Maffet Ledger: Drawing

Art Historical Context

This captivating drawing from the *Maffet Ledger*, created by an unknown Southern or Northern Cheyenne artist around 1874–81, offers a window into Plains Indian life during a transformative era. Produced on a modest sheet of paper (11 3/4 × 5 1/4 inches), it features motifs of horses and men—hallmarks of ledger art, where warriors and storytellers chronicled their world using readily available accounting ledger pages from traders and forts. The mixed media of graphite for precise outlines, watercolor for vibrant color, and crayon for bold accents reflect an innovative adaptation of traditional pictographic styles to Euro-American materials. These works, born amid the U.S. government's reservation policies following conflicts like the Indian Wars, served as personal histories, celebrating horsemanship, valor, and cultural identity when oral traditions faced disruption. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas department as part of the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, this piece underscores the resilience of Cheyenne visual storytelling, preserving narratives for future generations in a time of profound change.