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Elkhide
Introduction --
Elk Hide Details
Elk Hide History
The Horse
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Cadzi Cody
Cadzi Cody

At the time this hide was painted, the Shoshone people were confined on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Most of the buffalo had been killed by white hunters and the railroad and white settlers demand for land that made up the buffalo's habitat. The government had outlawed the sacred Sun Dance until 1935 in an effort to force Indians to give up old traditions and participate in a new way of life as defined by the government. Cadzi Cody painted events he experienced during a time of great change for the Shoshone people.

He included a scene of the traditional buffalo hunt on this elk hide to make the painting more salable to white tourists visiting the reservation. By including scenes of hunting, dancing, and ceremony, Cadzi Cody was able to earn much needed income from an outside market for images of Indian ceremonies. Today the Sun Dance continues to be practiced by many Plains people in modified ways.

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