Slow White Buffalo, Crow Eagle, Iron Thunder, and Fool Thunder are depicted together in this cabinet card, photographed by D. F. Barry at his Bismarck, Dakota Territory studio. Barry was among the foremost photographers of Plains Indian leaders during the late nineteenth century, producing an extensive commercial series of portraits that he advertised by catalog. The image dates to the 1880s or early 1890s based on the mount style and imprint typography.

Crow Eagle is seated at center rear wearing a full eagle-feather war bonnet and a fur-trimmed garment with a beaded or hair-pipe breastplate visible at the collar, and holding a peace pipe. The figure at lower center, Iron Thunder, seated on the studio floor, wears a horizontal-striped hair-pipe breastplate and holds a wrapped peace pipethe lap. The two flanking men at rear, Slow White Buffalo at left and Fool Thunder at right wear light cloth shirts and neckerchiefs, with long braids, and one holds what appears to be a pipe tomahawk across his knees.

All four men were Lakota Sioux leaders photographed during a period of intense federal pressure on the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River agencies, making Barry's portraits a primary visual record of that era's leadership.

The recto mount bears the printed identification "SLOW WHITE BUFFALO, CROW EAGLE / IRON THUNDER, AND FOOL THUNDER" along with "Barry, Bismarck, Dak." The reverse carries the printed imprint "D. F. Barry, Photographer, Bismarck, Dak. Photos of All Noted Indians. Catalogues Mailed on Application."

From the collection of James Lee Soffer