Images of the Buffalo Culture

At its core, Plains Indian artwork was utilitarian. During the Plains Indian Wars of the 1860s and '70s, as tribes contended with the United States Army for control of the prairies--conflict leading to the advent of the reservation period, which began in earnest in the 1870s--warrior-artists preserved these memories and more in pencil and ink, enlivened with bold lines and bright colors, on pages of ledger books obtained through raid or trade. Many ledger drawings epitomize a transitional p...