“These men had been fighting and the sioux got whiped and so they throwed/ their guns and bows and arrows and got a pipe to make friends with the/ Rees, that is the way to make friends. the way Indians,/ Ahuka” (Artist’s inscription, verso)

“This drawing depicts the peacemaking process between a group of Sioux and Arikara warriors (the figure on the right holds the pipe that will be smoked to seal the agreement). The Sioux and the farming tribes (Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa) were traditional enemies, and times of peace and trading (the Sioux traded hides for vegetables) between them alternated with times of strife. This was especially the case after 1800 when the Sioux became much more aggressive and the farming tribes were decimated by a series of smallpox epidemics. Living in semipermanent villages, the farming tribes were an easy mark for the nomadic Sioux.

There is a wealth of costume detail in this drawing. Especially noteworthy are the different ways the Arikara and Sioux dressed their hair. The Arikara warriors wear their hair swept up and cropped at the forehead with a braid hanging down in front of each ear and a long braid down the back. The Sioux warriors part their hair down the middle and wear it in two braids which are plaited with red cloth.” (p.21)

William S. Wierzbowski and Helen M. Mangelsdorf in Images of a Vanished Life: Plains Indian Drawing from the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1985.