Untitled (Deer, man and stream). Silver Horn (Haungooah). Ca. 1897.
Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker. 55172.
Untitled (Boy and porcupine in tree). Silver Horn (Haungooah).
Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker. 55173.(Santa Fe, NM)'Around the turn of the century, the Kiowa people experienced a radical shift from a buffalo hunting society to resettlement in individual family allotments in southwest Oklahoma. Silver Horn (1860-1940), a ledger artist of exceptional talent, illustrated Kiowa life and culture during this time of change. Perspectives on the Hugh Scott Ledger Book by Silver Horn explores the relationship between the Kiowa storytelling tradition and narrative form. Captain Hugh Scott commissioned Silver Horn to produce a series of drawings that illustrated Kiowa stories for his intended volume on Kiowa tales. This rare ledger book is now a treasured part of the MIAC permanent collection. A selection of Silver Horn's original drawings will be on view during the March 11, 2017 lecture featuring perspectives from noted Kiowa tribal historian and storyteller, Dorothy White Horse Delaune, and Dr. Candace Greene, a specialist in plains pictorial traditions. The lecture will take place from 10:00am to 12:00pm at the Kathryn O'Keeffe Theater at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
Offering a personal perspective on Kiowa storytelling traditions, Dorothy White Horse Delaune, will share experiences from her childhood in the Redstone Kiowa community. Dr. Candace Greene will place the expressive style and content of the Hugh Scott ledger book into the broader context of Silver Horn's larger body of work. Greene will also address the relationship between oral and visual narrative forms and their function within traditional Kiowa representational systems. Original drawings from the ledger book will be discussed.
"It is important to have public programs that bring together masterworks from MIAC's collections, leading scholars in the field and tribal community experts," said Della Warrior, Director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. "Exploring a significant art work in depth creates a rich interpretive experience for the visitor."
Lecture is free with museum admission. Youth sixteen and under and Museum of New Mexico Foundation Members are always free.
Dorothy WhiteHorse Delaune (Kiowa) was born in 1933 in a tipi in the community of Hog Creek, west of Anadarko, Oklahoma. A greatly respected tribal historian and storyteller, Dorothy comes from a long line of distinguished Kiowa leaders. Her father, White Horse, is the grandson of Dohasan, the great Kiowa leader serving from 1833-1866. Her mother, Laura WhiteHorse, is the granddaughter of Mamanti (Sky Walker). Dorothy is a charter member of the Ohoma Society and the Black Leggings Society. She is also a member of the Kiowa War Mothers Chapter 18, the Kateri Circle of St. Patrick's Indian Mission and the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women.
Dr. Candace Greene's research focuses on Native North American art and material culture, especially Plains Indian drawings. Greene has worked principally with Kiowa and Cheyenne people in understanding materials from those communities and making them more accessible to tribal members. More broadly, she is interested in the anthropology of museum collections, considering what the process of museumification does to objects and information. In more than 20 years at the Smithsonian, she has worked on a variety of projects to promote access, preservation, and research use of the collections, ranging from physical care to intellectual access. She is the author of Silver Horn: Master Illustrator of the Kiowas.
About the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
As the 19th century closed, one of the Southwest's major "attractions" was its vibrant Native American cultures. In response to unsystematic collecting by Eastern museums, anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewett founded the Museum of New Mexico in 1909 with a mission to collect and preserve Southwest Native American material culture. Several years later, in 1927, John D. Rockefeller founded the renowned Laboratory of Anthropology with a mission to study the Southwest's indigenous cultures. In 1947 the two institutions merged, bringing together the most inclusive and systematically acquired collection of New Mexican and Southwestern anthropological artifacts in the country.