22 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



he had the vanity to say to me that he made a fine appearance on horseback, and 

 that he wished me to paint him thus. So I prepared my canvas in the door of the 

 hospital which I occupied, in the dragoon cantonment ; and he flourished about for 

 a considerable part of the day in front of me, until the picture was completed. The 

 horse that he rode was the best animal on the frontier ; a fine blooded horse, for 

 which he gave the price of $300, a thing that he was quite able to * * * . He 

 made a great display on this day, and hundreds of the dragoons and officers were about 

 him, and looking on during the operation. His horse was beautifully caparisoned, 

 and his scalps were carried attached to the bridle-bits. — G. C, 1834-36. 



[About two years after the above was written (i. e., 1837), and the portrait painted, 

 and whilst I was giving lectures- on the customs of the Indians, in the Stuyvesant 

 Institute, in New York, Kee-o-kuk and his wife and son, with twenty more of the 

 chiefs and warriors of his tribe, visited the city of New York on their way to Wash- 

 ington City, and were present one evening at my lecture, amidst an audience of 1,500 

 persons. Daring the lecture I placed a succession of portraits on my easel before 

 the audience, and they were successively recognized by the Indians as they were 

 shown ; and at last I placed this portrait of Kee-o-kuk before them, when they all 

 sprung up and hailed it with a piercing yell. After the noise had subsided Kee-o-kuk 

 arose and addressed the audience in these words : " My friends, I hope you will 

 pardon my men for making so much noise, as they were very much excited by seeing 

 me on my favorite war-horse, which they all recognized in a moment." 



I had the satisfaction then of saying to the audience that this was very gratifying 

 to me, inasmuch as many persons had questioned the correctness of the picture of the 

 horse ; and some had said in my exhibition room, " that it was an imposition— that 

 no Indian on the frontier rode so good a horse." This was explained to Kee-o-kuk 

 by the interpreter, when he arose again quite indignaut at the thought that any one 

 should doubt its correctness, and assured the audience "that his men, a number of 

 whom never had heard that the picture was painted, knew the horse the moment it 

 was presented ; and, further, he wished to know why Kee-o-kuk could not ride as 

 good a horse as any white man ?" He here received a round of applause, and the 

 interpreter, Mr. Le Claire, rose and stated to the audience that he recognized the 

 horse the moment it was shown, and that it was a faithful portrait of the horse that 

 he sold to Kee-o-kuk for $300, and that it was the finest horse on the frontier, belong- 

 ing to either red or white man. — G. C] 1838. 



2. Muk-a-tah-niish-o-kah-kaik (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah), the Black Hawk ;* in 

 his war dress and paint. Strings of wampum in his ears and on his neck, 

 and his medicine-bag (the skin of the black hawk) on his arm. 



(Plate 283, page 211, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



This is the man famed as the conductor of the Black Hawk war. Painted at the 

 close of the war, while he was a prisoner at Jefferson Barracks, iu 1832. 



Painted by Mr. Catlin at Jefferson Barracks, near Saint Louis, Mo., 

 where Black Hawk and others of his band were prisoners of war, in 



* Black Hawk's Indian name is spelt in almost as many ways as times used by different writers. He 

 himself signed it several ways. To the treaty of June 39, 1831, lie signed it Mucata-tullhi-eatak. 

 Prior to this, in 1827, his name was written Kara-zhonsept ; when surrendered by Decorie, to General 

 Street, he called him Mucatamish-kakaekq ; at Saint Louis, in 1832, he was called Mack-atama-sic-ac-ac. 

 In 1829 his name was written Hay-ray-tskoan-sharp ; about the time he was captured or surrendered, 

 in 1832, his name was spelt Mus-cata-mish-ka-kack, and many other ways might be given. Judge 

 James Hall, in McKenney &. Hall, vol. 2, calls him Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah. This is followed by A. 

 It. Fulton in the " Ited Men of Iowa." At all events he was thoroughly identified in English as Black 

 Hawk.— T. D. 



