GUSTAVUS SOl-lON'S PORTRAITS OF FLAT- 

 HEAD AND PEND D'OREILLE 

 INDIANS, 1854 



By JOHN C. EWERS 



Associate Curator of Ethnology 

 U. S. National Museum 



(With 22 Plates) 



GUSTAVUS SOHON, ARTIST, LINGUIST, AND EXPLORER 



The Flathead and Pend d'Orcille Indians, who lived in the moun- 

 tain valleys of what is now the western part of the State of Montana 

 and crossed the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains to hunt 

 buffalo on the open plains, were not portrayed in the drawings and 

 paintings of famous American and European artists who visited the 

 Upper Missouri region in pre-reservation days. However, a private 

 soldier in the United States Army, who was well acquainted with the 

 Mathead and Pend d'Oreille tribes in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, has left a pictorial record worthy of these remarkable Indians 

 in a series of realistic pencil portraits of his Indian friends. These 

 portraits are signed "G. Sohon." 



Gustavus Sohon was born in Tilsit, Germany, December 10, 1825. 

 His daughter, Dr. Elizabeth Sohon. recalled that he used to speak of 

 having attended "L'niversity," and Hazard Stevens, who knew him 

 in 1855, called him "well-educated." When he came to America at 

 the age of 17, to avoid compulsory service in the Prussian Army, 

 which was distasteful to him, he spoke ICnglish, Erench, and German 

 fluently. Whether Sohon ever had any formal instruction in art is 

 not known. 



Little is known of his life in Brooklyn during the decade following 

 his arrival in this country. His daughter understood that he had 

 made some woodcarvings for sale, and a son, the late Henry W. 

 Sohon, wrote that "he engaged in the photograph business." How- 

 ever, upon his enlistment, he gave his occupation as "bookbinder." 



Gustavus Sohon enlisted as a private in the United States Army 

 in New York City, July 2, 1852, at the age of 26. Routine Army 

 records describe him at that time as dark-complexioned, hazel-eyed, 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 110. NO. 7 



