Eagle Dance

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1845-1848

“THE CHOCTAWS. Of fifteen thousand, are another tribe, removed from the Northern parts of Alabama, and Mississippi, within the few years past, and now occupying a large and rich tract of country, South of the Arkansas and the Canadian rivers; adjoining to the country of the Creeks and the Cherokees, equally civilized, and living much in the same manner . . . The Eagle Dance, a very pretty scene, which is got up by their young men, in honour of that bird, for which they seem to have a religious regard.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 49, 1841; reprint 1973)