Pash-ee-pa-hó, Little Stabbing Chief, a Venerable Sauk Chief

About this artwork

“Pash-ee-pa-ho (the little stabbing chief), a very old man, holding his shield, staff and pipe in his hands; has long been the head civil chief of this tribe; but, as is generally the case in very old age, he has resigned the office to those who are younger and better qualified to do the duties of it.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 56, 1841; reprint 1973)

Art Historical Context

In 1835, George Catlin captured dignified likeness of Pash-ee-pa-hó, known as the Little Stabbing Chief, venerable leader of the Sauk tribepart of the Sauk Fox confederacy). This full-length oil portrait shows the elderly chief in traditional dress, clutching his shield, staff, pipe—symbols of his authority and warrior past. Catlin, a pioneering American artist, painted hundreds of such portraits during his travels among Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Midwest in the 1830s, aiming to document their cultures before rapid white settlement altered them forever. As Catlin noted in his ...

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 ...