The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

Commentary on "Sioux Indian Spotted Tail and family, tipi"

This outdoor image of Spotted Tail and his wife is very different from the studio portraits that Käsebier took of the Sioux Indians traveling with the Wild West show. Here we have both, potentially again, his wife and his child. That didn't happen in any of the formal portrait shots. Only one woman accompanied her husband to the studio. And here we have a lovely family portrait in front of the tipis where they were living in while they traveled with the show and showing some of the types of clothing that the son would wear, the type of dress with the elk teeth along the top of it for his wife, and the use of blankets. You know, a very comfortable situation where they're posing for Käsebier not in a formal way, but just wanting to share this moment and have a family image. This is a very intimate moment, again with the family, because there are so few images of families depicted especially within her personal project, but it shows how these folks were able to live while they toured with the show.