Art as Recorded History: Ledger Art as Historic Documentation in the North American Plains

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Landscapes of Care: Exploring Heart-centered Practice in Historical Archaeology", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Ledger art is an Indigenous artistic practice from the North American Plains that developed from rock art and hide painting. More than artistic expression, ledger art depicts cultural practices, daily life, and historical events such as the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and imprisonment of Cheyenne and Kiowa leaders at Fort Marion, Florida. Despite this, ledger art has not been traditionally accepted as historical documentation in American archaeology. Informed by scholarly critiques from Patricia Galloway and Phillip Deloria of traditionally cited ethnographies, this paper takes a heart-centered approach to acknowledge the emotional labor of Indigenous ledger artists as tribal historians. Drawing from the work and knowledge of Indigenous artists such as Howling Wolf, Zotom, Halycon Levi and Linda Haukaas, the proposed paper emphasizes how we can recognize the relationality of traditional historical recordation and identity in Indigenous North American Plains ledger art and better acknowledge Indigenous history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• Landscapes of Care: Exploring Heart-centered Practice in Historical Archaeology

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow