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Show 47 the dance celebrated, dressed for action and with his face painted for battle, Bodmer was purposefully introducing more information into the image. Viewed in this light, Mahchsi-Nihka represents the historic reasons behind why the dance was taking place at all.^5 Before the presence of this and the other portrait figures are dismissed as artistic invention, the intention behind Bodmer's incorporation of these figures into the image must be fully considered. The preliminary sketches were a record of what Bodmer saw; the composite aquatint may have become a record of what Bodmer knew. The image incorporates two separate forms of information, involving both the "seeing" and the "knowing" of the event. If this tension is acknowledged, what Bodmer saw as he prepared his preliminary drawings and what he knew and developed in the later aquatint can be weighed and balanced. Further, by careful definition of what is primary information and what is secondary information--and the extent to which Bodmer manipulated both-a composite understanding of the event unfolds. It is under these circumstances that the aquatint is useful, not as primary, but as supporting documentation. The last of the portrait figures in this proof state is one of the most provocative. The watercolor portrait of Sfh-Sa was not painted until March of 1834, one month after the scalp dance ceremony.26 However, this Mandan had also played some part in the incidents leading up to the dance. 27 Clad in beaded leggings and carrying his quiver strapped to his back, Sih-Sa stands in the left of center foreground, observing the dance. This position in the aquatint required that there be some alteration in the three-quarter profile |