, it is known that she learned potting from her grandmother, a
Hopi potter from Walpi....Her sense of freedom, design and appreciation of the shape and space of each vessel
combined with her artistic abilities allowed Nampeyo to create a form of pottery that is still carried on today...as an
artist, she was unsurpassed. Nampeyo is credited for starting the revival of Hopi pottery or the Sikyatki revival."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 51
HOPI REDWARE JAR
of flatttened form, painted in dark brown pigments against a red slip, with four wing
designs; attributed to Annie Nampeyo Healing (1884-1968).
PROVENANCE
William Barth Collection, Youngstown, OH
Acquired from Kania-Ferrin Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 1990
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 52
SAN JUAN REDWARE BOWL
decorated with a polished red slip, the exterior with fire clouds.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Lyn A. Fox, Tesuque, NM in 2003
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 53
of deeply flaring form, decorated with a polished red slip on the neck, the exterior with
fireclouds.
PROVENANCE
Collection of Jim Guerken, Castle Pines, CO
Acquired from Norm Anderson, Denver, CO in 2006
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 54
with a concentric bowl, painted on the interior in red slip, with a series of crescents, the
exterior with fireclouds.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from M.E. McAtee, Oak Ridge, NC in 2010
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 55
KAYENTA GEOMETRIC JAR, TSEGI PHASE, 13TH CENTURY
with deeply rounded base and tapering shoulder, finely painted in black over a grayish
white slip, with an overall pattern of interlocking designs.
PROVENANCE
Excavated on a private ranch in Northern Arizona, near Page
Linda and Stanley Marcus Collection
Acquired from Ron Messick Fine Arts, Santa Fe in 1996
LITERATURE
Mather, 1990, Native America:Arts, Traditions, Celebrations, p. 49, interior of the Marcus home
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a comparable example in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, see Martin and Willis,1940, pl. 13., fig.
2 (cat. No. 21111).
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 56
TULAROSA GEOMETRIC JAR, 13TH CENTURY
of globular form with raised neck, painted in black against a grayish-white slip, with a pair
of zigzag bands surmounted by stepped devices and spirals.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Eleanor Tulman Hancock, New York City in 1998
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 57
SOCORRO GEOMETRIC JAR, 13TH CENTURY
of classic form, painted in black against a grayish-white slip, with large scrolling devices
decorated with fine hachure, typical geometric designs in the remaining fields.
PROVENANCE
Gallery 10, Santa Fe, NM
Gerald Peters, Santa Fe, NM
Acquired from David Cook, Denver, CO in 1998
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example see Peckham, 1990, p. 82, fig. 82.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 58
MIMBRES GEOMETRIC BOWL, CIRCA 1150 AD
painted in black against a white slip, with a radiant rosette in the basin, surmounted by a
series of triangles enclosing fine hachure; the basin ritually pierced.
PROVENANCE
Found at the Crotreu ruin, on private land, near Mimbres, NM
Bobby Smrkovsky Collection, Deming, NM
Acquired from Channing, Dale, Throckmorton, Santa Fe, NM 1992
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 59
PINEDALE GEOMETRIC BOWL, 13TH CENTURY
painted in black against a white slip, with overlaying panels of zigzag bands.
4 3/4 in. height by 11 3/8 in. height
PROVENANCE
Robert Darby Collection
Acquired from Nishoni Moses, Albuquerque, NM in 1991
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 60
MESA VERDE BLACK-ON-WHITE BOWL, 13TH CENTURY
painted with a scrolling design against a checkered ground.
11 3/8 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired in 1992 from Tiqua Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 61
MESA VERDE BLACK-ON-WHITE BOWL, 13TH CENTURY
painted on the interior with a scrolling motif overlaying a fine ground of hachure.
10 7/8 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
William Evans, Ship Rock Trading Post, from 1917-1948
By deascent to David J. Evans
Acquired in 2002 from John Molloy, Spanish and Indian Trading Co., Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 62
GARY NIBLETT
B. 1943
PUEBLO HUNTERS
signed © GARY NIBLETT, dated '81 and inscribed CA (lower left); also titled "Pueblo
Hunters" on the reverse
oil on canvas
24 by 36 inches
(61 by 91.4 cm)
PROVENANCE
Sold: Altermann and Morris Galleries, November 20, 1997, lot 126
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 63
DAVID MANN
B. 1948
RED LODGE SMOKE
signed D. Mann (lower left)
oil on canvas
24 by 20 inches
(61 by 50.8 cm)
PROVENANCE
Sold: Altermann Galleries & Auctioneers, Dallas, Texas
Acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 1992
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 64
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP
1859 - 1953
THE WAR BONNET
signed JHSHARP (lower right)
oil on canvas
20 by 24 inches
(50.8 by 61 cm)
ESTIMATE 120,000-180,000 USD
PROVENANCE
EXHIBITED
El Paso, Texas, El Paso Museum of Art, The McKee Collection of Paintings, November 1968, no. 83, p. 59, illustrated
in color
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 65
FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON
1874 - 1939
THE OLD TIMER
signed Frank Tenney Johnson and dated 1920 (lower left); also inscribed The Old Timer / 18
x 14 on the stretcher
oil on canvas
18 by 14 inches
(45.7 by 35.6 cm)
PROVENANCE
Van Kirke Nelson, Kalispell, Montana (sold: Sotheby's December 3, 1983, lot 133, illustrated in color)
Mr. Barry Weiner (acquired from the above sale)
Private Collection (sold: Sotheby's New York, May 25, 1988, lot 115, illustrated in color)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 66
PRIVATE COLLECTION, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
LAKOTA SIOUX MAN'S BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE SHIRT
of classic construction, overlaid across the shoulders and down the arms with beaded
strips, sinew and thread sewn in white, translucent red, pumpkin and dark blue glass
beadwork against a bright blue lazy-stitched ground, with stars and feather motifs, a star
surmounted by a crescent device on the bib, the lower edge cut with a zigzag pattern;
remains of red cloth on the neck and cuffs.
33 in. length by 61 in. width across the arms

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 67
PAIR OF CHEYENNE BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE HIGH-TOP MOCASSINS
each decorated with rich yellow ochre, red and green mineral pigments, the leg, sinew
sewn in glass beadwork, with narrow strips enclosing parallelograms, flanking rows of
brass buttons, tapering tabs with beaded details beneath the opening.
17 1/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 68
CHEYENNE BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE TOBACCO BAG
composed of finely tanned hide decorated with yellow ochre, the lower section sinew-sewn
in glass beadwork, with stepped diamond elements, surmounted by spot-stitched feather
and horseshoe designs, a cut-hide panel below wrapped in dyed quillwork with geometric
motifs.
30 1/2 in. length with fringe

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 69
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
SIOUX BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE PIPE BAG
composed of finely tanned hide, sinew sewn on each side with lazy-stitched glass
beadwork, with butterfly motifs against a blue ground, narrow channels of white beadwork
up the sides, and blue around the opening, the openwork section of cut parfleche below
wrapped in yellow porcupine quillwork; remains of red pigment on the hide.
38 in. with fringe

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 70
CHEYENNE BEADED HIDE TOBACCO BAG
composed of finely tanned hide, thread and sinew sewn in opaque and translucent glass
beadwork, the lower panel with pairs of stepped diamonds, surmounted by spot-stitched
feather motifs, repeated on the reverse, the opening trimmed with a series of triangular
tabs edged in white beads.
37 in. length with fringe

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 71
SIOUX BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE DRESS
of classic construction, the yoke sinew-sewn in bright blue lazy-stitched glass beadwork,
outlined in concentric bands of red, yellow, green and dark blue, with a pair of inverted
triangles on the chest, the bodice decorated in a spot-stitch technique with stylized foliate
motifs.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 72
NORTHERN PLAINS QUILLED AND BEADED CLOTH CRADLE
of typical construction, composed of hide and wool cloth, decorated with narrow strips of
porcupine quillwork alternating with rows of yarn tassels, the opening stitched with beaded
details.
27 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 73
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NEW YORK COLLECTION
SIOUX BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE PIPE BAG AND QUIRT
each sinew sewn in bright blue lazy-stitched glass beadwork, the bag with four squares on
one side and a pair of butterfly designs on the reverse, surmounting a re-purposed cut
painted parfleche section, wrapped in porcupine quillwork, the quirt with concentric
diamonds, attached to a beaded hide wrist-strap.
bag: 33 in. length with fringe; quirt: 16 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 74
GROUP OF BEADED HIDE OBJECTS
comprising a pair of Cheyenne child's leggings, a Sioux woman's knife sheath and a Crow
woman's belt, with classic beaded designs against a pink glass beadwork ground.
leggings 9 1/2 in. length; knife sheath 10 in. length; belt 26 in. length of beaded section

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 75
TWO SIOUX BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE WOMAN'S KNIFE SHEATHS
of tapering section, composed of tanned buffalo hide, each sinew sewn and lazy-stitched in
typical colors of glass beadwork, one against a yellow ground, the other, a light blue
ground, with typical geometric motifs; trimmed with tin cone pendants.
10 1/4 in. length of each

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 76
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NEW ENGLAND COLLECTION
SIOUX BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE SADDLE BAGS
sinew sewn in pink and green against a light blue glass beadwork ground, with pairs of
stylized butterflies, enclosed by a narrow beaded strip, in white, decorated with typical
geometric designs, the ends trimmed with thick, supple cut buffalo hide fringe overlaid with
red wool cloth panels.
40 in. length as illustrated
PROVENANCE
Reportedly Collected by Frank Horner, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who, according to family
history, was a member of the troop that arrested Sitting Bull in Canada
By family descent to Michael Horner of Mississauga, Ontario
Donald Ellis Gallery
Acquired from the above in 1994
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 77
SIOUX BEADED HIDE CRADLE
of typical construction, the sack, thread and sinew-sewn in opaque and translucent glass
beadwork, with concentric rectangular devices alternating with diamond designs, the
opening edged with striped panels, surmounted by a rectangular tab with additional
beaded details; lined with printed cotton cloth.
30 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 78
PAIR OF APACHE BEADED HIDE TAB-TOE MOCCASINS
sewn in black, white, red, dark blue and greasy yellow glass beadwork, with narrow strips
enclosing parallelograms above the soles and on the vamps, the legs stitched with
columns of chevrons flanking concentric circles connected by a fine stripe.
24 in. height as illustrated
PROVENANCE
Mario Luraschi Collection, Paris
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 79
PAIR OF KIOWA BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE CHILD'S MOCCASINS
decorated with yellow ochre and red mineral pigments, stitched with narrow beaded strips,
the vamps trimmed with fringed panels.
8 in. lengths

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 80
APACHE BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE MEDICINE POUCH
of drawstring construction, composed of soft hide, stitched on one side in red, black, blue
and white beadwork, with a radiant design enclosing a crescent; additional painted details
in red.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 81
HERMAN W. HANSEN
1854-1924
CHASING A PRONGHORN
signed H. W. HANSEN (lower left); also inscribed Chasing a Pronghorn on the reverse
watercolor on paper laid down on board
15 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches
(40 x 50.2 cm)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist and sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 5, 1985, lot 83,
illustrated)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 82
OLAF CARL SELTZER
1877 - 1957
MEDICINE MAN
signed O.C. SELTZER (lower left)
gouache, watercolor and pencil on paperboard
12 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches
(31.8 by 24.1 cm)
PROVENANCE
Diana Apperson
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York
Altermann Art Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Private Collection, Dallas, Texas (sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 25, 1988, lot 129, illustrated)
EXHIBITED
Great Falls, Montana, C.M. Russell Museum, December 1974 (on loan)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 83
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FAMILY COLLECTION
IMPORTANT CHEYENNE LEDGER BOOK OF PICTOGRAPHIC DRAWINGS
THE BOWSTRING WARRIOR SOCIETY LEDGER, comprising thirty-four pages, each drawn
in graphite pencil, and colored pencil (black, yellow and red) on paper, depicting various
accounts of warfare and ritual including a unique depiction of a horse mask used in battle
against the Pawnee and sixteen different shields; attributed to Medicine Water I, Lame Bull,
Alights on the Cloud and possibly eight other unknown artists.
3 1/2 in. width by 5 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired by Sarah Giberson in 1864
By family descent to the present owner
CATALOGUE NOTE
This essay will introduce a remarkable artistic document which adds new layers of understanding to one of the darkest
tragedies of the American Civil War. Created during the 1850s by elite warriors of the Southern Cheyenne nation, it
was a gift to a White child who they ransomed and saved in 1864. Guarded and conserved for posterity through six
generations of a Colorado pioneer family, it comprises the oldest-known ledger book of Plains Indian drawings.
Bowstring Warrior Society of the Southern Cheyenne
Horses had first reached the Cheyenne tribe on the Minnesota borderlands of North Dakota by 1730 (Cowdrey,
Martin & Martin, 2011: 15 & Map 1). Thereafter, the tribe migrated southwestward and crossed the Missouri River. By
1800, they were established along the river named for them in South Dakota, between the Missouri and the Black
Hills. About 1815, a party of young Blackfeet, Algonkian linguistic relatives of the Cheyenne, traveled from their
Montana homeland into the Southern Plains, seeking adventure. In northern Texas they stole a large herd of horses
from the Comanche and high-tailed it for home. Stopping briefly with a Cheyenne camp, they reported seeing
thousands of wild horses roaming the Plains between the Platte and Arkansas rivers. Almost immediately, parties of
Cheyenne headed south. [19th-century Cheyenne historian George Bent (quoted in Hyde, 1968) guessed that this
Blackfeet raid occurred “about 1825.” This date is belied by the information in James, 1823, of which Bent was
unaware, that the Cheyenne had already moved south by 1817.]
When the Stephen Long Expedition explored out to the Arkansas River in what is now southern Kansas, in 1820,
they encountered a village of Cheyenne who had just returned from raiding for horses in Mexico (southern Texas).
The Cheyenne said they had come down there in 1817 (James, 1823, Vol. 3: 53). Gradually, the lure of horses drew
more of the Cheyenne into the Central Plains, until by about 1840 the tribe was separated into northern and southern
halves.
The same process divided several of the warrior societies. The most recent and popular of these, the Wolf Warriors,
had been founded soon after1800 by the visionary experience of a man named Owl Friend. Among the Northern
Cheyenne, the Wolf Warriors gradually adopted the name Crazy Dogs. “The...members imitate the coyote in their
power of endurance, cunning and activity. They outstrip their fellow tribesmen in running long distances, playing
games, etc. There are about 150 warriors in the society, and a head chief” (Dorsey, 1905, Vol. I: 19). Among the
Southern Cheyenne the organization came to be called Bowstring Warriors (Himatanohis), though both groups
considered themselves constituents of the same organization (Llewellyn & Hoebel, 1941: 100; Grinnell, 1926, Vol. II:
72-78).
The name Bowstring Warriors (in English translation) is a bit confusing. Rather than referring to an actual bow, it
describes the distinctive, decorated lances carried by some officers of the organization. A long cord of twisted sinew,
similar to a bowstring, was threaded through the quills of feathers attached to the lance shaft, uniting them into a solid
panel, not unlike a banner [Plate 16]. The members competed in designing original patterns of feathers on their
lances. In combat, when inevitably scattered on a battlefield, these colorful ensigns were easier to discern at a
distance, allowing the members to keep visual track of each other (Dorsey, 1905, Vol. I: 19-20; Grinnell, 1926, Vol. II:
74).
The society's colors were those of a thunderstorm: “their bodies and upper parts of their arms are painted yellow.
While the lower arms and legs are painted black (Plate 2)” (Dorsey, 1905, Vol.I: 20). Two senior officers of the
Bowstrings were distinguished by “war shirts and... leggings trimmed with scalps” (Grinnell, 1926, Vol, II: 75). These
rare shirts were painted black on the top half, yellow on the lower half and the arms and body of the garments were
trimmed with flowing locks of black, human hair, interspersed in panels with locks of yellow-dyed horse mane (Plate 4
& Figure 5). The matching leggings were painted solid black, trimmed with yellow and black hairlocks (Plate 6).
The Bowstring Warrior Society Ledger
Traditionally, the only drawing surfaces available to Plains Indian artists were tanned skins of animals, principally
buffalo robes; rock outcrops and cliff faces; the barked trunks of dead trees; or their own skin. By the mid-19th
century, however, another option had become available.
Colonel Richard I. Dodge, who served on the Southern Plains and was among the Cheyenne from the 1860s to the
1880s, recalled: “Almost every warrior makes a picture of each prominent event of his life, and many of them keep a
book in which their acts are thus recorded” (Dodge, 1882: 413). They had been doing so at least as early as 1845,
when Lt. James W. Abert, visiting at Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado, mentioned a Southern Cheyenne, son of
the chief Bear Wings, making a “lifelike” drawing on paper (Abert, 1970: 8).
Colonel Dodge added: “The fight or other act is depicted as nearly as possible as the Indian wishes it to be seen;
himself the prominent figure in the foreground, dealing death, or otherwise performing the act. Their pictures of fights
in which numbers are engaged are simply the representation of individuals who were prominent either for courage, or
from being killed or wounded. In such pictures symbolism is used to make up the deficiencies of the draftsman; thus a
great many marks of horses' feet indicate that great numbers were engaged [see Plates 7-8]; many arrows or bullets
represented in the air show that the fight was hotly contested [see Plates 5, 24 & 32].
“There is nothing in which white men differ more than in drawing. One draws exquisitely, another...cannot draw at
all. Not so with Indians; all draw, and though entirely without knowledge of perspective, all draw quite as well as the
average of whites. If one wants Indian pictures, there is no need to hunt a special artist. All he has to do is to give
some paper and a few colored pencils to any middle-aged warrior” (Dodge, 1882: 413-14).
The earliest source of paper, colored pencils, ink and water color paints on the Southern Plains was Bent's Fort, a
trading post built in 1832 near present La Junta, Colorado, by brothers Charles and William Bent and their partner,
Cerain St. Vrain. Employees of the Bents, including noted frontiersmen Kit Carson, and John Simpson Smith (Figure 1
, standing 3rd from left), spent each winter in one or another of the Cheyenne camps, with an inventory of trade
goods. By the 1850s, at the latest, as documented by Col. Dodge, account ledgers were among these trade materials.
Dating the Drawings
Previously, the earliest-known collections of Cheyenne drawings were the Little Shield Ledger, now in the Schoyen
Collection, Oslo and London
(http://www.schoyencollection.com/historyModern.html#4457), which depicts several events known to have occurred
during the Platte River War of 1865-66 (Coleman, 2004); and the Dog Soldier Ledger captured during the Battle of
Summit Springs, Colorado, in July, 1869, which documents events of 1865-69 (Colorado Historical Society; see Afton,
et al, 1997). The leather cover and small size of this volume, 3.5 x 5.5 inches, is very near the same dimensions as
the leather-covered Little Shield Ledger (7 x 15 cm.), and another notebook in the Colorado Historical Society (see
Afton, et. al., 1997: Appendix).
Both the Little Shield and Dog Soldier ledgers feature numerous drawings of clashes with blue-clad, U.S. Army
troops. In significant contrast, the Bowstring Warrior Society Ledger shows no hostilities with the U.S. Military, but only
inter-tribal conflicts, principally with the Pawnee. This confirms the collection history that the small notebook was given
to Ambrose Asher in the village of Black Kettle, on the headwaters of Smoky Hill River, Kansas, sometime during
August-September, 1864; and that he had the book with him when he arrived in Denver City on September 28th (see
Figure 2). That date, alone, makes this collection of Cheyenne drawings the oldest one known. Further, there had
been a whole summer of conflict, including the raids during which the families of Ambrose Asher and Danny Marble
had been killed; but none of that is shown in this completely-filled volume. All of the events depicted, therefore,
occurred earlier.
How much earlier? The style of these drawings is that seen in rock pictographs across the Plains area from the 18
th and early-19th centuries. Only five figures in the entire book are depicted with facial features.(Plates 10, 18, 24 &
32); and only three of these show a face in profile (Plates 10 & 32). All of the other figures are shown with featureless,
round heads viewed frontally. Most torsos are drawn as an hourglass (Plates 1, 4, 7, etc.), or a simple rectangle (
Plates 2, 4, 6, 9, etc.). These, too, are characteristic of the period prior to 1850 (Keyser, 2004: Chapters 1 & 2).
As noted above, the Officers of the Bowstring Society included two leaders distinguished by leather shirts trimmed
with locks of human hair and horse mane. These two officers are both depicted in several pages of the ledger,
probably in self-portraits.
One of these distinctive shirts is shown in Plate 4. Its features are characteristic of the first half of the 19th century:
it is an un-tailored garment, with the tanned legskins of the animals incorporated as pendants; and a large rosette
decorates the chest. What may be the actual shirt depicted in this drawing survives in the Splendid Heritage Collection
(Figure 5. Our thanks to John Warnock and his curator Clinton Nagy for allowing us to use this photograph). The shirt
is painted in the black and yellow colors indicative of Cheyenne Wolf Warriors, with black and yellow hairlock fringes,
precisely as depicted in Plate 4. Note that the shirt is decorated with strips of porcupine quillwork on the sleeves and
shoulders, and a large, circular rosette of quillwork on the chest (another rosette decorates the upper back). Each of
these quilled decorations is bordered by a narrow row of embroidered pony beads, typical of Plains Indian garments
from the 1840s and 1850s.
This Bowstring Shirt Wearer in Plate 4 shows himself carrying a yellow-background shield with motifs of a bald
eagle and the crescent moon. This is a previously-unknown example, but is much in the character of another surviving
shield known to have been made by a famous visionary of the Bowstring Society, also a leader of war parties (Hyde,
1968: 265, 270), whose name was Lame Bull (see Nagy, 1997: Fig. 3). This surviving shield also has a yellow
background, the central figure of a bald eagle, and an upper crescent, but rendered as the rainbow arc of a storm
cloud. A painted tipi design created by Lame Bull features two human figures with their arms shown in the same,
splayed & bent-elbow position as the figure of the protagonist in Plate 4 (also Plates 2, 6 & 13, by the same hand)---
see Nagy, 1997: Fig. 4.
Lame Bull must be regarded as a strong candidate for this Bowstring Shirt Wearer. The garment indicates he was a
leader of the warrior society, so would have had the prestige to have been custodian of this tribal record. In turn, this
makes Lame Bull a strong candidate for the Cheyenne who was the adoptive father of Ambrose Asher, and who sent
this historical record with the boy, far into the future. A late-19th century portrait of Lame Bull is in the National
Anthropological Archives, Cat. No. 330. Another portrait, with his wife, is given by Nagy, 1997: Fig. 1.
A second Bowstring Society leader's shirt is shown in Plates 29 & 31. It is very long-bodied, characteristic of Plains
Indian garments depicted by George Catlin and Carl Bodmer in the 1830s. It is likely that this shirt belonged to the
Head Chief of the Bowstrings. The style of the drawings depicting this shirt is consistent, indicating the same artist, so
it is very likely both are self-portraits. Until 1837, the leading Bowstring Chief was a man named Medicine Snake. He
was killed, along with most members (more than 40) of the Bowstring Society by the Kiowa in 1837 (Petersen, 1964:
148). That date is certainly too early for this collection.
Following the 1837 massacre, the Southern Cheyenne Head Chief Yellow Wolf reconstituted the organization, but
there is no surviving documentation on who the leading officers were during the next twenty years (Petersen,
1964:149-150). A very likely candidate for the new Bowstring leader was a crafty and powerful man named Medicine
Water, I. Earlier, he had been a member of the Crooked Lance Warrior Society (Grinnell, 1915: 54), but there are
other instances of men changing their society affiliation. He was almost certainly the brother of Medicine Snake, so a
likely candidate to have assumed his responsibilities. A huge victory over the Kiowa at Wolf Creek by the Bowstring
warriors in 1838 indicates that this man was an experienced leader. In the next generation during the 1870s, this
man's nephew, also bearing the name Medicine Water, was the Bowstring Head Chief (Sipes, 2003: Medicine Water),
a strong suggestion that the position was being passed in the same family. This Bowstring Head Chief of the 1840s &
1850s was succeeded in 1860 by a man named Beardy (Mehats) (Mooney, 1905-1907: 413). The Bowstring Shirt
Wearer depicted in Plates 29 & 31, therefore, would likely be either Beardy, or the unnamed leader of the 1850s.
A further indication that this Bowstring leader really was Medicine Water, I, are the depictions in Plates 9 & 27 of a
man apparently wearing a shirt of Spanish scale-armor. This was the legendary nephew of Medicine Water, I, a
Bowstring Society leader whose name was Alights on the Cloud. Compare these drawings with the only known,
surviving example of such an armored Spanish shirt (Figure 7). Recently rediscovered in the Nebraska Historical
Society storage collections, a full presentation on this astonishing shirt fragment will be forthcoming in Plains
Anthropologist by Dr. Peter Bleed, University of Nebraska. Our thanks to Dr. Bleed and his colleague Lindsay Long,
for permission to use their photograph.
Comanchero traders from northern New Mexico communities such as Taos, traveling into the Southern Plains in the
decades following 1790, brought several such outdated armaments to the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and Southern
Cheyenne (Grinnell, 1915: 71-72). Medicine Water, I, had obtained his armored shirt during the mid-1830s, and first
wore it in the famous revenge battle against the Kiowa in 1838, at Wolf Creek (Grinnell, 1915: 72). This is another
indication that he was in a position of leadership during this victory of the re-organized Bowstring Society.
By the mid-1840s, Medicine Water, I, was promoting the military career of his nephew Alights on the Cloud. We
have a fine portrait of this handsome man, when he journeyed to Washington, D.C., in 1851 (Figure 6).
.[Wearing his uncle's Spanish scale-armor shirt]..Alights on the Cloud had performed many marvelous feats. It is
possible that the first time he wore it may have been in 1844, in a fight with [Delaware] trappers...[After several
attempts to parlay had been rebuffed] old Medicine Water made up his mind that the Delawares wished to fight...he
said to his son (nephew) Alights on the Cloud; “Now, my son, these people insist on fighting. Here is the shirt.” And he
handed it forth from where he held it, on the front of his saddle, and said: “Put it on and wrap that red cloth about you
so as to hide the shirt and then ride up close to them.” Alights on the Cloud put on the shirt and wrapped a red
strouding blanket about him...
Medicine Water [called out]: “My son , Alights on the Cloud, will empty their guns.”
Then, when everything was ready, Alights on the Cloud rode twice around the Delawares and close to them, and
they all shot at him, emptying their guns as they tried to kill him, but the shots did not harm him. [The Cheyenne then
charged the entrenched Delaware, killing them all.] (Grinnell, 1915: 72-74).
The known association of Medicine Water, I, and his nephew Alights on the Cloud, together with their shared use of
this legendary armored shirt, is a strong indication that the Bowstring Shirt Wearer who depicted himself in Plates 8,
29 & 31, was Medicine Water, while the man wearing the armored shirt in Plates 9 & 27 was Alights on the Cloud. The
artistic styles are different, as well as individually uniform, suggesting these probably are self-portraits. Alights on the
Cloud was killed in an attack on the Pawnee in 1852 (Grinnell, 1915: 75-80). If the “iron shirt” drawings are self
portraits, then it is likely some of the drawings in this collection may be as early as the late-1840s. Regardless, the
cumulative evidence of garment styles typical of the 1840s & 1850s, combined with a total absence of the Army
conflicts of the 1860s, suggest that the Bowstring Warrior Society Ledger was mostly created during the 1850s.
The Historical Prelude, 1863 – 1864
On the first three days of July, 1863, more than 46,000 American men of the Union and Confederate armies were
killed or wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg. Union levies for replacements immediately were sent out by the
War Department. In far-off Colorado Territory, men of the First Colorado Volunteer Cavalry could read the newspaper
casualty figures like anyone else; and many of them did not wish to be sent east for the next battle. Their
Departmental Commander was John M. Chivington, a Methodist preacher who delivered fire & brimstone sermons
from a pulpit in Denver City, the territorial capitol, then hardly more than a muddy mining town. In April, 1864, using
the pretext of fictitious Indian depredations, Chivington issued a general order to “shoot all Indians on sight.”
The previous year, a delegation of three senior, Cheyenne leaders, including their Head Chief Lean Bear, together
with Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche & Caddo chiefs, had traveled all the way to Washington, D.C., to meet with
President Lincoln and ask for help in controlling the growing number of White ruffians being drawn to recently-
discovered gold and silver mines in the mountains near Denver City. The journey had taken the Indians far north into
Canada, in order to evade the Confederate lines, thence south through New York and Pennsylvania, to the Capitol.
Severely occupied with other, pressing matters, Lincoln urged patience on his Indian visitors and told them: “It is the
object of this Government to be on terms of peace with you, and with all our red brethren. We constantly endeavor to
be so. We make treaties with you, and will try to observe them; and if our children should sometimes behave badly,
and violate these treaties, it is against our wish. You know it is not always possible for any father to have his children
do precisely as he wishes them to do” (Lincoln, 1953, Vol. 6: 152).
The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, who had resided in the Central Plains since long before it became a territory,
had always been at peace with the increasing numbers of White immigrants. Indeed, the American victory in the
Mexican War, 1846-1848, would have been impossible without the sufferance of both tribes, because the staging
depot for the Army's invasion of New Mexico and California was Bent's Fort in southeast Colorado, in the heart of
traditional Cheyenne territory.
All of that was ended in May, 1864, when an expedition sent out by Colonel Chivington approached the village of
Lean Bear, then in central Nebraska. Wearing the Peace Medal presented to him by President Lincoln the previous
year, and holding up a paper signed by the President affirming the diplomatic status of the Cheyenne, Lean Bear
walked out to meet the approaching soldiers. The commander, Lt. Eayre, allowed Lean Bear to approach within 20
feet, then ten of his men shot the chief to death in cold blood. The soldiers attacked the camp of several hundred
people with howitzers, but were defeated and driven off by the incensed Cheyenne. This treacherous attack began a
war that would smolder throughout the summer; then through further treachery explode into two, additional years of
conflict that would claim hundreds of lives.
On August 7th, near present Oak, Nebraska, a war party of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers attacked the Eubank family,
recent homesteaders who had moved from Kansas, while they were harvesting their first crop of wheat. Four men
were shot down in the field. Seven-year-old Ambrose Asher saw his 62-year-old grandfather and a 15-year-old uncle
killed with arrows. Then he was lashed to a horse and carried off. A 16-year-old neighbor, Laura Roper, and
Ambrose's infant cousin Isabelle Eubank were also kidnapped (Ellenbecker, 1926-27).
The following day, near Plum Creek, Nebraska, two wagon trains on the road to Denver City were attacked by the
same war party, and 13 men killed. Twelve-year-old Daniel Marble was captured. The war party returned to the main
Cheyenne village, located near the Forks of the Upper Smoky Hill River on August 12th. Almost immediately, the
Arapaho Head Chief Left Hand, and the Cheyenne Head Chief Black Kettle, who had succeeded the murdered Lean
Bear, brought large numbers of their own horses, and ransomed the four White children from their captors, to insure
their safety. Black Kettle had been a leader of the Bowstring Society, and these captives were distributed among
families of Bowstring Society members. Typically, this meant that each would be formally adopted, so that the whole
community understood they were now, officially “Cheyenne,” and not to be molested. As speculated earlier, the
Bowstring leader who adopted young Ambrose may have been the visionary Lame Bull.
Black Kettle had been seeking a means of stopping the conflict, ever since Lt. Eayre had attacked them in May.
The Cheyenne were aware of Colonel Chivington's “shoot on sight” order, so they understood that even trying to
communicate was a suicidal problem. Two of the older, Bowstring members, One Eye and Eagle Head, offered to take
the risk. As Black Kettle dictated, a literate, mixed-blood man, Edmond Guerrier, wrote a letter proposing a peace
conference, and offering to return the four young prisoners. This was taken by the two volunteers, accompanied by
One Eye's wife, on a journey of four days east, to Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory. As they approached the fort, all three
Cheyennes expected to be killed. One Eye had pinned Black Kettle's letter to his shirt, in the hope that after he was
shot, the soldier's would find it and then also wish to discuss peace.
As it happened, three members of the Colorado First Volunteer Cavalry had just completed their enlistments, and
had left the fort earlier in the morning. These men met the three Cheyenne delegates about three miles from Fort
Lyon. Seeing that one was a woman, and that the two men were “elderly” (in their mid-forties, perhaps), and
themselves no longer in the Army, nor bound by Chivington's order to “shoot all Indians on sight,” the three ex-soldiers
took the Cheyennes prisoner and returned with them to the fort.
This created a serious, political problem for the commander of Fort Lyon, Major Edward Wynkoop. His orders were
not to negotiate in any way with Indians; but these delegates were already within the gates of his post. When he was
handed the letter from Black Kettle proposing a peace conference, and the news that there were four captive children
whose lives instantly became part of his “unofficial” responsibility, he was forced to reconsider. John Smith, who had
been a trader with the Cheyenne for more than thirty years, and spoke the language fluently, was at Fort Lyon. With
Smith interpreting, Wynkoop interviewed One Eye, asking whether he understood that all soldiers were commanded to
shoot Cheyennes wherever they found them?
“I am young no longer [One Eye replied]. I have been a warrior. I was not afraid to die when I was young, so why
should I be afraid when I am old? The Great Spirit whispered to me and said, 'You must try and save your people.' I
thought I would be killed, but I knew that the paper would be found upon my dead body, so that you would see it, and
it might give peace to my people once more.” Eagle Head added that he did not wish for his friend to die alone
(Schultz, 2012: 86-87).
Wynkoop wrote, “I was bewildered with an exhibition of such patriotism on the part of two savages, and felt myself
in the presence of superior beings; and these were the representatives of a race that I had heretofore looked upon
without exception as being cruel and treacherous and blood-thirsty, without feeling or affection for friend or kindred”
(Wynkoop, 1994: 28).
Wynkoop decided to risk his career, and perhaps the lives of many of his men, that One Eye and Eagle Head were
telling him the truth. With a small escort of about 120 soldiers, nearly the entire personnel of the fort, he traveled four
days' journey northeast to the Smoky Hill River. After two days of councils with the Cheyenne chiefs, they turned the
four children over to Wynkoop; and the leading men of both the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes agreed to make a
similar risk by accompanying Wynkoop more than 200 miles west to meet with Governor Evans at Denver City. An
historic photo was made from a rooftop as the delegation arrived there on September 28th (Figure 2a & b).
Black Kettle (Figure 1) said to Governor Evans: “We have come with our eyes shut, following [Major Wynkoop's]
handful of men like coming through the fire. All we ask is that we have peace with the whites. We want to hold you by
the hand. You are our father. We have been traveling thro' a cloud. The sky has been dark ever since the war began.
These braves who are with me are all willing to do what I say. We want to take good tidings home to our people, that
they may sleep in peace. I want you to give all the chiefs of these soldiers to understand that we are for peace, and
that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies. I have not come here with a little wolf
bark, but have come to talk plain with you. We must live near the buffalo or starve. When we came here we came free,
without any apprehension to see you, and when I go home and tell my people that I have taken your hand, and the
hand of all the chiefs here in Denver, they will feel well, and so will all the different tribes of Indians on the Plains, after
we have eaten and drank with them” (Daily Rocky Mountain News, 1865: 2).
Colonel Chivington was also present at this council. He was quoted as advising the chiefs: “I am not a big war chief,
but all the soldiers in this country are at my command. My rule of fighting white men or Indians is to fight them until
they lay down their arms
and submit to military authority. They are nearer Major Wynkoop than any one else, and they can go to him when they
get ready to do that” (Daily Rocky Mountain News, 1865: 2).
That is what the Cheyenne and Arapaho did, going directly back to Fort Lyon and camping where Major Wynkoop
directed them, on Sand Creek.
A Seven-Year-Old “Collector”
The four, young captives rescued and repatriated by the Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs (Figure 3), fared much
worse when returned to the rough “civilization” of Denver City. The youngest, Isabelle Eubank who was a cousin of
Ambrose Asher, died within two weeks. The popular “explanation” for this swift demise was her “exposure” in the
Indian camps; but she is clearly seen to be in good health upon her return. Laura Roper survived into the 1920s. The
two boys were lodged temporarily with the family of Lewis and Sarah Giberson (Figure 4), who had arrived from Iowa
only a few months earlier. The couple had three, young sons, and a daughter “Harriet” but had buried their beloved,
16-year-old daughter Mary Charlotte, called Lottie, the previous October (Giberson, 1863; and letters to this author
from descendants of the Giberson family). Denver City was a rough and unsanitary community. In November, twelve-
year-old Danny Marble was moved to nearby Camp Weld, in preparation for being sent east to live with relatives, but
he contracted typhus in the Army encampment and died less than two months after his return.
Very little is known of Ambrose Asher, either before or after his brief sojourn among the Cheyenne. Unknown
outside of the Giberson family until now, in the historic photo of the children jolting in to Denver City in a wagon, on his
person young Ambrose carried remarkable evidence of the affection felt for him by the Cheyenne man who had been
his adoptive “father.” This was a small book of drawings, the subject of this essay, which has the character of a
passport. There is no possibility that a seven-year-old boy had stolen this historic document from a war chief of the
Cheyenne. It could only have been a gift, which speaks volumes about the winning character of this blessed child. The
Cheyennes understood that Ambrose must journey far, into a universe unknown both to him and to themselves.
Whenever he arrived there, they wanted to ensure that his next caretakers understood there were important people
elsewhere who “spoke” for him, and on whose behalf he should be well treated. So they sent this evidence which
proved themselves leaders of a valorous nation. These drawings ARE not merely the pedigree of the individuals
portrayed, but have also the nature of a charter: all the accomplishments of one generation of the “standing army” of a
nation. These men were generals. These men were princes. These men had risked their lives to save this boy, who
they believed deserved the very best.
Ambrose Asher eventually was sent east to be raised by his maternal grandmother, Ruth Eubank, in Quincy,
Illinois. Nothing is known of his father. Since the man “disappears” from the historical record just as the Civil War was
beginning, it is likely he was an early casualty; or perhaps had died in “bleeding Kansas” at the end of the 1850s,
whence his in-laws took Ambrose into Nebraska Territory. Ambrose eventually married, and moved to Moniteau
County, Missouri, where he had five children before dying of malaria in 1894, at the young age of thirty-five (California
[Missouri] Democrat, 1894; & Ambrose Asher, 2013).
The Wages of Valor
Two months after the Camp Weld Peace Conference, all but two of the Indian leaders shown in Figure 1 were
murdered, along with their families and a total of about 150 women and children. With the connivance of Governor
Evans, Colonel Chivington had Major Wynkoop transferred from command of Fort Lyon. Two days later, after a forced
march from Denver City, Chivington's men of the Third Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, who were enlisted for only 100
days, surrounded Fort Lyon to prevent any men of the First Colorado Cavalry from being sent to the Indian camp at
Sand Creek with warning. Capt. Silas Soule (Figure 1, right, front) and other officers of the First Cavalry who had
interacted with the Cheyenne and Arapaho for two months opposed the attack, but were forced to accompany the
night march to the Cheyenne village, 40 miles away.
As dawn broke on November 29, 1864, Chivington's 700 men had surrounded Black Kettle's peaceful, sleeping
village. After driving off most of their horses so that few of the Cheyennes might escape, Chivington ordered an attack
without quarter, regardless of sex or age. Capt. Soule and another officer refused to participate, and their two
companies of the First Colorado Cavalry stood apart, while Chivington ranted that he would have all of them shot. His
soldiers, many of them the dregs of the rough community of Denver City, chased Cheyenne survivors for the next
seven hours, in all directions across the snow-covered landscape. Many were trapped in the river bottom, and brutally
murdered there.
John Smith, who had interpreted at the Camp Weld Peace Council two months earlier (Figure 1) was in the
Cheyenne village. In his testimony before the Congress, he described what happened:
“...the principal chiefs...were terribly mutilated, lying there in the water and sand; most of them in the bed of the
creek, dead and dying, making many struggles. They were so badly mutilated and covered with sand and water that it
was very hard for me to tell one from another. However, I recognized some of them - among them the chief One
Eye...There was another called War Bonnet, who was here [Washington, D.C.] two years ago with me. There was
another by the name of Standing-in-the-Water, and I supposed Black Kettle was among them, but it was not Black
Kettle. There was one there of his size and dimensions in every way, but so tremendously mutilated that I was
mistaken in him” (U.S. Congress, 1865).
Later in the day Smith's own, 18-year-old son Jack, whose mother was Cheyenne, was shot to death at Chivington's
order, while his father was decoyed away.
Capt. Soule, whose family had been prominent in the national Abolition movement during the previous decade, had
many, well-known acquaintances in the eastern U.S. He wrote to one of them a few months later:
“February 12, 1865
To: Walter Whitman
c/o Paymaster Office
Washington City
Dear Walt,
The Cheyennes didn't get their lands. Or food. Or Justice. What they got was slaughtered. Last November 29th the
governor sent out Colonel Chivington with a regiment of Hundred Daysers just to kill the ones that camped under our
protection at Sandy Creek. Along the way they managed to surround Fort Lyons, dragoon the Colorado First and me.
The colonel cried for vengeance, said he'd string up “any son-of-a-bitch who'd bury their bodies or their bones.” It
wasn't an army, it was a mob. I flat refused to order any of my men to open fire. I soon found out what's underneath
that hide of Christian love. The colonel-preacher went at me like I was 666 [Hell] itself. But I stuck fast. Two days I
testified before an Army board, the colonel shouting challenges, the works. I thought of you and not without a smile. I
mean, here I am a soldier hectored by a colonel just because I wouldn't fight. A preacher who wanted to kill the
innocent, up against an infidel who wouldn't. What do you make of that? Anyhow, about a half of the population want
to kill me. The other half are getting there. But some Episcopals are showing signs of backbone, and the Army's on
my side. Do I know what Quakers must go through?
Fraternal greetings,
Your friend,
Si” (Cutler, 1995: 114-15).
Two months later, a mere eight days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of Colonel Chivington's
former soldiers shot Silas Soule in the back of the head on a street corner in Denver City. The murderer was
apprehended, but was allowed to escape from jail and was never tried.
A Congressional investigation concluded:
“As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of
the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander
of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately
planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the [worst] savage among those
who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumental
to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their...defenseless condition
to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man” (U.S. Congress, 1865).
No charges, however, were ever brought against Chivington, who had resigned from the Army in February, 1865. In
1866, he seduced then married his son's widow, who divorced him for non-support in 1871. Later, he worked as a
deputy sheriff in Denver, where he died of cancer in 1894.
A History-Conscious, Pioneer Family
Among the men of the Third Colorado Volunteer Cavalry was Lewis Giberson, the husband of Sarah, who was left
alone in Denver City in the midst of a frigid winter with her own three sons, young Ambrose Asher and her 70-year-old
mother to care for. Virtually every male in the community not already enlisted was forced by “public opinion” to
accompany the expedition, or be branded a coward and have his family outcast. We cannot know what was in the
heart of any of the enlisted men who, as Capt. Soule commented, were “dragooned” out to Sand Creek. Certainly
none of them was privy to Chivington's plans, or the “no prisoners” order he issued as the attack began.
What we can evaluate, however, is the fact that as soon as the snow melted off in the early spring of 1865, Lewis
and Sarah Giberson got their family out of the Hell-hole of Denver City, and began a new life further east, in Nebraska
Territory. Whatever soul-searing sights Lewis had experienced at Sand Creek, he wanted no more of it, for his family.
We have, also, the evidence of six generations of the Giberson family who were taught to respect and care for the
book of Cheyenne drawings which came into their keeping. There is no record of why Ambrose Asher left the small
ledger when he was sent east to live with his grandmother. He was, after all, only seven years old. Perhaps the
drawings were no more than a novelty for him, in the midst of an unremitting series of harrowing experiences which
would have confused nearly anyone. Lewis and Sarah Giberson, however, clearly understood that the book of
drawings had historical importance, and they taught this to their children, who taught it in turn to their own
descendants. One of these, Margaret Giberson, a professional teacher (Figure 4) when transferring the book to the
next generation of her family in 1929, inscribed both the cover and an interior page with the little she recalled from the
instructions of her grandparents.
The cumulative efforts of all these people during more than 150 years: the Cheyenne artists; the Bowstring leader,
possibly Lame Bull, who sent this record to protect a ransomed and beloved child; young Ambrose---confused, alone,
jolting into Denver City with a small book tucked into his clothing; Lewis and Sarah Giberson, who had recently buried
their eldest child, and would see two other children they had cared for perish within a few weeks; and the Giberson
descendants who have preserved this American document for a century and a half; ALL of these combine to
transcend the tragedy of Sand Creek, bringing the triumphs of the brave men who gave their lives in an attempt to
stop a war in 1864, once again into the light of History.
Mike Cowdrey
San Luis Obispo, California
23 March 2013
APPENDIX
The Oldest Documented Collection of Cheyenne Ledger Drawings
Important Features
---Depiction of Sounds
More than half a century before American cartoonists would employ similar strategies in Sunday comic strips,
Cheyenne artists were already representing sounds in graphic media. In Plates 3, 30 & 34, a wavy line drawn from the
mouth of one figure to the ear of another is clearly intended to represent the sound of a conversation. In Plates 18 &
32, dark bursts near the muzzle of a firearm are intended to represent not merely the visual effect of black powder, but
also the staccato sound of the explosion. Another artist (Plate 4) merely depicted the transit of the bullets.
---Courting Scenes
A pervasive error repeated by several, recent scholars of ledger art is the suggestion that courting as an artistic
theme was a revisionist addition that originated with the Fort Marion prisoners-of-war, 1875-1878. In significant
contrast, Plates 3, 10, 14, 21, 22, 30 & 34 were collected more than a decade prior to 1875, and were created earlier
still. The Little Shield Ledger (Schoyen Collection, Oslo & London), which depicts several known events of the 1865-
66, Platte River War, also has several courting scenes alternating with battle exploits. This is merely the status quo in
every human culture. More particularly, it is to be expected from a young men's social organization, the Bowstring
Society, noted for “about three hundred dance songs” (Dorsey, 1905: 19).
---The Only Cheyenne Depiction of a Horse Mask
The first horses encountered by many American Indian people during the 16th and 17th centuries were dressed in
Spanish armor, including steel horse masks. Indian riders copied this convention with materials available to them,
initially with leather, and later with canvas and other cloth, a tradition that continues to the present day. Often, these
battle and parade dressings are spectacularly beautiful (see Cowdrey, Martin & Martin, 2006).
The earliest historical reference to Indian use of horse masks was recorded by Canadian trader Alexander Henry,
who visited a Cheyenne village in North Dakota in July, 1806:
“We did not advance far before we met a small party of Schians on horseback. They were young men sent to meet
us. They all gave us a friendly shake of the hand. Their horses were...masked in a very singular manner, to imitate the
head of buffalo, red deer [elk], or cabbrie [pronghorn antelope] with horns, the mouth and nostrils---even the eyes---
trimmed with red cloth. This ornamentation gave them a very fierce appearance” (Henry & Thompson, 1897, I: 377).
Despite this early evidence, only one actual Cheyenne horse mask is known to have survived (Cowdrey, Martin &
Martin, 2006: 14-16). Moreover, in hundreds of Cheyenne ledger drawings from the 1865-1890 period, not a single
horse mask has been noted, suggesting they had become mostly obsolete, earlier. In this collection, however, a
unique feature is the depiction (Plate 16) of a Cheyenne horse mask in use during battle against the Pawnee. This is
yet another indication that the drawings pre-date 1860. The horse is shown as black, while the head is depicted as
entirely light-colored, with lines of demarcation at the ears and above the nose. An eye opening is depicted, while on
no horse anywhere in the collection is an eye shown. A crescent-shape, perhaps symbolizing a horse track, a
common Plains Indian motif, is shown as embroidered or painted on the mask.
---War Shields
16 shields are depicted in this ledger. 9 are shown with undecorated, outer covers (Plates 2, 5, 6, 13, 16, 17, 24, 25
& 26). The symbolic designs of 7 others are shown in considerable detail (Plates 4, 7-8. 15, 19, 23 & 32). Of these,
the “bald eagle” shield which may identify the visionary Lame Bull (Plate 4), has been discussed earlier.
A known, historical shield, which belonged to the Southern Cheyenne chief Whirlwind (Union Station Museum,
Kansas City, Cat. No. 1940.616 ) --- Online at:
http://collections.unionstation.org/detail.php?t=objects&type=related&kv=69349 --- may be depicted in Plate 23. The
right half of the design (as viewed) has horizontal stripes of dark green; there is a vertical center stripe in yellow
(covered by a feathered trailer in the drawing); and the left half is solid black, with four bear track motifs. This may be
much abbreviated in the drawing, due to the tiny scale.
It was common for shields to be commissioned in sets from a respected visionary by close relatives, brothers or
cousins, who were war partners. Evidence of this tradition is documented in Plates 7-8, wherein identical shields are
carried by two men in a whirling surround, when two Pawnee enemies were lanced to death.
Motifs of a buffalo bull, and crescent moon are shown on the shield in Plate 15. The designs at either side are
known as Hetanehao (the Sun, or Male Power motif), which represents an overpowering excess of masculinity.
Both the shield shown in Plate 19, and in fact the entire composition, are repeated almost exactly in a drawing by
the same artist in another Cheyenne ledger, named for the chief American Horse, which was collected in 1879
(Gilcrease Institute, Tulsa, Cat. No. 4526/19, Page 13). This is evidence that at least one other Bowstring Society
artist survived the carnage of Sand Creek. (My thanks to Hungarian scholar Imre Nagy, who recognized this
repetition.)
The motif of five circles arranged in a quincunx pattern (Plate 32) is fairly common in Cheyenne shield heraldry,
expressed in a variety of color combinations. The design symbolizes the Cheyenne view of the Cosmos, with the Sun
at center, and circular Hills of the Maheono, or Spirits of the Four (semi-cardinal) Directions, who protect and oversee
the World.
The Fort Marion Connection
During the past 50 years, considerable attention has been focused on the Southern Plains Indian people who were
deported as prisoners-of-war to Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, during 1875-78. More than a score of lavish
publications have explored the collections of wonderful drawings produced by these men. One of these prisoners was
Eagle Head, the Cheyenne Bowstring Society leader who had expected to be killed with his friend One Eye, when
they carried Black Kettle's peace offer to Fort Lyon in September, 1864. Most of the other Cheyenne prisoners at Fort
Marion were also Bowstring Society members, including their leading chief, Medicine Water, II. All had been indicted
for participating in a war party led by Medicine Water. Most of the Bowstring members were young men in their early-
twenties, such as Howling Wolf, the son of Eagle Head. At least four publications have analyzed his prodigious
production of drawings.
It is important to remember that the talents of these young artists did not arise from a cultural vacuum. Every one of
the Fort Marion prisoners had learned to draw by watching as the preceding generation of Bowstring warrior-artists
created depictions of their earlier triumphs. Doubtless, many of those men would have been acquainted with the
Bowstring Warrior Society Ledger. Some of them may have contributed to it. Their fingerprints would be upon its
pages. It is the primer from which all subsequent Cheyenne artistic depictions derive.
Individual Plates
Nearly a dozen individual, artistic styles may be recognized among the drawings which fill this volume. Where clear,
these are noted and compared for each Plate.
Cover
“Pg 6 [lined out] 14 – See warclub
Both boys captured by Indians while
very young. – Shy and afraid of
white captors at first. 1862?
Grandma kept them for
soldiers [lined out] Army for a while,
until relatives were located.
A mural in Hotel near
Glacier Park has old
Indian drawings like these.
M.G.”
This inscription was added by Margaret Giberson (Figure 5, right). The handwriting is the same as the note on Plate
33, and presumably was done at the same date entered there, 1929, when Margaret was forty-two (Giberson
descendants, to author). The initial reference to a “warclub” apparently refers to the drawing in Plate 15 (she did not
count the inside cover), where a quirt is represented as if hanging in the air, as a convention to indicate that the lashes
had touched the body of the Pawnee enemy, giving the artist credit for a First Coup.
A significant detail is the information, conveyed by Sarah Giberson to her granddaughter, that Ambrose and Danny
were both afraid of the soldiers, whom she refers to as “white captors.” This is a further, clear indication all of the
children had been well-treated in Black Kettle's village. Daniel Marble died of soldier “kindness,” two months after he
came into their custody.
Plates 1 - 2
Plate 1 (Inside Front Cover). Artist 1 (horses & rider at right), possibly Medicine Water, I; Artist 2 (left rider), possibly
Lame Bull---compare round head, neck and position of arms with Plates 4 & 6.
It is common to find ledger drawings to which more than one artist contributed. Part of the definition of “tribalism” is
that most activities were group enterprises. Here, one artist drew the horses, and himself mounted on the right; while
one of his friends depicted himself (note the many differences between the two figures) on the horse at left. The horse
at left is bridled with a halter trimmed in silver conchos, a favored trade item pounded out by Mexican plateros
(silversmiths), from Spanish ocho reales, the eight-crown, Imperial coins which were also legal tender in the United
States, prior to the Civil War. A long string of similar, large, silver ornaments called “hairplates” hang from this rider's
scalplock, to below the belly of his horse. The silver circles on the bridle are depicted as white, because when seen
against the solid color of the horse's coat they reflected sunlight; while the larger, silver hairplates are depicted as
black, because they were often seen in silhouette, against the sky. In Plates 3 & 7, Artist 1 also shows silver hairplates
as “black”; while different artists in Plates 10 & 16 depicted them as “white.”
By comparison with Plate 8, by the same artist, we can see that the rider at right wears a short breastplate of tubular
hairpipes, another popular trade item which, during the 1850s, were made of roller conch shells from the Caribbean.
This has been largely effaced by handling of the page during a century and a half. The individual hairpipes were laced
between strips of harness leather to form short “necklaces” that covered the upper chest. To the bottom is suspended
another piece of trade silver, depicted as “white” against the black shirt.
At left, center, in front of the horse, is an interesting detail which appears to show an arrow wound, perhaps through a
man's leg. This may be intended as a name glyph; though it was more usual for these to be depicted above the head,
as in Plates 21 & 22.
More likely, it may be a reminder of a particular occasion when the friends were together and a wound was received.
Plate 2. Artist 2, possibly Lame Bull.
The Stephen H. Long Expedition encountered what was probably (from the description of their lances) a Bowstring
Society war party near the Arkansas River in 1820 “...on their return from an expedition against the Pawnee Loups.
They had killed one squaw, whose scalp was suspended to the spear of the partizan, or leader of the party, the
handle of which was decorated with strips of red and white cloth, beads and the tail plumes of the war-eagle...
The partizan who killed the victim of this excursion...[was] painted deep black with charcoal [and buffalo fat], and
almost the entire body being exposed rendered the effect more impressive” (James, 1823, 3: 61).
In this drawing, it is more likely that the artist's intent was to show his society affiliation. As Dorsey was told, the
Bowstrings' “lower arms and legs were painted black” (Dorsey, 1905, I: 20). To avoid any confusion with leggings of
dark cloth (compare Plate 8), he has carefully shown his individual toes, to signal that his bare skin was exposed and
stained in Bowstring color. His upper garment is a dark, dress coat of the early-19th century. Variously decorated,
usually with gilt or silver braid, these were commonly supplied by trading companies to leading warriors who were
“hired protection” while business was being conducted in a village. Note the split ears of his war horse, always an
indication of a superior animal. The disfigurement allowed the animal to be located by touch, if among a herd of other
horses at night, as often occurred during war parties.
A long and expensive string of silver hairplates is attached to his scalplock; and over this, he wears a headdress of
golden eagle tail feathers with a long trailer. The man carries a shield trimmed with eagle feathers, and a war lance,
with which he shows himself dispatching an enemy who we may recognize as Pawnee from his unclothed condition,
plucked scalp and black-painted moccasins with high ankle flaps.
Plates 3 – 4
Plate 3. Artist 1, possibly Medicine Water, I.
Two young men (recognized by the long ends of the breechcloths trailing below their blankets) are shown being
graced by the attentions of a young lady (the beaded cuffs of her leggings and shorter side tabs at the bottom of her
dress, indicate the gender). The faint, jagged lines connecting her mouth to their ears signal that SHE is interested in
talking to them, a direct indication of their masculine attractiveness---the artist's purpose in making this drawing. The
young men have ridden to this meeting on the horses seen at left.
A Shirt Wearer or leading chief of the Bowstring Society, dressed in the garment indicating his position, as well as
beaded leggings, has depicted himself dispatching a Pawnee enemy with two shots from a muzzle-loading fusil. The
actual shirt depicted may survive, illustrated in Figure 5. The Cheyenne has NOT shot the enemy's white horse (which
he wants us to understand he afterward captured). The two bullets are depicted “hanging in the air”: the man is
bleeding from his fatal chest wounds; but the horse is not. A red-painted human scalp hangs from the horse's jaw; and
its tail is wrapped with strips of red cloth.As discussed above, the yellow color and bald eagle motif of this shield
relates it to a known example made by a famous Bowstring war chief and visionary named Lame Bull. He would have
been a likely custodian for this Bowstring Society war record; and may have been the adoptive “father” who gave it to
Ambrose Asher.
Plates 5 – 6
Plate 5. Artist 3 (horse & rider); Artist 1 (Pawnee enemy---compare Plates 7 & 8), possibly Medicine Water, I.
Riding a black mare with blazed face, this Cheyenne has attacked another Pawnee enemy who fired two arrows, but
missed with both, before the Cheyenne lanced him to death. The Pawnee was fighting entirely naked, a common
choice. Compare this figure with Plate 2, where a breechcloth is indicated. A large, golden eagle tail feather is tied
above the Cheyenne's brow. He wears a short, hairpipe breastplate of the early style, with silver ornaments hanging
from it. His hair-fringed leggings differ from those which indicate a Bowstring officer (Plate 6). The attack was a
sudden one, because there was no time to uncover his war shield.
This is the only depiction the author has seen of the distinctive, hair-trimmed leggings worn by two Bowstring Society
officers (Grinnell,1926, II: 75). They have the characteristic black and yellow fringe, are painted entirely black (like this
same man's legs in Plate 2), and are decorated with a strip of black and white beadwork, almost certainly in pony
beads. The artist is the same one who owned the matching shirt seen in Plate 4. Here, he is wearing the same, dark-
skirted coat seen in Plate 2; and riding the same pinto gelding. On his chest is a large silver ornament called a
“pectoral.” Designed by Mexican plateros as a brow decoration for a bridle, these were adopted by Indian riders,
instead. For examples, see Feder, 1962; and Cowdrey, Martin & Martin, 2011: 55 & Figs. 3.24, 3.25.
In the action shown, one Pawnee, at right, has been shot twice by someone out-of-frame. The artist passed this victim
on the run, blocked an arrow fired by the Pawnee at the left, then counted coup upon this assailant by smashing him
across the face with his bow.
The notched quirt handle seen against the neck of the horse, similar to the one in Plate 15, may also be a Bowstring
emblem, though the colors are different.
In 1820, the journalist for the Long Expedition noted of the Cheyenne: “They...regard long hair as an
ornament...depending in many instances (particularly the young beau) to their knees, in the form of queues, one on
each side of the head, variously decorated with ribbon, like slips of red and blue cloth or colored skin” (James, 1823,
3: 46). This man's hair is dressed according to that description, though the dark color indicates the wrappings would
have been otter fur. An eagle feather, on a long cord of leather or sinew, trails back from the right-hand queue.
Plates 7 – 8
The arrangement of the two pages of this Plate provides a classic example of the way in which Cheyenne artists
conceptually modified two-dimensional space, in order to express action in three dimensions. Commonly, Cheyenne
drawings flow from right to left, and the composition is arranged with the bottom toward the spine of the book. In
working, therefore, the artist turned the volume sideways, and drew on the "top" or far page.
If the planned composition could be restricted to a single page, then nothing would be drawn on the facing sheet. The
completed, page would be turned down toward the artist, and the next drawing made on the following top page.
In this earliest example, however, undoubtedly due to the limited number of pages, every sheet has been filled; and
lacking any means of erasure, several pages have been “rubbed,” partially smudging the initial composition, then a
second drawing has been added.
If as we see here, the action overlapped, requiring more than a single page, the composition would be completed by
revolving the open volume 180 degrees, and continuing on the facing page, again with the bottom of the drawing
oriented toward the spine. The consequence is that action on right-hand pages of the ledger flows toward the top of
the volume, while action on left-hand pages flows toward the bottom of the volume.
From a European, compositional standpoint this would seem to be antithetical. In the Cheyenne perspective, however,
where circularity always triumphs over the limitations of a flat page, it makes brilliant sense. The viewer assembles the
halves of the drawing in his mind, as if he were INSIDE the closed book. This is the same as if he were standing
inside a conical tipi, and the composition were painted around him on the inner surface, or as commonly happened,
painted on the draft-screens tied around the tipi circumference.
When one is standing INSIDE the composition, it is only possible to see part of it at one time. As one views half the
lodge (or half of the two-page composition), the other half (the opposite page) is BEHIND him. To view the second half
one must turn around inside the tipi; and this is conceptually the same as revolving the ledger book 180 degrees.
Thus did Cheyenne artists adapt the limitations of a flat format, to suit their circular concept of the world. See further
on this point the discussion in Afton, et. al., 1997: 332.
In Plates 7 – 8, the two riders are conceptually circling the viewer. In the event, they were riding in line, one after the
other. In Plate 7, note that the rider's war lance has been shown twice. It wasn't abandoned behind him, sticking in the
body of the prostrate Pawnee. We are meant to understand that the rider retained it in his grasp, but performed TWO
valorous deeds with it. He trampled the Pawnee and lanced him en passant. The horse tracks on the victim's body
illustrate this, as well as the Pawnee's dropped bow and arrows. Then the Cheyenne used the same lance (identical
decoration) to kill and count coup on the second Pawnee shown in Plate 8. In Plate 7, note that only the top half of the
lance is depicted, exiting the right side of the page; but in Plate 8, the lower half of the lance re-appears, entering from
the left.
Although the same artist made both of these drawings, he clearly is depicting two separate men, dressed differently
and riding horses of different color, but engaged on the same occasion. Note that both riders have a feather with
similar markings, probably striped hawk feathers, attached on lines trailing behind them. These are related to the
protective nature of their identical shields.
Plates 9 – 10
Plate 9. Artist 4, possibly Alights on the Cloud (Figure 6). It is the shirt of Spanish scale-armor (compare, Figure 7), for
which Alights on the Cloud was famous, that suggests his identity. Since he was killed in battle by the Pawnee in the
summer of 1852, if this is a self-portrait, then it must have been created earlier. Since this artist made one fourth of the
drawings in the book, this has an important bearing on the plausible date they were created.
The man is armed not only with his lance, but also an arsenal of bow and arrows, carried in the quiver and bow-case
made of tanned otterskin hanging from a strap across his right shoulder and lying behind him, against the side of his
horse. The curious figure ahead of him appears to be intended as a prostrate enemy, apparently a woman, doubtless
another unfortunate Pawnee.
Plate 10. Artist 5. The three male figures with large feet were drawn by a man more popular with the ladies, than
successful in war. He portrayed none of the battle exploits. The figures are also shown in profile, unlike most others in
this ledger, suggesting he was a younger relative of one of the Bowstrings, in the artistic vanguard which, by the
1870s, would change the tribal style so that nearly all figures would be portrayed in profile. The central figure is also
unusual for inclusion of the eye, nose and mouth; his blanket is decorated with a beaded strip.
Plates 11 – 12
Plate 11. Artist 4, possibly Alights on the Cloud. Compare the horse with Plate 9, especially the technique of indicating
a pinto by use of black elipses around the perimeter of the body. This is a motif he shared with Artist 2 (Plates 2 & 6).
The object surrounding the waist of this rider is puzzling. The pattern of diamonds suggests that it may represent a
Saltillo blanket, or other weaving from one of the Mexican trade communities in northern New Mexico. These were
very popular among Plains tribes, and appear in many Cheyenne ledger drawings from the 1860s & 1870s. Compare
the example in Plate 28, right, where availability of color makes a better likeness. A large felt hat, likely also of New
Mexican origin, is accented with a non-descript feather. The rider's dark coat is accented with armbands of silver and
a pectoral ornament of the same material.
A rider leads what is probably intended as a captured horse. Note that his own mount is bridled with a commercial
halter ; but in order to lead the black horse he has needed to rig a jaw-loop rein---a simple half-hitch abound the lower
jaw, which was the preferred type of bridle used by many Indian riders. Others are shown in Plates 4, 6 & 9.
A quirt handle, possibly made of an elk tine, hangs from the man's wrist. Another possible indication this is a “war
booty” scene is that the hilt of a cavalry saber is seen behind the rider. The blade is hidden on the far side of the
horse, while the ends of a sash tied to the hilt lie against the horse's side. Compare Plates 29 & 31.
Plates 13 – 14
Riding here as a “naked fighter,” with only a breechcloth and bereft of the spiritual protections inherent in his hair-
fringed shirt and leggings, the artist of Plates 4 & 6 demonstrates his bravery against a Pawnee adversary. The intent
of the artist is to show that the enemy had two, long distance weapons, the musket and the bow, while the Cheyenne
overcame him in hand-to-hand combat. The weapon, very clearly drawn, is a U.S. Army, Model-1840 cavalry saber,
nicknamed the “wrist breaker,” made by the N.P. Ames Arms Compazny, Cabotville, Massachusetts. This is an
exclusionary detail which demonstrates the collection post-dates 1840. These were the “long knifes” first used during
the Mexican War. Hundreds of them passed through Bent's Fort during the latter-1840s; and many of those ended up
in Indian hands. Others, drawn with less exactitude, are shown in Plates 29, 31 & 33. This Cheyenne has tied to the
hilt a long streamer of cloth or leather hung with dark feathers.
Plate 14. Artist 5 (tall male with large feet); Artist 2, possibly Lame Bull (couple at left, compare the feet with Plates 4
& 13); Artist 6 (woman at right---note difference of feet).
Another courting scene. The tall Lothario is elaborately dressed, with another saber folded inside his blanket. We see
only the hilt, with paired streamers hung with eagle feathers. A long string of silver hairplates drags the ground. His
blanket, leggings and moccasins are decorated with beadwork, again in the simple, box and triangle designs typical of
the decades before 1860. The other young man also has a beaded strip on his blanket. His date is wrapped in a First-
Phase Navajo “Chief's Blanket,” another article provided by the enterprising traders at Bent's Fort, and its successors.
Plates 15 – 16
Plate 15. Artist 4, possibly Alights on the Cloud.
The Pawnee get a brief respite, as this Cheyenne, armed only with a hand axe and his shield, uses the lash of his
quirt to count coup on a Ute man armed with a long rifle.
Plate 16. Artist 6. Although there are similarities to the style of Artist 1 (compare Plates 8 & 31, for example), the
horse, especially, and depiction of the feathers are different.
This is a rare depiction of a shield actually stopping an arrow. Before the Pawnee was able to get off a second shot,
the Cheyenne lanced him in the groin.
Cheyenne informants in the 1890s told George Dorsey that only two Bowstring officers carried lances decorated with
feathers (Dorsey. 1905, I: 19); whereas, by the 1870s, Cheyenne drawings depicting meetings of the Bowstring
Society show each member carrying a distinctively-feathered lance. Another indication of the early period when these
drawings were created is that this is the only such lance shown, harkening back to the earlier period remembered by
Dorsey's informants.
Plates 17 – 18
The Cheyenne's mount, shown also in Plate 20, is a mule, in fact a jenny. This is indicated both by her narrow tail, and
the much-larger size of her ears, in comparison with the horse. Note that her ears have been pierced near the tips and
are decorated with “feather earrings.” The “white” mark on the mule's rump may be intended as a brand. The rider is
using an Indian-style, high-pommel & cantle saddle. Many Cheyenne men preferred these; whereas in the modern
museum and art gallery estimation such seats are routinely described as “women's saddles.” Other examples are in
Plates 20, 25, 26 & 27.
Following the Mexican War, vast quantities of Army-surplus weaponry and uniforms were obtained by independent
contractors and traded to Indian tribes on the Plains. The Cheyenne had a particular preference for artillery uniform
pants with their red unit stripes. The legs were cut off to be adapted as leggings. A large number appear in Cheyenne
drawings by the 1860s. Yellow-stripe cavalry pants were also coveted; but more examples of artillery stripes are
seen, like the example here. In other drawings (Plates 1, 9, & 11) it is likely that the “white” stripes seen on leggings
were actually artillery uniforms also, but no red pencil was available when the drawings were made.
Plate 18. Artist 1 (unfinished horse at left, rear), possibly Medicine Water, I; Artist 7---the large-bodied horse with
arched neck, and the goggle-eyed, non-Indian rider (compare Plates 23 & 24) are the defining features.
This is a truly astonishing depiction of a non-Indian rider. The sawed-off musket he is in the act of firing demonstrates
that he had attacked this artist, whose work appears only in the context of this event. Clearly, the experience was
considered remarkable by the Bowstrings, themselves, because three pages of their record were devoted to getting it
down in correct detail. The artist began in Plate 23, by smudging an earlier drawing, then
beginning the outline of the horse. Overawed by the large size of this animal, probably an imported European draft-
breed much larger than the mustangs roaming the Plains, the Cheyenne realized, as soon as he had begun the
arched neck and line of the back, that his scale was too large, so he abandoned the attempt and turned to Plate 24.
There, he smudged out another drawing and began again. Although he nearly completed the composition, one can
imagine his friends, kibitzing over his shoulders as the drawing progressed, objecting that the horse wasn't shown
properly. It wasn't large enough! So the second attempt was abandoned before the weapon had been added.
The artist then flipped back to Plate 18, where an unfinished figure of a horse was sacrificed so that he could begin
again. Note that another partial horse had been rubbed out even earlier. The impressions of its hindquarters and tail
are seen at left center. Placing the head of the new figure of the giant horse in the upper-right corner of the page
provided the Cheyenne just enough room to squeeze its tail into the lower-left corner. Although the legs could not be
fully included, the body of the animal fills nearly the entire page, in elegant profile.
The Cheyennes were clearly fascinated by this enemy's riding gear, the like of which they had never seen before. We
must understand that the artist was able to depict it all in such remarkable detail, because he had killed the man and
captured his horse. The riding gear would all have been lying on the ground in the Bowstring meeting lodge, so that
the artist might refer to its curious components as the drawing proceeded. What this shows is called a “running
martingale.” If a horse is fractious, and prone to tossing its head because it dislikes the bit in its mouth, this can throw
it off-stride so that it might fall, injuring the rider. The running martingale was designed to prevent this. Strapped to the
saddle girth beneath the horse's chest, the two ends of the martingale were brought forward between the front legs;
then the two reins were laced through the iron rings of the martingale straps. This prevents the horse from raising its
head above normal carriage.
The seat, rigged with a double girth, may be the 1847-model Grimsley Dragoon saddle. The details are insufficient to
be certain; but the iron stirrups (seen more clearly in Plate 24) are accurately shown. Various models, inspired by
Mexican prototypes, had been made by Thornton Grimsley in St. Louis, since the 1830s (see S. Stephen Dorsey &
Kenneth McPheeters, The American Military Saddle 1776-1945).
The man in this drawing may have been encountered with one of the hundreds of trains of freight wagons which
traversed Cheyenne country on the Santa Fe Trail throughout the 1840s and 1850s. What appear to be “eyes” might
actually have been eye glasses, as unusual and mysterious to the Cheyenne as the martingale. Note the included
detail of the brand on the horse's rump.
Plates 19 – 20
Plate 19. Artist 6 (compare Plate 16); Artist 1 (unfinished horse, upper right, partially effaced), possibly Medicine
Water, I.
This shield is discussed in the main essay. The Cheyenne is attacking a Pawnee pedestrian. Although this enemy is
armed with bow and arrows, the Cheyenne rode him down and killed him with only a pipe-tomahawk, a courageous
risk. In a later depiction of the same event by the same artist, collected in 1879, this Pawnee and another are both
shown to have been entirely covered with blue war paint. Lacking a blue pencil two decades or more earlier, that
detail could not be registered, here.
See Plate 17, for discussion of this mule.
Plates 21 – 22
Plate 21. Artist 8 (the two, pointed-toe ladies at right); Artist 9 (the thin, male figures 2nd & 4th from left); Artist 1,
possibly Medicine Water, I (compare male figure with hairplates, 2nd from right, with Plates 3 & 28).
Three Bowstring Warriors are shown on a date. What appear to be cut-off human arms, above the head of the figure 2
nd from right, are probably intended as a name glyph, though these were often nicknames. “Cut Arms” was an early
designation for the Cheyenne tribe; but we have seen no individuals with that name.
Plate 22. Artist 2, Possibly Lame Bull (male figure, 2nd from right---compare Plate 14, feet of left couple); Artist 8 (all
female figures---compare Plate 21); Artist 9 (thin male, 2nd from right---compare Plate 21).
Another scene of dating, with another obscure name glyph connected by a line to the head of the man shown at
center. The women first and third from right are wrapped in expensive Navajo blankets, signaling that they are
daughters of prominent and wealthy families
Plates 23 – 24
Plate 23. Artist 6 (two mounted figures, partially effaced---compare Plate 16); Artist 7 (compare Plate 18).
Not much can be discerned from what remains of the smudged, original drawing. Apparently one Bowstring warrior
carrying his battle lance is leading the horse of a comrade who has been injured in the right arm by an arrow. The
reason for trying to erase this composition is discussed in Plate 18.
Plate 24. Artist 10 (original composition of rider facing left, confronting large Pawnee figure at right, all now largely
effaced---compare horse at left in Plate 34); Artist 7 (dark horse and non-Indian rider---compare Plate 18).
See Plate 18 for discussion of the dark, non-Indian rider and horse. The original drawing depicted a mounted
Cheyenne riding down a pedestrian Pawnee who has fired two arrows at him, but missed.
Plates 25 – 26
It was a common practice for members of a war party to ride one “utility” horse while journeying, leading their best war
horse. This premier animal would be kept fresh, to be mounted only when combat threatened. That is what is shown
in both of these drawings. Note that the “utility” mount is a mare, the teats indicated; while the main combat animal is
a male, probably a gelding. The Cheyenne had many, accomplished veterinarians or “horse doctors.”
Note that here, again, as in Plates 7, 8 & 9, the drawings by this artist immediately precede the one in Plate 27,
depicting Alights on the Cloud. This is further evidence associating the two, and reinforcing the possibility that “Artist
1” was Medicine Water, I, uncle of Alights on the Cloud and owner of the shirt of scale-armor the younger man is
depicted wearing. Also, there is a great similarity in the style of horses depicted by the two men, as if one had been
taught by the other.
Plates 27 – 28
We believe this is a second depiction of Alights on the Cloud (Figure 6) wearing the legendary shirt of Spanish scale-
armor (Figure 7). Eagle feathers are tied into the mane and tail of his horse. Here, he is shown as described in his last
battle during the summer of 1852, when more than 300 Cheyenne, Arapaho and allied Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache
attacked a large hunting party of Pawnee:
“When the Cheyennes attacked and chased them, the Pawnee ran. Alights on the Cloud overtook a Pawnee and
touched him [counted coup with his lance]...Alights on the Cloud...was dressed in iron clothing. The Pawnees shot him
with arrows, but they did not pierce the coat he wore. [He] was rushing up behind a Pawnee to strike him, and he rode
up on his right side, thinking that in this way the Pawnee could not shoot him with the bow; but the Pawnee [a terrified
18-year-old named Big Spotted Horse, who thought his last moments had come] must have been left-handed, for he
turned on his horse and shot Alights on the Cloud, and the arrow entered his right eye... all the Pawnees rushed
forward...The Cheyennes made a fierce charge, trying to get their man, but they could do nothing. The Pawnees cut
the shirt in small pieces and carried them away and scalped the man” (Grinnell, 1915: 75-76, & 79).
Plate 28. Artist 1, possibly Medicine Water, I---compare figure wearing hairplates with similar figure in Plate 3).
Compare the forelegs of the unfinished horse with the horse at left in Plate 31.
This is an unusual and interesting example of one artist beginning a drawing (the partial horse), changing his mind,
trying to smudge and scrape out the lines, because he had no eraser, then doing a second drawing on the same
page.
Both figures are males, indicated by their breech cloths, meeting outside of a Cheyenne tipi. The welter of dashed
lines represent footprints. The artist, probably Medicine Water, I, is the figure at left, wearing hairplates. The other man
has come from a large party of horsemen some distance away. This is indicated by the circle of dashed lines and
horse tracks at the far right. Dotted trails leaving this circle indicate that many men approached the Cheyenne camp,
but stopped some distance away, when this single man approached (note dotted line leading to his foot) to confer with
the artist. The many dotted lines leaving the tipi indicate that the artist had been expecting these visitors, and had
been running back and forth for perhaps hours, to check whether they had arrived.
Returning war parties, if successful, liked to make a triumphal entrance to their home village. Often they might arrive
at night, when darkness would preclude a parade, so it was common for them to “camp out” one night longer, in order
to make a grand entry the following morning. That may be the explanation for the action depicted here. A delegate
from the returning party has sneaked into the camp to report to the Bowstring leader, apprise him of the details of their
adventure, and agree on the schedule for the following day's celebration.
Plates 29 – 30
A Shirt Wearer of the Bowstring Society , wounded in the right leg by an arrow, kills a Pawnee archer. His war-surplus
cavalry saber has a tanned otterskin tied to the hilt. This has been split down the spine and golden eagle feathers
attached at intervals.
Young Cheyenne women of good family were guarded by their female relatives, and given few opportunities to
interact with young men, lest they be taken advantage of. One of the few opportunities young women had to “escape”
and visit with male acquaintances, is if they were sent to fetch water or firewood for the family's needs. Knowing this,
lovelorn young men were wont to stake out springs or creek sides, waiting for hours in the hope of catching a few
words with a popular girl. This is a common theme in Plains ledger art.
The girl shown here, probably a teenager, is on such an errand, having been sent by her mother with a bucket to fetch
water: “And you'd better be back here right away, or I'll send your father to find you!” Her Navajo 1st Phase Chief's
Blanket indicates that her father was a wealthy man. As she had probably been hoping for days, Romeo was waiting
to sweet-talk her. This he shows himself doing, in another historic image of sound represented in graphic media, by
the zigzag line drawn from his mouth to her ear.
Plates 31 – 32
The same Bowstring Shirt Wearer seen in Plate 29, wearing the same headdress of eagle feathers, is once again in
battle with the Pawnee. The occasion must be different, however, because the split otterskin attached to the hilt of his
saber has no attached feathers.
Plate 32. Artist 11. His horses are different than any others in the ledger. The prominent facial profiles and miniscule
feet are “signature” characteristics.
The figure at the right is the artist, wearing a silver pectoral ornament at the throat. Note that his shield is simply
hanging in front of his torso, not strapped to an arm. If he were being pursued, instead of chasing, the shield would be
swung around to hang on his back.
Note the split ears of the Cheyenne's horse.
The enemy may be Ute. Both men are wearing large, black felt hats, and both are in the act of firing flintlock or cap-
lock pistols, yet another indication of an early date. The Ute also has a musket strapped across his back
Plates 33 – 34
This is the same Bowstring leader seen in Plate 31, but wearing a different headdress, here with a black trailer. He is
fleeing from many enemies who have fired the ten bullets streaking in from the left margin.
The inscription was added by Margaret Giberson (Figure 4):
1929
Daniel Marble 12 yrs
Ambrose Asher
Coonie Pokins as called
by Indians
Above were white boys
captured by Indians.
M [indecipherable] soldiers rescued
“Coonie Pokins” may prove to be a significant clue that could help to identify the adoptive Cheyenne father of
Ambrose Asher. Names were retained within families. If Ambrose was given a Cheyenne name, it might have been
just a nickname---”White boy”, “dirty Face”---but could also be the name of the giver's father or uncle, if we could
understand it. It may also, however, be a useless device, since Ambrose likely mis-heard it; his version was repeated
two months later to Sarah Giberson; who repeated it decades later to her granddaughter Margaret; who tried to write it
down in 1929.
Plate 34 (Inside Rear Cover). Artist 4, possibly Alights on the Cloud (unfinished horse at upper right); Artist 10---
compare Plate 24. The narrow, rear legs of the horse and long, narrow tail are diagnostic.
Another lucky meeting of young lovers. The artist wanted the viewer to understand that SHE was talking with him.
Fig. 1
Alights on the Cloud
Fig. 2
The Spanish-scale armor likely worn by Alights on the Cloud and
depicted in plates 9 and 27 of the ledger. Courtesy of Lindsay Long,
Dr. Peter Bleed and the Nebraska State Historical Society
Fig. 3
Picture of Sarah Giberson, upper left
Fig. 4
Ambrose Asher
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 84
PROPERTY FROM A WESTERN COLLECTOR
CROW BEADED HIDE WAR SHIRT
constructed of finely tanned big horn sheep hide, in a classic style with open sides and
sleeves, overlaid across the shoulders and down the arms with beaded strips, finely sinew
sewn with light blue beaded fields edged in soft green, with alternating greasy yellow and
translucent red rectangular panels, trimmed with long pendants of white winter ermine
(replaced) bound with red wool cloth, the rectangular cloth bib decorated with dark blue
seed beads and brass shoe buttons, typical cut fringe, and remains of black painted
decoration on the front and back.
54 in. width across the sleeves as illustrated by 41 in. length
ESTIMATE 200,000-300,000 USD
PROVENANCE
By descent through the family of General Richard Taylor (CSA) 1826 – 1879, the son of President Zachary Taylor
Private Collection
CATALOGUE NOTE
Crow War Shirts are highly regarded for their beauty and distinct aesthetic. George Catlin observed that the Crow
were the most beautifully dressed people on the Upper Missouri River: “No tribe of Indians on the Continent are better
able to produce a pleasing and thrilling effect in these scenes, nor as many vain, and consequently better prepared to
draw pleasure and satisfaction from them, than the Crows. They may be justly said to be the most beautifully clad of
all the Indians in these regions” (see Tosswill and Meyers, 1941, vo. 1, 192).
Crow shirts are characterized by a specific and sophisticated use of color and design. There is predominant use of
light blue and dusty pink and white outline, which was meant to draw attention to color and design. Paul Dyck further
notes: “Crow beadwork is famous for its richness of composition and color. At the same time, it reflects the beauty of a
world filled with sacred power and life: pink symbolizes the shade of the Sun’s first glowing in the morning; blue
represents the sky; green is the color of the earth; the great Mother of all; yellow the color of the East, the place of the
Sun’s rising. Thus, Crow artists, in using these colors, honored Mother Earth and the Sun who brings forth endless
new life from her body, for the blessing of the Crow people and their world" (Powell, 1988:11).
For a discussion of Men's shirts see Barbara A. Hail, Hau, Kola, Brown University, 1980, p. 68: "When Lewis and
Clark described the everyday attire of Arikara men in 1804 they made no mention of the best-known article of Plains
male dress, the warshirt, probably because they did not see it. Until the mid-nineteenth-century shirts were worn only
by distinguished leaders as a kind of honorary emblem (Wissler, 1975:103).
The earliest Plains shirts were made in poncho style (Wissler, 1975:51) of two skins of deer, elk, antelope, bighorn
sheep, or small buffalo. These ponchos have been called "binary" (Conn, 1974:59), since they contain two main
sections, front and back, made of two skins matched for their size and shape. The two skins were cut across just
below the fore-legs and sewn together to form the shoulder line, leaving a slit for the neck. The upper part of each skin
was folded or cut along the spine and used as a sleeve, with the long fore-legs retained as decorative dangles.
Sleeves and sides were open, and the hind legs hung below the hemline on either side, often retaining their fur and
dewclaws, especially in honorary or society shirts. The skin that had covered the head of the animal was retained as a
rectangular or triangular flap at the neck. These neck flaps were eventually copied in cloth and came to be decorated
with quills or beads.
The honorary shirt of the 1800s, sometimes called a deer-leg shirt or warshirt, continued to be made and worn during
the second half of the nineteenth century, after shirts had become more common apparel for men. Decorated shirts
were made for them by older leaders, with ornamentation representing the young men's individual triumphs, and the
shirts were presented in a formal investiture ceremony. The Shirt-Wearers were expected to act as leaders in council
as well as in battle, and to be mindful always of the well-being of the tribe as a whole.
Certain construction features suggest dating this shirt between 1860 and 1870. In Colin Taylor’s study, “The Crow
Ceremonial Shirt”, he states “Because a bighorn hide is very broad, there was an overlap of the sleeve with the body
hide. Most early Crow shirts exhibit this overlap, although shortly after 1870 many were made without it. The specific
reason for this change is unknown, but it may have been caused by the increasing difficulty to obtain bighorn skins,
and alternative skin types – such as antelope or deer – had a width considerably less than that of the bighorn” (Taylor,
2001:43). The subject shirt has this overlap of the sleeve with the body so it can be can concluded that the hide is
bighorn sheep and the date is before 1870.
Crow shirts could only be worn by men who had been successful in warfare. William Wildschut interviewed a number
of old Crow warriors during the 1920’s while working for George Heye. He reported that “Striking an enemy, the most
important of the four major coups, entitled the shirt-wearer to attach to it the four decorated strips which were quilled in
the early days and later were beaded, and which were sewn across the shoulders and to the sleeves. It was a great
distinction among the Crows to be able to wear a war shirt. Even today (1927) no Crow will publicly wear a war shirt
unless he is entitled to it. There is no hereditary right to the wearing of such a garment.” (Wildschut,1960:38).
Other elements on this shirt are symbolic of the warrior ethos. The black paint that can be noted on the shirt body and
sleeves is specifically related to war deeds: “Warriors always blackened their faces to symbolize the killing of an
enemy, so that ‘with black face’ is a stereotyped phrase for a victorious return.” Further, “The first man to capture a
gun and the first coup-striker had their robe or shirt blackened all over, the second and third men had only half of their
garment so decorated, and the fourth men had only the arms of their shirts painted. The distinguished men also
instructed the members as to other decorations; thus there would be horse tracks, parallel stripes, and, irrespective of
the number of enemies struck, from four to six roughly sketched human figures” (Lowie, 1935:225). The amount and
variety of black painting on this shirt indicates the owner distinguished himself in battle on many occasions. A large
square block on the front is painted black along with thicker, horizontal, black painted stripes and small black circles at
the edges, likely signifying dodged bullets. The back of the shirt is again black painted as well as with a series of
vertical black stripes in groups of four. Also, parallel vertical black stripes in groups of four are very clear beneath the
bibs. Their exact significance is not known but it fits in with Lowie’s account. Black paint decorates the left arm and
both black paint and parallel stripes of black paint decorate the right arm.
The ermine skin (winter weasel) fringes that decorate the bibs, shoulder, and sleeve strips speak to the fierce
aggression and cunning of the weasel, traits the warrior would emulate.
Sotheby’s gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Richard J. Pohrt Jr. towards the analysis of this shirt and some
of the research and writing in this essay.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 85
PLAINS CREE BEADED ROBE
composed of fine, dark blue wool cloth, sewn with a concentric beadwork medallion,
trimmed with a brass hawk bell and two cloth-wrapped ermine drops painted with reddish
earth pigments, flanked by two men, in applique, each surmounted by a crescent shape,
the whole decorated with a series of circular cloth medallions, each centering a brass bell
with an ermine drop.
41 in. by 57 in.
PROVENANCE
Collected by Fred Blessing in Manitoba, Canada
Private Midwestern Collection
Acquired from the above
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 86
CROW PAINTED PICTORIAL HIDE SHIELD
composed of a circular section of thick buffalo parfleche, surmounted by a drawstring
cover in finely tanned deer skin, painted in red, green and dark brown, with a bear, its claws
extended, the upturned head with mouth slightly parted to reveal jagged teeth, enclosed by
a series of concentric medallions, representations of the cosmos, together with an
additional hide cover trimmed with an ermine tail, painted with red lineal designs.
19 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Richard Pohrt Collection
Morning Star Gallery
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of the meaning of animal iconography and the manifestation of the night sky on Plains shields see
Curtis, 1909, 144: "It was a belief that spirits in the likeness of every animal species dwelt in the sky. From them the
animals below received their mysterious powers and attributes, which they in turn transferred...to men. The animal
spirits were believed to select men who bore a resemblance to themselves, to whom they would impart their spirit-
strength."
Also see Lowie, 1922, p. 402: "Shields (minnatse) were sacred objects in as much as their decoration was revealed in
visions; plain shields for ordinary use were not considered medicine. The protective quality of the former type
was naturally attributed to the supernatural experience and men going into an important battle desired to carry one of
them."
A complete written analysis of this shield by Mike Cowdrey accompanies this lot and is available in the department
prior to the sale. In his report, he describes the Crow constellation known as "Gizzly Bear Above" which is the
inspiration for this shield and others.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 87
CROW BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE BOY'S SHIRT
of classic open construction, overlaid across the shoulder with thick buffalo hide strips,
sinew sewn in light blue glass beadwork, edged in pink, green and white, and overlaid with
red, green, greasy yellow and dark blue stripes; trimmed at the neck with a fringed v-
shaped bib.
26 in. length with ffringe by 47 in. width across the arms
PROVENANCE
Erie County Historical Society
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 88
CROW BEADED HIDE AND CLOTH MARTINGALE
or horse collar, composed of finely tanned hide overlaid with red and dark blue wool cloth,
stitched with glass "pony" and seed beads, the square panel with quartered sections, each
centering a circular medallion, suspended from a pair of straps with pronged terminals,
trimmed with cluster of dew claw pendants.
30in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 89
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE VIRGINIA COLLECTION
EARLY NORTHERN PLAINS BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE DRESS
of classic construction with a transverse neck opening, overlaid across the shoulders with
a hide strip, stitched in black and white glass pony beads, with a series of linear and cross-
bar motifs, a bright blue beaded band along the hem, additional blue beaded squares
trimmed with cut hide suspensions on the bodice.
53 in. length by 30 in. width
PROVENANCE
Reportedly given to Alexander H.H. Stuart while he served as Secretary of the Interior (1850-1853)
By family descent to the current owner
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example see Sotheby's New York, May 2006, lot 203.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 90
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLORADO COLLECTION
PLATEAU BEADED DOLL
wearing hide moccasins and a dress, composed of green wool trade cloth, with a beaded
yoke, trimmed with shells, the stone head, sensitively carved with naturalistic facial details
and with traditional braided coiffure.
15 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from the Kate and Joel Kopp Collection
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 91
CROW BEADED AND FRINGED HIDE SCOUT JACKET
stitched on the front, back of the shoulders and cuffs, with stylized curvilinear motifs,
panels of short cut fringe overall.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 92
PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK COLLECTION
GROUP OF TWENTY-ONE PHOTOGRAPHS OF NATIVE AMERICANS BY
FRANK A. RINEHART
platinum prints, including images of Little Chief, Touch the Cloud, Six Toes, Cloud Man,
Four Bull and Kicking Horse Charley.
7 1/8 in. by 9 1/8 in.
PROVENANCE
Property of a Swiss Collector
Acquired from Christie's New York, June 2004, lots 130-131
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 93
RARE PLAINS WOOD AND METAL PIPE TOMAHAWK WITH DOUBLE CUT
OUT
composed of a haft of tapering oval section, finely inlaid with pewter decoration,
surmounted by a forged steel head with raised pipe bowl, finely tooled with a double "bat-
wing" cutout and filework.
11 in. length
LITERATURE
Francis, 2009, The Mark Francis Collection of American Indian Art, p. 111, fig. 177
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 94
IMPORTANT AND EARLY BLACKFOOT DAG KNIFE
the faceted blade set into a walnut wood handle, finely decorated with pewter inlay on each
side.
12 in. length by 2 1/4 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 95
NEZ PERCE OR CROW SPONTOON WAR TOMAHAWK
composed of hand-forged iron, the spontoon-style head with pointed blade and upward
curled processes, inset to a wood haft with pewter inlay decoration; small brass nails and
tacks at the top of the haft.
PROVENANCE
Collection of Ted and Lilly Jarvis
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 96
RARE AND IMPORTANT PIERRE CHOTEAU MISSOURI WAR AXE
composed of a tapering haft, surmounted by a blade of exapnding section, decorated with
filed lines on the eyehole, and star punch dots; stamped with "P C & Co." on one side.
24 in. height by 7 in. width
PROVENANCE
The Choteau Family Collection
John Baldwin Collection
LITERATURE
Baldwin, 1995, Tomahawks and Pipes Axes of the American Frontier, p. 20, fig. 32
Baldwin, 2001, Indian War Clubs of the American Frontier, p. 11, fig. 21 and p. 43, fig. 141
Francis, 2009, The Mark Francis Collection of American Indian Art, pp. 124-25
Francis, 2010, The Missouri War Axe: War Tomahawk of the Plains and Prairies, pp. 14-19
CATALOGUE NOTE
This Missouri War Axe, circa 1780-90, was made by a well known blacksmith and Indian trader named Pierre
Choteau, who founded the city of St. Louis, Missouri and had exclusive trade rights with the Osage in the region. It
features Choteau's stamp "P C & Co." on the blade. This same touchmark of Choteau's has been documented on
several other forged iron implements including a few trade axes, an iron pail and flint striker on display at the Missouri
State Historical Society Museum, and additional items at the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska, verified
by Dr. Jim Hansen. There is also a trade axe head and another iron implement at the Museum of the American Indian
with this same Choteau touchmark on it.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 97
NORTHERN PLAINS PAINTED PICTORIAL BUFFALO ROBE
composed of tanned buffalo hide, finely painted on the back in brown, yellow and vermilion
red, with a bear on its hind legs, the front legs extended upwards, head thrust sharply
backwards, mouth parted to reveall sharp teeth, standing amidst a field of dot and dash
decoration, possibly a representation of hail; each leg trimmed with fringed panels
surmounted by a band of perforated holes.
PROVENANCE
Christie's New York, May 1994, lot 53
CATALOGUE NOTE
The distinct bear image on this robe relates directly to a group of shields attributed to the Arikara. These shields are in
the collection of the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, WY and are illustrated in Hansen, 2007, p. 109.
Bear Power Buffalo Robe
This robe is so unusual as to be unique. The robe was removed from the buffalo’s carcass intact. The head skin,
which is difficult to remove, was carefully preserved by making a cute transversely behind the ears and then removing
the hide from the carcass.
This hide was then brain-tanned. Tens of thousands of hides were tanned by Indian women for trade purpose, but
these were prepared in the usual manner: in two parts, cut along the black with the two parts then sewn together
again with sinew. The removal of the hide in one piece, including the nose and ears, was a laborious task reserved for
those robes dedicated to a special purpose.
Further evidence of the care lavished on the preparation of this robe likes in its secondary decorations. The legs are
carefully slit into fringes, with holes perforated above the fringe. The selvedge of the skin is scalloped from the tail to
the outer aspect of each hind leg. The tail was impressed, while the hide was still green, with a blunt instrument, in
order to produce a series of parallel ridges extending its length. Both the tail and the legs are further decorated with
vermillion. All of these characteristics—fringed legs, touched with vermillion, scalloped edges—are reported on skins
reserved by the Indians for their personal use (cf. Thomas & Ronnefeldt 1976: 67, 137, 139, 189, 209, 220, 222, 225,
234; La Flesche 1926: 54; Fletcher & La Flesche 1905-6: 354; Conn 1979: 134, 145). It should be noted, however,
that the majority of examples are to be found on early specimens; robes and shirts collected, portrayed or reported
before circa 1850. The small holes above the fringe, and the impressed tail, I have not found on any other specimens;
certainly, they cannot have been common refinements.
In the collection of the Buffalo Bill Historical Society are two shields, which have been on exhibition since the museum
opened in 1970. Both are ascribed to the Hidatsas, and both are clearly by the same artist. One shield has two
standing bears painted against a red-streaked background, and is decorated with two eagle fluffs, probably
representing the bear’s breath or voice. One bear is painted in solid brown lignite; the other is painted yellow, with
brown-black sports, like a jaguar. The other shield has but one standing bear, brown-black on a yellow background,
and is flanked on either side by black bear ears. No date is assigned to them, but they clearly antedate the reservation
period.
The robe we are examining here is by the same artist who produced the shields; yet the decoration of the robe, which
also shows a standing black bear against a yellow background spangled with red dots, is not a copy of either shield.
This is in accordance with standard practice among Plains Indian artists, who, even when producing more than one
shield or other medicine object, derived from the same vision, usually produced slight variations in the design or color.
Such variations were intentional.
Although the robe was thought by the collector to be Sioux, the Hidatsa attribution of the Cody shields is correct. For
one thing, we may compare the stylistic representation of the bear to other known Hidatsa examples, such as the Lion
Boy Ledger (Cowdrey 1997). The artist of the Lion Boy Ledger was a different artist, but he shared with this artist
several characteristics, notably the muscular treatment of the shoulders and forearms.
The grizzly bear was of great importance to all tribes of the Great Plains, for obvious reasons (cf. Ewers 1982: 36).
The black bear, by contrast, was respected, but its incorporation into mythology was, on the Plains, limited to the
Mandans, Hidatsas, Arikaras, Pawnees, and Cheyennes (cf. Bowers 1950: 138-9, 169-170; Parks 1996: 328, 337;
Chamberlain 1982: 23, 129-130; Weltfish 1965: 136; Grinnell 1923, vol I: 198, 239, 290, vol II: 30, 84).
Hidatsa and Mandan beliefs and ceremonies overlapped to a great extent; but as this is a Hidatsa robe, we shall
concentrate specifically on Hidatsa use of bear power.
Black bear power was strongly connected to hunting eagles. “In the old days, the black bears liked to catch eagles. A
black bear would go into his pit and when he saw an eagle in the air, he would take out his snare and motion with it as
id to ensnare the bird. Although he could not reach the eagle, the latter soon began to fly down to the pit as if
compelled to do so by some power…[The] bears had an eagle-hunting lodge…where they lived and caught eagles
and ate them” (Wilson 1928: 156). The foundation myth for the Eagle Trapping Rite describes how the power of the
rite was acquired from the black bears (ibid.: 224-6). On other words, the powers of the earth, represented by the
cave-dwelling bears, overcame the powers of the air. The Hidatsas, of course, like all North American Indians, were
capable of playing both sides of the fence, using sky powers to overcome earth powers. But here we are focusing on
the use of earth powers.
If at first blush eagle-catching seems to be irrelevant to warfare, it is not. Like all forms of hunting, eagle catching was
considered analogous to war. Many shields have rabbit designs or actual rabbit scalps on their surface. Rabbits were
invariably used to bait eagle traps; by analogy, then a rabbit on a shield was designed to attract the “eagles” of the
enemy to the shield’s owner, in order that he might kill them (Coleman 1992). At the same time, the bear was a
powerful protector for one to whom he had granted a vision, just as sow bears were ferocious defenders of their cubs.
And bears are notably difficult to kill. This aspect of a bear’s power was sometimes represented by the bear standing
or squatting in an upright position, its arms outstretched: the position assumed by a bear when it feels threatened.
Impressive examples of this are the “hugging tipis” found among the Sarsi and Blackfeet, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes,
Omahas, Poncas, Kiowas and Kiowa-Apaches (Brasser 1979; Ewers 1982: 40-41). One of these lodges was owned
by the famous Southern Cheyenne chief Whirlwind, who also owned a shield with bear paws depicted on it (Kansas
City Museum #40,616). This demonstrates that the holder of bear power may exhibit that power through different
media. It must be said that bears appear on lodge covers and shields with much greater frequency than robes. Ewers
sites two note worth exceptions (op. cit.: 41-2), both depicting war scenes in which one of the individuals appears to
have granted bear power. What is more unusual about this robe, is that it depicts the bear so prominently, in a manner
directly analogous to the way it was depicted on shields and tipis.
The artist who created these three fascinating objects was evidently the recipient of several power visions from his
spirit benefactor. In the case of the robe, the bear image is positioned directly over the wearer’s heart, in the splayed
protective position of an angered bear. Its legs likewise extend in four directions, indicating protection of the owner on
all sides. As a vivid demonstration of this power, the bear stands unmoved and defiant in a red hail, signifying that the
Above Powers will not avail against him. This would include, of course, a “hail of bullets.”
The hail is placed with great precision in a diagonal grid—diapered, in the old language of heraldry. This contributes to
the activation of the entire field, so that the bear, even when the robe’s wearer is motionless, seems to inhabit a
pulsing aura of power. This aspect would be much enhanced when the wearer was in motion, the robe rippling and
the fringe and tail swinging with every step. This splendid robe would have immediately identified its owner to friend or
foe as one of the Chosen Ones of the earth powers, the favored child of the awesome and powerful bear.
Winfield Coleman
San Francisco
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 98
PROPERTY OF THE HOLTER MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE ACQUISITIONS
FUND
ARNOLD FRIBERG
1913-2010
THE EYES OF CHIEF JOSEPH
signed © A. FRIBERG RSA (lower right); also inscribed "The Eyes of Chief Joseph" by
Arnold Friberg/ copyright © 1975 by A. Friberg / All Rights Reserved on the stretcher
oil on canvas
36 by 51 inches
(91.4 by 129.5 cm)
PROVENANCE
Husberg Fine Arts Gallery, Sedona, Arizona
Private Collection, circa 1975-76 (acquired from the above)
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1991
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 99
PROPERTY OF THE BANK OF AMERICA COLLECTION: SALE PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
ALFRED JACOB MILLER
1810 - 1874
ANTELOPE
inscribed Antelope (lower left)
watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink on paper
6 3/4 by 10 1/2 inches
(17.1 by 26.7 cm)
PROVENANCE
Eugenia Miller Whyte (the artist's niece) or Louisa Whyte Norton (the artist's grandniece)
The Old Print Shop, 1947
The Boatman's National Bank, St. Louis, Missouri (now Bank of America), 1947 (acquired from the above)
EXHIBITED
St. Louis, Missouri, The Boatman's National Bank, May 1964, no. 33
Kansas City, Missouri, The Nelson-Atkins Museum; Houston, Texas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Alfred Jacob Miller: Romancing the West in the Bank of America
Collection, September 2010-September 2011, no. 6, p. 86, illustrated in color p. 87
LITERATURE
Mary Bartlett Cowdrey and Helen Comstock, "Alfred Jacob Miller and the Farthest West," Panorama, September-
August 1947, vol. 3, no. 1, p. 1
Ron Tyler ed., Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982, no. 134, p. 242
CATALOGUE NOTE
In 1837, Sir William Drummond Stewart—a retired Captain of the British army and a Scottish nobleman—invited the
Baltimore painter Alfred Jacob Miller to accompany him as a commissioned artist on a trip to the Rocky Mountains,
where they traveled on what would become the Oregon Trail. Depicting his daily impressions of this vast and
unfamiliar environment, Antelope showcases the artist’s inimitable ability to render the idyllic—but
vanishing—wilderness and fauna of the American West.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 100
CHARLES BIRD KING
1785 - 1862
PORTRAIT OF BIG BUFFALO, A CHIPPEWA
signed Copy by C. King from a drawing by Lewis, inscribed Odeg Buffalo and dated
Washington 1826 on the reverse
oil on panel
17 1/2 by 13 3/4 inches
(44.5 by 34.9 cm)
ESTIMATE 100,000-150,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York
Private Collection, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (sold: Sotheby's New York, May 25, 1988, lot 88, illustrated in color)
CATALOGUE NOTE
A significant early American portraitist, Charles Bird King is best known for his portrayals of important Native American
leaders and tribesmen. In 1821, King received a commission from his friend, Thomas L. McKenney, the
Superintendent of Indian trade, to create oil portraits of important tribesmen from the Michigan territory, copied from
watercolor sketches made by Detroit artist James Otto Lewis. King ultimately executed approximately 25 of these
works, which were displayed in McKenney’s Indian Gallery in Washington, D.C. Painted in 1826, Portrait of Big
Buffalo, a Chippewa exhibits the sense of stately dignity with which King depicted these historical figures.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 101
PROPERTY OF THE BANK OF AMERICA COLLECTION: SALE PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
ALFRED JACOB MILLER
1810 - 1874
ROCKY FORMATIONS NEAR THE NEBRASKA OR PLATTE RIVER
inscribed Rocky Formations near the / Nebraska or Platte River (upper right); also inscribed
128 (upper left)
watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink on paper
7 1/2 by 11 3/4 inches
(19.1 by 29.8 cm)
PROVENANCE
Eugenia Miller Whyte (the artist's niece) or Louisa Whyte Norton (the artist's grandniece)
The Old Print Shop, New York, 1947
The Boatman's National Bank, St. Louis, Missouri (now Bank of America), 1947 (acquired from the above)
EXHIBITED
St. Louis, Missouri, The Boatman's National Bank, 1964, no. 48
Kansas City, Missouri, The Nelson-Atkins Museum; Houston, Texas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Alfred Jacob Miller: Romancing the West in the Bank of America
Collection, September 2010-September 2011, no. 25, p. 124, illustrated in color p. 125
LITERATURE
Mary Bartlett Cowdrey and Helen Comstock, "Alfred Jacob Miller and the Farthest West," Panorama, August-
September 1947, vol. 3, no. 1, p. 1
Robert Combs Warner, The Fort Laramie of Alfred Jacob Miller: A Catalogue of All the Known Illustrations of the First
Fort Laramie, Laramie, Wyoming, 1979, vol. II, p. 61-2, illustrated in color p. 63
Ron Tyler ed. Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail, Fort Worth, Texas, 1982, no136, p. 242
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 102
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS COLLECTION
FREDERIC REMINGTON
1861 - 1909
HUSSAR, RUSSIAN GUARD CORPSE
signed Frederic Remington and titled "Hussar" Russian Guard Corpse (lower left)
watercolor and gouache on paper laid down on board
20 1/2 by 21 1/2 inches
(52.1 by 54.6 cm)
Executed circa 1892.
PROVENANCE
Hammer Galleries, New York
Bucholz Estate, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Private Collection, 1969 (by descent in the family and sold: Sotheby's New York, May 27, 1999, lot 44, illustrated in
color)
EXHIBITED
Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum, Frederic Remington, January 1973
LITERATURE
Peter H. Hassrick and Melissa J. Webster, Frederic Remington: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Watercolors and
Drawings, Cody, Wyoming, 1996, vol. I, no. 1368, p. 405, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 103
FINE CREEK BEADED CLOTH BANDOLIER BAG
in the form of a square pouch with triangular flap, suspended on a shoulder strap with
forked ends, composed of dark blue indigo-dyed wool trade cloth and black velvet, backed
with printed calico fabric and edged in red silk binding, finely stitched in tiny glass seed
beads in white, light blue, translucent red and pumpkin, with zigzag and cross motifs on
the front panel, a rectangle with emergent branch-like formations on the flap, possibly an
abstraction of a deer, the strap above with a column of chevrons flanked by trefoils on one
side, the opposite with a meandering design of additional branch-like formations; a paper
label with ink inscription on the interior flap: "this bag is made by old Indian Chief Niah
Mathla - Near Columbus, Ohio, 1835."
28 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Sold Christie's New York, January 2005, lot 241
Private New England Collection
CATALOGUE NOTE
This lot is accompanied by a portrait of Chief Neamathla by Charles Bird King from 1826 and published as a
lithograph by F.W. Greenough, Philadelphia in 1836. Of Chief Neamathla McKinney and Hall wrote: "Neamathla, who
has been one of the most distinguished of the Seminoles, and was at one time their head man, or principle chief, was
by birth a Creek." For remarks by Governor Duval to the Secretary of Defense dated April 11, 1824 see Lowrie and
Franklin, p. 616: "Neamathla is a most uncommon man...the greatest man you have ever seen among the
Indians...He is a man of uncommon capacity; bold, violent and restless."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 104
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE MIDWESTERN COLLECTION
DELAWARE BEADED BANDOLIER BAG
in the form of a square pouch overlaid with a triangular flap, and trifurcated shoulder strap,
composed of dark blue wool trade cloth and red silk binding, finely thread sewn in
numerous colors of glass seed beadwork and metallic bead accents, with an overall dense
pattern of stylized foliate designs outlined in white, the strap terminals with panels of split
rectangles in alternating colors; backed with cotton cloth.
25 3/4 in. length
PROVENANCE
Pendleton Talbott (1829-1911), Bardstown, KY
By family descent to the present owner
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 105
PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK COLLECTION
DELAWARE BEADED CLOTH BANDOLIER BAG
composed of brown and blue wool trade cloth and red silk binding, in the form of a square
pouch attached with a shoulder strap, thread sewn in numerous colors of glass seed
beads, with a broad frieze of concentric diamonds on the pouch, surmounted by a trim of
tin cone pendants inserted with red tufts of wool yarn, the strap with alternating designs on
each side; printed cotton cloth on the back.
35 in. length
PROVENANCE
Reportedly acquired at an estate sale in Clinton County, OH
Sold Cowan's Auction House Cincinnati, September 2006
Acquired from the above by the present owner
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 106
EASTERN PRESENTATION WOOD AND METAL PIPE TOMAHAWK
composed of a tiger maple wood haft of narrow oval section, decorated with German silver
bands alternating with inlaid silver stars and a heart on each side, surmounted by a fine
steel head with barrel-shaped bowl, the expanding blade engraved with a brass crescent
moon on one side, and an oval medallion on the reverse; fined aged patina overall.
19 in. length by 7 1/2 in. width
PROVENANCE
John Baldwin
John Painter Collection, Cincinnati, OH
LITERATURE
Hartzler & Knowles, 1995, Indian Tomahawks and Frontiersman Belt Axes, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 107
JAMES BAY CREE BEADED CLOTH HOOD
composed of wool and silk cloth, glass beads and cotton thread, decorated with typical
floral motifs.
19 in. length
PROVENANCE
Collected at Hudson Bay in the 19th Century by a Merchant Navy Sea Captain
Sold Sotheby's New York, May 23, 2008, lot 2
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 108
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALLEN WARDWELL
TLINGIT WOOD PIPE
carved in the form of a crouching frog, with sensitively carved facial details, including wide
set oval eye rims and high rounded brow line; a cylindrical metal bowl inset on the back.
length 3 1/4 in.
PROVENANCE
Betty Sterling Collection, Hawaii
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 109
TLINGIT WOOD PIPE
in the form of a hawk, with thick slightly parted lips, hooked openwork beak, and oval
eyerims beneath thick arching brows, surmounted by a bowl of cylindrical section, the bit
centering a kneeling human figure, his hands resting on top of the circular opening.
4 1/8 in. length
PROVENANCE
Bergstrom Collection
Acquired from Christie's, May 1996, lot 68
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 110
GROUP OF FIVE TLINGIT SHAMAN MASKETTES AND MINIATURE PAINTED
CLAN HAT
each maskette finely and sensitively carved, one, with a pair of mice flanking the nose,
another with a pair of land otters on the chin, another with exaggerated eyes and
protruding mustachioed mouth, another surmounted by a crown of small crouching
shaman figures, and another with a grimacing expression; together with a clan hat very
finely painted with totemic crest designs.
1 in. to 3 in. heights
PROVENANCE
Acquired as a group from an Estate by the present owner
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of the use of shamanic objects, particularly masks, amongst the Tlingit see Wardwell, 1996, p. 109:
"They were worn to represent and to enable the shaman to take on the powers of the spirit helper who was being
called upon to assist him in his duties. As the spirit possessed the wearer, his movements and the sounds he made
initiated its characteristics. Among the peoples of the Northwest Coast, only the Tlingit made masks for shamanic use.
Each shaman owned his own individualized set of masks. Emmons (1991, pp. 376-77) expresses his appreciation of
Tlingit shaman's masks as works of art: 'The mask exemplified the perfection of Tlingit art in carving...In the shaman's
mask, the Tlingit excels in originality, truthfulness, and elegance of carving." Also see p. 122, no. 110 for a related full
size mask identified as "spirit of a Tlingit;" p. 127, no. 117 for another with what are identified as "land otters emerging
from the cheeks;" p. 140, no. 139 identified as "bear mask" with "land otters;" And see Jonaitis, 1988, p. 99, p. 36 for a
related mask: "Small figures on either side of the nose are mice eating the secret spirits and witches, which they give
to the wearer."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 111
NORTHWEST COAST POLYCHROME WOOD HEADDRESS
of deeply convex form, with a raised bifurcating ridge descending downwards from the
central cranium and terminating just above the nose, a slightly truncated chin line, parted
lips, flaring nostrils and exaggerated wide set pointed oval eye rims beneath thick arching
brows, painted in black and vermilion red details, the teeth and eyes inset with plaques of
brilliant abalone, additional plaques of abalone on the periphery.
10 1/2 in. height
ESTIMATE 175,000-225,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Collection of Adelaide DeMenil and Edmund Carpenter
Private New York Collection
EXHIBITED
Institute of the Arts, Rice University, Houston, "Form and Freedom" October 23, 1975-January 25, 1976; Art Gallery of
New South Wales, Sydney, March 27-May 30, 1976; Art Gallery of South Austrailia, Adelaide, July 23-August 22,
1976; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September 14-October 7, 1976; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto,
January 15-March 13, 1977; Seattle Art Museum, May 11-June 26, 1977; M.H. DeYoung Museum, San Francisco,
March 25-May 25th, 1978; The Saint Louis Art Museum, October 19-December 31, 1978
LITERATURE
Holm and Reid, 1975, Indian Art of the Northwest Coast, pl. 74
CATALOGUE NOTE
In his discussion of this headdress Reid states: "Fantastic frontlet. It doesn't comform to any style of Northwest Coast
art, as far as I'm concerned, yet when I first saw it years ago it immediately had a Haida impact...Haida artists worked
mostly within a rigid, formal system, but occasionally burst out and did crazy, wild things...It must have been a
spectacular thing to be seen worn and probably outshone the exquisite frontlets and headdresses of other people at
the feasts or wherever it was displayed."
For a comparable headdress identfied as the "spirit of the storm cloud" see Gunther, 1966, p. 105.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 112
TSIMSHIAN POLYCHROME WOOD MASKETTE
of deeply convex form, carved in the form of a bird, possibly an owl, with downward
curving beak, red lips, exaggerated circular eyes beneath arching brows and raised ears,
painted overall with a series of gray dashes against a black ground.
4 1/2 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Toby Herbst, Santa Fe, NM in 2003
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 113
ANOTHER PROPERTY
NORTHWEST COAST POLYCHROME WOOD FOREHEAD MASK
carved in the form of a wolf, its lips parted to reveal rows of teeth, with flaring nostrils,
pointed oval eyerims beneath arched brows and raised naturalistic ears, painted in black,
bluish green, and red details; a wood splint headdress for wearing attached by nail and
cotton string to the back.
8 1/2 in. length of mask without headdress

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 114
TLINGIT POLYCHROME WOOD FRONTLET FRAGMENT
of convex section, finely carved with an eagle, with a pronounced downward curving beak,
deeply hollow eye sockets, oval eye rims beneath thick arching brows and a crest; remains
of red, black and bluish green pigments.
3 7/8 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from George Terasaki
LITERATURE
Wardwell, 1996, Tangible Visions, p. 137, no. 130
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 115
ANOTHER PROPERTY
NORTHWEST COAST POLYCHROME WOOD PORTRAIT MASK
carved with pointed chin, naturalistic mouth with lips slightly parted, nose with hollowed
flaring nostrils, modeled cheekbones, and pointed oval eyerims beneath thick arching
brows; the face, forehead and chin painted in red, white and black, with a goatee, and lineal
designs.
9 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 116
NORTHWEST COAST WOOD BOWL
of rectangular form, finely carved on the short ends with a pair of stylized totemic
creatures, the longer sides with panels of lineal designs, the flattened rim decorated with
white shells.
15 in. length by 12 1/8 in. width

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 117
NORTHWEST COAST CLOTH BUTTON-BLANKET
composed of red, blue and brown wool trade cloth, with a large thunderbird, its wings
outstretched and head turned in profile, flanked by a pair of pointed oval eyerim designs,
all enclosed by a border decorated with square and diamond cloth overlays; the whole
trimmed with abalone and mother-of-pearl buttons in a variety of sizes.
62 in. by 80 in.
PROVENANCE
Acquired in the late 19th century
By family descent
Recently acquired by the present owner from the above
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 118
ANOTHER PROPERTY
NORTHWEST COAST BENT-CORNER WOOD BOWL
of convex rectangular form, kerfed and seamed along one corner, the bulging sides finely
carved and incised with a series of totemic creatures, indicated by highly conventionalized
formline elements, including concentric oval eyes on the short ends, and pointed oval eye
rims on the longer sides, the flattened rim inlaid with white shells, all supported by a thick
wood base; an aged and resinous patina overall.
PROVENANCE
Reportedly collected by Captain Rogers of Round Lake, NY, a member of the William H. Seward expedition of 1869 to
1871
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 119
RARE NORTHWEST COAST WOOD BOWL
of deeply convex rectangular form, the bulging walls finely carved and incised, with a
totemic creature on the short ends, the long sides with panels of vertical stripes, the
flattened rim with linear decorations; rich aged brown patina overall with remains of
resinous surface.
5 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired from William Channing, New York, NY
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 120
ANOTHER PROPERTY
TLINGIT WOOD FLAT TRAY
of broad rectangular section, the shallow central bowl flanked by raised convex terminals,
finely carved with classic formline details.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 121
NORTHWEST COAST SHEEP HORN SPOON
with a shallow oval bowl, very finely carved on the exterior with classic formline details
centering a human face, extending to a handle of flattened section, the finial with a stylized
animal; rich honey brown patina overall.
9 1/2 in. length
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example see Holm and Reid, 1975, p. 81, p. 21.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 122
NORTHWEST COAST POLYCHROME WOOD TRANSFORMATION MASK
the outer mask in the form of a bird, probably a raven, carved in two sections, with slightly
parted curved beak, rounded nostrils, oval eyerims beneath thick arching brows,
surmounted by a crest, parting to reveal an inner mask, with a face, possibly another bird,
with sharply downward curving beak, deeply recessed eye sockets and short browline,
painted in red, blue and black, with formline details on the interior of the outward face; a
wood and twine system of rigging attached.
39 in. length by 12 in. height
ESTIMATE 125,000-175,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Acquired from David Cook Gallery, Denver, CO in 2003
CATALOGUE NOTE
Composed of articulated components which the wearer moves by using a set of strings, the transformation mask is a
perfect illustration of ‘the power to disconcert the mind, which the Surrealists sought’ (Walberg, 1965:20). Here, the
bird's head opens along its length, allowing one to see a previously hidden humanized face, demonstrating to the
onlooker the metamorphosis of one being into another.
In 1950, in the only text which he expressly devoted to Northwest Coast masks, André Breton wrote that ‘these masks
are characterized by the property in which certain elements are employed to pivot upon themselves in such a manner
that they modify the configuration of the whole, inversing their significance as needed…In prosaic terms it is true that
they only obey the command of the human hand, which works the system of strings. Yet the effect produced is no less
striking. The spirit of surprise, which plays such a part in the concept of modern art, is put to work here like nowhere
else. The virtue of the object under consideration resides above all else in the possibility of the rapid passage from
one appearance to another, one significance to another. It is not a static work, which, no matter how great its
reputation, must bear comparison with life (and anguish)…Thus the power of the art which animates these masks, and
the secret of their profound resonance with us might come from that which, in the lyrical shortcut of an initiation rite-
from fish to bird, from bird to man- sums up one of the most vertiginous jumps of human kind by realizing a
transformation not only of thought but of action" (André Breton,1950: 36-41).
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 123
KWAKIUTL POLYCHROMED WOOD MASK
depicting Tsonoqwa, with a projecting tubular mouth in a "blowing" expression,
exaggerated pinched cheeks, deeply hollowed eye frames enclosing close set pierced
pupils, perpendicular nose and browline; red and black painted details.
18 1/4 in. height
EXHIBITED
Extended loan to the DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 124
TLINGIT CEREMONIAL DANCE BLANKET
finger-woven on cedar bark warp in mountain goat wool in ivory, black, yellow and
turquoise with a stylized heraldic crest design composed of a pair of faces, flanked by two
additional pairs of faces in profile, one with a projecting bill or snout with zigzag bands,
surmounted by a larger inverted face.
66 in. width
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Christie's New York, November 1995, lot 165
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example and three interpretations of this blanket's design see Emmons, 1903, 387, pl. 580: "According
to Emmons the design represents a killer-whale. In each lower corner is one-half of the head, with the teeth; right in
front of the teeth, the nostril; between the two halves of the head, at the lower border of the blanket, the tail. The
inverted face in the middle above represents the body. The large square designs containing the goggle design on
each side are interpreted as the water blown out from the blow-hole."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 125
NORTHWEST COAST WOOD AND COPPER RATTLE
with an interlocking wood handle wrapped in hide binding, surmounted by a hollowed
ovoid head, in two sections, each side finely hand-tooled in the repousse technique, with a
grimacing face, lips parted to reveal teeth, flaring nostrils, pointed oval eyerims inset with
circular abalone plaques, beneath arching brows, the forehead and cheeks with classic
formline decoration.
10 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Economos Works of Art, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 126
PAIR OF NORTHWEST COAST BEADED CLOTH LEGGINGS
composed of brown wool trade cloth and edged in pale green silk binding, each sewn in
numerous shades of glass beadwork, with a stylized frog, with exaggerated oval eyes,
surmounted by a totemic sea creature, possibly a sea lion, the body decorated overall with
formline designs, centering a rosette-medallion.
15 in. length of each
EXHIBITED
Institute of the Arts, Rice University, Houston, "Form and Freedom" October 23, 1975-January 25, 1976; Art Gallery of
New South Wales, Sydney, March 27-May 30, 1976; Art Gallery of South Austrailia, Adelaide, July 23-August 22,
1976; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September 14-October 7, 1976; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto,
January 15-March 13, 1977; Seattle Art Museum, May 11-June 26, 1977; M.H. DeYoung Museum, San Francisco,
March 25-May 25th, 1978; The Saint Louis Art Museum, October 19-December 31, 1978
LITERATURE
Holm and Reid, 1975, Indian Art of the Northwest Coast, pl. 62
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 127
TLINGIT BONE AMULET
carved in the form of a land otter, flanked by a crouching shaman figure and a devil fish,
the whole with a rich honey-colored patina; drilled with a series of holes for suspension.
3 3/4 in.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from the Estate of John Whiteford
CATALOGUE NOTE
See Wardwell, 1996, p. 183 for two examples that also have this combination of figures.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 128
PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK CITY
TLINGIT POLYCHROME WOOD RATTLE
with a long cylindrical handle, drilled with a series of holes for suspensions (now missing),
emerging to a deeply convex rounded head, finely carved in the shape of a totemic animal,
probably a sculpin, with thick parted lips, flaring nostrils, large circular eyerims and
backswept fins, painted in black, vermillion red and bluish green pigments; rich patina
overall.
14 in. length
CATALOGUE NOTE
For related examples of this style of rattle see Wardwell, 1996, pp. 278-79. For a related example of a carved sculpin
figure see Fitzhugh and Crowell, 1988, p. 153.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 129
TLINGIT BONE TRAP STAKE
carved at one end with an animal, probably a bear or a wolf.
8 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 130
HAIDA CLOTH BUTTON-BLANKET
composed of red, blue and white wool cloth, with a radiant medallion centering a
thunderbird, the border with classic totemic designs; trimmed overall with mother-of-pearl
buttons in various sizes.
60 in. by 58 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 131
NORTHWEST COAST CHILKAT BLANKET
woven in mountain goat's wool, and cedar bark fiber, in ivory, black, yellow and turquoise,
with a totemic crest pattern, probably a representation of a diving whale, the warp extended
to form thick, long fringe below; reportedly woven by Jennie Thlunaut.
67 in . width by 57 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired from The American Indian Arts Center, New York in 1970
CATALOGUE NOTE
In a letter that accompanies this lot, it's written that this blanket was woven by Jennie Thlunaut, the "last of the Tlingit
weavers," and from Haines Alaska. The blanket was reportedly completed in the late 1930s for a member of the Wolf
clan at Angoon.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 132
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. LAWRENCE STOCKER AND REVA TAUBMAN
STOCKER
TLINGIT CEREMONIAL DANCE BLANKET
woven in pale yellow and blue against a rich black ground, with a central rectangular face,
within an abstract totemic field enclosing stylized wings, eyes and other crest
characteristics, the lateral fields similarly ornamented; four corner ties in black and yellow
remaining at each side.
65 3/4 in. width
PROVENANCE
Andy Warhol Collection
Sold Sotheby's New York, April 1988, lot 2570
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 133
NORTHWEST COAST WOOD SPEAKER STAFF
of cylindrical form, carved at the top with a series of totemic figures, including a shaman
clutching a wolf to his chest.
76 1/4 in. height
PROVENANCE
Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 134
NORTHWEST COAST DAGGER, PROBABLY TLINGIT
the faceted blade set into an ivory handle, carved in the form of a seated bear, with pointed
oval eye rims decorated with circular plaques of abalone, surmounted by another totemic
animal.
13 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired at Christie's New York, November 1995, lot 288
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 135
NORTHWEST COAST HORN LADLE
with deep pointed oval bowl, incised and carved on the exterior with classic totemic
formline motifs centering a face, with pointed oval eyerims beneath arched brows and back
swept ears, emerging to a long, tapering handle; rich aged patina overall.
21 in. length
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example see Holm and Reid, 1977, p. 83.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 136
NORTHWEST COAST MOUNTAIN SHEEP HORN LADLE
with a shallow bowl, incised on the exterior with totemic designs, emerging to a long
handle with a finial carved in the form of a bird's head.
13 3/4 in. height
PROVENANCE
Collection of Yves Berger
Acquired from Millon and Assocaites, Paris, April 2002
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 137
TLINGIT ANTLER PIPE
carved in the form of a crouching human figure, the arms held tightly to the torso, fingers
extended to support a collar worn around the neck, the large head with exaggerated
features and surmounted by a headress inlaid with plaques of abalone; rich patina overall.
3 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 138
NORTHWEST COAST POLYCHROME WOOD MODEL TOTEM POLE
of convex section, carved with a raven holding a frog its beak, surmounted in turn by a
human figure holding a ringed creature, possibly a worm, in its hands, and another figure
flanked by similar worm-like creatures, painted details in red, turquoise and black.
21 1/4 in. height
PROVENANCE
Collected by Colonel Thorton Rogers (1876-1937) between 1926-1927 while he was the commanding officer of the
Chilkoot Barracks in Haines, Alaska
Sold Sotheby's New York, December 1993, lot 193
Acquired from Christie's New York, November 1995, lot 281
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 139
TLINGIT COPPER RATTLE
finely molded into the shape of a classic shield, composed of two riveted sections; the
handle pierced for suspension.
12 1/2 in. height
PROVENANCE
Andy Warhol Collection
Sold Sotheby's New York, April 1988, lot 2604
James Economos Collection
Private West Virginia Collection
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 140
NORTHWEST COAST WOOD HANDLE
framentary, carved with a pair of surmounted birds.
4 3/4 in. length
PROVENANCE
Collected by Sir James Pearl (d. 1839), a British naval officer knighted in 1838
Acquired from Sotheby's London, June 1983, lot 55
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 141
RARE AND IMPORTANT OKVIK ESKIMO WALRUS IVORY FEMALE FIGURE
finely carved with a cylindrical body, bulging abdomen, and sloping shoulders, the head of
classic form, with small grooved mouth, long aquiline nose and deeply inset eyes, incised
decoration overall, with a series of dots on the face, the body with lineal designs; with an
overall patina ranging from honey to encrusted dark brown.
6 in. height
ESTIMATE 150,000-250,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Private Collection
CATALOGUE NOTE
Stylistically this figure relates to four other figures identified as Okvik substyle B examples, see Wardwell, 1986, pp.
50, 52-53, nos. 31, 37, 38 and 39. Number 39 is identified as appearing to be of a pregnant woman. For related
comparable see Sotheby's New York, May 2007, lots 73 and 74.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 142
ESKIMO IVORY ARROWSHAFT STRAIGHTENER, THULE PERIOD
in the form of a mule deer, legs folded underneath the outstretched body, the head
sensitively carved with upright ears, slightly parted lips, tongue extended and drilled holes
indicating the eyes; a diamond shape opening on the flank.
8 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Butterfield's, San Francisco, November 1995
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 143
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF WILLIAM AND JANE BUCHSBAUM
THREE ATTU POLYCHROME TWINED AND LIDDED BASKETS
each finely woven in rye grass and embroidered in silk or cotton thread, with typical
geometric motifs, surmounted with a lid with flaring knob-handle; one with a rattle-top.
2 7/8 in. to 5 in. heights

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 144
PROPERTY FROM A FRENCH PRIVATE COLLECTION
ESKIMO LIDDED BOX
finely decorated with plaques of incised walrus ivory.
14 1/5 in. length by 12 1/4 in. height by 10 1/2 in. width

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 145
EANGER IRVING COUSE
1866 - 1936
DECORATIVE PANEL
signed E-I-COUSE-N-A- (lower right)
oil on canvas laid down on masonite
20 by 42 inches
(50.8 by 106.7 cm)
Painted in 1916.
ESTIMATE 120,000-180,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Massachusetts, 1916 (commissioned from the artist)
By descent in the family to the present owner
LITERATURE
The Artist's Sketchbook, no. 248, p. 14
Nicholas Woloshuk, E. Irving Couse, 1866-1936, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1975, illustrated p. 37
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 146
LEON GASPARD
1882 - 1964
EVELYN IN RUSSIAN COSTUME
signed Leon Gaspard (lower left)
oil on canvas
9 1/2 by 6 1/4 inches
(24.1 by 15.9 cm)
Painted in 1917.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 147
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP
1859 - 1953
ROLLING HILLS
signed J.H. SHARP (lower right)
oil on canvas
16 by 24 inches
(40.6 by 61 cm)
PROVENANCE
Owings-Dewey Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Private Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts (acquired from the above and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 24,
2000, lot 160, illustrated in color)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 148
PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION, PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
WILLIAM ROBINSON LEIGH
1866 - 1955
APACHE MOTHER AND CHILDREN
signed © W.R. LEIGH and dated 1949 (lower right)
oil on canvas
20 by 18 inches
(50.8 by 45.7 cm)
PROVENANCE
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York
Private Collection, circa 1956
By descent in the family to the present owner
EXHIBITED
New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, Our Fabulous West: Paintings by William R. Leigh-A Retrospective Exhibition
1906-1953, April-May 1953, no. 2
New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, Eight Decades in Review (1870-1955): Paintings by William R. Leigh, A.N.A.,
January-February 1955, no. 78
New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, 90th Anniversary Roundup of Paintings by W.R. Leigh, September-October
1956, no. 4
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 149
ALBERT BIERSTADT
1830 - 1902
OWENS VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
signed with the artist's monogrammed signature ABierstadt (lower right)
oil on canvas
8 1/2 by 13 1/2 inches
(21.6 by 34.3 cm)
PROVENANCE
Fenn Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Mongerson-Wunderlich, Chicago, Illinois
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 2000
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 150
LEON GASPARD
1882 - 1964
WINTER LANDSCAPE-RUSSIA
signed Leon Gaspard (lower right)
oil on canvasboard
8 1/2 by 10 3/4 inches
(21.6 by 27.3 cm)
PROVENANCE
Estate of the artist
Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, California
Kennedy Galleries, New York
Rainone Galleries, Arlington, Texas
Sold: Christe's Los Angeles, California, Western and American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, November 20,
2002, lot 31, illustrated in color
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 151
APACHE PICTORIAL COILED STORAGE JAR
with small base, full shoulder and a wide opening, woven in willow and devils' claw, with
vertical rattlesnake bands enclosing humans and chickens, alternating with bands of
inverted triangles, the open fields with crosses.
20 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Kinnaman, New York, 1979
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 152
LARGE APACHE PICTORIAL COILED STORAGE JAR
with a high rounded shoulder, woven in willow and devil's claw, with a circular medallion in
the basin, and an overall lattice design enclosing human figures and stacked bars in
alternating colors.
22 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 153
MONUMENTAL APACHE PICTORIAL COILED STORAGE JAR
of massive form, woven in willow and devil's claw, with a series of unusual human figures
with stepped bands radiating from their shoulders, surmounted by additional human
figures and animals, possibly goats.
28 1/2 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Fenn Galleries, Santa Fe, 1983
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 154
LARGE APACHE OR YAVAPAI COILED PICTORIAL STORAGE JAR
with broad flat base, flaring walls and outward curving rim, woven in willow and devil's
claw, with an overall pattern of triangles in alternating colors, each enclosing various
figural formations, including male figures on horseback with raised arms, pairs of women,
male and female pairs and quadrupeds.
23 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 155
LARGE APACHE OR YAVAPAI PICTORIAL COILED STORAGE JAR
with small base, sharply flaring sides, rounded shoulder and tall neck, woven in willow and
devil's claw, with triangular panels enclosing human and animal figures alternating with
cross motifs.
23 1/2 in. height
PROVENANCE
Original Trading Post, Santa Fe
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 156
APACHE POLYCHROME PICTORIAL COILED STORAGE JAR
of tall cylindrical form, woven in willow, devil's claw and red yucca, with an elaborate
openwork design enclosing human and animal figures.
9 7/8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 157
APACHE POLYCHROME PICTORIAL TRAY
woven in devil's claw and red yucca root against a willow ground, with a circular radiant
medallion in the basin, surmounted by human and animal figures.
13 7/8 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 158
LARGE APACHE PICTORIAL COILED TRAY
woven in willow and devil's claw, with a quatrefoil in the basin, surmounted by a double
frieze of human figures and quadrupeds.
23 1/2 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 159
JOSE DE LA CRUZ MEDINA (1935-1968), ZIA
Apache Crown or Spirit Dancer, ink and pencil on paper; signed: "JC Medina" in the lower
left corner.
19 1/4 in. by 14 3/4 in. size of image

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 160
PROPERTY FROM THE ROBERT BRADY MUSEUM FOUNDATION
LARGE HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL
possibly representing Piptu Wu-uti, with angular arms carved in relief, red body paint,
wearing a white manta that crosses one shoulder, the face, with realistic features, painted
with hatch marks on the cheeks, surmounted by a tableta, carved with a terraced periphery
and decorated with stylized raincloud motifs.
height 21 1/2 in.
CATALOGUE NOTE
For more information on the Robert Brady Museum please visit http://bradymuseum.org.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 161
HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL, DEPICTING LENYA OR 'FLUTE'
standing on fragmentary feet, his naturalistic arms held away from the torso, wearing a
white sash with painted embroidery, red body paint and green and white skins on the
raised shoulders, the pronounced sack mask painted in red, black and green, with
remnants of a rectangular eye and hatch marks on the cheek, surmounted by an
exaggerated overhanging brow line, with worn red and green wool yarn attachments, a
painted black coiffure on the reverse.
10 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from H. Malcolm Grimmer, Santa Fe, NM in 2000
LITERATURE
This doll was featured on the cover of the catalogue for the Los Angeles Tribal Folk and Textile Art Show, November
10-12, 2000
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 162
HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL, DEPICTING SAKWA HU
standing on feet of semi-circular section, wearing green moccasins, white kilt, with painted
embroidered sash, red body paint and sack mask, with pop-eyes and a series of crosses,
flanked by two large upcurving horns; remains of red-dyed horsehair on the chin.
7 7/8 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from John Hill Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ in 1999
CATALOGUE NOTE
This lot is accompanied by a letter about the doll from Barton Wright. In the letter he writes: "The "ogre" is not an ogre.
It is the Sawa Hu Kachina or more correctly the Hu Kachina's Uncle. He comes during the initiation of the children and
while he can act as a whipper for the initiates he is usually around as a guard for the kiva during the ceremony."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 163
HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL, DEPICTING A SHALAKO MANA
wearing a white manta across her shoulders, and a case mask, with a hatched rainbow on
the chin, red circles on the cheeks, rectangular eyes set wide apart and overhanging brow
line, surmounted by an elaborate openwork tableta, carved and painted with raincloud
motifs.
11 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Economos Works of Art, Santa Fe, NM in 2007
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 164
HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL, DEPICTING A MALE
standing on bent legs, with one arm held away from the torso, possibly in a dancing
posture, realistic genitalia, wearing a black breech cloth, painted white stripes across the
abdomen and chest, the face with similar stripes in orange.
7 3/4 in. height
PROVENANCE
Reportedly collected in 1880-81 by a man who worked on the Hopi Reservation with the Indian Police
Acquired from John Hill Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ in 1999
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 165
HOPI FLAT-STYLE POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA DOLL, DEPICTING A
KOSHARE
of stylized rectangular section, arms held tightly to the torso, decorated with typical striped
designs.
11 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Kania-Ferrin Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 166
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
HOPI POLYCHROME WOOD KACHINA
wearing a kilt, and red and yellow body paint, and holding a rattle in his right hand, the
case mask with "pop" eyes and flanked by an exaggerated pair of horns.
23 in. height
PROVENANCE
Collection of Karel Appel
Fig. 1
Lot 166 in situ with Karl Appel
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 167
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
PUEBLO PAINTED BUFFALO HIDE SHIELD
of circular form, painted with a series of vertical stripes in alternating colors, surmounted
by a pair of horns.
17 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Formerly in the collection of the US National Museum, now Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
V. J. Evans Collection, ACC. 113605; CAT 359057
CATALOGUE NOTE
"For the Indian, the painting on the shield was often more important that the actual physical protection it afforded. The
decoration was a magical device used to blind and confuse the enemy in battle, or defeat him by countering his
magic...The shield was believed to impart immunity from harm or to provide supernatural assistance to the carrier"
(Wright 1976:8).
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 168
MARIA MARTINEZ (1887-1980)/POPOVI DA (1921-1971), SAN ILDEFONSO
of compressed globular form, painted in red and black against a cream slip, with a
scalloped band, surmounted by alternating panels enclosing feather and stepped designs;
signed on the base: "Maria/ Popovi 766."
PROVENANCE
Collection of Dennis and Janis Lyon, Paradise Valley, AZ
Acquired from the above in 2001
CATALOGUE NOTE
For related examples and a discussion of polychrome pottery made by Maria Martinez and her son Popovi Da see
Spivey, 1979, pp. 77: "Popovi Da is a name synonymous with quality. Following the high standards already
established by his parents, he succeeded in carrying the ceramic art to even higher plateaus of creativity. Many
experts feel that the Maria/Popovi period expressed the highest level of Maria's genius."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 169
MARIA MARTINEZ (1887-1980), SAN ILDEFONSO
of compressed globular form, decorated overall with a highly polished gunmetal slip in
black; signed on the base: "Maria Poveka."
6 1/2 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 170
of globular form with raised neck, decorated overall with a highly polished gunmetal slip;
signed on the base: "Maria/Popovi 669."
4 7/8 in. height
LITERATURE
Spivey, 2003, The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez, p. 115
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 171
of globular form, decorated with a polished gunmetal black slip; signed on the base: "Maria
Poveka 1264."
3 1/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 172
POPOVI DA (1921-1971), SAN ILDEFONSO
plate, painted with a classic feather band; signed on the base: "Popovi 768."
6 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 173
of globular form with raised rim, decorated in sienna and black polished slip, finely painted
in matte relief with an encircling feather band; signed on the base: "Popovi 471."
4 7/8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 174
TONY DA (B. 1940), SAN ILDEFONSO
of compressed globular form, decorated with sienna and highly polished black slip, finely
incised with an alternating pattern of split ovoids and triangles; signed on the base: "Da."
5 in. diameter
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 175
of compressed globular form, finely decorated in sienna and gunmetal black slips, and with
incised feather designs descending from the rim; signed on the base: "Da."
3 1/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 176
of rounded form, decorated overall with a highly polished sienna slip, very finely incised on
the shoulder with a lizard, a stepped arrow emerging from its mouth, possibly a reference
to lighting, a large turquoise cabochon inset onto its back, flanked by additional turquoise
cabachons, incised details and heishi decoration; signed on the base: "Da."
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dennis Lyon, Paradise Valley, AZ in 1998
LITERATURE
King and Spivey, 2011, Life and Art of Tony Da, pl. 178
CATALOGUE NOTE
For related examples and a discussion of Tony Da pottery see McCoy,1993, pp. 59-61: "Tony Da comes from a long
line of illustrious potters. His father was Popovi Da and his grandparents were Maria and Julian Martinez. Tony readily
absorbed what his family had taught him about the potter's art and, while still very young, deftly moved into that realm
inhabited by most mature talents. Exerting the force of his own driving vision, he expanded unpredictably upon his
training, creating new precepts in pueblo art -ultimately blending his talents as a potter, painter, and jeweler into a
highly original, inspiring, and artistically successful body of work."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 177
of shallow flaring form, decorated overall in a polished sienna slip, finely painted in matte
relief with a fish, poised to consume aquatic vegetation decorated with a split cross-
hatched oval on its body, clusters of bubbles on its tail, all enclosed by three narrow
bands; signed on the base: "Maria/Popovi 464."
11 3/4 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dennis Lyon, Paradise Valley, AZ in 1998
LITERATURE
Spivey, 2007, The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez, p. 98, pl. 103
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example in black from the Lucille and Marshall Miller Collection see Sotheby's New York, November
1999, lot 5.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 178
with a globular body emerging to a pair of projecting spouts, joined by a broad strap
handle, finely painted in matte reserve against the highly polished gunmetal slip, with a
band enclosing feather and wing designs; signed on the base: "Popovi 865."
13 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from the Cottonwood Trading Post, San Ildefonso, NM in 1997
LITERATURE
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a related example formerly in the Lucille and Marshall Miller Collection see Sotheby's New York, November 1999,
lot 8.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 179
plate, painted in matte relief against the polished black ground, with a stylized feather
band; signed on the base: "Marie."
10 1/2 in. diameter
CATALOGUE NOTE
This style of plate is consistent with work produced in the 1920s.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 180
of shallow flaring form, decorated with a highly polished balck gunmetal slip, and a band of
sienna encircling the rim; signed on the base: "Da."
11 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
LITERATURE
King and Spivey, 2011, The Life and Art of Tony Da, pl. 179
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 181
bowl, painted in red and black against a cream slip, with foliate motifs surmounted by a
band of zigzags alternating with rows of tiny dots.
9 in. diameter
CATALOGUE NOTE
This lot is accompanied by a photograph of the artist holding the bowl.
Fig. 1
Maria Martinez holding lot 181
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 182
JULIAN MARTINEZ (1885-1943), SAN ILDEFONSO
watercolor on paper; signed: "Julian Martinez" in the lower right corner.
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 183
ink and watercolor on paper; signed: "Po-Povi" in the lower right corner.
6 in. height by 4 in. width
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 184
of shallow flaring form, painted in matte relief against the highly polished gunmetal black
slip, with an encircling avanyu, its crested head turned slightly upwards, spewing lightning,
surmounted by cloud formations; signed on the base: "Maria/Popovi 863."
11 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 185
with globular body emerging to a pair of projecting spouts and joined by a strap handle,
polished overall with a highly polished gunmetal slip in black; signed on the base: "Maria
Poveka."
height 9 1/4 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 186
in the form of a bear, decorated overall with a polished red slip, finely incised with two
heart-lines, inset with plaques of turquoise on the mid-body and for the eyes; signed on the
rear left leg: "Da."
6 3/4 in. length
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 187
TAMMY GARCIA (B. 1969), SANTA CLARA
with flat base, high rounded shoulder and fluted rim, decorated overall in polished red and
two shades of tan and matte red micaceous slips, finely and deeply carved with a broad
frieze enclosing a trio of female figures, each wearing a tableta, and in a dancing posture,
the open field with elaborate scrolling, fan-shaped and hooked devices; signed on the
base: "Tammy Garcia."
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist in 1996
CATALOGUE NOTE
For related examples and a discussion of Tammy Garcia's pottery see Cohen, 1993, pp. 131-133: "Tammy Garcia
comes from the Naranjo family of Santa Clara Pueblo, a long and distinguished line of ceramic
artists...Tammy...yearned to transform the entire pottery surface, not just small portions of it, into a canvas for her
designs....Tammy cites her interest in Oriental ceramics, which were often richly and densely decorated over entire
vessel surfaces...The challenge has been for Tammy to 'translate the Oriental aesthetic into a Pueblo sensitivity that is
also personal.' ...in keeping with an art form that spans two millennium, Tammy follows the traditional method of
gathering clay, building vessels, and firing them."
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 188
BLUE CORN (1920-1999), SAN ILDEFONSO
of shallow flaring form, painted in black and soft red over a grayish-tan slip, with a stylized
feather frieze centering a checkered medallion, an encircling avanyu beneath the rim; the
underside painted with micaceous slip.
12 3/4 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Lucille and Marshall Miller Collection
Acquired Sotheby's New York, November 1999, lot 22
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 189
CAVAN GONZALES (B. 1970), SAN ILDEFONSO
plate, painted in orange and black against a tan slip, with an offset quartered medallion in
the basin, surmounted by a scalloped band beneath the darkened rim; signed on the base:
"Gaven Gonzales, Eagle Tail."
14 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist
LITERATURE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 190
ROSE GONZALES, SANTA CLARA
plate, decorated overall with a polished black slip, carved with an abstract design; signed
on the base: "Rose."
11 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 191
AWA TSIREH (1898-1955), SAN ILDEFONSO
watercolor on paper; signed: "Awa Tsireh" in the lower right corner.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 192
HELEN CORDERO (1905-1994), COCHITI
male figure, in a seated position and supporting seven children, in various playful
postures, his mouth open in a singing pose; signed on the base: "Helen Cordero."
8 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 193
HELEN CORDERO (1905-1994), COCHITI
seated with legs crossed and right arm upraised, drumstick in his grasp, a drum resting in
his lap, his finely modeled head with mouth open in song; signed on the base: "Helen
Cordero."
8 7/8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 194
LOIS GUTIERREZ (B. 1948), SANTA CLARA
with compressed body and terraced rim, painted with a frieze of kokopelli figures; signed
on the base: "Lois 1994."
10 7/8 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 195
HELEN NAHA (1922-1993), HOPI
painted in three shades of brown against a white slip, with a pair of swag bands enclosing
complex geometric designs.
9 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 196
IDA SAHMIE (B. 1960), NAVAJO
the very thin walls painted with a frieze of dancers, possibly a depiction of a healing
ceremony; signed on the base: "Ida Sahmie."
8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 197
BARBARA AND JOSEPH CERNO (B. 1951/1947), ACOMA
with concave base, and high rounded shoulder, elaborately painted with parrots nibbling
on berry-laden branches, arching bands and floral motifs surrounding them; signed on the
base: Barbara and Joseph Cerno."
7 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 198
LOIS MEDINA (B. 1959), ZIA
with flat base and high rounded shoulder, painted in typical colors, with concentric arching
bands enclosing birds, each with up-swept wings.
12 1/2 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 199
ROBERT TENORIO (B. 1950), SANTO DOMINGO
canteen, of massive scale, painted in red, black and cream slips, with a pair of stylized
goats surmounting a frieze of geometric devices; signed on the base: "Robert Tenorio."
14 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 200
MARGARET TAFOYA (1904 -2001), SANTA CLARA
water jar, with concentric bowls emerging to a tall neck and flaring rim, decorated overall
with a polished black slip, three bear paw impressions encircle the shoulder; signed on the
base: "Margaret Tafoya."
12 1/2 in. height
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dennis Lyon, Paradise Valley, AZ
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 201
LUCY LEWIS (1898-1992), ACOMA
with concave base, finely painted in red and black against a white slip, with two registers of
heartline deer; signed on the base: "Lucy M. Lewis."
6 1/2 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 202
TERESITA NARANJO (1919-1999), SANTA CLARA
decorated overall with a polished black slip, deeply carved on the mid-body with an
encircling avanyu beneath a stylized feather band; signed on the base: "Teresita Naranjo."
9 1/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 203
LES NAMINGHA (B. 1967), HOPI/ZUNI
with concave base, painted overall in numerous colors, with a series interlocking panels
enclosing various mosaic designs; signed on the base: "Les Namingha."
7 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 204
ROXANNE SWENTZELL (B. 1962), SANTA CLARA
finley molded from clay in the form of a human face, with fleshy features, wearing a serene
expression; signed on the back: "Rox.".
10 1/2 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 205
LES NAMINGHA (B. 1967), HOPI/ZUNI
of compressed globular form, painted in numerous colors against a burnished bronze slip,
with encircling bands surmounted by fields of intricate mosaic designs; signed on the
base: "Les Namingha Four."
6 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 206
RICHARD ZANE SMITH (B. 1955), WYANDOT
a "pottery garden," composed of a large corrugated oval bowl, filled with black micaceous
"soil," inset with a group of four corrugated sculptures, each of organic form, the coils
shaped, incised, and painted in numerous colors.
16 1/4 in. length of bowl; from 3 1/4 in. to 7 in. length for sculptures
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 207
RICHARD ZANE SMITH (B. 1955), WYANDOT
a corrugated lidded jar, painted in gray and deep red against an orange slip, with columns
of stacked triangles, the lid with a radiant motif and surmounted by a highly polished stone,
carved in the form of a human and bound with sinew; signed on the base: "Richard Zane
Smith 2008."
8 1/8 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 208
with small base, flaring walls and wide opening, decorated overall with a highly polished
black slip, finely and deeply carved with an encircling frieze of parrots, berry-laden
branches, dragon flies and geometric designs; signed on the base: "Tammy Garcia."
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist in 1997
LITERATURE
Garcia, Tammy Garcia: Form Without Boundaries, p. 63
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 209
a square tile, decorated overall with highly polished slips in red and sienna against a matte
ground, finely carved with a frieze of three women in a dancing posture; signed on the side:
"Tammy Garcia, Tile #2 For Rain."
10 in. height by 9 1/2 width

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 210
NATHAN YOUNGBLOOD (B. 1954), SANTA CLARA
with globular body emerging to a tall tapering neck, decorated with highly polished red and
tan matte slips, deeply and finely carved with an encircling avanyu, scalloped bands above
and below; signed on the base: "Nathan Youngblood."
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Gallery 10, Santa Fe, NM in 1995
EXHIBITED
The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage, "Vessels of Grace," Oklahoma City, March 18 - June 5,
1989
LITERATURE
Persimmon Hill, Spring 1989, cover illustration
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 211
JOSEPH LONEWOLF (B. 1932), SANTA CLARA
of oval form, decorated with a red slip, finely incised in the sgraffito technique, with three
fluttering hummingbirds; signed on the base: "Joseph Lonewolf."
3 3/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 212
DELORES CURRAN (ACTIVE SINCE 1979), SANTA CLARA
finely painted with a feather band and other traditional motifs; signed on the base: "Dolores
Curran."
4 1/2 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 213
DORA TSE PE (B. 1939), SAN ILDEFONSO
decorated overall with a highly polished red slip, carved on the shoulder with an encircling
avanyu, inset with a plaque of turquoise at the eye; signed on the base: "Dora 94."
7 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 214
JODY NARANJO (B. 1969), SANTA CLARA
of compressed globular form, finely carved on the shoulder with a broad frieze enclosing
four women, each wearing a tablets and holding a jar, additional figures in the alternating
fields; signed on the base: "Portrait of a Potter and a Mother Jody Naranjo."
5 1/2 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 215
JODY NARANJO (B. 1969), SANTA CLARA
with a high rounded shoulder, finely incised against the matte mosaic field with a series of
quadrupeds; signed on the base: "Jody Naranjo Nov. 92."
10 1/2 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 216
AL QOYAWAYMA (B. 1938), HOPI
of hourglass form, decorated overall with a creamy micaceous slip, the front with a finely
molded depiction of an ancient cliff-dwelling in deep relief; signed on the base:
"Qoyawayma, 1994."
12 3/4 in. height
CATALOGUE NOTE
For a discussion of Qoyawayma's pottery see Southwest Profile Magazine, 1993, pp.22-25: "Qoywayma's pottery is
legendary. Connoisseurs and critics speak of its sculptural perfection, pristine elegance, profound, synchronous
relationships, and sublime, fluid forms. For the potter himself, the meaning is simple and clear. "It is the evidence of
the spiritual influence on all men.""
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 217
MARK TAHBO (B. 1958), HOPI
painted in numerous colors against a burnished orange slip, with a stylized avian motif;
signed on the base: "Mark Tahbo 98."
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist
CATALOGUE NOTE
This jar won Best-In-Show at the annual Heard Museum Indian Fair in Phoenix, AZ.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 218
JAMES NAMPEYO GARCIA (B. 1958), HOPI
painted on the broad, flat shoulder with highly stylized avian motifs; signed on the base:
"James Nampeyo."
13 1/4 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 219
LONNIE VIGIL (B. 1955), NAMBE
with flat base, low concentric bowls emerging to a tall neck and flaring rim, decorated
overall with a black micaceous slip; signed on the base: "Vigil /Nambe."

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 220
of typical carinated form with a gently fluted rim, decorated overall with an orange
micaceous slip; the shoulder with fire clouds.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 221
bowl, with terraced rim, decorated with orange micaceous slip and fire clouds; signed on
the base: Vigil/Nambe."
12 1/2 in. diameter

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 222
LORRAINE WILLIAMS (B. LATE 1950S), NAVAJO
of tall cylindrical form, painted with a frieze of Yei figures, the flattened shoulder with
feather bands, stepped diamonds and stylized faces; signed on the base: "Lorraine
Williams."
18 1/8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 223
MIMBRES BLACK-ON-WHITE PICTORIAL BOWL
finely painted on the interior with a rabbit, with geometric decoration on the body, its
whiskers projecting sharply forward, surmounted in turn by a zigzag band and an
encircling panel of parallel lines.
7 1/2 in.
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 224
painted on the interior with a pair of birds, each decorated with a hatched diamond on its
body, a series of thick encircling bands beneath the rim.
10 1/8 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 225
of deeply flaring form, painted on the interior with a quadruped, possibly a deer, enclosed
by a stylized feather band.
9 3/4 in.
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 226
painted in the basin with two human figures, their arms outstretched, possibly enagaged in
combat, surmounted by a geometric band; a series of inventory numbers written on the
exterior: PW/265; 9936-W; PW2014.
9 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
Peter Wray Collection
Acquired from Gallery 10, Santa Fe, NM
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 227
of globular form with tall tapering neck, decorated on the body with a highly polished red
slip, finely incised with an encircling avanyu, lighting spewing from its mouth, small
stylized paw prints on its body, the plume inset with a plaque of turquoise, surmounted by
a heishi band and a broad matte frieze in tan, the lid decorated with a band of tiny incised
circles, additional heishi and turquoise decoration on the finial; signed on the base: "Da."
8 1/4 in. height with lid
LITERATURE
American Indian Art Magazine, Autumn 1977, p. 93, illustrated
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 228
COCHITI POLYCHROME JAR
with full rounded body and short neck, decorated with a encircling polished red band on
the lower section, surmounted by a wide frieze, in black against a cream ground, finely
painted with a series of trees and birds, and small rounded forms with dotted details,
possibly representing snow-capped mountains.
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 229
with a concave base, painted in red, orange and dark brown against a cream slip, with large
quatrefoils, alternating with bands of scrolling devices surmounted by heartline deer.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Larry Frank in 1981
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 230
POLACCA POLYCHROME PICTORIAL JAR
with deeply concave base and globular body, painted in red and dark brown against a
cream slip, with capped spiral designs enclosing birds, some nibbling on branches.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dewey Kofron Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 1993
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 231
SAN ILDEFONSO BLACK-ON-RED JAR
with concave base, globular body and tapering neck, painted with a frieze of stylized foliate
motifs.
10 1/2 in. height 12 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 232
CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS
1858 - 1942
SUNSET LIGHT NEAR MONTEREY
signed Charles Partridge Adams (lower left)
oil on canvas
18 by 24 inches
(45.7 by 61 cm)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Palm Desert, California
By descent in the family (sold: John Moran Auctionneers & Appraisers, February 19, 2008, lot 40, illustrated in color)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 233
THOMAS HILL
1829 - 1908
INDIANS FISHING IN YOSEMITE
signed T. Hill and dated 1900 (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 by 45 inches
(76.2 by 114.3 cm)
PROVENANCE
Robert Kral (sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 5, 1985, lot 80, illustrated in color)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 234
PROPERTY OF A NEW YORK ESTATE
R. BROWNELL MCGREW
1916-1994
FLEECE OF EARTH AND SKY
signed R. Brownell McGrew (lower right)
oil on panel
56 by 46 inches
(142.2 by 116.8 cm)
Painted in 1983.
PROVENANCE
O'Brien's Art Emporium, Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1988
EXHIBITED
Tulsa, Oklahoma, Thomas Gilcrease Museum, R. Brownell McGrew: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings,
September-November 1988
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 235
SANTO DOMINGO POLYCHROME DOUGH BOWL
painted on the exterior in black and white slips, with a classic frieze of lobed devices
alternating with a zigzag band, the interior decorated with a red slip.
19 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 236
SANTO DOMINGO POLYCHROME DOUGH BOWL
of deeply flaring form, painted in black and white, with a pair of split scalloped designs,
parallel framing lines above and below, the interior with a red polish.
18 1/2 in. diameter
PROVENANCE
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 237
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MILTON GINSBURG
TWO SANTA CLARA TWIN-SPOUT JARS
of classic form, each decorated with highly polished slip, one in red, signed "Teresita
Naranjo" (1919-1999), the other in black, signed "Helen Shupla" (d. 1985).
heights: 14 in. and 11 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 238
JOSEPH LONEWOLF (B. 1932), SANTA CLARA
of globular form, very finely incised with moutain sheep; signed on the base: "Joseph
Lonewolf."
2 7/8 in.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 239
GRACE MEDICINE FLOWER (B. 1938), SANTA CLARA
of globular form, decorated overall with a polished red slip, finely incised in the sgraffito
technique with an avanyu; signed on the base: "Grace Medicine Flower."
5 1/2 in. height
ESTIMATE 800-1,200 USD

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 240
SANTA CLARA BUFFWARE JAR
in the form of a leaf, incised with foliate designs beneath the raised, asymmetrical neck;
attributed to Jody Folwell (b. 1942).
8 1/2 in. height
ESTIMATE 600-800 USD

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 241
ARMANDO ZESATTI
MEXICAN, B. 1967
SILLA TEJANA II (THE TEXAN SADDLE)
signed Zesatti (lower left); also signed Armando Zesatti, titled "Silla Tejana II", dated 1999
and inscribed Acrilico s/tela / 120 x 100 cm. on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
47 1/4 by 39 1/2 inches
(120 by 100 cm)
PROVENANCE
Collection of the artist
Galeria Interart, Mexico City
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 242
ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE SQUASH BLOSSOM NECKLACE BY TEDDIE
WEAHKEE
composed of a double strand of hand-wrought globular beads, and eight stamped
"blossom" spacer pendants, each inlaid with plaques of turquoise, carved to resemble
leaves, an elaborate crested naja below, similarly decorated.
28 in. length
PROVENANCE
C.G. Wallace Collection
Sold Sotheby's Parke-Bernet, Phoenix, AZ, November 1975, lot 1070
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 243
ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE SQUASH BLOSSOM NECKLACE BY LEEKYA
DEYUSE
composed of single and double-strand globular beads, sixteen "blossoms" set with large
Blue Gem turquoise carved as leaves, and a large naja below, similarly decorated.
32 in. length
PROVENANCE
Sold Sotheby's Parker-Bernet, Phoenix, AZ, November 1975, lot 601
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 244
ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE PIN BY LEEKYA DEYUSE AND DAN
SIMPLICIO
composed of a silver plaque, in the form of a buffalo head, inset with carved turquoise
resembling a leaf.
3 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 245
ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE SQUASH BLOSSOM NECKLACE
composed of single and double-strand globular beads, with fourteen spacers, each
decorated in the raised channel technique, and accented by silver squash blossoms, a
similarly decorated naja below.
17 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 246
TWO ZUNI SILVER BRACELETS
one Zuni, a silver plaque in the shape of a butterfly, with twisted wire and applied beaded
decoration, finely inlaid in mosaic technique with hand-cut plaques of black jet, pale orange
spiny oyster, and soft green and white shell, the other, inset with flat-cut turquoise in
terraced, rectangular and triangular shapes.
Zuni: 1 3/4 in. height; Navajo 2 1/4 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 247
LARGE ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE BRACELET
composed of a thick arching band of silver, inlaid in a channel technique with large square
plaques of turquoise.
2 1/8 in. height

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 248
GROUP OF ZUNI SILVER AND # 8 TURQUOISE JEWELRY
comprising a "box-and-bow" squash blossom necklace, another necklace, with carved
turquoise plaques set into stamped silver bezels, and a bracelet, with three turquoise
cabochons decorated with silver "roping" and beading.
17 1/2 in. length of squash blossom necklace; 10 1/4 in. length of necklace; 2 in. height of
bracelet

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 249
GROUP OF ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE JEWELRY
comprising a bracelet, with a split band inset with a turquoise plaque, carved in the shape
of a leaf, accented with stamped and beaded details, together with a bracelet, inset with
plaques of cut turquoise alternating with beading, and a pendant, with a finely carved
plaque of turquoise, in the shape of a leaf, inset to an elaborate stamped silver bezel;
attributed to Leekya Deyuse (Zuni).
1 7/8 in. height; 2 in. height and 2 1/2 in. length of pendant

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 250
TWO ZUNI SILVER AND TURQUOISE SQUASH BLOSSOM NECKLACES
each with single and double-strand globular beads, one with sixteen spacers and a crested
naja, the other, "pollinated," with twelve spacers and crested naja.
18 in. length; 15 1/8 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 251
ZUNI SILVER RAINBOW MAN SQUASH NECKLACE BY BESSIE TUCSON
composed of single and double-strand globular beads, with twelve spacers in the form of
Rainbow Gods, finely inlaid in the mosaic technique, in black jet, coral, turquoise and white
shell, and a large naja of similar design.
28 1/2 in. length
PROVENANCE
Sold Sotheby's Parke-Bernet, Phoenix, AZ, Novemebr 1975, lot 728
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 252
THREE NAVAJO SILVER AND TURQUOISE BELTS BY ROGER SKEET
each composed of scalloped oval conchas, elaborately stamped and with repousse work,
centering a raised bezel inset with turquoise, alternating with "butterfly' slides, and a
rectangular buckle with horns; each mounted on a leather strap.
37 in. length; 37 1/4 in. length and 39 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 253
NAVAJO SILVER AND TURQUOISE BELT BY AUSTIN WILSON
composed of seven scalloped oval conchas, each with elaborate stampwork on the border
and central repousse rosette centering a slightly raised bezel inset with turquoise,
alternating with "butterfly" slides, and a rectangular buckle with stamped and repousse
horns; mounted on a leather strap.
36 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 254
ZUNI CORAL AND TURQUOISE NECKLACE
strung on cotton twine with chunks of coral and carved high-grade turquoise.
13 1/4 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 255
ZUNI SILVER, CORAL AND TURQUOISE NECKLACE BY LEEKYA DEYUSE
composed of single-strand globular and chunk beads, with seven silver plaques, in the
shape of leaves, each inset with carved turquoise.
11 3/4 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 256
TWO NECKLACES
one, a Zuni silver and turquoise squash blossom, with double-strand globular beads and
eighteen spacers, each with finely decorated bezels, a naja, with a cluster design, below,
together with a fifteen strand coral necklace.
16 1/4 in. length of squash blossom; 12 1/2 in. coral necklace

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 257
GROUP OF SILVER, CORAL AND TURQUOISE JEWELRY BY DAN SIMPLICIO,
ZUNI
comprising three bracelets, each inset with branch coral and cut plaques of turquoise, and
accented with silver beaded details, a pin, with elaborate stampwork and a coral section
inlaid with tiny turquoise dots, and a ring.
bracelets: 2 1/4 in. height, 2 in. height, and 1 7/8 in. height; 2 1/2 in. length of pin

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 258
ZUNI SILVER, CORAL AND TURQUOISE BELT BUCKLE BY LEEKYA DEYUSE
AND DAN SIMPLICIO
of rectangular form, with elaborate silver stampwork centering a plaque of turquoise,
carved to resemble a leaf, flanked by two pieces of branch coral.
3 3/4 in. length

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 259
HENRY C. BALINK
1882 - 1963
NOSTEEN BEGAY, NAVAJO (TOKOCHIM, NEW MEXICO)
signed HENRY C. BALINK. (lower left)
oil on canvas
12 1/4 by 10 inches
(31.1 by 25.4 cm)
PROVENANCE
The Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation, El Paso, Texas (bequeathed from the above)
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 260
PROPERTY FROM THE TAOS CENTER FOR THE ARTS
R.C. GORMAN (1931-2005), NAVAJO
Hopi Pots, triptyc, acrylic on canvas; signed: "R C Gorman" in the lower right corner.
24 in. by 36 in. each panel
PROVENANCE
Collection of Martha A. Wood
Donated to the Taos Center for the Arts to be sold to benefit its ongoing programs in the visual and performing arts.
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 261
TONY ABEYTA (B. 1965), NAVAJO
mixed media on paper; signed: "Tony Abeyta" in the lower left corner.

New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 262
NAVAJO GERMANTOWN BLANKET
tightly woven in commercially-plied wool yarn, in numerous aniline colors, with a central
band of crosses alternating with dragonfly designs, two large panels, above and below,
each with terraced diamonds.
76 in. by 67 1/2 in.
PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dewey Kofron Gallery, Santa Fe, NM in 1992
New York | 22 May 2013, 02:00 PM | N08997
LOT 263
NAVAJO PICTORIAL BLANKET OR RUG
woven in handspun wool, in natural and aniline colors, with a sand painting design,
probably a depiction of the Male Shootingway Chant, with four trapezoidal elements
trimmed with feathers, enclosing four horned figures, representing in turn the night sky,
sun, moon and black and yellow wind.
88 in. by 84 in.

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Sotheby's

Arts of the American West

ESTIMATE 70,000-100,000 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 12,000-18,000 USD

ESTIMATE 7,000-10,000 USD

ESTIMATE 6,000-9,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 50,000-70,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 2,500-3,500 USD

ESTIMATE 12,000-18,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 30,000-50,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 6,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 40,000-60,000 USD

ESTIMATE 15,000-20,000 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 35,000-55,000 USD

ESTIMATE 3,000-5,000 USD

ESTIMATE 50,000-70,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 25,000-35,000 USD

ESTIMATE 15,000-20,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 4,000-6,000 USD

ESTIMATE 25,000-35,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-8,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 8,000-12,000 USD

ESTIMATE 2,500-3,500 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 15,000-20,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 2,500-3,500 USD

ESTIMATE 4,000-6,000 USD

ESTIMATE 6,000-9,000 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 6,000-9,000 USD

ESTIMATE 3,000-5,000 USD

ESTIMATE 30,000-50,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 4,000-6,000 USD

ESTIMATE 4,000-6,000 USD

ESTIMATE 3,500-5,500 USD

ESTIMATE 10,000-15,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 20,000-30,000 USD

ESTIMATE 5,000-7,000 USD

ESTIMATE 1,000-1,500 USD

ESTIMATE 1,000-1,500 USD

ESTIMATE 1,000-1,500 USD