Káma-Kapúska! Making Marks in Indian Country, 1833–34

Mató-Tópe

Mató-Tópe     (Four Bears) was a Numak'aki warrior and leader, a resident of Mít uta hako'sh (First Village), and the Europeans’ most frequent visitor at Fort Clark. He served as war (or second) chief of his village, a position granted to the warrior with the best military record. Locally he would have been known as a numakshí, literally “man-to-be-good,” the phrase that marked all Numak'aki village leaders. The hospitality requirements of a numakshí potentially spurred Mató-Tópe’s extensive interactions with the Europeans, which included overnight visits, knowledge exchange, introductions to the warrior’s family members, and frequent gifts and exchanges of objects, artworks, mónute (food), and pi'he (smoke). Mató-Tópe’s exchanged and commissioned objects survive today in several European museum collections and are brought together digitally through the links below. Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and Karl Bodmer were not the first beneficiaries of Mató-Tópe’s generosity, as the warrior had also played host to the itinerant US painter George Catlin in 1832.

 

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