Native American Mandan White Buffalo Cow Society, 1830s

The dance of the women of the Mandan White Buffalo Cow Society was performed for Bodmer, Prince Maximilian his guests at Fort Clark on December 25, 1833. Bodmer and Prince Maximilian The White Buffalo Cow Society has historically been the most respected women's society amongst the Mandan and Hidatsa peoples. The women of the White Buffalo Cow Society perform the buffalo-calling ceremony. In ceremonies written about by men in the 1800s, they said members of the society have traditionally painted one eye a color based on their personal preference, typically blue, tattooed black marks between their lips and chin, and some women wore a headdress made of white buffalo cowhide embellished with feathers. At certain ceremonial dances, the leader is said to have worn a white buffalo cow hide blanket and danced while holding a bundle of twigs capped with eagle plumes. It is an all-women's society, and the leaders are mature or elderly women. 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

12696509

Media ID

47671705

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4500px x 3088px (3.7MB)

Credit

LOC/Rare Books Selections/Science Source/Mary Evans