Native American Mandan Indian Buffalo Dance, 1830s

The Buffalo Dance is an annual dance festival of many North American Plains Indians, including the Mandan, Sioux, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Omaha, among others. The festival traditionally coincided with the return of the buffalo herds, and included a feast and a dance with a number of men wearing buffalo and other animal skins. As the buffalo, or bison, was so central to society, it was important to assure the return of the herd and an abundance of food and resources. Voyage dans l'interieur de l'Amerique du Nord, execute pendant les annees 1832-34. Karl Bodmer (February 11, 1809 - October 30, 1893) was a Swiss printmaker, lithographer, painter, illustrator and hunter. He accompanied the German explorer Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied on his Missouri River expedition. Bodmer was hired as an artist to record images of cities, rivers, towns and peoples they saw along the way, including the many tribes of Native Americans along the Missouri River and in that region

Picture No

12696525

Media ID

47671745

Size

4500px x 3076px (4.9MB)

Credit

LOC/Rare Books Selections/Science Source/Mary Evans