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

Karl Bodmer, Pitätapiú, Assiniboin Man, 1833.

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Contents of this annotation:
1. Karl Bodmer, Pitätapiú, Assiniboin Man, 1833.
Contents of this annotation:
1. Karl Bodmer, Pitätapiú, Assiniboin Man, 1833.
Contents of this annotation:
1. Karl Bodmer, Pitätapiú, Assiniboin Man, 1833.

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A Sample Exhibition
On November 9, 1833, only one day after Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and artist Karl Bodmer had arrived at Fort Clark, Numak'aki numakshí Mató-Tópe and other Awatíkihu leaders spent time looking at portraits     that Bodmer had completed elsewhere in the trio’s travels. Wied-Neuwied noted that Mató-Tópe recognized several of the depicted individuals. A viewing was then repeated on November 11. In addition, numerous subsequent studio visits by Awatíkihu residents and their friends involved “watching Mr. Bodmer” or admiring portraits, any of which may have offered an opportunity to see previously painted works.[1]
These viewings meant that Bodmer’s portraits performed important work among Native audiences before they ever left Indian country with the artist. To provide a peek into this work, this sample exhibition presents a small selection of eight portraits that Fort Clark guests may have seen. These eight are drawn from the surviving portraits painted by Bodmer on the journey to or at the American Fur Company (AFC) Forts Union and McKenzie, the next stops upstream from Fort Clark and possible destinations for Awatíkihu residents via AFC steamboats. Due to the movement of Native peoples among AFC posts, these eight were potentially recognizable to viewers at Fort Clark. Kiäsax, for instance, had hitched along on Bodmer and Wied-Neuwied’s trip upstream and had posed for his portrait in late June 1833.[2] A Pikuni (Piegan) man who had married into the Minitari community, Kiäsax would have been recognized     by the Fort Clark visitors in November 1833. Kiäsax in turn would have potentially recognized other sitters from Fort Union. The same was true for any other Awatíkihu leader who had traveled to Fort Union or dealt with the Fort Union Native communities for trade or hunting.
Painted at the same time was another widely known leader, Tasságä, a man who had boarded when the steamboat had stopped for a group of six Assiniboin warriors who had appeared on the bank of the Missouri.[3] Wied-Neuwied notes that “all who had been at the Yellowstone knew him,” and he joined the crew and passengers for full passage to Fort Union. The group had been hunting in the region for quite some time, and roaming hunting parties like this meant warriors of distant Native communities may have encountered each other on a semi-regular basis as food sources became more difficult to find.[4]
Once at Fort Union, Bodmer and Wied-Neuwied persuaded a variety of Native men to pose for them, although a number refused. The fort’s interpreter specifically introduced Wied-Neuwied to Noapéh (Troop of Soldiers), who posed for Bodmer on June 28, 1833.[5] Noapéh seems to have been a very popular figure at Fort Union, as the sitting was interrupted multiple times by his wife, child, and friends who came to call Noapéh away to other duties. On the center of Noapéh’s hide shirt is a large quilled rosette, whose design is specific to Assiniboin communities; the same also identifies the community of the anonymous warrior painted by Bodmer the next day.[6]
Pitätapiú, a very young Assiniboin warrior, was depicted     with a bow-lance and painted shield, items that would have told Awatíkihu viewers that the young man had both “found his god” and been elected within his óhate (society) to ka-ka (keeper) status.[7] Pitätapiú explained to Wied-Neuwied that the white package fastened to his shield served as his hó'pini (“to be holy”), and it is possible that Awatíkihu viewers would have recognized the strength and type of hó'pini that protected the young man on the battlefield.[8]
The last three portraits included here were all painted at Fort McKenzie, which Wied-Neuwied and Bodmer reached on August 9, 1833. A group of chiefs formed a rough reception party upon the steamboat’s landing, and three of them later posed for Bodmer: the Pikuni (Piegan) chiefs Nínock-Kïäiu (Bear Chief) and Mehkskéhme-Sukáhs (Red Bull), and the Kutenai chief Hómach-Ksáchkum (Kutenai Old Man).[9] The reputation of Mehkskéhme-Sukáhs as a troublemaker who was not well liked by either fort personnel or the fort’s associated Native communities had preceded the portrait making; it is possible that such reputations carried across the entire chain of AFC portages, perhaps making some Native leaders in distant locales known by deed before they were seen via portrait.
Fort Clark as a Workshop
Before anyone sat for a portrait in Bodmer’s studio at Fort Clark, warriors arrived to the whitewashed single-room house built for the trio of Europeans in order to draw their own.‍[34] On November 13, 1833, Síh-Chidä (Be-Yellow Feather) came with a group of warriors to look at Bodmer’s drawings and portraits. He then sat down at Bodmer’s table, claimed a sheet of paper and colors as his own, and proceeded to draw portraits of Bodmer and Wied-Neuwied.‍[35] He came to draw again on the evening of the sixteenth, staying the night to finish the picture in the morning; Bodmer then gave the young man supplies, and Síh-Chidä returned with more drawings on the eighteenth.‍[36] It was only on December 5 that the Europeans convinced Síh-Chidä to sit for a portrait (fig. 4); the warrior then stayed through the afternoon to complete another set of portraits of Wied-Neuwied and Bodmer.‍[37]
Likewise, Mató-Tópe completed several drawings himself before sitting for a single portrait. On November 24, Wied-Neuwied and Bodmer gave supplies to Mató-Tópe, who returned with a drawing of war deeds a week later (fig. 5). Mató-Tópe stayed to watch Bodmer at work through the rest of the morning. He returned again on December 8 and 10 to watch Bodmer work. He finally sat for a portrait on January 17 (fig. 6), then drew another drawing of war deeds for Wied-Neuwied on February 26 and 27 (fig. 7).
What is clear from these dates is the movement between roles for a number of warriors, between being the sitter and being the mark maker. And while past interpretations have read a unidirectional non-Native artistic influence on the Native work from the Fort Clark studio, the workshop ingenuity of the warriors may have been inspired by each other, or from their gazes at their peer sitters in Bodmer’s works.‍[38] Take, for instance, the second war deed drawing of Mató-Tópe (see fig. 7). Mató-Tópe portrays himself with the lances of two societies in which he was a member. To be a keeper of the lance often meant that one had leadership roles within the society, and Mató-Tópe seems to have performed this role when he led the Society of the Half-Shorn Heads into the plaza of Fort Clark for a dance on the third of April. Did Mató-Tópe include his lances in his drawing because he was moving toward realism, as past scholars have claimed? Or was he instead using Native visual languages and modeling his self-depiction on the earlier portrait of Pitätapiú, an Assiniboine warrior who posed with the lance of his warrior society, as well as his personal shield and medicine (fig. 8)?‍[39]
The war deed drawing displays the co-creation processes at work in the Fort Clark studio. While the media of paper and watercolor they used were Western artistic tools, the mark making spoke the local Plains visual language of battle honors and rights. Depictions of the self were not made for the purpose of capturing likeness but rather for recording a lifetime of deeds and events. For example, warriors recorded their coup counts, or battle honor marks, through formulaic schemes of representation that were painted onto clothing or hides. The coup marks belonging to Red White Buffalo, for instance, record a number of Numak'aki–specific warrior marks for horse raids and war parties, tallying heroic deeds such as capturing horses and killing enemies (fig. 9). Such deeds, accumulated over time, then qualified one for leadership. If Bodmer went about creating likenesses, then, so too did Mató-Tópe and Pitätapiú, through their displays of the material culture objects associated with their leadership, a means of making claims for their previous warrior deeds and personal qualities of strength, ho'pini (loosely translated as “medicine”), and bravery on the battlefield. Workshop experimentation and its aftereffects should be understood in relation to the patterns, rules, and purposes of this long-established local visual vocabulary.