Wi-Jun-Jon, an Assinneboin Chief, from Catlin’s North American Indian Portfolio

Inscriptions

Printed, lower left margin: Catlin del. on Stone by Mc. Gahey [the period is directly under the superscripted c]; printed, lower right margin: Day & Haghe Lithrs. to the Queen [the period is directly beneath the superscripted rs];printed, lower center margin: No. 25. / WI-JUN-JON. / AN ASSINEBOIN CHIEF. / (From Catlin's N. A. Indian Collection.) [the period is directly beneath the superscripted o in No.]; printed, lower left margin: Going to Washington.; printed, lower right margin: Returning to his home.

Label

George Catlin was one of several 19th-century artists whose portraits and depictions of “traditional” Indian life were widely exhibited and reproduced. This portrait of Wi-Jun-Jon provides an excellent visual representation of the notion that as Euro-American influences made their way into Native American nations, Native cultures and practices would disappear. This (mis)perception led to the salvage ethnography and collecting practices that formed the foundations of the Hood Museum of Art’s—and many other museums’—Native American collections.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.

Published References

le Beau, Bryan F. Currier and Ives: America Imagined, Washington, D. C.: The Smithsonian Institution, 2001. Currier and Ives. "Wi-Jun-Jon." Library of Congress. "The European Tour," George Catlin and His Indian Gallery, The Autry Museum, 2004 Gaskin, L. J. P. "Catlin's 'North American Indian Portfolio,'" Man 36 (Mar. 1936) Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, JSTOR, Goode, Stephen. "Catlin and the Indians," The World & I. 17.2 (2002): 80-87. Kirwan, Padraig."Images That Stole Their Subjects," The Times Higher Education Supplement. 2092 (2013), 48. Mielke, Laura L. Moving Encounters: Sympathy and the Indian Question in Antebellum Literature. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. Miller, David R. and John Beierle, "Assiniboine," eHRAF World Cultures. Yale University. Rodnick, David. "Political Structure and Status among the Assiniboine Indians," American Anthropologist. 39 (1937) 408-416. "Who was Louis Haghe?"

Provenance

Possibly from a large, New Jersey private collection of Western American art; sold to the Old Print Shop, New York, New York, about 2013; sold to present collection, 2014.

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