Painted elk hide


Painted elk hide. Attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody), Eastern Shoshone, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming. c. 1890–1900 C.E. Painted elk hide.

  • Painting on animal hides is a longstanding tradition of the Great Basin and Great Plains people of the United States
  • Painted on elk, deer, or buffalo hides using natural pigments like red ochre and chalk, and eventually paints and dyes obtained through trade. 
  • Usually, artists decorated the hides with geometric or figural motifs. By the later nineteenth century certain hide artists began depicting subject matter that “affirmed native identity” and appealed to tourists.
  • Many of these scenes celebrated battles and other biographical details.
  • Hides represent his experiences during a period of immense change for the Shoshone people. 
  • Many Shoshone traversed the geographic regions we now call the Great Plains and Plateau regions.
  • With newly established trade markets and the influx of new materials, artists like Cotsiogo sometimes produced work that helped support themselves and their families.
  •  It displays elements of several different dances, including the important and sacred Sun Dance and non-religious Wolf Dance (tdsayuge or tásayùge). 
  • Cotsiogo shows these men in motion. Men participating in this sacred, social ceremony refrained from eating or drinking.
  • The Sun Dance was intended to honor the Creator Deity for the earth’s bounty and to ensure this bounty continued. It was a sacred ceremony that tourists and anthropologists often witnessed.
  • The hide painting also shows activities of daily life. Surrounding the Sun Dance, women rest near a fire and more men on horses hunt buffaloes. 
  • Buffaloes were sacred to the Plains people because the animals were essential to their livelihood. Some scenes display individuals skinning buffaloes and separating the animals’ body parts into piles. All parts of the buffalo were used, as it was considered a way of honoring this sacred animal.
  • DEPICTS BOWS AND ARROWS; NO LONGER USE THEM, GUNS ALREADY PRESENT
  • ALL BUFFALOS KILLED OR DISPLACED 
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