American Art Collaborative

George Catlin painted this image of Meeting Birds, a member of the Ojibwe/Chippewa tribe, either in 1835 at Fort Snelling, a military post in present-day Minnesota, or in 1836 near Sault Ste. Marie. He described Meeting Birds as “a brave, with his war-club in his hand.” Catlin later wrote about Indian weapons: “Their primitive clubs are curiously carved in wood, and fashioned out with some considerable picturesque form and grace; are admirably fitted to the hand, and calculated to deal a deadly blow with the spike of iron or bone which is imbedded in the ball or bulb at the end.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, no. 29, 1841, reprint 1973, and 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition