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Feeding the Dead

Landscape painting with a raised wooden scaffold in the center. On the scaffold is a rectangle draped in red cloth secured atop a hay bale with rope and a raised white flag. Two similar scaffolds, one partially obscured, and three Native Americans, two sitting and one raising a bottle, are on the right. To the left, an arrangement of wooden planks forms a low tent-like shape./tiles/collection/3/3728.xml
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Landscape painting with a raised wooden scaffold in the center. On the scaffold is a rectangle draped in red cloth secured atop a hay bale with rope and a raised white flag. Two similar scaffolds, one partially obscured, and three Native Americans, two sitting and one raising a bottle, are on the right. To the left, an arrangement of wooden planks forms a low tent-like shape.
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Date

1868

Artist

Seth Eastman

Dimensions

25 1/2 × 31 in. (64.8 × 78.7 cm) Framed: 33 1/2 × 40 5/8 × 4 in. (85.1 × 103.2 × 10.2 cm)

Accession Number

2004.040.004

Credit Line

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Object Details

Artist Seth Eastman succeeds in both illustrating a Dakota funeral custom and depicting the local landscape in this work, which is part of his 1867 commission for the House Committee on Indian Affairs. The body is placed on an elevated scaffold for an extended mourning period, during which food is brought to the grave site. The panorama surrounding the scene offers a light-filled view of the nearby hills and river, giving the impression of a vast, untouched frontier.

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