Ledger art

Ledger art is narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth, predominantly practiced by Plains Indian, but also from the Plateau and Great Basin.

Many ledger artists worked together with ethnologists, to document cultural information such as shield and tipi designs, winter counts, dances and regalia.

Before the Plains tribes were forced to live on reservations in the 1870s, men generally painted personal feats in battle or hunting.

[2] Plains ledger art depicted communally acknowledged events of valor and tribal importance in order to gain status for the individuals who participated in them, and their band and kin.

When buffalo became scarce after the US federal government's eradication programs, Plains artists began painting and drawing on paper, canvas, and muslin.

Ledger artists also documented their rapidly changing environment by portraying encroaching European Americans and new technologies such as trains and cameras.

The artists creating ledger art today often reference pre-reservation lifeways, historical transitions, and social commentary.

[15] In the harsh winter of 1874 to 1875, many tribal camps were forced to surrender to various Indian agencies, and the supposed leaders of the Red River War were rounded up and sent to Fort Marion.

The drawings in the book depict events and people from the period between the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the 1869 Summit Springs Battle.

The principal artist was Jaw (Ćehu′pa) or His Fight (Oki'cize-ta'wa), a Hunkpapa (Húŋkpapȟa) Lakota man, who created 87 of the more than 107 drawings in the ledger book.

[22] After being scanned and inventoried,[23] this historical object of cultural value was then dismantled as individual drawings that were sold on the open market to private collectors and institutions; a commercial trend in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

[50][25] The roots of this commercialization can be traced to the late 19th century, when the founder of the Carlisle Indian School, Col. Richard Pratt began to teach entrepreneurial values to the Fort Marion prisoners of war.

Carl Sweezy (Southern Arapaho, 1881–1953)[52] and Haungooah (Silver Horn) (Kiowa, 1860–1940) both established professional careers as ledger artists.