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Show 29 Scalp Dance of the Minataries. offers the opportunity to test in detail this method of examination and, thus, to reevaluate the print's importance as supporting documentation, while observing Bodmer's artistic process step-by-step . The scalp dance of the Minnetaree (Hidatsa) Indians was one of the several ceremonies Maximilian and Bodmer witnessed during their stay at Fort Clark. An entry in Maximilian's journal on February 11, 1834, describes the event: The fort was crowded with Minnetarees who wished to perform before us the scalp dance, in commemoration of having slain an enemy the preceding day.....At two o'clock the Minnetaree women arrived in procession, accompanied by many children and some Mandans. Eighteen women, marching two and two in a close column, entered the court-yard of the fort, with a short-measured, slow pace. Seven men of the band of the dogs, having their faces painted black or black striped with red, acted as musicians, three of them having drums, and four the schischikue. They were wrapped in their buffalo robes, and their heads were uncovered, and ornamented with the feathers of owls and other birds. The faces of some of the women were striped black, others red, while some were striped black and red. They wore buffalo dresses, or blankets, and the two principal were enveloped in the white buffalo robe. The greater part of them had the feather of a war eagle standing upright, and one only wore the large handsome feather cap. In their arms they carried battle-axes or guns, ornamented with red cloth and short black feathers, which, during the dance, they placed with the butt-end on the ground; in short, while performing this dance, the women are accountred in the military dress and weapons of the warriors. The right wing was headed by the wife of the chief, Itsichaika, who carried in her hand a long elastic rod, from the point of which was suspended the scalp of the young man slain on the preceding day, surmounted by a stuffed magpie with outspread wings; lower down on the same rod hung a second scalp, a lynx skin, and a bunch of feathers. Another woman bore a third scalp on a similar rod. The women filed off in a semicircle; the musicians, taking their |