Since time immemorial, American Indian artists have recorded their histories in pictographic form on rock, hides, tipi covers, and other surfaces. During the nineteenth century, American Indian artists began documenting their history using pages of ledger books and other items obtained from the invading settlers. Many contemporary American Indian artists produce ledger art using historic paper—banking book paper, receipts, account books, and so on.
An exhibition in the Missoula Art Museum (MAM) in Missoula, Montana features three pieces by Aspen Decker made in 2024 on historic maps which tells some of the history of the Flathead (Salish or Bitterroot Salish) people. Aspen Decker is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. She has an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Montana and teaches Salish language.
One ledger art piece tells the story of Shining Shirt, a prophet whose visions told of the coming of the Blackrobes—Jesuit missionaries. According to the artist:
“However, the Blackrobes ‘Jesuits’ exploited these visions, manipulating them to portray their arrival as a positive event when, in reality, it had detrimental consequences for the Salish people.”
According to the artist:
“Shining Shirt’s visions were manipulated by the Jesuits to mask their true intentions, and it is crucial that we acknowledge the tribal narrative and not just what has been told to us by the Jesuits.”
One ledger art piece, done on a 1914 U.S. map, shows the Salish people camped on a small island in the Clark Fork River. When the river was redirected in the early twentieth century, the island merged with the mainland. According to the artist:
“The artwork provides a glimpse of what our spring and summer camp tipis used to look like, primarily being tule tipis. It was often the chiefs and subchiefs who typically decorated their tipis. The tule tipis depicted in the artwork are colored using a local native paint pigment. “
Shown above is a woman using a digging stick to harvest bitterroot.
Shown above is a painted tipi.
One ledger art piece shows the removal of the Bitterroot Salish from their traditional homelands. In October 1891, armed U.S. soldiers “escorted” the peaceful Flatheads to the Jocko Agency on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Shown above are bitterroot, the symbol of the Salish way of life.
According to the artist:
“Missoula was once the primary place we dug bitterroot, however, the displacement and subsequent urban development have nearly eradicated the once plentiful native bitterroot from the landscape. We are a people of strength, resilience, and beauty, who are still here to share the stories of our ancestors.”
Note: these photographs were taken on March 24, 2024.
More American Indian art museum exhibitions
Indians 101: Flathead Reservation baskets (museum exhibit)
Indians 101: The art of Terran Last Gun (museum exhibition)
Indians 101: Modern Blackfoot ledger art (museum tour)
Indians 101: Sunflower by Walla Walla artist James Lavadour (museum tour)
Indians 101: Caddo artist Raven Halfmoon (museum tour)
Indians 101: Glass art by Marcus Amerman (museum tour)
Indians 101: Reborn Rez Wrecks (museum tour)
Indians 101: The art of Oscar Howe, 1945-1956 (museum exhibition)
