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Illustrations of the Manners, Customs & Condition of the
North American Indians. With Letters and Notes, Written during
Eight Years of Travel and Adventure among the Wildest and
Most Remarkable Tribes Now Existing. By George Catlin.


Published by Henry G. Bohn, London
(1845)


Original Engravings over 170 years old!
Sheet size: approximately 6 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches
[also available are the 1876 color lithographs]

George Catlin's paintings comprise the first important pictorial record of the Plains Indians and their then little-known homelands west of the Mississippi River. "Catlin's Indian Gallery," as the dedicated artist himself called it, consisted of hundreds of portraits of Indians, scenes of Indian life, and landscapes of a wilderness scarcely changed through the millennia. In his notebooks and on canvas, the young Pennsylvania lawyer captured much of an American that was swept away a century ago by the westward-pressing settler.

Catlin made these dramatic paintings on a series of journeys into largely unmapped Indian country between 1830 and 1836. For the first time, Americans in the eastern states saw the Pawnees, the tall Blackfeet and Crows, the Sioux, and the wild Comanches. They saw wide prairies teeming with buffalo, the turbulent Missouri River, and the giant grizzly bear. They saw villages of hundreds of graceful teepees and peered into the dim interiors of comfortable earth lodges, and witnessed the four-day torture ceremony of the Mandans.

The Plains Indians of Catlin's portraits were still proud and dignified, unlike their cousins on eastern reservations. Freed by the acquisition of the horse from the restrictions of hunger and scarcity, they were riding the crest of a new richness and power.

But they, too, were fated to lose in the encounter with western civilization—and Catlin knew it. "Art may mourn when these people are swept from the earth," he wrote, "and the artists of the future ages may look in vain for another race so picturesque in their costumes, their weapons, their colours, their manly games, and their chase...."

[ref.: "Letters and Notes..." introduction by Marjorie Halpin (Dover, 1973).]

catlin

George Catlin
as painted by William Fisk, 1849

"I sat out alone, unaided and unadvised, resolved, (if my life should be spared), by the aid of my brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of their primitive looks and customs as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of one lifetime could accomplish."

GEORGE CATLIN, ca. 1842

 

PLEASE CLICK ON A THUMBNAIL FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW
(Due to the age and type of paper used, some foxing may be present.)

Ball-play Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 224

Ball-play Dance

$75

Choctaw ball game; ball up
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 225

Choctaw ball game; ball up

$75

Choctaw ball game; ball on the ground
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 226

Choctaw ball game; ball on the ground

$75

Eagle Dance of the Choctaw
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 227

Eagle Dance of the Choctaw

$75

bluffs and Dubuque's grave on upper Missouri
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 228-229

Picturesque bluffs on the upper Missouri

Dubuque's grave, upper Missouri

$75
[foxed]

Falls of St. Anthony, Fort Snelling
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 230-231

Falls of St. Anthony

Fort Snelling

$75

Sioux cradles
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 232

Sioux cradles

$75

Blue Medicine, Big Eagle
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 233-234

Toh-to-wah-kon-da-pee, Blue Medicine, medicine man

Wa-nah-de-tunck-a, Big Eagle, commonly called Black Dog

$75

Both Sides and Red Man
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 235-236

Ah-no-je-naje, He Who Stands on Both Sides

We-chush-ta-doo-ta, Red Man

$75

Dog Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 237

Dog Dance

$75

Chippeway encampment, portage of canoes
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 238-239

Encampment of the Chippeways

Making portage around the Falls of St. Anthony with bark canoes

$75

Indian canoes and snowshoes
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 240

Indian canoes and snowshoes

$75

He Who Travels Everywhere, He Who Sits Everywhere
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 241-242

Ka-bes-kunk, He Who Travels Everywhere

Ka-be-mub-be, He Who Sits Everywhere

$75

Snowshoe Dance
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 243

Snowshoe Dance

$75

Ottawa and Chippeway
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 244-245

Ot-ta-wa, The Ottaway

Ju-ah-kis-gaw, a Chippeway woman

$75

Lover's Leap, Pike's tent
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 248-249

The Lover's Leap

Pike's Tent

$75

Garlic Cape, Cornice Rocks
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 250-251

Garlic Cape

Cornice Rocks

$75

Ball play of the women
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 252

Ball play of the women

$75
[some foxing]

Prairie du Chien
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plate 253

Prairie du Chien

$75

Wood, Man Who Puts...
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 254-255

Naw-kaw, Wood

Wah-chee-hahs-ka, Man Who Puts All out of Doors, commonly called "The Boxer"

$75

The Snake
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 256-257

Kaw-kaw-ne-choo-a

Wa-kon-zee-kaw, The Snake

$75

Grizzly Bear and family
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 258-261

Mah-kee-me-teuv, Grizzly Bear

Me-cheet-e-neuh, Wounded Bear's Shoulder, wife of Grizzly Bear

Chee-me-na-na-quet, Great Cloud, son of Grizzly Bear

Tcha-kauks-o-ko-maugh, The Great Chief

$75

The Owl
(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Plates 262-263

Coo-coo-coo, The Owl

Two Menominee youths

$75
[some foxing]

next page of Catlin North American Indians
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