Arapahos

As Miller prepared for his trip with Stewart in 1837, he wrote his friend Brantz Mayer from St. Louis that he had before him “a new and wider field both for the poet & painter—for if you can weave such beautiful garlands with the simplest flowers of Nature—what a subject her wild sons of the West present, intermixed with their legendary history.” (Warner, 1979, p. 144) The Arapahos seemed to fulfill that vision for him. “We saw some fine specimens of this tribe,” he recalled. “They do not shave their heads like the Sioux, but braid the centre or scalp lock with ribbons or feathers of the ‘War Eagle.’ [They]… were tall, finely formed men, from 5 ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. in height.”

This family scene shows the man smoking his pipe, with a quiver of arrows at his right and a war club at his feet. The woman is holding a baby on a cradle board at the center, and the teepees of the rendezvous grounds may be seen in the distance at the left.

Ron Tyler