This large photographic portrait depicts Fast Thunder, an Oglala Lakota warrior who said he took part in roughly twenty battles, most of them against white opponents, including the 1866 fight at Fort Phil Kearny where Crazy Horse also fought. He counted coup four times, underwent three vision fasts, and considered Crazy Horse the greatest leader of his people and Red Cloud its greatest chief.

He is shown seated on a heavy fur robe, wearing a beaded and quilled vest over a light shirt, a cartridge bandolier crossing his chest, and a headdress topped with two upright feathers. Fringed leggings trimmed with a broad beaded strip fall over beaded moccasins, and he holds a long pipe stem in one hand while additional furs and blankets are piled around him.

The photograph carries the copyright imprint of Heyn Photo of Omaha, Nebraska, dated 1900, a studio well known for its portraits of Lakota and other Plains delegates who traveled through the city.

The photograph measures 14 by 11 inches and is mounted to its original board, with a faint pencil notation beneath the photographer's imprint on the front and a Werner Paint Co. stamp on the reverse.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer