Dacota Woman and Assiniboin Girl
Engraved by Desmadryl Printed by Bougeard (unavailable - please enquire)
Tableau 9. Dacota Woman and Assiniboin Girl
$1,550.00

Again, two unrelated portraits are presented together in this aquatint. The name of the woman, referred to as a Dacota or Sioux in the title of the print, translates into English as "Woman of the Crow Nation," implying a kinship or former association with that tribe. Bodmer painted her portrait at Fort Pierre, South Dakota, on June 1, 1833.

At her side stands a little girl, whose likeness Bodmer painted at Fort Union in October, 1833, on the return voyage downriver from Fort McKenzie. Maximilian explained in his notes that she was actually a Blackfeet child who had been taken during an Assiniboin raid and carried away to be reared by an Assiniboin family. Her hide dress appears to be several sizes to large for her, and probably was a hand-me-down.

The woman wears a dress of deer or elk hide trimmed in blue and white beads, with a fringe of twisted metal cones at the hem which made a soft, tinkling sound when she walked. Over this dress she wears what was known as a "summer robe," of buffalo hide, with all of the hair having been removed to make it lighter in weight. Its bold, geometric decoration, called a "box and border" pattern, was popular with many Plains tribes. Such robes usually were worn by women, although Bodmer painted an Assiniboin man at Fort Union wearing a robe of similar design.

Prince Maximilian purchased the robe pictured here. Two robes of this type are preserved today in the Maximilian collection at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, West Germany.

Joslyn Art Museum owns the original portraits featured in this aquatint. Both are studio watercolors based on earlier field studies. The woman's portrait includes a faint, pencilled outline of the figure of the child, and probably served as a preliminary composition for the print.

Several Crow figures were reproduced in the atlas in Vignette XIII. Other Sioux portraits are represented in Tableaux 8 and 12. For related Blackfeet portraits, see Tableaux 45 and 46.

Text by David Hunt, Director, Stark Museum, Orange, Texas, USA

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