Special Value Offer: Creek Indian Buffalo Dancer [SOLD]

Special Value Offer: We have been authorized to offer this at a 15% reduction from the original price of $650 to a new price of $550.

The Creek Tribe has had an interesting if tumultuous life over the last 200 years. In 1775, the Creek had supported the British in the American Revolutionary War.  During the American Civil War, the tribe was divided with some supporting the South and some the North.

Their ancestral homeland was in Alabama and Georgia but they were forcibly moved by the United States Government in 1836 to Oklahoma.  During the removal, they were taken through New Orleans and then by steamship up the Mississippi River to Arkansas.  The steamship Monmouth, in which they were being transported, collided with the Trenton.  Over 300 Creeks drowned.  During the removal, more than 3,500 died of the 15,000 aboard ship. 

As early as 1805, Georgia began seizing some of the Creek land and selling it at auction.  By 1836, they seized the remainder after the Creek were relocated to Oklahoma.

The Creek are also known as the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and their headquarters is in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.  The Creek Nation population in 2013 was 77,000.

Danny Russell Kaler is an enrolled member of the Muskogee Creek Nation.  There is very little information published on the artist but it is documented that his work has been exhibited at the Cherokee National Museum; the Five Civilized Tribes Museum; and the Philbrook Art Center.  He received awards from the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1985, the latter two being 1^st Prizes.

This painting of a single Buffalo Dancer is dated 1976.  It is painted without ground plane or other distracting items such as trees or clouds.  The focus is on the Buffalo Dancer.  He wears a buffalo skin over his head that hangs down his back. The dancer wears deer hide legging covered from the knees down with fabric that falls over his moccasins.  He is wearing a bone breastplate and carrying a rattle and a knife.  The color palette is soft, matte and in tones of brown and gray.  The paper on which it was painted is cream color.

Condition:  appears to be in good condition but has not been examined out of the frame.

Provenance: from a resident of California who inherited her mother’s vast collection of Native art.