American Art Collaborative

George Catlin probably took portraits of Delaware/Lenape chiefs Non-on-dá-gon and the Answer (see 1985.66.275) at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1830. Catlin wrote at length of these images: “Non-on-dá-gon, with a silver ring in his nose, is another of the chiefs of distinction, whose history I admired very much . . . In both of these . . . [portraits] their dresses were principally of stuffs of civilized manufacture; and their heads were bound with vari-coloured handkerchiefs or shawls, which were tastefully put on like a Turkish turban.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 47, 1841; reprint 1973