“In 1896 Walter McClintock traveled as a photographer for a federal commission investigating national forests. McClintock became friends with the expedition’s Blackfoot Indian scout, William Jackson or Siksikakoan. When the commission completed its field work, Jackson introduced McClintock to the Blackfoot community of northwestern Montana. Over the next twenty years, supported by the Blackfoot elder Mad Wolf, McClintock made several thousand photographs of the Blackfoot, their homelands, their material culture, and their ceremonies.”
All the hand painted decorations are phenomenal.
via Retronaut.
I don’t sleep very well. Ladies applying hand lotion in Beijing keep me up at night. And I’m also someone who, thanks to some combination of DNA and my body’s need to use up all extra energy to supply wattage to my hair follicles (just a conjecture; I worried I would become a cat if my leg hair didn’t stop growing as a kid), requires an inordinate amount of sleep.
Monday night, I had the best sleep of my life—I woke up smiling and floated around sort of confused by the feeling of being rested.
Then Tuesday night, after superstitiously replicating the entire prior evening’s rituals down to the exact time spent steeping my sleeptime tea, the same nightgown, etc., I went right back to wretched sleep again.
Maybe that’s why these pictures of gorgeous, decorated Blackfoot teepees during the turn of the century in Montana have me so fixated. An escape to a big, empty field, a cozy teepee and some soft soled shoes. Quiet, but never without the sounds of things to come.
-Carey
These are absolutely beautiful Carey–I’m reading an American Indian history of the West right now (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) and these pictures really enhance its descriptions of the various tribes in the semi-developed West. Thanks for the much needed visual respite!
i didn’t sleep well last night either.
these teepees are beautiful. i’d love to live in one!
last night was the first night i’ve slept like a rock in weeks…probably your good teepee brainwave vibes floating my way. yowsa.
on the sleep note: have you tried sake bath? a good soak in a tub of that stuff works wonders. i ran out and am now down to a swig of vodka after a stressful day. confession.