... by Pat Winter
 detail from George Catlin's painting, "The Bear Dance," which shows the big canoe [bottom-center left] venerated by the Lakota-speaking Mandan Indians of South Dakota.
Lawyer-turned-artist Catlin, who painted from life among several tribes in the mid 1830s, said the object looked more like a large barrel-- called a tun-- of the type used to haul drinking water or beer for the crews of ocean-going vessels
Sure do wish Catlin had moved in for a close-up-- what is that on the lid of the so-called big canoe?
The painting in the National Archives can be reproduced for publication in high resolution unpublished Book III in The Madoc Trilogy
This 120,000 word novel was commissioned, researched, written, delivered and paid for, then killed by Bantam Books along with 50 other titles in November 1992 in a tax-motivated downsizing. Rights have reverted to the author who offers the novel for the first time to complete publication of The Madoc Trilogy. The colony Madoc founded on the Ohio River flourishes in the Kantuck. Madoc's bard, Rhys, is the leader, and as an old man many years later recalls how Madoc's little brother, Einion, ran off to live with the Senaca.
Madoc returns to Britain where he becomes embroiled in the intrigue at the court of English King Henry II, reunites with his beloved little sister and his elder brother, leader of a sect of apostate Christians. The King drafts Madoc and his ship to go off on the second Crusade for which journey Madoc's brother gives him one of the first compasses in Northern Europe. The colony is chased farther up the Mississippi-Missouri River system into the territory of the Lakota, later to be called the Sioux, with whom they settle down. It was their anomalous descendants who were chronicled & painted by Philadelphia lawyer-turned-artist George Catlin. His paintings inspired the suggested cover for this final book of the Saga. |
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