tough to see with my olde eyes.

Looks like two native Americans sneaking up on a herd of buffalo aka bison.

Why would two intelligent hunters use "wolf robes" to sneak up in???  my guess is that the buff would attack and trample the dudes.  Darwin would eliminate these guys from the gene pool once again.

I think, again, the artist painted an image 'he' had not a true representation of the native life.

BEAR

bear -

here's a bigger picture. i'll answer your questions below......

>>>Why would two intelligent hunters use "wolf robes" to sneak up in???<<<

simply put: this is what people used before the days of RealTree and MossyOak. no horses, no guns, so they use this "camo" to sneak in closer. a couple of wolves aren't going to disturb a herd of buffalo. a pack of them might bother a solitary buffalo, but not a whole herd against two.

>>>my guess is that the buff would attack and trample the dudes.  Darwin would eliminate these guys from the gene pool once again.<<<

it's very possible that they would be trampled. that's why only the best and bravest volunteered for the job. families needed food, so they did it. as for darwin, if they WOULDN'T have found a way to get within arrow range (tough bone, hide and muscle, vital organs well-protected), darwin would have eliminated them long ago.

>>>I think, again, the artist painted an image 'he' had not a true representation of the native life.<<<

catlin lived with the indians (most notably the mandan) for quite an extended period of time. i can look it up. he learned about, observed and deptcited the indians in great detail. his artistic talent might be lacking in some eyes, but he was very much an anthropologist as well as an artist, and he was very meticulous in his observations.....

Ron,

Why not use a part of an old buffalo robe?  It would seem to this guy that a buffalo robe would be easier to get than a wolf hide.  What hide did they use to sneak up on the wolf.

It is funny, because I was out hunting last week and noticed again how close you could get to wild game animals it you lay close over top of a horse and just graze into mule deer and antelope.  I was thinking of using a short recurve bow and 'grazing' into a small herd of elk.  Assuming your horse would hold still, I think I could get a shot off into an elk???  but I haven't tried it...probably to messed up to get a chance at it.  Interesting as my thoughts were on this subject last week while stalking mule deer in open country.

BEAR

It has been a few years since i read the Lewis-Clark Journal but seems i remember lots of references to white wolves and white grizzly bears????

BEAR

I'm w/ BK I think they're going with the wind right into the buffs

Only other thing is that I didn't see any buffalo chips out there in the prairie.  All them buffs and no chips?  Come on! If so that's got to be the 2nd most full of shit herd I've ever seen. 

First herd of course is Marshall University's Thundering Herd football team

BK--They were on the open plains. The last wolf that my father killed was 1 mile east of Moorcroft, Wyo in 1925. They didn't have Moose or Elk to feed on so they ate beef. Probably the reason they killed em all off. The Robinson ranch ran Herefords, plus on the Belle Fourche River they ran 3000 head of Mexican cattle. Dad's way of controlling the Coyotes was to dig up the dens and drag out the pups and hit em in head with a shovel. He told me those were pretty exciting days. He called them " The Good Old Days"

  He died in 1995 at the age of 96.

               Bronco

FWIW, i am looking right now at a very good facsimile of the original and the bows are strung and they do have arrows.

bear, sometimes a buff robe was used, especially when they were preparing to run them over cliffs. lot of white wolves out tehre in the old days, the griz bears were called white because of their grizzled look. in fact, great falls has an island on the missouri river running through town named WHITE BEAR ISLAND in reference to lewis's run-in with a large nasty specimen of ursus horriblus. yes, there were many wolves, grizzly bears and even elk on the plains. it was only after they were chased into the mountains that they became known as high-country animals.

good observations with the grass, and for that matter, the buffalo chips, but not what i was looking for. i do notice that in another part of the painting, the grass is going the opposite way, so i cannot speak for the wind. also, keep in mind that the second, larger image is a lithograph of the original painting, and as such has some details and lines not intended by the original artist. if i can find a better pic of the original painting, i will post it. unfortunatley, the one i am looking at right now cannot be scanned.

take a good look at EVERYTHING in the opening post, and i will provide the answer tomorrow......

Date of Death of the artist. 

                            Bronco

I suspect 1891 was the collection date, for when it was added to a museum collection. There are some still wandering around. I know of one in South Dakota that a museum has been trying to document for several years. The style and mediums are correct, but unfortunately, no signature. As a reputable museum, they do not have it on display, so as to not mis-represent the work.

There were, and are, many white wolves. They run a great variety of colors. There was a famous pure white one, I believe in the late 1800's, called the Custer wolf, that killed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of livestock.

The wolves were a prairie anmal, and probably never saw the mountains until the game moved there. Ever wonder why Lewis and Clark nearly starved crossing the Bitterroot Range? No game there at that time.

The grass direction is inconsequential, as Catlin, and many other artists used the technique to give a painting depth.

His contemporaries really didn't think that much of him. Audobon in his trip up the Missouri kept a journal, and was anything but flattering to Catlin, considering him a romantasist, rather than a chronicaler, and not to be taken as a final word in correctness. I have seen great variations comparing his work to other contemporary artists that painted the same subjects, mainly Woodlands Indians, wearing the same clothing. Much different in what they were painting. Catlin painted things I know were incorrect, through my work in museums, and handling early specimens. I consider Bodmer a better painter of the time for correctness, and Alfred Jacob Miller was probably the best chronicaler of the mountain man era.

What was the question?

ron,

Tommow is NOW.  Where is the answer?????

Please?

BEAR

TTU nailed it first: the date of the painting is several years after the artists death. they also, for some ungodly reason, have it listed as a photo gravure rather than a painting. i have no explanation for this.

the painting hangs at the http://www.gilcrease.org/ - Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but this entry was from the http://www.wildlifeart.org - National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. i JUST thought of this, but perhaps a photo gravure was made in 1891 of the original painting, and this is what we are looking at now. in that case, i guess the date WOULD be correct, in a way. an 1891 photo of a circa 1840's painting......maybe....i don't know. in any case, the date of the death of the artist vs. the dateof the work of art is what i was going for.

here is his "commentary" on what you see in this painting>>

"Many of the Indians have no horses with which to pursue the Buffalos, and when the animals are grazing on the extended, level plains, use a strategem to approach them. The Indian, placing himself under the skin of a white wolf, so well imitates the motions and actions of that animal, that he easily approaches the unsuspecting herd near enough to deal his deadly arrows with effect"

catlin was out west in the 1830's, and lived with the mandans over a summer. he did paint some winter scenes, but if i remember correctly, he never actually observed any hunting in the winter, because he was back east by then. here's an example.

while catlin's work lacks the technical merit of bodmer and miller, he is a sentimental favorite of mine. for more discussion on these three artists who were all out west within a couple of years of each other, please check out my http://www.baitshopboyz.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4239&PN=2 - collection profile on the museum's alfred jacob miller piece .