This bronze was originally copyrighted under the title Mounted Indian on July 21, 1911. The man is clothed only in a breechclout, belt, and ankle-length moccasins. He carries a medicine pipe and bundle across the forward part of his saddle, and his long hair is in a topknot that hangs over his forehead. His right hand grips a single rein that runs to the horse’s lower jaw, while the animal’s tail is tied and knotted with two eagle feathers. Lieutenant James H. Bradley, an early observer of the Blackfeet in Montana, described the significance of the medicine bundle: “Their owners were called pipe stem bearers, and the position was one of great distinction. They were to be distinguished by a braid of hair in the center of the forehead, which hung down before the face, and they painted the face in a peculiar manner by a red cross down the nose and across the forehead and a red or green spot on each cheek.” Although the subject of Russell’s bronze suggests such a pipe-stem bearer, it was exhibited during the artist’s lifetime under the more general title Mounted Blackfoot. The first casts seem to have been made by the August Griffoul & Brothers Foundry in New York. Only after Russell’s death was the sculpture copyrighted and exhibited under the title Medicine Whip, which was the name of a fictional character in one of Russell’s stories. The bronze displayed here is one of the later casts that were made under Nancy Russell’s supervision, and it is likely that she was the one who assigned a new title to the work. The only discernable difference between this cast and one of the earlier ones is the use of rather thick and unconvincing wire for the rein, as opposed to very fine, twisted wire that was employed on the earlier casts.