The Brooklyn Museum Annual 1962-1963 [antikvár]

ART OF THEEastern Plains IndiansThe Nathan Sturges Jarvis CollectionNorman Feder Curator of American Indian Art Denver Art Museum"I have viewed man in the innocent simplicty of Nature, in the full enjoyment of the luxuries which God has bestowed upon him . . . happier than kings and princes can be, with his pipe and little ones about him I have seen him shrinking from civilized approach, which came with all its vices, like the dead of night, upon him . . . seen him gaze and then retreat like the frightened deer I have seen him shrinking from the soil and haunts of his boyhood, bursting the strongest ties which bound him to the earth and its pleasures. I have seen him set fire to his wigwam and smooth over the graves of his fathers clap his hand in silence over his mouth, and take the last look over his fair hunting ground, and turn his face in sadness to the setting sun. All this I have seen performed in nature's silent dignity and I have seen as often the approach of the bustling, busy, talking, elated, and exultant white man, with the first dip of the plough share, making sacrilegious trespass on the bones of the dead. I have seen the grand and irresistible march of civilization . . . this splendid juggernaut rolling on and beheld its sweeping desolation."George CatlinFrom Harold McCrackcn, George Cutlin and the Old Frontier (N. Y., 1959).