Page 1: Buffalo Dreamer Transformed (see alternative view for rotated version)

The human figure with a buffalo head and horns, hooves at hands and feet, and with spirit lines like read lightning extending from the shoulders and horns, shows the moment of transformation by spiritual power.

In general, the images in this autograph album have been copied form other contemporary sources, but the source of this particular image has not yet been identified. Many related images of transformation exist among Lakota ledger drawings. David W. Penny discusses the history and significance of images of buffalo heads with transformational power painted on 4 hands drums and a muslin composition made by Siyosapa (Black Chicken), a Hunkpapa | Yanktonai holy man and Sun Dance specialist active at Fort Peck, Montana during the 1880s and 1890s:*

• Hand Drum, Attributed to Siyosapa (Hunkpapa/Yanktonai), Collected during the mid- 1870s, wood, rawhide, buffalo horn, paint, hide thong, 59 cm x 49 cm x 7 cm. Used by permission of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (232202).

• Hand Drum. Attributed to Siyosapa (Hunkpapa/Yanktonai), Collected at Fort Peck, Montana in 1885. Wood, rawhide, paint, 40.6 cm x 45.1 cm x 12.1 cm. Used by permission from Detroit Institute of Arts (1997.109).

• Hand Drum, Siyosapa (Hunkpapa/Yanktonai). Collected at Fort Peck, Montana in the 1890s. Wood, hide, nails, paint, 39.4 cm x 39 cm x 6.4 cm. Used by permission of the National Museum of Natural History (E360130).

Hand Drum (front and back) Attributed to Siyosapa (Hunkpapa/Yanktonai). Unknown collection date. Wood, rawhide, paint, 44.5 cm x 33.0 cm x 5.7 cm. Used by permission of The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College (1973.1.12).

• Painting on Muslin. Attributed to Siyosapa (Hunkpapa/Yanktonai) Collected at Fort Peck, Montana in 1880/1881. Cotton muslin, paint, 259 cm x 178 cm. Used by permission of National Museum of Natural History (EL81-0).

These images by Siyosapa convey the nature of the transmission of spiritual power from the buffalo head to the human in a transformed spiritual state through its breath.

Transformed Thunder Beings appear on other ledger drawings, including 2 in the Black Hawk Ledger, plates 3 and 4, and the “Horse Dance” drawing by Amos Bad Heart Bull, plate 308 in the Bad Heart Bull/Blish published edition, and also in PILA as plate [tba].

* David W. Penny. “Siyosapa: At the Edge of Art”, Arts (2019), 8, 148; doi:10.3390/arts8040148; David W. Penny. “Message in a Muslin: Siyosapa’s Sun Dance Painting in the National Museum of American Indian”, in Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains. Emil Her Many Horses, ed. National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, and Giles ltd., 2024, pp. 20-35.