Cree Woman

Bodmer depicted few women in his paintings and sketches. Maximilian was more interested in men’s activities that would have been easier to access. White people were expected to abide by Indigenous rules regarding gendered propriety. The women whose portraits Bodmer did paint were often kin of US officials or traders and lived in or near forts. Such was the case with the Cree wife of a man with the surname Deschamps, an American Fur Company employee. She wears spectacular earrings made of tiered dentalium shell and rows of large blue pony beads, with horse hair fringes at the ends. Her chin tattoos announced her status and achievements, as well as her Cree identity. Today, many Indigenous people are reviving ancestral tattooing traditions to reclaim cultural practices and heal from the traumas of colonization.