George Catlin 1796 - 1872

George Quimby, Indians of the Western Frontier: Paintings of George Catlin, Chicago, Illinois, 1954, pp. 52-53
William H. Truettner, The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin's Indian Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1979, IG 503
George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians written during Eight Years' Travel (1832–1839) amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America. 2 vols., New York, 1973, pl. 46

The Mandan were one of the first tribes that Catlin visited in 1832, and he spent more time with—and made more paintings of—the Mandan than any other Indian people. Nearly half of the first volume of his Letters and Notes (letters 10 through 22) is devoted to life in Mandan villages.

Six of the surviving thirty Catlin portraits from the O'Fallon Collection depict Mandan sitters, and these would have been among the paintings seen by Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied and Karl Bodmer when they visited O'Fallon at his Indian Retreat plantation outside St. Louis in April 1833. John C. Ewers's "George Catlin, Painter of Indians and the West" argues that Bodmer's choice of subjects might have been influenced by the display of Catlin's canvases that he saw at Indian Retreat, and certainly many of the most dramatic plates from Travels in the Interior of North America feature the Mandan. Tableau 19 of the atlas to that work, "The Interior of the Hut of a Mandan Chief," reproduces Bodmer's depiction of a scene similar to the one here represented by Catlin.

Catlin wrote at length about the "most novel appearance" of the Mandan village: "their lodges are closely grouped together, leaving but just room enough for walking and riding between them; and appear from without, to be built entirely of dirt; but one is surprised when he enters them, to see the neatness, comfort, and spacious dimensions of these earth-covered dwellings. They all have a circular form, and are from forty to sixty feet in diameter. Their foundations are prepared by digging some two feet in the ground, and forming the floor of earth. ... The superstructure is then produced, by arranging, inside of this circular excavation. ... a barrier or wall of timbers, some eight or nine inches in diameter, of equal height (about six feet) placed on end, and resting against each other, supported by a formidable embankment of earth raised against them outside; then, resting upon the tops of these timbers or piles, are others of equal size and equal in numbers, of twenty or twenty-five feet in length, resting firmly against each other, and sending their upper or smaller ends towards the centre and top of the lodge; rising at an angle of forty-five degrees to the apex or sky-light, which is about three or four feet in diameter, answering as a chimney and a sky-light at the same time. On the top of, and over the poles forming the roof, is placed a complete mat of willow-boughs.

"In the centre, and immediately under the sky-light is the fire-place—a hole of four or five feet in diameter, of a circular form, sunk a foot or more below the surface, and curbed around with stone. Over the fire-place, and suspended from the apex of diverging props or poles, is generally seen the pot or kettle, filled with buffalo meat; and around it are the family, reclining in all the most picturesque attitudes and groups, resting on their buffalo-robes and beautiful mats of rush. These cabins are so spacious, that they hold from twenty to forty persons—a family and their connexions. They all sleep on bedsteads similar in form to ours, but generally not so high. ... These beds ... are uniformly screened with a covering of buffalo or elk skins, oftentimes beautifully dressed and placed over the upright poles or frame, like a suit of curtains" (Letters 1:81–83).

Catlin's painting meticulously animates this word picture, depicting every detail: skylight, fireplace, cooking pot, beds and bed curtains, as well as two dressing poles hung with shield, bow and quiver, war-club, spear, tobacco pouch, pipe, medicine-bag, headdress, and buffalo mask. Twenty-two Mandans, including a babe-in-arms, are disported throughout the interior. (Inexplicably, one of the figures to the left is a miniature version of Catlin's portrait of Black Moccasin, an aged chief of the Hidatsa; see Truettner/IG 171. The inclusion of this sachem evidently led Quimby to misidentify the scene as the "Interior of Hidatsa Lodge.")

The Indian Gallery canvas of this subject is not in the Smithsonian. Truettner believes that the Indian Gallery picture was owned by a Mrs. J. Roy Osborne of Augusta, Georgia, until 1975, when it was sold through the Kennedy Galleries. Truettner further presumes that the Osborne version preceded the O'Fallon painting partly because its "details match plate 46 in Letters and Notes." Truettner employs the same logic to claim priority for the Smithsonian portraits of White Cloud, Sturgeon's Head, Woman Who Strikes Many, Assiniboin Woman and Girl, and Wolf Chief. But Letters and Notes was planned, produced, and published in London in 1841, and Catlin would have referred to the canvases that he had with him in making these simple line-cut reproductions.