Hidatsa Scalp Dance

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Artist

Karl Bodmer

Birth and death dates

1809 - 1893

Artist Nationality

Swiss

Title

Hidatsa Scalp Dance

Date

November 1833

Dimensions

10 x 12 1/4 cm. (25.4 x 31.12 cm.)

Medium

Graphite on paper

Institution

Joslyn Art Museum

Credit Line

Gift of the Enron Art Foundation

Accession Number

1986.49.223.A

Rights (i.e. copyright information)

Joslyn Art Museum

Photographer credit

Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019

Commentary

In late November of 1833 Maximilian and Bodmer made a cold, tiring, nine-hour trek from Fort Clark to one of the Hidatsa winter villages to observe a ceremony. They stayed for several days, and this sketch may have been done at that time. Composed of about eighty households, the village is most probably Eláh-Sá, the largest of the Hidatsa settlements on the Knife River. Maximilian remarked on the dense arrangement of lodges in the winter villages, where the dwellings were of necessity packed closely together amid the thick, sheltering timber. A similar but more detailed scene appears as Tableau 26 in the aquatint atlas.

References in Journal

Short Description of Fort Clark and Its Surroundings

Labels:

structure , study , Eláh-Sá, Hidatsa Village

Approximate Depicted Location:

Eláh-Sá, Hidatsa Village