Bodmer_Publication

As regards the bear claw necklace (Acc. No. 36110 c) we learn from the unpublished
diary that Prince Maximilian himself obtained the basic materials, which he then
gave to Mato-Tope, asking him to produce a necklace. 25 Since 1962, the Prince’s
diary has been in the possession of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska,
together with Bodmer’s originals as well as Maximilian’s correspondence. Chances
are that when the complete travel diary is published in the near future, more
valuable information regarding the North America collection of Prince Maximilian
will become accessible.
Prince Maximilian of Wied – Links to the Present
160 years after Prince Maximilian’s stay at Fort Clark in the vicinity of the Mandan
villages, Tex Hall discovered Wied’s travel report at the highschool library in
Mandaree, North Dakota. It was an abridged edition published in English by Reuben
Gold Thwaites (1966). Tex Hall, a former principal, was fascinated to learn about
these travelers from Germany who had lived with the Mandan and Hidatsa – and he
was convinced that his ancestors would not have bidden farewell to their guests
without giving them presents. He succeeded in tracing the Prince’s family, and in
1997 the late Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Wied and his family visited the Fort
Berthold Reservation, where the Prince was officially invited to join a buffalo hunt.
Also in 1997, but not connected to this event, I received an invitation to come to
North Dakota to meet the late Mary Edith Goodbear, a great-great-grandchild of
Mato-Tope living on the Fort Berthold Reservation at the time. The project picked
up momentum in the summer of 1998 when Prince of Wied visited the Linden-
Museum, accompanied by members of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa
Arikara) 26 , to see the objects from his great-grand-uncle’s collection. My talks with
staff members of the Three Tribes Museum who kindly introduced me to other
descendants of Mato-Tope, gave rise to the idea of developing a joint project focusing
on “Mato-Tope and his Descendants.”
On 11 October 1998, Mary Edith Goodbear and I blessed the food during a
re ception to which Marilyn Hudson, the head of the Three Tribes Museum, had
invited the public. In a slide show I presented the journey and collection of Prince
Maximilian in his role as a natural scientist. About fifty people filled the room,
l istening intently to my report. Only a few were acquainted with the Prince’s travel
experiences, but many of them were familiar with the most widely reproduced
images by Karl Bodmer, such as the view into the earthlodge or the portraits of
Mato-Tope and Pehriska-Ruhpa. However, many believed that they had been
painted by the American artist George Catlin, who had also portrayed Mandan and
Hidatsa leaders in 1831.
During these public presentations as well as in personal meetings with descendants
of Mato-Tope I experienced a very strong interest in the objects, but the people
knew very little about their cultural background and meaning. While viewing
photographs of items in the collection, stories of the past were retold. All the
people I spoke with addressed the extreme events that their ancestors had had to
master, such as the devastating small pox epidemic of 1837, which only a few
Mandan and about half of the Hidatsa survived; the forced abandonment of Like-
A-Fishhook-Village at the end of the nineteenth century, and the relocation of the
community, which, in 1862, had given refuge to the Arikara after these had become
victims of continuous Sioux attacks; the development of new settlements in the
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