American Art Collaborative

George Catlin probably painted this image of Bear-catcher, a warrior of the Kansas/Kaw tribe, at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1832. Catlin later described the warrior as having “hair . . . cut as close to the head as possible, except a tuft the size of the palm of the hand, on the crown of the head, which is left of two inches in length: and in the centre of which is fastened a beautiful crest made of the hair of the deer's tail (dyed red) and horsehair, and oftentimes surmounted with the war-eagle's quill.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 34, 1841; reprint 1973