48144

Kiowa Warrior's Lance

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:2,500.00 USD Estimated At:10,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
Kiowa Warrior's Lance
<B>Kiowa Warrior's Lance collected by James Mooney</B></I><BR>Circa 1860<BR>Length 101 in.<BR><BR>This lance is characterized by a long (16") double edged blade, which may have been adapted from a sword or bayonet. It is fixed to the 7-foot long wood handle with a sheet metal collar. The lance is decorated with a small beaded amulet, a plain tanned hide pendant with scalloped sides and bottom fringe, and a red wool stroud pendant partially beaded with one lane along each side, cotton cloth, and metal sequins. (The red cloth has been tested by David Wenger, Ph.D. and is pure cochineal-dyed.)<BR>Authentic lances have always been scarce and are perhaps the rarest form of the Indian weaponry. It is very unusual to find an intact, unrestored example with such impeccable documentation.<BR><BR>Provenance<BR>Collected in Oklahoma from the Kiowa by James Mooney, senior anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology. Descended in the family with an accompanying letter from Mooney's grandson, Anton Levandowsky, dated April 16, 2000. Trotta-Bono, Shrub Oak, New York. (James Mooney is best known for his monumental study of the Ghost Dance religion, "The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890", published in the <I>14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,</B></I> 1896. James Mooney was a prolific scholar and produced notable studies based upon his fieldwork with the Cherokee and Kiowa. In 1891, while doing research on the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation he photographed a Kiowa named Adalpepti mounted on horseback wearing an eagle feather bonnet with trailer, holding his shield, and carrying a lance. The lance pictured bears a strong resemblance to the Hendershott example and may be the same. See: Merrill, Hansson,Greene,and Reuss, <I>A Guide to the Kiowa Collections at the Smithsonian Institution,</B></I> Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1997, p. 308.)<BR><BR> <BR><BR><B>Important