![A painting of a dance among Native Americans.](http://cdn.saam.media/gXh__IF9P6CpNHSxF9J9Z0Ay0Bg/960/0/center/cover/jpg/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ec1vt3scx7rr.cloudfront.net%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2F2020-02%2FBodmer_BisonDance.jpg)
After Karl Bodmer, Alexandre Damien Manceau, engraver, Bison Dance of the Mandan Indians in front of Their Medicine Lodge in Mih-Tutta-Hankush, 1842, hand-colored aquatint, plate mark: 16 1/2 x 21 5/16 in., image: 12 1/16 x 17 3/8 in., Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.49.542.18, Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019.
About this Artwork
The Bison Dance was part of the O-Kee-Pa ceremony, sacred to the Mandan. Although Prince Maximilian and Bodmer did not witness this rite themselves, the Mandan chief Mató-Tópe authorized a tribal elder named Dipäuch to explain and describe each element of the ceremony. Based on this account, Bodmer composed this dramatic scene after he returned to Paris in 1834.