“these to man play a game/ they have a deer skin so when/ they wanted to play they take/ skin and put over there head/ That is all Nov. 15” 1879/ David Simmons” (Artist’s inscription, verso)

“Simmons depicts members of the dream cult of the black-tailed deer, who performed and tested their powers along with the elk-dreamers and the heyoka. Their masks were similar to those of the elk-dreamers, triangular and made of hide with a willow branch superstructure. Their masks also differed slightly according to a dreamer's individual dream. The mask of the dreamer on the left has a mirror attached to it instead of to the hoop that the dancer carries (see Nº7 and Nº37).” (p.43)

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.