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Kiowa Miniature
Shield
(#FCSHIE88)
This miniature shield was collected from an American Indian named White
Eagle, a common enough name in
Oklahoma. It is probably Kiowa, because they made many small copies of
old shields at the request of
Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney. However, Plains warriors
realized that a shield's power to protect
its owner lay more in the realm of mysticism than in its physical
ability to deflect a bullet or an arrow.
Shields gradually got smaller during the nineteenth century, shrinking
from more than 2 feet across in 1800
to around a foot in diameter by the 1880's.As far as the Plains Indian
warriors were concerned, a miniature
shield, possessing all the medicines of a big one, was just as efficient
and not nearly so cumbersome to
carry on the trail. This shield, 9 inches in diameter, has a running
bull elk as the central figure, and lightning
streaks from its mouth and hooves. Overhead a green sky is filled with
vermilion stars, and a feather is
pendant on each side. The standard interpretation would be to assign
this to the Sioux Elk Dreamer cult,
whose members created charms and medicines that called upon the enormous
sexual powers of the bull elk
in rut to seduce women and draw them into liaisons. One became involved
in this lusty fraternity by dreaming
of elk; hence, the name. However, the elk's strength and powers of
endurance were noted by other tribes who
placed somewhat less emphasis on its seal prowess than did the Sioux.
Perhaps too many pieces are assigned
to the Elk Dreamer Cult simply because the connection appears so
obvious-or, should we say, too obvious?
This appealing piece dates to the last quarter of the nineteenth
century.
Illustrated in
Spirits in the Art, by James A.
Hanson pg.21.
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