Native People of North America

Roan Horse, also known as Comanche Jack and Blue Knife’s Son (Comanche, captured and raised by Apaches), ca. 1885.

Photographed while visiting the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

This photo was taken at the Omak Stampede. Founded in 1933, the stampede features a famous “no holds barred” suicide race and traditional encampment and Pow Wow sponsored by the Colville Confederated Tribes.

Buffalo Meat was one of 72 Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Caddo warriors held as prisoners for 3 years in Florida. Not a traditional incarceration, these warriors were allowed to fish, hunt, sail in the ocean, and were offered drawing paper and colored pencils, which they used to create some of the first ledger drawings.

Maria and Julia Martinez were responsible for reviving ancient all-black pottery.  Their process stood in contrast to the all-red and polychrome ceramics that every other maker produced. Maria was the first person to sign her work and instituted a shift in perception for ceramics from utilitarian craft to work of art.

The Otoes refer to themselves as Jiwere (jee-Weh-ray) and originally inhabited lands in the Great Lakes region. Repeatedly moved from their lands by European immigrants, the Otoe moved to Red Rock, Oklahoma in 1881, where the tribal headquarters and 3,300 tribal members currently reside.

Jessie Robins was born on November 21, 1885, and died on August 21, 1970 at the age of 84. Her and her sister Rachael competed in Rodeo throughout their early lives.

Born around 1849 to a French-Canadian fur trader and a Sioux woman named Dawn, Bruguier became a scout and successful rancher.

Head Outside and see a Caddo grass house, similar to a Wichita house, Liichokoshkomo’!

This photo was taken in Baxter Springs, Kansas, less than 5 miles from Ottawa County, Oklahoma, where he lived.

As one of the “Kiowa Six” artists, Auchiah impacted Native American flat style art and worked on several Works Progress Administration projects, including murals.

These girls are wearing dresses ornamented with elk canines. Each elk has two canines, which indicates how many elk were needed to decorate these dresses.

Head to the Native American Gallery to see an elk tooth dress on display!

She was the daughter of Tissy-chauer-ne, a Comanche woman, and Rudolph Fisher, a Texan who had been captured by Comanches as a boy.

Blackowl studied at Haskell Institute and the University of Oklahoma and is an important figure in Native American art.

Tattooing was a very common practice in North America. Most people took them throughout their lives as indicator of maturity, society membership, strength, and social rank.

Rufus was a rodeo competitor and finished 3rd behind Jackson Sundown in 1916 at the Pendleton Round-Up.

In 1916, he became the first Native American Bronco Buster of the World  at the Pendleton Round-Up.

Sister Olivia Taylor was born Vernetta “Nettie” Cross Taylor and attended St. Elizabeth’s Academy a Roman Catholic school for girls in Purcell, Oklahoma. After becoming a nun, she began working at St. Patrick’s Mission, the Anadarko Boarding School, where she taught several members of the Kiowa Six painters.

Born in Eufaula, Oklahoma, Fred Beaver was a renowned painter and muralist who got his start at the Philbrook Museum’s annual art competition. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum has over 150 works of art in the collection by Fred  Beaver.

Son of Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah was the last war chief of the Quahada Comanche Tribe. He was born on Elk Creek south of the Wichita Mountains in what is today Oklahoma

Taken his junior year at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State University). He later served in World War I and was honorably discharged in 1918.

Actor and Oklahoma native, Wes Studi, was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in 2013.