3 Review(s)

During much of the nineteenth century, paintings functioned as the Plains Indians' closest equivalent to written records. The majority of their paintings documented warfare, focusing on specific war deeds. These pictorial narratives continue to expand historical knowledge of a people and place in transition. Arni Brownstone studies several important war paintings and artifact collections of the Tsuu T'ina (Sarcee) that provide insight into the changing relations between the Tsuu T'ina, other plains tribes, and non-Native communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All known Tsuu T'ina paintings are considered in the study, as are several important collections of Tsuu T'ina artifacts. Brownstone's work furthers our understanding of Tsuu T'ina pictographic war paintings in relation to the social, historical, and artistic forces that influenced them and provides a broader understanding of pictographic painting, one of the richest and most important Native American artistic and literary genres.