It's a window into all these lost details and individual destinies and moments that, combined, have shaped the "New World." The 19th century in North America was mostly a time of grimness and doom for the Native tribes, and Squint Eyes's Cheyenne people weren't excluded from the genocide; but his drawings and destiny illustrate the grey zones of when the white men met the North American's land.
Tichkematse (Squint Eyes) was a Cheyenne Indian, raised to a life based on buffalo hunting in the southern Plains. Caught by the United States government between 1875-1878, he was imprisoned and learned to read and write English. Once released he attended school in Virginia before coming to the Smithsonian, as one of the institution's earliest employees between 1879 and 1881, to conserve and display bird and mammal specimens.
In July 1885 and for three years, Squint Eyes enlisted in the USA Army's newly formed companies of scouts. The scouts provided assistance to regular Army troops in patrolling the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation and the Cherokee Outlet. It was there that Squint Eyes completed drawings that depict Army officers, civilians and Cheyenne scouts engaged in hunting - an important part of Cheyenne cultural heritage and a favorite pastime of officers and enlisted men.
During his life he also accompanied a government expedition traveling in the remote Florida waterways to the Seminole tribe. And worked with anthropologist and linguist Frank Hamilton Cushing on Indian sign language (there were many languages spoken on the Plains so the various tribes had developed a shared language based on gestures).
