Bodmer_Publication

l. to r.
# 036115 Roach, Sauk
and Fox
# 035980 Sword club,
Hidatsa or Ponca
# 035977 Club, wapiti brow
antler, Assiniboin
# 036012 Woman’s robe, Dakota
# 036011 Powderhorn, Dakota
religious worldviews at the same time. The objects on show told the story of the
events recorded by Prince Maximilian in his Travels in the Interior of North
America in the Years 1832 to 1834.
However, by 1904 sweeping changes had heavily affected the Native American
peoples and their way of life. Confined to reservations and following epidemics that
had caused an immense number of deaths, they were forced to reshape their lives
and, above all, respond to the fact that most of their land had been taken by European
settlers. The buffalo herds that had once provided their life foundation were
gone, government agents forced Native American families to send their children to
boarding schools in a relentless attempt to eradicate all traces of indigenous culture,
while missionaries demanded their conversion to Christianity and prohibited
all activities that were associated in any way with Native religious traditions.
Far away in Stuttgart, people were oblivious of this struggle for survival, but
fascinated by the early pieces, which, due to the descriptions in the Prince’s diary
and especially Karl Bodmer’s expressive paintings, they were able to appreciate
in their traditional cultural context. We may assume that next to the figuratively
painted buffalo robes especially the two women robes with their strong geo -
metric patterns impressed the visitors, particularly because one of the so-called
puber ty robes (Acc. No. 36102), worn by the Teton-woman Chan-Chä-Uia-Teüin, 20
is depicted on Tableau 9 where she is shown together with an Assiniboin girl. 21
What kind of fantasies were triggered in the viewer when he or she looked at the
moccasins of the Teton-Sioux Wahmenitu (Acc. No. 36078 a,b), who is depicted in
Wied’s travel journal 22 and described as a man with an immense appetite who
heartily entertained the travelers on board their steamboat with his jokes? 23
What did the visitor associate with the club (Acc. No. 35980) and the moccasins
(Acc. No. 36077), which the Prince had received as a gift from two Ponca men? 24
Even today, visitors are fascinated by the objects that once belonged to
the Mandan chief Mato-Tope. Apart from the buffalo robe there is the bonnet with
towering feathers (Acc. No. 36110 b), similar to the headdresses worn by the
Blackfeet. It remains an open question how the Mandan acquired this bonnet.
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