The Last Lakota Horse Raid

Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
This sculpture represents a Lakota woman of the late 1800s and honors a successful 1879 raid to acquire horses. The figure wears a fully beaded dress depicting six warriors and their horses, hoof marks, and captured horses. In her right hand, she carries a horse stick that would have been made by her husband to honor his favorite warhorse killed in battle. The great warrior White Bull’s account inspired this work.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Last Lakota Horse Raid
  • Artist: Rhonda Holy Bear, Wakah Wayuphika Win, Making Beauty with Exceptional Skills Woman (Native American, Sans Arc, Two Kettle, and Hunkpapa Lakota (Teton Sioux), born South Dakota, 1959)
  • Date: 1991
  • Geography: United States, North and South Dakota
  • Culture: Sans Arc, Two Kettle and Hunkpapa Lakota (Teton Sioux)
  • Medium: Wood (basswood), native-tanned and commercial leather, glass beads, pigment, cotton cloth, hair, dentalium shells, abalone, German silver, metal cones, brass tacks, beads
  • Dimensions: Height: 72 in. (182.9 cm)
  • Classifications: Wood-Sculpture, Beads-Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Collection of Joyce Chelberg
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Rhonda Holy Bear, Wakah Wayuphika Win, Making Beauty with Exceptional Skills Woman - The Last Lakota Horse Raid - Sans Arc, Two Kettle and Hunkpapa Lakota (Teton Sioux) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art