John Thunder Bear Artwork

A Lakota Warrior in a traditional eagle feather war bonnet has hide trousers and a whitish color ‘breastplate. He carries a large circular shield with black and white feathers attached. The shield has a large red circle in the center surrounded by a black and yellow (or natural) segmented outer ring. He carries a sacred crooked lance. His horse has the hind section with blue stripes from the saddle are to the rear. The front part of the horse has dark brown spots painted on it. The artwork also shows a Crow warrior with blue trousers (cavalry scout?) and a red tunic. On his calf is shown a red and white striped ‘puttees’.

Medicine Crow Sketches

The Crow warrior wears blue pants and a gray tunic in all of the drawings. (The gray may be the charcoal and used to represent a hide or natural color.) His hair is long and plated with a red color. The adversaries which are denoted as being Lakota wear jagged trousers which may represent hide wrappings on the front of their legs. One warrior wears a gray (hide?) tunic and the other wears a red tunic.

Another sketch shows the Crow warrior fighting Cheyenne. The Cheyenne wear gray (hide) tunics and blue and white horizontal stripped trousers.

Our Place in the Sun The Northern Great Plains

Bibliography
Plains Indians Colors for Uniforms
Native Nations of the Great Northern Plains
Warrior Societies
Weapons and Warfare on the Plains
Examples of Warrior Dress from Artwork of the Region

More Our Place in the Sun Issues' Table of Contents

TPP Fall 2002: Texas-Southern Plains Region
TPP Summer 2002: The American Southwest
TPP Spring 2001: Muskogee Wars
TPP Winter 2001: SE Atlantic Coast Native Nations
TPP Fall 2000: America's Far West