Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers: Black Hawk's Vision of the Lakota World [Hardcover]

Janet Catherine Berlo (Author), Eugene Victor Thaw (Introduction), Arthur Amiotte (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001

During the winter of 1880-81, Black Hawk, a Lakota artist living on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation, drew seventy-six vivid images depicting complex scenes of ceremonial activity, personal visions, historical events, and nature studies. Having recently emerged from obscurity, Black Hawk's drawing book now stands as the most complete visual record extant of Lakota art of the early reservation period (1875-95). It is published here in full, for the first time, with fine quality color plates of each drawing. Detailed commentary accompanies the drawings, providing insight into Lakota religion, art, and culture in the nineteenth century. Some of Black Hawk's illustrations are the only known drawings of ceremonies described in ethnographic works such as Black Elk Speaks, the famous account of visions experienced by Lakota holy man Black Elk. The ceremonies depicted in Black Hawk's drawings include the Sun Dance, buffalo transformation ceremonies, and ceremonies honoring the sacred pipe. He also recorded scenes of Lakota encounters with the Crow, of buffalo hunting, and of wildlife. An invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Native American history and art, Black Hawk's drawing book is a window unto a complex and eloquent world. 76 color illustrations, 20 b/w illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the early 1880s, Black Hawk, a Lakota medicine man living on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, was commissioned to create 76 drawings by a local trader. Paid 50 cents per image, Black Hawk created a uniquely rich series capturing his dreams, Lakota religious rituals and scenes of hunting and animal life. The drawings, now in the collection of the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., form the basis of this book, and they are astonishing. Black Hawk's Dream or Vision of himself changed to a destroyer is uncannily like a Hieronymous Bosch nightmare, while his detailed views of Animal medicine society rituals, in which participants dressed in skins of various beasts, boast both precision and intense spirituality. Perhaps most amazing of all are his drawings of animals, especially bats and bears, which unite a naturalist's observation with a gripping narrative suggestiveness. Use of color, although clearly limited to the choice of pencils the impoverished artist owned, is subtle and gratifying. All 76 drawings are beautifully reproduced here in full color and are attractively and accessibly laid out, along with 16 b&w details. A University of Rochester professor of gender and women's studies and art history, Berlo (Plains Indian Drawings 1865-1935) provides expert historical and cultural context for the images. Black Hawk is certainly one of 19th-century America's great artists; this is a must-have item for libraries and collectors with even the slightest interest in American art and history, and stores will find that despite the price, browsers will not want to part with it. (Dec.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In winter 1881, a trader at the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota paid Black Hawk, a Lakota, 50? for each picture he drew. The trader then bound 77 of these works in a book that was only rediscovered in 1995. These pictures, simple, two-dimensional line drawings in colored pencil, are an amazingly detailed record of the life, clothing, customs, and ceremonies of the Lakota Sioux. The drawings show the eye of an incipient ethnologist in attention to the fine detail of a medicine pouch or a bone necklace. A previous book by Berlo (art history, Univ. of Rochester), Plains Indian Drawing, 1865-1935, paved the way for this book. Here she offers a very readable yet scholarly overview of Native American art and culture, the history of this troubled era, the cosmology that affected customs and religion (including the Sun Dance), and a look at Black Hawk's environment. Mostly, she examines the 77 plates, which, with her careful explication, become wonders. Far more than a picture book, this is a good addition for general as well as art and Native American collections. Gay Neale, Meredithville, VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 180 pages
• Publisher: George Braziller; 1st edition (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807614653
• ISBN-13: 978-0807614655
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 11.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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