Mato-Tope, Four Bears
My version of this famous Mandan chief from my recent one-man show, Portraits of Honor, at Legacy Gallery
Mandan Chief (~1795-1837 )
Painted at Fort Clarke by George Catlin in 1832 and by Karl Bodmer in 1834.
Mato-Tope (Circa 1795-1837) was a Mandan chief. He was also called “Four Bears”, after a battle where a group of Assiniboin said he came on in a charge like “four bears.”
George Catlin recounts Mato-Tope’s bravery
Mato-tope by James Ayers
“Mah-to-toh-pa, or Four Bears, killed a Shienne (sic) chief who challenged him to single combat in the presence of two war parties; they fought on horseback , with guns, until Mah-to-toh-pa’s powder-horn was shot away; then they fought with bows and arrows until their quivers were emptied, then they dismounted and fought single-handed. The Shienne drew his knife, and Mah-to-toh-pa had left his; they struggled for the knife, which Mah-to-toh-pa wrested from the Shienne and killed him with it. In the struggle, the blade of the knife was thrust several times through the hand of Mah-to-toh-pa.”
Smallpox crushes the Mandan
At the time when Mato-Tope was chief in 1836, the Mandan lived on Upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Shortly after this time, a devastating smallpox epidemic decimated the Mandan.
Within a few months, the population dropped from a population of 1600 to only 125 survivors. Mato-Tope lost his wife and children in that smallpox epidemic, and while most historians believe he also succumbed to the disease on July 30, 1837, George Catlin claimed that he starved himself to death out of grief for his lost wife, children and tribe.
Details of Catlin’s Portrait and Impressions of Mato-Tope
Mato-Tope by Karl Bodmer and George Catlin
Mato-Tope’s large headdress, with its long trail of eagle feathers, probably signified the combined coups of an entire war party or those of a men’s warrior society.
The lance held in his right hand in his portrait was used by Mato-Tope to kill a Riccaree warrore who had murdered his brother, its shaft afterward being decorated with the enemy’s scalp, stretched on a hoop, which can be clearly seen in the portrait.
“The brother of Mah-to-toh-pa was killed by a Riccaree, who shot him with an arrow, and then running a lance through his body, left it there. Mah-to-toh-pa was the first to find his brother’s body. He drew the lance from the body, and kept it for four years with the blood dried on the blade, and then, according to his oath, killed the same Riccaree with the same lance.”
~ George Catlin
Also on the spear can be seen an eagle quill, separate from the spear itself. Catlin describes how Mah-to-toh-pa took great pains to assure that Catlin would paint the eagle quill exactly, and to make sure that it appeared as separate from, and unconnected to the lance itself, as it does.
When Catlin became curious about this odd request, Mato-Tope gave him the following explanation:
“‘That quill is great medicine! It belongs to the Great Spirit and not to me. When I was running out of the lodge of my brother’s murderer (after killing him), I looked back and saw that quill hanging out of the wound in his side. I ran back, and pulling it out, brought it home in my left hand and I have kept it for the Great Spirit to this day!’ I (Catlin) asked him, ‘Why do you not tie it onto the lance again where it came off’? ‘Hush-sh!’ said he. ‘If the Great Spirit had wished it to be tied onto that place, it never would have come off!’”
~Mato-Tope, as told to George Catlin
Catlin was very much struck by Mato-Tope’s presence and carriage. He wrote:
“No tragedian ever trod the steps, nor gladiator ever entered the Roman Forum, with more grace and manly dignity than did Four Bears when he arrived for his posing session.”
About the Portraits of Honor by James Ayers show
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