North America | USA
War Shield
USA
War shield
Crow or neighboring Plains Indians
19th century
Hide and pigments
Diameter: 37 cm – 14 ½ in.
Provenance
Collection Claude Meyer, Paris
Pierre Bergé & Associés Auction, Paris, April 2nd, 2012, lot 217
Collection Michel Zerolo, Paris, acquired at the above sale
Sold
In 1841, George Catlin described the preparation of a shield in the following way in his book: The Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, (Vol. I, p. 241) :
A young man making a shield gathers his particular and best friends, “who are invited on the occasion,” and they fall “into a ring to dance and sing around it, and solicit the Great Spirit to instil into it the power to protect him harmless against his enemies.” The rawhide, kept stretched over the fire, “contracts to one half of its size,” taking up the glue as it is heated, “increasing in thickness until it is rendered as thick and hard as required,” strong enough to stop arrows and even bullets. Only then “the dance ceases and the fire is put out.”
When cooled and cut to the desired shape, it is “often painted with his medicine or totem upon it — the figure of an eagle, an owl, a buffalo, or other animal,” trusted to guard him from harm.
These shields are carried by all the warriors of (the Upper Missouri) region for their protection in battles, “almost invariably fought from their horses’ backs.”
A young man making a shield gathers his particular and best friends, “who are invited on the occasion,” and they fall “into a ring to dance and sing around it, and solicit the Great Spirit to instil into it the power to protect him harmless against his enemies.” The rawhide, kept stretched over the fire, “contracts to one half of its size,” taking up the glue as it is heated, “increasing in thickness until it is rendered as thick and hard as required,” strong enough to stop arrows and even bullets. Only then “the dance ceases and the fire is put out.”
When cooled and cut to the desired shape, it is “often painted with his medicine or totem upon it — the figure of an eagle, an owl, a buffalo, or other animal,” trusted to guard him from harm.
These shields are carried by all the warriors of (the Upper Missouri) region for their protection in battles, “almost invariably fought from their horses’ backs.”
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