ASSINIBOIN LEADERS, WOLF POINT AGENCY, MONTANA. ...

Description

ASSINIBOIN LEADERS, WOLF POINT AGENCY, MONTANA

The man seated in the foreground, center left, is Wets It (aka Joshua He Wets It), a very prominent Assiniboin war leader wearing his famous headdress of antelope horns. Compare an 1898 portrait by F.A. Rinehart, National Anthropological Archives, Neg. No. gn_03719. Wets It holds a light-colored staff which has a human scalp attached near the top. Behind him, another man wearing an eagle feather headdress holds a "crooked lance" wrapped with strips of otter fur, an emblem of one of the warrior societies. It is likely all of the men shown here belonged to the same organization, with their wives and children. Several other, fine headdresses are seen, including two with buffalo horns, and two painted war shields carried by men at the left. A fact of life on the High Plains is that the weather can change from sweltering to freezing, or the reverse, within minutes. Several of these men are wearing capotes made of wool blankets, although the photo may have been made on the same day as the Grass Dance scene, lot 77384.

Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches


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