Skip to main content

Wakonda - Oto

Collections Menu
Image Not Available for Wakonda - Oto
Wakonda - Oto
Image Not Available for Wakonda - Oto

Wakonda - Oto

Artist (1868 - 1952)
Date1930
MediumPhotogravure
ClassificationsPrint
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2005.28.678
Accession number 2005.28.678
DescriptionPlate 677
On View
Not on view
Provenance(William Reese Company, New Haven, CT); purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2005
Label TextIn order to achieve his goal of portraying tribal members in their traditional way of life and regalia, Edward Curtis often asked individuals to pose in outfits borrowed from fellow tribal members or items he provided, rather than in their modern clothing. In this portrait, Wakonda, a member of the Otoe tribe, is wearing the same eagle feather headdress as Pipe-stem in another photogravure by Curtis (see image above). Other times Curtis posed members of one tribe in clothing worn exclusively by another. The Otoe started wearing this type of ceremonial headdress in the mid-nineteenth century.