Bears Rib, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader, is depicted in this cabinet card albumen portrait made at Fort Sully in 1870. The image is an unusually specific and historically grounded record, inscribed by a contemporary hand and connected directly to the Hunkpapa band known as the Onchopa. No photographer's imprint is visible on the mount, though Fort Sully hosted itinerant and military-affiliated photographers during this period.

He is shown in a three-quarter seated pose wearing a dark vest over a loose white shirt, a loosely knotted neck cloth, and a fur cap adorned with a small ornament and two upright feathers. Long hair falls in braids decorated with beaded drops and wrapped quillwork, and a large circular peace medal hangs prominently at his chest.

The Hunkpapa Lakota were among the most prominent of the Teton Sioux bands during the reservation era, and Fort Sully on the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota served as a key point of contact between federal authorities and Lakota leaders throughout the 1860s and 1870s. The reverse inscription reads: "Onchopa / our Indian friends / Fort Sully / 1870," with "Bears Rib" in script on the face of the mount.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer