Túnk-aht-óh-ye, Thunderer, a Boy, and Wun-pán-to-mee, White Weasel, a Girl

George Catlin, Túnk-aht-óh-ye, Thunderer, a Boy, and Wun-pán-to-mee, White Weasel, a Girl, 1834, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.66-67
Copied George Catlin, Túnk-aht-óh-ye, Thunderer, a Boy, and Wun-pán-to-mee, White Weasel, a Girl, 1834, oil on canvas, 2924 in. (73.760.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.66-67
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Artwork Details

Title
Túnk-aht-óh-ye, Thunderer, a Boy, and Wun-pán-to-mee, White Weasel, a Girl
Date
1834
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
2924 in. (73.760.9 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Indian — Kiowa
  • Portrait male — Thunderer — child
  • Portrait female — White Weasel — child
Object Number
1985.66.66-67

Artwork Description

George Catlin described this brother and sister as “two Kioways who were purchased from the Osages, to be taken to their tribe by the dragoons. The girl was taken the whole distance with us, on horseback, to the Pawnee village, and there delivered to her friends . . . The fine little boy was killed at the Fur Trader's house on the banks of the Verdigris, near Fort Gibson, the day after I painted his portrait, and only a few days before he was to have started with us on the march.” To counter certain myths about Indian relationships, Catlin often wrote of or painted family situations in which members were bound by ties of affection no different from those experienced by their white counterparts. Catlin painted the two children at at Fort Gibson (in present-day Oklahoma) in 1834. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 43, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)