Introduction

From 1830 to 1836, George Catlin travelled throughout the American West in an attempt to document what he understood to be the extinction of a particular race of man. His romanticized portraits became the first images many Americans viewed of Native Americans.

Catlin published O-Kee-Pa: A religious ceremony; and other customs of the Mandan Indians in 1867. He wrote this description of the Mandan tribes supposed annual "torture" ceremony in defense against the growing suspicions accusing Catlin of falsifying his reports. The unsuccessful book only added to the rumors, since only Catlin and his assistants witnessed the ceremony.

It is important to keep in mind the fact that the following portrayals of the group of Native Americans known as the Mandans are most likely inaccurate representations of their actual ceremonial life, and should be used instead to gain a better understanding of the culture of the oppressor, rather than the culture of the oppressed.

The plates reproduced in this exhibit are from a first edition of Catlin's book, bequeathed to the University of Virginia's Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library by Paul Mellon in May 2000.