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The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony
The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa CeremonyItalic text painted by George Caitlin in 1832, now held at the Denver Art Museum, measures 23 in. x 27.5 in. The painting depicts the interior of a Mandan lodge, the wooden support structure within framing the central figures. These nude figures hang suspended from the roof by the skin of their backs, their heads bent and bodies slack as three other figures appear to move around them. On the left hand side of the foreground, one male figure stands in a pleated or feathered skirt and feathers on his head, his arms raised, his mouth open, as if singing or talking. Behind him sits a group of men in feathered headdresses, cross-legged with circular drums before them, their mouths also open. Around the perimeter of the lodge more clusters of figures sit or lie watching the action in the center. Circular objects and plants hang around a curving structural beam that extends from one edge of the image, giving the impression the lodge is round, and continues beyond the picture plane. The roundness of the lodge interior balances the focus of verticality created by the central figures and the structure upon which they hang. Reddish flesh hues pop in the murky, muted scene, naturally lit by a small opening in the ceiling. This tiny patch of sky emphasizes the sense that the viewer has stepped into as mysterious, private space.



Journeys
George Caitlin journeyed to the American West several times between 1830 and 1836 to paint portraits and scenes of Native Americans in the landscape. He created an estimated 170 paintings just on the expedition through which he encountered the Mandan tribe. Catlin set out aboard the American Fur Company’s steamboat, the Yellowstone, to Upper Missouri territory in 1832. In late July he traveled with on a skiff with two fur trappers to reside at Fort Clark for two weeks, where the Missouri and Knife Rivers meet.

Time with Mandan
Given the limited time and resources on such trips, Catlin worked quickly, and the broad application of color and minimal figural details of The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony reflect this pace. Caitlin’s documentary function of his art gives way to the sketch-like stylistic qualities of the images, which sought to capture the narrative of the scenes occurring in their immediacy. The paintings that cumulated into his “Indian Gallery” portray the fifty tribes he encountered as distinctive and their traditions unique. Portraits of Mandans created during the 1832 expedition, such as, Sha-Ko-Ka, Mint, A Pretty Girl, highlight the unusual Mandan silvery-gray hair common in both young and old that Catlin describes as “unquestionably a hereditary character, which runs in families. Old Bear, a medicine man, characterizes Catlin’s portraits of leaders in their traditional garb, holding significant objects of their role in the tribe.

Archeological evidences places Mandan village sites between 1100 and 1400, along the Mississippi River. The first European accounts of interaction with the Mandans by fur traders in 1734 describe them as “shrewd traders of corn, tobacco skins and colored plumes.” As described by Catlin, the trappers praise the Mandans’ variety of fair skin tones and occasionally blue-eyed individuals, due to their mixed Welsh descent. Upon Catlin’s arrival in a Mandan village, less than 2,000 had survived a small pox epidemic; another bout of would descimate the population in 1837. During his two weeks with the Mandans, Catlin lived among the tribe in favorable conditions. He even claims in his 1867 book that the chiefs honored him as a great medicine man, in awe of his portraits of them. Catlin attributes his ability to witness the O-kee-pa ceremony to the tribe’s unusually accepting attitude towards him. The ceremony was conducted annually by the tribe for a wealth of buffalo, the animal upon which they survived. During these four days Catlin painted the ceremonial rite shown in The Cutting Scene, which he describes in detail, ''Kneeling on the ground, on of the old men took up a portion of the skin of the young man’s breast and passed a knife through it, making two apertures with a strip of skin between. The blood trickled down, and the victim winced perceptibly…more skewers were inserted into the fleshy parts of the arms and legs, and buffalo skulls hung to them. I was amazed to see how far the skin would stretch, pulling out a distance of 12 or 15 inches…The self-torture and mutilation which accompanied their mysteries cannot be explained, except by the supposition that it is a course of preparation for the hardships and dangers of war''.

Portrayal and Reception
Knowing this graphic verbal and pictorial account of the ceremony might invoke astonishment and doubts, he contracted a record of witness accounts. Two fur trappers and a clerk, J. Kipp, J. Crawford, and Abraham Bogard that accompanied him on the skiff to For Clark signed a certificate verifying the authenticity of The Cutting Scene, and three other works illustrating these events. Catlin probably wanted this documented proof to ensure his reception on the east coast, which provides later context for other skepticism of his claims of exploration and discovery. For instance, several journalists and explorers criticized his claims of being the first to visit the Dakota red pipestone quarry in 1841. The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony exemplifies the more than 500 works that comprised George Catlin’s American and European touring exhibition he titled his “Indian Gallery.” The violent and exotic qualities of this specific painting made headline on the 1838 playbill advertisement for the Boston showing of the works as, “Annual Religious Ceremony of the Mandans, Doing Penance, by inflicting the most cruel tortures upon their own bodies-passing knives and splints their flesh, suspending their bodies by their wounds, &etc.” The gallery highlighted portraits of famed Native American warriors and chiefs like the Seminole Osceola, and toured Catlin’s extensive collection of costumes. Interpretations of George Caitlin’s prolific career and work have been varied. Some portray him as a compassionate documentary artist, while others claim he sought to exploit the Native Americans he encountered. Through either view, Catlin reflects complex relationships between the native population and the young expanding United States. The majority of the historical paintings were donated in 1879 to The Smithsonian American Art Museum, where they now reside for the public to make their own judgments.