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The Three Villages Robe was created in the 18th century, most likely between the 1730s and 1740s during the French occupation of the Arkansas region, near the Arkansas Post. [Use second sentence to describe what it is]
Historical context
editThe robe was likely created by a Quapaw (Ogahpah) artist as a gift to French officials. [Note: I removed "living in SE Arkansas, as one theory is that it actually was given in New Orleans to the governor, from whence it was ultimately transported to metropolitan France] Citation]
The robe depicts the French settlement of Arkansas Post with the buildings painted to show French colonial architecture. It is further theorized that the settlement shows Arkansas Post due to the depiction of the people within the Post, who are wearing capots, which were the traditional hooded garments worn in colonial North America. [Citation: I recommend Sophie White's extract from Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana]
The robe also most likely depicts a battle between the Quapaw and their traditional enemies, the Chickasaw. The Quapaw artist depicted their people facing the battle ready with bows, arrows, and European rifles in order to defeat the Chickasaw. The Chickasaw are depicted similarly to the Quapaw with bow, arrows, and European rifles. However, they are depicted to be fighting in the nude compared to the clothed Quapaw; two of the Chickasaw warriors are also depicted as fleeing from the confrontation. Historian Morris Arnold proposes that this may have been intended to convey the moral superiority of the Quapaws over the Chickasaw, in an appeal to French Christian teachings about modesty and civilization. [Citation]
The Quapaw men and women are depicted engaged in a ritual dance on the opposite side of the robe from the battle scene. The men and women are depicted in a dance circle in traditional body paint with a scalp nearby, as a way to depict a victorious battle. [Citation. Also note: Morris Arnold demonstrated to us the faint line that shows that the scalp itself is on a scalp pole in the central plaza].
The center of the robe is decorated with a Sun and Moon motif, to depict the Quapaw’s religious beliefs that the Sun is the great God (Wakónda) and the Moon is their Father (Entáteh). The Quapaw culture is further established by the presence of two calumet (ceremonial peace pipes) which are theorized to depict the peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship between the Quapaw and the French settlers. [Citation: Ballard/Honganózhe piece recommended. Make sure to include his Quapaw name in the ref.] [References section will be cut. Use the citation feature in the sandbox, and of course, delete my comments in square brackets here]
References
edit- Antoine Barraqué to Governor George Izard, Manuscript, “Voyage of the Quapaws” [in French], January 1, 1826, L.C. Gulley collection, MS.000064, Item 80, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.
- Arnold, Morris S. Eighteenth-Century Arkansas Illustrated
- Arnold, Morris S. The Rumble of a Distant Drum: The Quapaws and Old World Newcomers, 1673–1803. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000.
- Ballard, Louis W. “Two Ogàxpa Sacred Robes Visit Home after 250 Years, but the Ogàxpas Don’t Live There Any More.” The Public Historian 18, no. 4 (1996): 193–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/3379810.
- Bennett, Swannee, and William B. Worthen. Arkansas Made: A Survey of the Decorative, Mechanical, and Fine Arts Produced in Arkansas through 1950. 2nd ed., Col. 1, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2021. Jones, Linda C. “Nicolas Foucault and the Quapaws.” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 75, no. 1 (2016): 4–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26281803