"War Dance of the Sacs and Foxes"

[Cliff Krainik]

"War Dance of the Sacs and Foxes"

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"War Dance of the Sacs and Foxes"

Frontispiece published in History of the Indian Tribes of North America by McKenney and Hall, circa 1836.

Hand colored, stone lithograph from a painting by Peter Rindisbacher. Rindisbacher portrayed the clothing and the various weapons brandished by the Indians with exacting detail and fidelity. "It was drawn on the spot as the scene actually exhibited. The actors are persons of some note, and the faces are faithful likenesses." History of the Indian Tribes of North America

Print size approximately 15 by 20 inches.



Original print from the Black Hawk War Collection, Cliff and Michele Krainik, Warrenton, Virginia.

[trodgers]

Thanks for putting this picture up. I have always found this image to be very interesting. One of the few that shows full body images of "ordinary" members of these tribes. Some things for reenactors to note:
*No shirts. Most images (but not all) of the Sac and Fox depict shirtless men. The 3 nearly identical military coats are unusual for the time with rev war style turnbacks. All of the blankets being worn are white or close to it. This is really noticable in the McKinney/Hall portraits too.
*Mostly skin leggings. interesting, especially when there is a lot of other trade cloth clothing in evidence.
*The variery of headwear is intriguing. Very "civilized" hair styles as opposed to being plucked. (You mean I don't have to shave my head to portray an Indian?!?) Also notice the hats.. a french style tuque and what appear to be Shriners fez hats. And only 2 roaches in a group of 17 warriors.
*Weapons. We see several gunstock style clubs, a lance? and a sword. Where are the famous ball headed clubs and pipe tomahawks?
*How about those necklaces. They are so heavily laden with beads that they appear to be mantles. How often do you see that accurately portayed? and where are all the quilled neck knife sheaths that we see so commonly re-created?

Artwork like this is a truy wonderful source of data for folks portraying Native Americans. Its too bad that so many native reenactors have sold out to the "Last of the Mohicans" image and fail to really look at what our local tribes were doing.

Tom

[Cliff Krainik]

Tom,

Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of the McKenney and Hall lithograph of the Peter Rindisbacher painting.

Cliff

[Jim Hart]

I have always thought of this as a weird piece of artwork. It is just not consistant with other pieces of art involving the Sauk and Mesquakie, heck it doesn't even look like Rindisbachers other paintings of Sauks.

Jim Hart

[Mike]

I'm brand new here.

Looking closely at these dancers, I see a lot more similarity in appearance (for the time period) to Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) or Menominee (Follesavoie). George Catlin's paintings of these two tribes were early (c. 1828-1830) and are not as well known as his later plains portraits. But also compare Catlin with the McKinny-Hall portraits and you see similarities in the same tribes. If you look at the photographs of A. Zeno Shindler (1850s-60s) you note that the style of dress and ornamentation has not changed all that much in the Sauk and Fox from the Catlin and McKinny-Hall images.

The Rindisbacher painting just looks like an anomoly compared to all the other Sac & Fox images. I wonder if it was misidentifed and the mistake repeated over and over. Rindisbacher died quite young and may have not been around to catch it. Then again he may have made it himself - he was in the Red River colony and that area would have been closer to Menominee-Winnebago-Ojibwa areas of influence than the Sac & Fox. Did he actually meet the Sac & Fox or did he make some assumptions based on the appearance of Indian tribes he knew?

The Rindisbacher image is important historically and I would not be ashamed to hang it on the wall. However, the original prints are going for a hefty sum. However, I tend to think some more research is needed on it for clarification.

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