Posted on 03/21/2014 5:54:22 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Nearly 300 years ago, two great alliances collided on the Great Plains in a battle that changed the course of American history. But until now, no physical evidence of the storied conflict had ever been found.
In the summer of 1720, where the Platte River meets the Loup in eastern Nebraska, Spanish soldiers, New Mexican settlers and their Pueblo and Apache allies clashed with warriors from the Pawnee and Oto nations of the Plains.
In a daybreak raid, the Pawnee and the Oto — possibly with the support of French traders — routed the Spanish, killing their commander, Don Pedro de Villasur, along with 35 soldiers and 10 Pueblo scouts.
The attack proved to be a turning point in the Spanish conquest, marking the end of the empire’s eastward encroachment across the continent.
Villasur’s defeat was well-documented by survivors at the time, but perhaps nowhere was it more famously captured than in a pair of intricate tableaux painted on bison hides.
Segesser Hide Painting A detail in the second of the two bison hides — known as the Segesser Hide Paintings — depicts the attack on Villasur’s party in eastern Nebraska. The hides are now housed in Santa Fe’s Palace of the Governors museum. Until now, the paintings have been the most vivid remaining records of the momentous battle.
But archaeologists say they’ve found what they think are its first known, if somewhat unexpected, artifacts: fragments of Spanish olive jars.
(Excerpt) Read more at westerndigs.org ...
Does this have anything to do with Wounded Knee? 1ST Cavalry?
What’s wrong with me?! Spaniards are proto-Mexicans and so can not do wrong against other people of color.
Dumb me.
A bunch of brown eyed people killed some other brown eyed people .
Awesome.
Well, if you’ve ever been to the Pawnee Nation....
LOL
Not really sure who the winner was now a days.
But, you fan get some awesome Bison Burgers at Pawnee Bills and admire the cousins of the one yer eating, as they saunter by.
Great fishing holes around there too....
Delicious too.
Almost like eating prarie lemon grass in Oklahoma ...yummmm
They have some of the flavor stylistically of the very early best work of Spiro Mounds shell carvings depicting warriors - they did three quarter views and were able to impart motion in the way they arranged things as well, not stiff like the Egyptians. Of course that was before they started doing drugs. At least it looks like they did because at one point their artwork went to hell in a handbasket and lost all detail and organization.
Back to these hides, o keen observer- possibly they are a blend of both worlds :
Apparently the priest who obtained them shipped them to Switzerland in 1758...
“Some scholars believe the hide paintings were created in New Mexico, where imported canvas was rare and processed hides were commonly used for reposteros, or hide paintings, that were exported to Mexico. Because the paintings show several distinct styles, some scholars think as many as three artists painted various details—likely indigenous New Mexicans with tribal affiliations who had the benefit of eyewitness descriptions and were taught European painting techniques. Other scholars believe that the paintings were produced in workshops in Santa Fe by Spanish craftsmen who were descendants of participants in the battle.”-—http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/press_releases.php?action=detail&releaseID=20
Preparing a parchment with that quality and the ability to retain it over time without degradation is, in and of itself, an art, and what I would assume at the time of these paintings, a pretty strictly old world skill.
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