Bulls Ghost is portrayed in this cabinet card in a three-quarter seated pose against a painted studio backdrop, the photograph almost certainly made at or near Fort Sully, Dakota Territory, and dateable to 1870 based on the inscription on the reverse. No photographer's imprint appears on the mount. The subject is identified by a period ink inscription on the front of the card reading "Bulls Ghost."

Bull's Ghost was a Lower Yanktonai Dakota leader, and an influential voice and proponent during the Ghost Dance movement alongside Sitting Bull. He wears a heavily fringed hide shirt with woven or beaded band details across the chest, a fur-trimmed or fur-lined collar draping over both shoulders, and wide beaded or wrapped cuffs at both wrists. Two long braids fall across his chest, and a single upright feather is visible rising above the crown of his head. He holds what appears to be a short-stemmed pipe or ornamental object in his crossed hands, and additional feathered adornments are visible at his right shoulder.

Fort Sully was a U.S. Army post on the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota, serving as a significant point of contact between federal authorities and the Lakota Sioux throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s, making it a plausible setting for studio portrait sessions of this kind.

The reverse bears a pencil inscription reading: "Love, Yanetorous. Our Indian friends at Fort Sully Dacota 1870."

From the collection of James Lee Soffer