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

Commentary on "Photograph of Whirling Horse, Sioux Indian mounted with drawings of buffalo, tipi, Indian and horse"

Gertrude Käsebier recieved many drawings from the Indians that she photographed, but there is only one drawing on which she mounts one of her images, and that is of Whirling Horse. Interestingly, she has several other images of the same man in full regalia, beautiful headdress, and she chooses the one in which he's not wearing the headdress; in a very regal profile portrait, but deviod of all the extras. So it does show him as more of an individual and of the man who potentially did draw these images for her. The image that he draws of the chief on horseback includes the full headdress, the buffalo, the tipi, again images that he wanted to share with the photographer, with Käsebier. In this instance, she chooses to join an image of the man with the drawings in a way that she doesn't with any of the others.