- Otoe Delegation
- Otoe-Missouria Delegation to Washington, D.C.
- [Waruje Nayi or Standing Eating, Munje Xanje or Big Bear, Hari Gra or Goes Far and Returns After He Found What He Was Looking For; back row, left to right: Ma Ska Gaxe or White Arrow Maker, and Chedo Navi or Standing Buffalo Bull (aka James Arkeketa)]
Sheet: 10 × 13 7/8 in. (25.4 × 35.3 cm)
Explore Further
Pushed from their traditional home in the Midwestern woodlands by both
White settlers and displaced Eastern tribes, the Otoe and Missouria settled in
southeastern Nebraska in the early 18th century. Pressured again by continued
White encroachment, the tribe was forced in 1881 to sell their remaining lands
and relocate to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. While in Washington,
D.C., to negotiate their resettlement, the delegates posed for the Smithsonian
Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology wearing traditional ribbon shirts and beaded
chokers, leggings, and moccasins, along with elements signaling their chiefly
status: bear-claw necklaces and otter-fur turbans with eagle feathers.
ProvenanceVictor F. Germack and Lori Shepard Germack, New York; purchased by MFAH, 2020.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, left edge reading vertically: 4621
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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