Full Buffalo Hide

Hand painted by Cheyenne -Arapaho artist Harvey Pratt

Harvey’s description /story to accommodate the hide painting:

The buffalo hide painting is about the Cheyenne Animal ceremony took place on the north Canadian river south of Watonga, witnessed by Anna Guerrier about 1917, she was born in 1911 so she was about 5 or 6 years of age. The animal priest carrying two staffs walks through the camp and approaches people that represent certain animals that the Cheyenne depend on for food, there are alot of people in the camp but you can’t witness the ceremony unless you give the priest a gift that is shared with people representing the animals and the priests helpers that assist the people representing the specific animals. Anna asked her grandmother Julia Bent if she have a gift to give to the priest and Julia gave her some cloth so she could leave the tent and watch. The priest would point his staff at the animal people and a bolt of lighting would strike the person and they would bleed from the mouth and the helper would go and tend the person and heal them so they might prosper for the next year and the Cheyennes would have the help from the animals in ;the future, This ceremony is no longer practiced. We still have the Animal priest but he does other things. This was done as a blessing and honoring the animals that we shared our lives with. I was happy that my mother shared this story with me about 1996.

The other side of the hide is about an attack by the cheyennes on a Ute camp, which captives were taken and adopted into the Cheyenne tribe.

The gifts at the animal ceremony were buckets hides blankets pots and pans ,horses, dogs even weapons, axes,

• H Pratt