Details

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Collection: 00086 - Paul Ewald Photograph Collection
Folder: 0035
Item: 01431
Title: Frank Heart and another Buffalo medicine man dance with two of the Bear medicine fraternity
Date: 1908
Creator: Curtis, Edward S.,--1868-1952
Inscription/Marks: On the front: number and arrow pointing to one figure, identified on the backside. On the back: col. 86-1431, "120", and "1-Bill Dean, Sr.".
Summary: Two men in the regalia of the Buffalo medicine fraternity blow through feathered pipes as they dance outside the Arikara medicine lodge.The man seen in profile is Frank Heart, last keeper of the sacred Buffalo bundle. Other men move near the two primary dancers. These men are dressed in the regalia of another fraternity, the Bears. The Sacred Cedar and Sacred Stone is being circled by the dancers. Evidence of camp life is in the background. The two men are in the elaborate buffalo head and horn headdresses that signify their medicine affiliation. They each have a bundle of buffalo hair material in one hand. Speculative notes on the back of the image suggest the man with a bear skin belt, bear claws on bands around his ankles, and his back to the camera is William Dean, Senior. 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".
Red ID: PH_I_146226 Image ID: 107386 Image Notes: 00086-01431

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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