Works of Art

In the days when the Blackfeet were able to roam freely on the plains, the frequency of moving camp changed from season to season. The pattern of the weather, the availability of game, the ripening cycle of plants, and the requirements of the tribe’s own ceremonial calendar were all factors in determining the time for moving. Lodges and furnishings had to be portable and easily packed for transport. On the day before the move, most of the smaller items were packed so they could be quickly loaded onto a horse or travois—the carrying system utilizing the long dragging poles shown on the horses in this painting. At dawn on the morning of the move, the women of the camp took down the lodge. The buffalo-hide cover of an average tipi weighed about one hundred pounds, and it generally was supported by approximately nineteen poles, each about eighteen to twenty-two feet long. All these articles were packed and transported by the women of the tribe.

The subject of Indian women and children traveling on horseback with travois became one of Russell’s favorite themes of Native American life. In this early painting, a line of travois stretch back into the distance. A woman astride her travois-laden horse, with a young child strapped to her shoulder, looks anxiously into the distance as a young mounted boy points the way where the leaders have gone. The woman’s horse has a classic Crow martingale (the painted rawhide band across its breast), and the decorated crupper on the horse’s flank can be identified as Crow as well. However, the small string of beads with a silver pendant at the end, which can be seen on the child on her shoulder, is a Shoshone (and Ute) form of decoration, especially when it comes down the center of the forehead like it does here. Also, the boy to the woman’s right wears a tightly sleeved shirt more typical of the southern plains. Although some of these disparate items could have been acquired by the Indians in trade, Russell strived to depict a particular tribe’s accessories in a more accurate and consistent manner in his later works.