GEORGE CATLIN. 34! 



an apprehension not unlike that with which he would now start 

 out for Central Africa. The Indians knew little of the white 

 man, and his inventions were strange and mysterious to them. 

 Thus, the people on the Yellowstone had never seen or heard 

 of a steamboat, and at some places were at a loss what to do 

 or how to act at the sight of one. 



The art of portrait painting was new to the savages, and 

 the strange, whimsical, and superstitious notions which they 

 conceived of Mr. Catlin's operations were the source of many 

 curious incidents. The portraits produced great excitement 

 in the villages, with intense interest in the personality of the 

 artist. The people pronounced him the greatest medicine 

 man in the world, for he made living beings ; they said " they 

 could see their chiefs alive in two places ; those that he had 

 made were a little alive ; they could see their eyes move, could 

 see them smile and laugh, and if they could laugh they could 

 certainly speak, if they should try, and they must therefore 

 have some life in them." The squaws generally agreed that 

 " they had discovered life enough in them to render my medi- 

 cine too great for the Mandans ; saying that such an operation 

 could not be performed without taking from the original some- 

 thing which I put in the picture, and they could see it move, 

 could see it stir." Then the cry went around that the artist was 

 a dangerous man ; " one who could make living persons by 

 looking at them, and at the same time could, as a matter of 

 course, destroy life in the same way, if I chose." When a 

 movement was made to expel him from a village, and a council 

 was held about the matter, which sat for several days, he got 

 admittance to their council, and assured them, he says, " that 

 I was but a man like themselves ; that my art had no medicine 

 or mystery about it, but could be learned by any of them if 

 they would practise it as long as I had ; and that in the 

 country where I lived brave men never allowed their squaws 

 to frighten them with foolish whims and stories. They all 

 immediately arose, shook me by the hand, and dressed them- 

 selves for their pictures. After this there was no further diffi- 

 culty about sitting all were ready to be painted ; the squaws 

 were silent, and my painting room a continual resort for the 

 chiefs and medicine men." But Mr. Catlin always noticed that, 

 when a picture was going on, the braves who were assisting 

 kept passing the pipe around, smoking for the success of the 



