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Collection Summary
Collection: 00086 - Paul Ewald Photograph Collection
Folder: 0035
Item: 01429
Title: Men of the Arikara's Night medicine fraternity dance around the Sacred Cedar
Date: 1908
Creator: Curtis, Edward S.,--1868-1952
Inscription/Marks: On the back: col. 86-1429, "117", "18", "Night medicine men", and the speculative notes "Strikes Two, Swings Head/Black/or Eli Perkins.
Summary: Four members of the Night medicine fraternity of the Arikara dance and sing as they circle the sacred cedar and the sacred stone outside the medicine lodge. Tipis of the encampment on Beaver Creek are in the background. Feathers have been fixed to the top of the Sacred Cedar. The men are attired in regalia specific to their medicine affiliation. The objects they carry are also emblematic. Three of the shamans wear neck scarves and each wears an apron or breechcloth and moccasins. They are bare-chested, and wear braids, feathered headdresses or porcupine hair roaches. There are eight different medicines fraternities in the Arikara social organization, and over all of these is the leader of the Principal Medicine fraternity. Speculative notes on the back of the image suggest the center figures to be Strikes Two on the right and Eli Perkins (aka Bear Robe) on the left. Photographed by Edward S. Curtis in 1908 on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Many of these images were published with accompanying descriptive text in Volume 5 of his famous 20 volume series of "The North American Indian". __The North American Indian (1907-1930) v.05, The Mandan. The Arikara. The Atsina ([Seattle] : E.S. Curtis ; [Cambridge, Mass. : The University Press], 1909), Facing page 92
Red ID: PH_I_146224 Image ID: 107384 Image Notes: 00086-01429

Collection: 00086 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: Paul Ewald Photograph Collection
Date: 1875-Circa 1960

Summary: Consists of prints and some copy negatives of several photographers on the Fort Berthold Reservation, primarily Gilbert L. Wilson, and also including Frances Densmore, Frank Fiske, Fred Olson, Sumner Matteson, and several unidentified photographers. Ewald wrote identification of many photographs in his collection based upon suggestions from the people of Fort Berthold. Images include celebrations and gatherings, dances, sweat lodges, Little Missouri camps, cradles, portraits, Buffalo Bird Woman, Wolf Chief, Goodbird, Indian crafts and skills, artifacts, wood gathering, gardening, food processing and cooking, earth lodges, bullboats, travois, and Indian cowboys.

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