Spokane Indian Scalp Dance

by Science Source

Title

Spokane Indian Scalp Dance

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Science Source

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Painting - Photograph

Description

The Spokan or Spokane people are a Native American Plateau tribe who have inhabited the eastern portion of present-day Washington state and parts of northern Idaho. The scalp dance, is next to the medicine dance in importance, and is the most common of all the ceremonial dances of the Indians. The day after the return to the home encampment of a successful war party, by which scalps have been taken, a ceremony is performed by the warriors who took them. Medicine men sang and beat drums while women danced in concentric circles around the scalps. Sometimes dancers would mock the scalps or mimic hunting down the person to whom the scalp had belonged. Paul Kane (September 3, 1810 - February 20, 1871) was an Irish-born Canadian painter famous for his paintings of First Nations peoples in the Canadian West and in the Columbia District. A self-educated artist, Kane trained himself by copying European masters on a study trip through Europe. The first trip (1845) took him from Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie and back. He set out on a second voyage (1846-48) from Toronto across the Rocky Mountains to Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria. Kane produced more than 100 oil paintings, although he often embellished them, departing from the accuracy of his field sketches in favor of more dramatic scenes.

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July 31st, 2019

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