Piegans (by Charles Marion Russell)
In 1918, when the cowboy artist painted the splendid oil, Piegans, life for Charley and Nancy Russell was filled with contentment. It certainly had not always been. Their early years together were marked by sheer poverty, and on Charley’s part, the demanding search for the proficiency he sought in his painting, and for Nancy the intimidating search for the key to get her husband’s work before the public and to be accepted in the gallery scene.
But as the years progressed, so did the international recognition of Russell’s profound talent. Exhibits in Canada and London and in numerous cities in the U.S. expanded his fame as a chronicler of the Old West and his commissions expanded every year.
In 1918, Charley and Nancy were enjoying not only a successful and profitable artist’s career, but neither of them were experiencing any of the debilitating health problems they would know in the next few years. And to add to their contentment they had, a little over a year before, adopted a baby boy, Jack. Charley reacted as only an older, first-time father would – he adored the addition to the family. Out of this financial success, this good health, and the blessings of a son came a period when Russell poured his own joy and delight in his life into the compositions he created.
Surely Piegans is one of the prizes of this bountiful time. The Indians travel across a wide prairie, coming up out of the Sun River bottom, making their leisurely way to their tepee encampment, in the last, long light of a pleasant, late-summer day. They have neither been on a war raid nor out stealing horses. There is no aggression in their demeanor, only easy companionship. In the lead, an older warrior sits proudly and comfortably on his beaded saddle pad. Carrying his feathered lance, he exudes his leadership, his white horse painted and feather-enhanced. Next to him a very young warrior, perhaps not yet battle scarred, talks animatedly with the older man. Against the last light on a good day the silhouette of Square Butte is seen in the distance. Piegans is Charles Russell’s tribute to a proud native tribe at the peak of their glory.
The Piegans, the southern-most branch of the tri-part tribe, the Blackfoot, were acknowledged to be the largest section of this Indian nation. Sharing a common language and many sociological customs and religious beliefs, the Blackfoot, made up of the Bloods in Alberta, the Piegans from the Sun River north, and the Northern Blackfoot, spilling from northern Montana into southern Alberta, were a powerful and dominant nation in the Northern plains and were renowned as fierce warriors.
Prince Macmillian was the first to describe in detail the character, customs and the importance of the Blackfoot in his journals of 1833. But earlier in 1805, the noted historian, Alexander Henry, had estimated the Piegans at 350 lodges, 700 warriors, and 2000 persons. No small force when one considers they could, on occasion, call upon their cousins to join them in both warfare and buffalo hunting. The Blackfoot men were described as tall, well-proportioned, and muscular with intelligent countenances.
Alexander Henry regarded the Blackfoot tribes as “the most independent and happy people of all the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains. War, women, horses and buffalo are their delights and all these they have at command.”
In Charles Russell’s outstanding painting, Piegans, we have a puzzle without a sure solution. According to the publication, Indian Talk, Hand Signals of the American Indians, written by Iron Eyes Cody and published by Naturegraph, there are two interpretations that can be derived from the sign the neophyte warrior on the paint horse is making toward the experienced warrior on the white horse. If the elbow is held close to the body, with the finger pointing straight up, this means “boy” – boy growing into man. However, because of the position of the white horse’s head and neck we cannot see if the boy’s arm is close to his body. On the other hand, if the finger is held straight up and the arm is away from the body, the sign describes “leader – important one.”
So, is the younger Indian making a pitch to his leader on his own growth and worth to the tribe – or is he, shall we say, schmoozing up to the leader and complimenting him on his leadership and contributions to the tribe? Alas, we probably will never come to a consensus. Another puzzler left to us by the cowboy artist, Charles M. Russell.
Reference note courtesey of Coeur D’Alene Art Auction and Ginger Renner.