American Art Collaborative

George Catlin painted He Who Carries a Wolf at the Comanche village in 1834. Ish-a-ró-yeh was a man of some standing in the tribe who, Catlin later wrote, “piloted the dragoons to the Camanchee village, and received a handsome rifle from Colonel Dodge for so doing.” He was named “from the circumstance of his carrying a medicine-bag made of the skin of a wolf; he holds a whip in his hand.” (Catlin, 1848 Catalogue, Catlin’s Indian Gallery, SAAM online exhibition; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979