Squaw Dance, Pine Ridge, S.D.

Solomon D. Butcher & Son, pioneer photographers of the Nebraska sandhills, documented this Lakota social dance for a postcard series copyrighted in 1908. Number 62 in the sequence, the view is distinguished by the identified presence of Chief American Horse (Wašíčuŋ-Tȟašúŋke), an Oglala leader and treaty signatory. The studio’s work at the Pine Ridge Agency represents a less common chapter of their extensive documentation of the northern Plains, created as the frontier era drew to its close.