On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Piegan Blackfoot Woman
Karl Bodmer Swiss
Not on view
Blackfeet cisgender and transgender women have long held crucial economic, social, and religious roles in their communities. One of those roles was as botanists: the Blackfeet used over two hundred plants for medicine, food, and material goods. This expertise is taught from generation to generation. I grew up gathering and preparing medicinal plants using knowledge shared by the elder women in my family, who learned it from their elders. Though Bodmer did not record the name of the woman in this painting, her descendants may use her teachings to this day, as in my own family. Though she is no longer with us, her knowledge could still be very much alive.
—Abaki Beck
(Blackfeet and Red River Métis)
Writer and public health practitioner
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