Memory and Vision introduces the collections of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) in Cody, Wyoming, an important repository for artifacts, artwork, photographs, and historical documentation of the Native peoples of the Great Plains. In preparing this book, anthropologist Emma Hansen, a member of the Pawnee Nation and curator of the Plains Indian Museum, has drawn as well on the collections of the Whitney Gallery of Western Art (also a part of the BBHC) for images representing non-Indian perspectives. The result is a visually stunning volume with exceptionally high-quality photographs of objects in the collections, reproduced in color with equal concern for quality.
Hansen’s text offers a thorough introduction to Plains Indian cultures and history, relying to a large extent on first-person narratives by tribal members, many recorded in published sources, others from contemporary individuals. The topics include land and sacred places, hunting and gardening, religion, ritual and celebration, settlement on reservations, and contemporary cultural revival. In broad strokes the text covers both the sedentary tribes of the prairies and the nomadic tribes of the high plains. Aimed at nonspecialists, it offers an excellent overall survey.
Hansen’s chapters are interspersed with brief essays by five Native scholars and artists, each of whom is a member of a Plains tribe and writes from a personal perspective. The late Beatrice Medicine (Lakota) discusses women’s roles; Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa) writes about the significance of the buffalo to his people; Joseph Medicine Crow (Crow) discusses tribal leaders; Arthur Amiotte (Lakota) contributes a longer essay on the transformation of traditional Lakota arts during the early reservation period; and Bently Spang (Northern Cheyenne), a visual artist, offers a humorous essay that firmly situates Native Americans in the modern world.
The illustrations are, for scholars, the main point of the book. They are selected to represent the ethnographic collections and include well-known pieces (such as Red Cloud’s war shirt) as well as some that will be unfamiliar even to specialists. Objects decorated with porcupine quillwork are especially well-represented, as are virtually every kind of Plains beadwork from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In terms of painting, geometrically decorated rawhide containers (women’s artwork) and hide and ledger drawings depicting deeds in war (men’s artwork) are well-represented. Also represented are sacred objects, including men’s pipes and pipe bags, war shields, feather bonnets, and Ghost Dance shirts and dresses. There is in addition a good selection of weapons. Multiple examples of many types of objects, from blanket strips to baby cradles, allow for comparison and the study of tribal styles. The last chapter includes examples of modern Plains art, including contemporary dance regalia and studio art by such well-known artists as T. C. Canon (Kiowa-Caddo), Earl Biss (Crow), Kevin Red Star (Crow), and Arthur Amiotte (Lakota).
The illustrations are not tied specifically to the text but are placed so as to relate to the topics discussed. Because of this, there is no sustained discussion of the pieces selected. The captions give the standard basic information: type of object, tribe and location, estimated date, list of materials used in creating the object, measurements, collection name, and catalog number. Frequently there are additional comments of a general nature, usually relating to the nature of the object rather than any specific information about it. Scholars might have hoped for more information about specific objects. Also lacking is any information about the collections themselves. Many objects come from the Chandler-Pohrt Collection and the Adolf Spohr Collection. Among original photographs owned by the BBHC and reproduced here, particularly valuable are those, some hand-colored, taken on the Crow Reservation in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century from the collection of Rev. W. A. Petzoldt. Brief discussions of the history of these collections, their documentation, and how they came to the BBHC would have been a valuable addition to the volume.
Memory and Vision is essential for any library of American Indian art and serves as an excellent introduction for anyone interested in learning about the history and cultures of the Native peoples of the Great Plains.
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[Review length: 675 words • Review posted on March 2, 2009]