RARE PORTRAIT OF A NATIVE AMERICAN AND CHILD

United States, circa 1860s. Ninth-plate tintype housed in a full leatherette case.

A seated adult sitter, richly dressed in a feathered roach-style headdress with a beaded brow band, faces the camera holding a feather fan. He wears a checked trade-cloth shirt and a large disk gorget at the throat; a strap across the chest is set with round metal ornaments- details consistent with regalia seen among peoples of the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes, though the specific community is unconfirmed. At his side stands a child in Euro‑American dress, a beaded necklace at the collar.

The combination of a roach headdress, metal disk gorget, and ornamented shoulder strap suggests cultural affiliations with nations of the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi (e.g., Anishinaabe/Ojibwe, Ho‑Chunk/Winnebago, Potawatomi, or related communities). Because regalia elements often circulated through trade and diplomacy and studio props were sometimes supplied, a precise attribution cannot be made; the present cataloging respects that uncertainty while recognizing the portrait’s clear Indigenous authorship of dress and presence.

A moving, carefully posed cased tintype that records two generations within an Indigenous family, this image unites ceremonial regalia and studio portrait conventions at a moment when photography was becoming a tool of Native self‑representation as well as a record for non‑Native audiences.