Little Bear, a Cheyenne man, is depicted in this large 7.5 X 9.5 inch albumen photograph on 11 X 13" mount taken in 1875 by John K. Hillers in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Hillers, who served as the official photographer for John Wesley Powell's surveys and later the Bureau of American Ethnology, produced numerous portraits of Native American subjects during the 1870s, and this image reflects the outdoor documentary approach characteristic of his field work. The photograph is mounted on a gray board with a printed geometric border framing the image on the recto.
Little Bear is seated on layered flat rock outcroppings amid a natural outdoor setting with leafy vegetation and tree branches visible behind him. He wears a heavily layered bone hairpipe breastplate, dark trousers with a light stripe along the leg, and moccasins, with one hand resting on his knee. A fringed and decorated hide quiver rests at his side, and a bow is held loosely in his other hand. His expression is composed and direct.
Little Bear was among the Southern Cheyenne leaders documented during the period of agency negotiations and federal oversight in Indian Territory, and his portrait is among the ethnographic records associated with government-sponsored survey photography of the era.
A hand-inscribed title appears in cursive script below the image on the front mount, reading approximately "A-no-va-ka-nid-e-hevl," with no photographer's imprint visible on the reverse.
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