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| Native American Historical Portraits Please scroll down the page
As a young girl, I listened as my mother recanted tales of Native Americans. I used to love her stories so much. She filled my imagination with tipis, buffalo and seal hunts and tales of love, honour, bravery and battles. The stories about a young inuit boy that lived in the Arctic absolutely thrilled me.
It was traditional in our family to sit and listen to my mother telling stories instead of watching the television. We used to read and paint together too. She made me a cardboard theatre when I was nine, and created all of the stories in an exercise book and made paper puppets for us all to play with. After meeting author and native spokesperson Serle Chapman, I travelled to North America on my own journey of discovery. Serle spoke well of so many things that I wanted to know about. It was evident that I had to experience things for myself instead of just reading history books, so I travelled around the states introducing myself to people of various nations and learning more about the real culture, and not the tourist variety. It was a joy to find friendship and learn the truth about things. I fell in love with the beautiful photography of Edward S Curtis, and I wrote to Denver public library, where many photographs of important historical Native American people are archived for safekeeping. I obtained permission to paint using the photographs as reference material. I also tried to do the honourable thing and obtain permission from living relations where possible.
 | Chief Hollow Horn Bear - "Matihehlogego" 30cm x 41cm Oil on canvas Hollow Horn Bear (Sioux name Matihehlogego) (1850–1913) was a Brulé Sioux leader during the Indian Wars on the Great Plains of the United States.
Hollow Horn Bear was born in what today is Sheridan County, Nebraska. He was the son of chief Iron Shell. Although he initially raided the Pawnee, he later was involved in harassing forts along the Bozeman Trail with other Sioux leaders between 1866 and 1868. During this period, he became famous as the chief who defeated Capt. William Fetterman. However, he began to favour peace with the whites during the 1870's. He became a celebrity in the East, and was present at several functions as a native representative. He was featured on a 14-cent postage stamp and on a five dollar bill.
He was appointed the head of Indian police at the South Dakota Rosebud Agency, and arrested Crow Dog for the murder of Spotted Tail. He was also involved in treaty negotiations. In 1905, Hollow Horn Bear was invited to take part in the presidential inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1913, he led a group of Indians to the inauguration parade of President Woodrow Wilson. He caught pneumonia during the visit and died shortly afterwards.
|  | Sitting Bear - "Kanuh-tiwit"-Arikara Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm Born in 1844 on the west side of the Missouri, opposite present Washburn, North Dakota. He was eighteen years of age before making his first trial at war, and even then he took no part in the actual conflict with the Assiniboin whom his party encountered. The following year he engaged in the fight when a hunting party near the Fort Berthold village was surrounded by Sioux, and he even acquired some distinction by being the first to strike one of the horses of the enemy. In all he was a participant in twelve battles, himself being the leader six times, but only twice did he conduct his warriors into the enemy's country. On the other occasions the encounters were brought on by Sioux attacking the village. He married at nineteen, and like his father and grandfather he became the tribal chief. |  | Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt , Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, 1903 Pastel painting 19" x 25.5" - framed Chief Joseph (1840–September 21, 1904) was the chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce Indians during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Indians to a reservation in Idaho. For his principled resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker. |  | Warze Pastel painting 10.75" x 12" Walpi Village
Sitting at over 5,000 feet above sea level is the ancient Hopi Indian, First Mesa village of Walpi. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited villages in the United States.
The portrait of a Hopi Indian called Warze from Walpi Village captures the anguish of a man whose way pof life was under siege. At the time that Edward Curtis photographed this man, his children had been sent away to boarding school, and his village was suffering traumatic transitions. |  | Bears Belly, Arikara Medicine Man, 1908 Pastel painting 10.75" x 12" SOLD Arikara, A tribe forming the northern group of the Caddoan linguistic family. In language they differ only dialectically from the Pawnee.
When the Arikara left the body of their kindred in the S. W. they were associated with the Skidi, one of the tribes the Pawnee confederacy. Tradition and history indicate that at some point the broad Missouri Valley the Skidi and Arikara parted, the former settling on Loup River, Neb., the latter continuing northeast building on the bluffs of the Missouri the villages of which traces have been noted nearly as far south as Omaha. In their northward movement they encountered members of the Siouan family making their way westward. Wars ensued, with intervals of peace and even of alliance between the tribes. When the white reached the Missouri they found the region inhabited by Siouan tribes, who said that the old village sites had once been occupied by the Arikara. |  | Apuyototski – Piegan Medicine Man, 1910 Pastel painting 10.75" x 12" The portrait shows Apuyotoksi ("Light-Colored Kidney") wearing a wolf-skin war-bonnet. The photograph was originally taken by Edward S Curtis.
The men of the Piegan tribe were organized into a series of warrior societies in which membership was based on age. Arranged in the order of the age of their members these groups were: Doves, Flies, Braves, All Brave Dogs, Tails, Raven bearers, Dogs, Kit-foxes, Catchers, and Bulls. As a whole they were known as "All Comrades. The function of the societies was primarily to preserve order in the camp during the march, and on the hunt; to protect the camp by guarding against possible sunrise by the enemy; to be informed at all times as to the movement of the buffalo herds; and secondarily by intersociety rivalry to cultivate the military spirit, and by their feasts and dances to minister to the desire of members for social recreation.
|  | Lone Flag, Atsina, 1908 Pastel painting 10.75" x 12" Born in 1854 in northwestern Montana. His first experience in war was gained in the great battle with the Piegan, on which occasion he killed one and captured his medicine bundle. In an engagement with the Sioux near what is now St. Paul's Mission, in the Little Rockies, he saved a comrade in the thick of a fight. Lone Flag married at the age of thirty-four. A band of Arapaho, the Atsina roamed the plains between the Missouri and Saskatchewan Rivers. This Algonquian-speaking band was sometimes confused with another tribe called Gros Ventre, a tribe of Minitari Hidatsa that lived nearby. French trappers interpreted the sign language for "Atsina" (hands moved along the torso) as the similar sign used for those neighbouring Hidatsa. The sign for Atsina meant "hunger," while the sign for Minatari Hidatsa referred to the chest tattoos the men displayed. |
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