ASSINIBOIN SHAM BATTLE. ...

Description

ASSINIBOIN SHAM BATTLE

A re-enactment is being staged to demonstrate the brave defense of home and country by the man wearing a striped-blanket capote who is aiming a rifle at the retreating horsemen. These are also Assiniboin men, but are impersonating the dastardly villains involved in the original attack. A moment after the plate was exposed by Ormsby there would have been the crack of the rifle---loaded only with a blank cartridge, and one of the horsemen would have pitched headlong to the ground, to the sustained cheers of the watching crowd doubtless ranged behind the camera man. William F. Cody was proud to claim invention of the "wild west show," but it was an idea he cribbed from Plains Indian people, who had been staging such performances time out of mind. The design of the painted tipi shows the legs of the Thunderbird, represented as zigzag lightning with curved talons at the bottom, striking down from the black top of the lodge, which represents a storm cloud, with white circles along the lower edge representing hail stones. This undoubtedly denotes that the owner of the lodge, probably the man with the rifle, had dreamed of the Thunders and carried their protective power with him when he went into battle. Note that the talons brace the doorway to the tipi, protecting the owner and his family from harm.

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


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