Robe with Mythic Bird, ca. 1700–40. Mid-Mississippi River Basin, probably Illinois Confederacy. Eastern Plains. Native-tanned leather, pigment. Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France (71.1878.32.134)
Life on the Great Plains, 1700–1820
By the mid-1700s, virtually every tribe on the Great Plains had horses. These animals, along with the buffalo, transformed the limitless grasslands into a land of opportunity. Farmers went out to the Plains to hunt more often; people who had pursued buffalo on foot became far more efficient hunters on horseback, capable of following the immense herds deep into the Plains. Many migrated and changed their way of life.
Smallpox hit the Plains in 1801–2, and Native pictorial calendars record its arrival. In 1804 Lewis and Clark passed deserted villages. The Plains became an increasingly volatile world as Indian tribes and colonial nations jostled for position, trade, and dominance.
—Colin G. Calloway, Scholar
Nomadic life in pursuit of the buffalo allowed for relatively few possessions and defined both material culture and the arts. Utilitarian as well as ceremonial objects embodied layers of social and religious meaning. Tools, horse gear, clothing, and weapons communicated intellectual, mythic, and emotionally expressive content.
Animal hides supplied the foundation for many possessions and often served as the artists' canvas. Artists combined materials from the natural world to evoke the spiritual powers of animals and all creation. Goods acquired through trade with Europeans, particularly glass beads, wool cloth, and pigment, entered the artistic vocabulary.
Although few objects from this early period have survived, the works of art displayed here reveal the beginnings of a distinctive Plains vision.
—Gaylord Torrence, Curator
Life on the Great Plains, 1700–1820 section of the exhibition
