Scalp Dance of the Minitarres is Tableau 27 of Bodmer and Maximilian’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832 – 34. It vividly depicts an action-packed moment from a performance of the dance by Hidatsa men seen by Bodmer at Ft. Clark in both February and April of 1834.

Hidatsa women, too, play significant roles in these celebratory victory dances. Women with war-painted faces line the right side of the image, some with coup feathers in their hair. One holds a long pole dangling a stuffed bird with a hooped scalp in its claws.

Bodmer drew and painted detailed studies several of the figures in this tableau. The second figure from the left is a right-left reversed image of the watercolor portrait of Chief of the Pointed Horn. To his left, we see Biróhkä, taken from the stunning portrait of this Hidatsa man in “The Robe with the Beautiful Hair”. In the left foreground facing away from the viewer, we Awascho-Dickfas whose individual watercolor portrait includes the detailed painting on the back of his robe symbolizing a wolf pack.

About Karl Bodmer

In 1832-34 German explorer-naturalist Prince Maximilian of Weid-Neuweid traveled the interior regions of North America to document what he referred to as vanishing cultures, the tribes of Native Americans who live in what was then a vast wilderness west of the Mississippi. Accompanying him was 23-year-old Swiss artist Karl Bodmer (1809-93), whom Maximilian employed to capture a “faithful and vivid picture” of American Indian people. During their journey, Bodmer painted chiefs and warriors from the same tribes -- and in some cases the same individuals -- that Lewis & Clark met on their journey nearly three decades before.

If you'd like to see and learn more about this fascinating body of work, click here to buy Karl Bodmer's America at Amazon.com