Plate 20 — Sioux Warrior in Full Costume,
Effigy of Kicking Bear

In the Museum figure of a Sioux Indian warrior there is shown the use of a somewhat modified form of a war shirt trimmed with beadwork, cut fringe, and scalp trophies. Other objects of personal adornment and of wearing apparel are a plume of eagle feathers, necklace of bear’s claws, cincture of flannel, trousers of deerskin dyed green, and moccasins ornamented with porcupine quills. In his right hand the figure carries the old stone war club of the Sioux; the face is that of Kicking Bear, a Sioux medicine man who was prominent with Sitting Bull in the ghost dance craze among the Sioux in 1890. A cast was made when he visited the Museum in 1902, at which time the costume was also secured from him. The decoration painted in kaolin on his hair is a cross within a circle and is a heraldic device signifying an act of prowess in which he saved a friend under the fire of the enemy.