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A Lakota war book from the Little Bighorn : the pictographic "autobiography of Half Moon" / Castle McLaughlin.
Penn Museum Library E83.876 .M39 2013
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Kislak Center for Special Collections - Dechert Collection E83.876 .M39 2013
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- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- McLaughlin, Castle.
- Series:
- Houghton Library studies ; 4th v.
- Houghton Library studies ; 4
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876--Pictorial works.
- Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876.
- Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876, in art.
- Little Bighorn, Battle of the (Montana : 1876) in art.
- Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876--Personal narratives.
- Indian ledger drawings--Montana--History.
- Indian ledger drawings.
- Black Hills War, 1876-1877.
- Art.
- Dakota Indians.
- History.
- Montana.
- Genre:
- History.
- Personal narratives.
- Pictorial works.
- Illustrated works.
- Physical Description:
- xii, 355 pages : color illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.
- Other Title:
- Pictographic "autobiography of Half Moon"
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library, Peabody Museum Press, [2013]
- Summary:
- A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn, The composite nineteenth-century document known as "The Pictorial Autobiography of Half Moon, an Uncpapa Sioux Chief" has at its core seventy-seven drawings made by Lakota warriors of the northern Plains. Found in a funerary dpi on the Little Bighorn battlefield after Custer's defeat in 1876, the drawings are from a captured ledger book that was later acquired by Chicago journalist James "Phocion" Howard. Howard added an illustrated introduction and leather binding and presented the document as the autobiographical work of a "chief" named Half Moon. Anthropologist Castle McLaughlin probes the complex life history and cultural significance of the ledger and demonstrates that the dramatic drawings, mostly of war exploits, were created by at least six different warrior-artists. Examining how allied Lakota and Cheyenne warriors understood their graphic records of warfare as objects as well as images, McLaughlin introduces the concept of "war books"-documents that were captured and modified by Native warriors in order to appropriate the power of Euroamerican literacy. Together, the vivid first-person depictions in the Houghton Library ledger make up a rare Native American record of historic events that likely occurred between 1866 and 1868 during Red Cloud's War along the Bozeman Trail. With a foreword by Chief Joseph Brings Plenty, former Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Part 1 Provenance and History
- The Ledger and the Little Bighorn 9
- A Life History of the Ledger 24
- Creating the "Autobiography of Half Moon" 33
- Part 2 Ledger Art and War Books
- Ledger Art and Ledger Studies 39
- War Books 49
- The Houghton Ledger as Object 69
- Part 3 The Drawings
- The Artists and Their Stories 73
- Artist A: The Lakota Sahiyela 75
- Artist B: The Blue Roan Warrior 86
- Artist C: The Bonnet Man 99
- Artist D: The Heyoka 100
- Artist E: Thunder Hawk 104
- Artist F: The Decoy 108
- Miscellaneous Drawings 110
- Summary of Diagnostic Content in the Drawings 112.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 334-346) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780981885865
- 0981885861
- OCLC:
- 836261671
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