Usage conditions may apply for digital images, video, and sound recordings linked within SOVA collections. While digital content may be restricted, SOVA collection descriptions and catalog records are available CC0 for re-use. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
National Anthropological Archives
Guide to MS 1929-a Drawings of war deeds of Sitting Bull and Jumping Bull, circa 1970
Summary
- Collection ID:
- NAA.MS1929A
- Creators:
-
Jumping BullSitting Bull, 1831-1890Kimball, James P. (James Peleg), 1840-1902
- Dates:
-
circa 1870
- Languages:
-
English.
- Physical Description:
-
55 Drawings (visual works)54 leavesink and colored pencil
- Repository:
- Container:
- 1929-a
Scope and Contents
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of fifty-five (55) copies of drawings of war deeds of Sitting Bull and Jumping Bull on 54 leaves: 53 drawings are on blank backs of printed roster sheets for the 31st US Infantry, dated 1868; one leaf has drawings on both sides; one unfinished drawing is on an abstract of an Army order relating to contractor services, Ft. Totten, DT, dated 1868. The collection also includes a 7 page handwritten explanation by Kimball, based on information gained from Native community members, interpreters, and others at Fort Buford, an 1881 letter from the Reverend John Williamson, regarding his interview with Sitting Bull, and typed notes from Matthew Stirling (circa 1930s).
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement
Arrangement
The drawings are arranged in the order given by James Kimball, who numbered them. Kimball's numbers appear in the inventory along with NAA's inventory numbers.
Administration
Custodial History
The drawings were purchased by Army surgeon James P. Kimball from a Yanktonai man visiting Fort Buford, Dakota Territory in 1870. Kimball numbered the drawings 1 through 55 and prepared an explanatory text, which identified all the pictures as representing the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull. Kimball sent the drawings and index to the Medical Director's Office, Department of Dakota, which marked them received on March 14, 1871; they forwarded them to the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in Washington DC where they were registered March 29, 1871. The AMM transferred the drawings and index together with associated correspondence to the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) in May 1915. The original introductory statement by Kimball explaining how he had acquired them is no longer with the collection, however a transcription of it is in the David H. Strother Papers at the archives of the University of West Virginia.
In 1881 the AMM sent the drawings to Fort Randall for comment by Sitting Bull, then held prisoner there, and the collection includes a letter from Reverend John Williamson documenting that interview. Sitting Bull identified the drawings as copies of ones he had made some years previously together with copies of drawings by his adopted brother Jumping Bull. The pictures of Sitting Bull are distinguished by inclusion of a pictorial representation of his name.
Processing Information
This finding aid was reviewed and revised in 2020 based on further research into original sources by Candace Greene (2021), who suggests that the copies may have been made at Fort Buford by the Yanktonai who sold them. The tribal identification of Indian enemies is uncertain, with frequent discrepancies between Kimball, Campbell, and Sitting Bull's own 1881 identifications of events depicted in MS 1929B. The majority of tribal enemies are Assiniboine or Crow.
Digital Content
Using the Collection
Preferred Citation
MS 1929-a Drawings of war deeds of Sitting Bull and Jumping Bull, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Conditions Governing Use
Contact the repository for terms of use.
More Information
Publication Note
Publication Note
Reproductions of a few of the drawings were published in Harper's Weekly in 1876 together with information from the introductory statement and the index, which the author had examined at the AMM. Most of the drawings were published in a biography of Sitting Bull by Walter Campbell, writing under the pen name Stanley Vestal. He provided speculative identifications of each scene and unsupported identification of the original artist as Four Horns. This information was repeated by Matthew Stirling in his 1938 publication Three Pictorgraphic Autobiographies of Sitting Bull, and entered into the catalog record.
Porte Crayon. "Sitting Bull - Autobiography of the Famous Sioux Chief" Harpers Weekly, July 29, 1876: 625–628.
Stirling, Matthew W. "Three Pictographic Autobiographies of Sitting Bull," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Vol 97, No 5. 1938.
Vestal, Stanley. Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux: A Biography. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932 and Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.
Keywords
| Keyword Terms | Keyword Types | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Works of art | Genre Form | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
| Ledger drawings | Genre Form | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
| Pictographs | Genre Form | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
| Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux) | Cultural Context | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
| Hunkpapa Lakota (Hunkpapa Sioux) | Cultural Context | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
| North America | Geographic | Search Smithsonian Collections | Search ArchiveGrid |
National Anthropological Archives
Museum Support Center
4210 Silver Hill Road
Suitland, Maryland 20746
Business Number: Phone: 301.238.1300
Fax Number: Fax: 301.238.2883
naa@si.edu
