Mexkemáuastan, Gros Ventre Chief

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Artist

Karl Bodmer

Birth and death dates

1809 - 1893

Artist Nationality

Swiss

Title

Mexkemáuastan, Gros Ventre Chief

Date

August 5, 1833

Dimensions

16 9/16 × 11 1/4 in. (42.1 × 28.6 cm)

Medium

Watercolor and graphite on paper

Institution

Joslyn Art Museum

Credit Line

Gift of the Enron Art Foundation

Accession Number

1986.49.391

Rights (i.e. copyright information)

Joslyn Art Museum

Photographer credit

Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019

Commentary

Mexkemáuastan ("Stirring Iron") was among the many Indians who boarded the keelboat during the tense encounter at the Gros Ventre camp on August 5. He was, in fact, one of the principal causes of concern, for he had threatened to shoot the superintendent at Fort McKenzie the year before. On this day and at a later meeting at Fort McKenzie he adopted a friendly manner, but the portrait and the corresponding aquatint (Vignette XX) show him as a seemingly forbidding figure armed with a gun and a bow. Like Niätóhsä (see Image 1986.49.282.A), Mexkemáuastan was a chief and a medicine man and wore his hair in the same characteristic fashion. There are large shell ornaments in his ears and he apparently wears fringed and beaded leggings under his red painted buffalo robe.

References in Journal

August 15, 1833

Labels:

genre, portrait , Fort McKenzie, Montana

Approximate Depicted Location:

Gros Ventre camp, Upper Missouri