Stephen Mopope (aka Qued Koi)

Native American
(1898–1974)

The Eagle Tail Dancer
circa 1925

Gouache on board
16 x 12.5 x 1.75 in.
Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
2002.44

Originally from Montana and the plains just east of the Rocky Mountains, the Kiowa people were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in 1867 where Mopope was born in 1898. Mopope’s artistic skill was recognized early by his tribal community, and later by boarding school reformers who sought to affirm Native cultural artistic practices. Eagle dances, like the one Mopope depicts here, are practiced by a range of Native American nations; for the Kiowa, the dance was a way of lifting their prayers to the Creator god. Mopope’s mother and child image includes a depiction of a cradleboard, which served a similar function to the cradle basket across the gallery.

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This object has the following keywords:

• blue
• feathers - The component structures of the outer covering and flight surfaces of all modern birds and some dinosaurs, apparently having evolved from the scales of reptilian ancestors. The many different types of feathers are variously specialized for insulation, flight, formation of body contours, display, and sensory reception. The typical feather consists of a central shaft (rachis), with serial paired branches (barbs) forming a flattened, usually curved surface (the vane). The barbs possess further branches, the barbules.
• figure
• green
• male
• man
• Native American
• red
• yellow

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Anthropology 3110: North American Indian Cultures , 9/15/2015 - 7/8/2016
• HIST 6620 Seminar in Native American Studies , 3/28/2022 - 8/29/2022