WAA-KAUN-SEE-KAA or the Rattle Snake; A Winnebago Chief, from The Aboriginal Portfolio

Art Historical Context

Step into the world of early 19th-century Native American portraiture with *WAA-KAUN-SEE-KAA or the Rattle Snake; Winnebago Chief* (1835), a striking lithograph by James Otto Lewis. This print captures the dignified profile of Waa-Kaun-See-Kaa, a prominent leader of the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) people, whose name evokes the stealth and power of the rattlesnake. Lewis, an itinerant artist known for his detailed depictions of Indigenous leaders, created this as part of *The Aboriginal Portfolio*, a collection of hand-colored lithographs published in 1830s. The artwork emerged from a pivotal moment in American history: the 1827 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, where tribes gathered to negotiate land cessions amid growing U.S. expansion. Lewis sketched portraits on-site, offering an ethnographic record before widespread Native displacement. As a graphic arts print, it exemplifies early lithography's role in democratizing art—affordable reproductions that brought Native visages to Eastern audiences, blending portraiture with emerging documentary realism. Today, housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum (gift of H. Lyman Sayen), this piece holds cultural weight as a visual archive of Winnebago sovereignty and identity. It invites reflection on how art preserved stories amid erasure, reminding us of the chiefs' resilience. (198 words)