Striking outdoor cabinet card by Fort Sill photographer W.P. Bliss, showing a group of Kiowa-Apache women and children outside a prominent striped tipi. The composition includes a woman seated with her children, one of whom stands in the tipi’s entrance, while another woman stands wrapped in a blanket beside a raised platform covered in buffalo robes. The dramatic backdrop of the Wichita Mountains and forested plains underscores the intimacy and cultural depth of the moment.

Period pencil inscriptions and comparative research strongly suggest this may be the family of the Kiowa-Apache leader known as Pacer or Peso. A nearly identical image by William S. Soule—showing the same tipi and figures, though cropped differently—is archived and inscribed on the reverse: “W.S. Soule, Fort Sill, Indian Ter.” That variant includes more of the tipi's peak but trims off the seated figure at far left seen here.

Bliss’s imprint on verso promotes his cabinet-sized “Camp Views” of “Noted Indians,” which were marketed by mail for $4 per dozen. His Fort Sill studio operated in the 1870s-80s and often produced images in parallel with or in the wake of Soule’s celebrated work.

Excellent clarity and contrast; a rare glimpse into the domestic side of Native life at Fort Sill, with possible ties to one of the most recognized Kiowa-Apache leaders of the Indian Territory era.