“The Chief Celebrates His New Hat” (10″ high)

“The Chief Celebrates His New Hat” (10″ high)

“ THE CHIEF CELEBRATES HIS NEW HAT ”

How did he get the hat? Where did the jacket come from? Did he trade for them or are they from an unlucky settler? I love leaving mysteries in a piece. Good works of art never answers all your questions. They leave you a tad hungry.

Here are a few answers: The chief is a Mandan Indian. Men in the Mandan tribe often wore their hair to the ground. In the fall, women would take a sticky substance and wrap it around long lengths of individual groups of hair. The bowl of the pipe is of Catlinite (commonly referred to as pipestone). Named after the painter George Caitlin, who was the first white man to visit the mine where it is quarried for the purpose of making bowls for smoke pipes).

SCOTT ROGERS