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Death Whoop

A hand-colored print, titled “Death Whoop,” showing a man, depicted as a Native American, dressed in leather and boots, holding up the scalp of a White man lying on the ground. The man is sprawled next to an ax and an arrow protrudes from his side. The standing man holds a knife, has a quiver of arrows on his back, and has blood stains on his clothes./tiles/collection/4/4230.xml
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A hand-colored print, titled “Death Whoop,” showing a man, depicted as a Native American, dressed in leather and boots, holding up the scalp of a White man lying on the ground. The man is sprawled next to an ax and an arrow protrudes from his side. The standing man holds a knife, has a quiver of arrows on his back, and has blood stains on his clothes.
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Date

ca. 1850

Artist

Seth Eastman

Dimensions

12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (31.8 x 24.1 cm)

Accession Number

2004.087.013

Credit Line

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Object Details

Prior to depicting the subject in a painting for the House Committee on Indian Affairs, Seth Eastman provided this illustration for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s six-volume Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (1852). This earlier illustration of a scalping is more graphic, with the fallen man sprawling more haphazardly, and the victor’s expression more fierce. This print would have been published uncolored and was hand-painted later by an unknown individual, so the generous splashes of red were not the artist’s addition.

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