Lay-láw-she-kaw, Goes Up the River, an Aged Chief

About this artwork

“The present chief of the [Shawnee] tribe,” George Catlin wrote, “is a very aged, but extraordinary man, with a fine and intelligent head, and his ears slit and stretched down to his shoulders, a custom highly valued in this tribe; which is done by severing the rim of the ear with a knife, and stretching it down by wearing heavy weights attached to it at times, to elongate it as much as possible, making a large orifice, through which, on parades, &c. they often pass a bunch of arrows or qu...

Art Historical Context

**Lay-láw-she-kaw, Goes Up the River an Aged Chief** (1830) is a compelling portrait by George Catlin, the pioneering 19th-century artist dedicated to documenting Native American life. Catlin, known for his realistic oil paintings that captured the dignity and customs Indigenous peoples before widespread assimilation, likely created this work at Fort Leavenworth present-day Kansas. As part of his extensive travels among tribes in the 183s, Catlin produced hundreds of portraits to preserve vanishing cultures amid U.S. expansion. The subject is Lay-láw-she-kaw, the elderly chief of the Shawnee ...

About the Artist

George Catlin · 1796–1872

George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...