Beyond Oral History: A Nineteenth Century Blackfoot Warriors’ Biographic Robe in Comparative and Chronological Context

Biographic tradition artworks produced on the Great Plains by historic-period Native Americans constitute genuine documents of history, recording—in narrative form—real events that took place in people’s lives. In the early 2000s, a previously undocumented example of a painted robe in the biographic tradition became known (the “Malcolm robe”). Preliminary assessment indicated an origin on the northern Plains, possibly by artists of the Blackfoot Confederation. We first discuss comparative Biographic tradition evidence for the origin of the Malcolm robe, extending previous commentaries on the ethnocultural affiliation of this robe. Several diagnostic features of this robe confirm that its most likely ethnocultural origin was Blackfoot. We also list features that support a case that more than one artist was involved in its production. The central focus of our study here was to more reliably establish a date for the painting of this robe using a series of quantitative and statistical comparisons with better-dated examples of Blackfoot biographic robe art. We apply three different dating methods: frequency seriation, occurrence seriation, and a multivariate statistical method. All three methods consistently indicate that the robe dates prior to 1850, confidently supporting a date of at least that age. The analyses and comparison with other similar robes more tentatively indicate a possible date of production during the 1830s. Further historical research urgently awaits this robe. However, with a date of pre-1850 now reliably secured, the robe takes its place as an early nineteenth century example of Blackfoot biographic art, and as part of the historical legacy that this body of documentary art comprises.