The artist knew that the Native Americans could not maintain their culture in the face of the white man's expansion across the continent.
In words and pictures, George Catlin recorded the secret ceremony, a blend of mysticism and horrific cruelty, by which the Mandans initiated their braves and conjured the life-sustaining buffalo.
George Catlin painted a moving portrait of friend Joseph Chadwick just before his friend's untimely death in the Texas Revolution