722 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



spect they all felt for their chief, as well as the very great estimation in which they 

 heldme as a painter and a magician, conferring upon meat once the very distinguished 

 appellation of Ee-cha-zoo-kah-ga-wa-kon (the medicine painter). 



After the exhibition of this chief's picture, there was much excitement in the village 

 about it. The doctors generally took a decided and noisy stand against the operations 

 of my brush, haranguing the populace, and predicting bad luck and premature death 

 to all who submitted to so strange and unaccountable an operation ! My business for 

 some days was entirely at a stand for want of sitters, for the doctors were opposing me 

 with all their force, and the women and children were crying, with their hands over 

 their mouths, making the most pitiful and doleful laments, which I never can explain 

 to my readers, but for some just account, of which I mnst refer them to my friends 

 M'Kenzie and Halsey, who overlooked with infinite amusement these curious scenes, 

 and are able, no doubt, to give them with truth and effect to the world. 



In this sad and perplexing dilemma, this noble chief stepped forward, and, address- 

 ing himself to the chiefs aud the doctors, to the braves and to the women and children, 

 he told them to be quiet, and to treat me with friendship ; that I had been traveling a 

 great way to see them, and smoke with them; that I was great medicine, to be sure; 

 that I was a great chief, and that I was the friend of Mr. Laidlaw and Mr. M'Kenzie, 

 who had prevailed upon him to sit for his picture, and fully assured him that there was 

 no harm in it. His speech had the desired effect, and I was shaken hands with by 

 hundreds of their worthies, many of whom were soon, dressed and ornamented, pre- 

 pared to sit for their portraits. — Pages 220, 221, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



MR. CATLIN AT FORT UNION, PAINTING— HIS STUDIO.* 



The letter which I gave you on the subject of medicines and medicine-men has some- 

 what broken the thread of my discourse, and left my painting-room (in the bastion) 

 and all the Indians in it, and portraits, and buffalo hunts, and landscapes of these 

 beautiful regions to be taken up and discussed, which I will now endeavor to do, be- 

 ginning just where I left off. 



I was seated on the cool breech of a 12-pounder, and had my easel before me, and 

 Crows and Blackfeet and Assinneboins, whom I was tracing upon the canvas. And 

 so I have been doing to-day, and shall be for several days to come. My painting- 

 room has become so great a lounge and I so great a medicine-man that all other amuse- 

 ments are left, and all other topics of conversation and gossip are postponed for future 

 consideration. The chiefs have had to place " soldiers" (as they are called) at my 

 door, with spears in hand, to protect me from the throng, who otherwise would press 

 upon me, and none but the worthies are allowed to come into my medicine apartments, 

 and none to be painted except such as are decided by the chiefs to be worthy of so 

 high an honor. 



In my former epistle I told you there were encamped about the fort a host of wild, 

 incongruous spirits — chiefs and sachems — warriors, braves, and women and children 

 of different tribes, of Crows and Blackfeet, Ojibbeways, Assinneboins, and Crees, or 

 Knisteneaux. Amongst and in the midst of them am I, with my paint-pots and can- 

 vas, snugly ensconced in one of the bastions of the fort, which I occupy as a painting- 

 room. My easel stands before me, and the cool breech of a 12-pounder makes me a 

 comfortable seat, whilst her muzzle is looking out at one of the port-holes. The 

 operations of my brush are mysteries of the highest order to these red sons of the 

 prairie, and my room the earliest and latest place of concentration of these wild and 

 jealous spirits, who all meet here to be amused and pay me signal honors, but gaze 

 upon each other, sending their sidelong looks of deep-rooted hatred and revenge 

 around the group. However, whilst in the fort their weapons are placed within the 

 arsenal, and naught but looks and thoughts can be breathed here ; but death and 



* The story o? the dog.— The narration of the painting and murd/ar of several Sioux Indians at Fort 

 Onion in 1832 is given herein, in the ' ' Itinerary of 1834." — T. D. 



