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During the late 1800s Plains Indian women produced a vast amount of beaded art and many of
the items created and used by the Lakotas and Cheyennes of this day were embellished with
American flags. This seemingly paradoxical tradition, one where subordinated peoples
employed the preeminent symbol of their oppressors as a design element in their expressions of
ethnic identity, has attracted the scholarly attention of several anthropologists and art historians.
While much has been published on this practice, no one to date has systematically explored
why so many native artists of the past chose to render the flag in an inverted position. Historic
photographs of this period also reveal scenes of daily life where Indian peoples displayed flags
upside down. Contrary to what some authors have claimed, such occurrences were not
accidental. Rather, they arose as a hidden transcript through which Plains Indians could safely
convey their deep displeasure with U.S. Indian policies that so adversely affected them.

Keywords: Plains Indians, American flags, ethnic conflict, art

During the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Plains Indian women, especially among
the Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes, began using American flags as design elements in their
beaded and quilled arts (Herbst and Kopp 1993, Pohrt 1975, Powers 1996). This aesthetic trend
reached its apex in the 1890s, a period during which Lakota artisans produced more items
embellished with flags than all other tribal nations combined. Explaining why this development
emerged when and where it did, and why members of some tribes embraced this innovation
(e.g. Lakotas and Cheyennes) while others did not (e.g. Crows) are questions that have long
attracted the scholarly interest of art historians, anthropologists, and others who study the
material culture of Plains Indians.

In a previous publication (Schmittou and Logan 2002), we provided a lengthy discussion of this
topic, including the range of possible motives underlying this paradoxical use of flag images by
oppressed peoples during the early reservation period. We also chronicled the dramatic change
that occurred in values ascribed to the flag by Native Americans over the course of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At first these brightly colored banners were a source of great
pride among the few Indian men who received them as gifts from representatives of the United
States, as well as Spain and France. The rarity of these gifts undoubtedly conferred
considerable status to their owners. However, with the escalation of armed hostilities in the
1860s between the army and tribes in the Plains, American flags assumed many new meanings
to Indian peoples. No longer were they a sign of successful commerce, diplomacy, or pledged
friendship. Flags became an enduring symbol of ethnic conflict. Use of the flag today by Native
Americans represents another realm of meaning, one that began during WWI. They honor the
many Indian men and women who have served valiantly in the U.S. armed forces.

In the present article, our goal is to explore a truly fascinating phenomenon concerning Native
Americans and American flags, one that we touched on only in passing in our earlier work. We
examine the intriguing custom or practice of depicting, as well as using, inverted U.S. flags.
Öiven the frequency of this practice, and the indisputable fact that flags were often portrayed
and/or flown upside down by Indian peoples of the past, it is surprising that greater scholarly
discussion of this subject has not appeared in print. Hopefully the publication of this article will
foster the beginning of an intellectual dialogue on a long neglected facet of flag imagery in
Plains Indian art and daily life.

The point we wish to emphasize first and foremost is that Native Americans of the nineteenth
century, or their counterparts today, did not invert American flags accidentally. Inversion was not
a careless error on the part of an otherwise attentive and highly skilled artist, nor did error play
any significant role among individuals appearing in historic photographs who displayed inverted
flags during certain ritual contexts. To claim that such occasions arose due to mistake is
patently wrong. Plains Indians obviously knew what the American flag looked like. They saw
them displayed at military forts and carried into battle by U.S. troops. They took flags from their
fallen enemies as trophies of war (Figure 1 [see Powell 1981, vol. 1:227-228], Figure 2 [see
Öreene 1981:163; Utley 1988:178]). Flags were frequently given as gifts to Native American
delegates who visited the nation's capital. During Fourth of July celebrations flags were a
ubiquitous feature of parades, rodeos, and other public events, including powwows. The
suggestion that flags were depicted or flown upside down due to a careless error committed
unknowingly by illinformed Indians is not only incorrect, as noted above, it is also racially
demeaning to all Native Americans, both past and present. Yet we have encountered precisely
this claim in published captions adjoining certain historic photographs and beaded specimens
where inverted flags are boldly apparent. Consider the following examples.

Figure 3 shows a group of Osage traditionalists gathered near the entrance of an Iloshka lodge.
Projecting upward from the structure's bough-covered roof is an American flag attached to a
slender sapling. The flag is clearly upside down. The caption appearing next to this image,
which was taken ca. 1890, reads . . . "The American flag on the roof was raised upside down by
mistake" (Time-Life Books 1993:108). A mistake? We certainly doubt it. The Osage, as we will
explain later, had many legitimate reasons for displeasure with the U.S. government and may
have chosen to express that dissatisfaction by inverting this national symbol.

Figure 4 shows a beaded gauntlet with a horse or mule with two inverted American flags tied to
poles extending upward from the animal's back. The caption for this photograph reads . . . "In
the 1 880s, it seems, a Crow wife inadvertently inverted the Stars and Stripes on a gauntlet for
her husband, an Army Scout" (Ramsay 1975:108). Did this woman "inadvertently" transpose
these flags? Again, we doubt it. After all, she was attentive enough to depict the sex of this
animal, as well as its notched ears. We also doubt that this specimen is of Crow origin. It is
definitely from the Plateau culture area. A more likely designation would be Nez Perce, who also
had justifiable reasons to express dissatisfaction with the federal government, a point we will
return to later.

It should be noted here that Native American artists could depict, using either seed beads or
dyed porcupine quills, any motif, be they flags, eagles, or humans, with near photographic
accuracy. This ability is clearly evident in the stunning powwow and equestrian regalia beaded
by a Yakama woman who was photographed during a parade in 1959 at Toppenish,
Washington (see Feder 1995:263 [plate 133]). Her ensemble featured no less than ten separate
objects meticulously embroidered with flags and other federalist symbols, notably eagles. Earlier
beadworkers were equally skilled at naturalistic portrayals of their chosen motifs, as is readily
apparent in the Minneconjou Lakota tipi bag (ca. 1885) illustrated in Figure 5. Although the latter
specimen does not feature flags, it incorporates a number of stylistic conventions, ones
borrowed from male biographical art, to document the war record of White Swan, a Minneconjou
chief (see Lessard 1990:57). Use of a name glyph (a white swan embroidered directly above the
central figure's head) verifies the protagonist's identity. Depiction of three pipes and seven
severed heads, some of which have pompadour hairstyles while others sport beards and caps,
document the leadership of war parties against die Crow and Euroamerican civilian and/or
military personnel.

The possibility that flag imagery, whether inverted or not, may have functioned similarly as a
mnemonic for conflict with U.S. troops has rarely been explored in the literature on this topic.
One of the few such references is provided by Clark Wissler, who offers the following analysis of
flag imagery on a boy's vest (American Museum of Natural History, accession no. 50-2952):

[T]he tents bearing the flags indicate camps of United States soldiers. The small projections on
the tents are the signalflags used by the soldiers. . . . It was explained that the mounted men
represent two expeditions against United States soldiers, but that they were uneventful as is
implied by the absence of victory or spoils symbols (Wissler 1904:267).

Use of the flag motif to symbolize the United States Army as a military opponent may have been
an underlying theme for some artists in late nineteenth century flag iconography. However, it is
not known how common or widespread this practice was. Using flags to recall clashes with the
army constitutes a far more direct link to preexisting traditions of militarism on the Plains than
arguments advanced by contemporary scholars for adoption of the flag as a generic symbol of
the ongoing warrior tradition.

When compositional "errors" occurred in the representation of flags, whether it involved


inversion or color selection, it is important to remember that the artisan who craned the item had
some motive or reason to deviate from realism. Why, for example, would a Lakota woman use
only blue and white beads to depict two inverted American flags on a vest (ca. 1890) when red
beads were used on a tipi motif appearing directly below each flag? Similarly, why did a
Cheyenne woman select green beads for the canton on each of the flags she created on a pair
of moccasins (ca. 1 890) when blue beads appear elsewhere on these carefully crafted
specimens (photographs of the vest and moccasins are on file in the Department of
Anthropology, the University of Tennessee)? In his article on flag motifs in Lakota art, William K.
Powers offers useful insight into the questions posed here. Concerning the artistic depiction of
flags, he concludes that "the rules applying to American flag protocol are ignored or relaxed so
that representations of it in beadwork and quillwork ... do not require the use of correct
coloration ... or right orientation of the canton and stripes" (Powers 1996:11). It must be
emphasized, though, that artistic license frequently arises in contexts marked by political discord
and economic disparities, where artists deviate from conventional norms to express their disdain
of the social order.

In the vast majority of cases, however, flags were depicted correctly, both in terms of position
and choice of colors. Nevertheless, we have observed over the years a significant number of
exceptions. Inverted flags appear more commonly than has been acknowledged to date by art
historians and anthropologists. They also appear in a variety of different media, from historic
photographs of Osage burials (Wilson 1988:43) to drawings done by Indian artists that depict
Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn (Viola 1999:92-93). While we cannot advance any estimate
of the frequency of inverted flags within the larger genre of flagbased art, we can say that when
flags were either shown or used in an inverted manner they are extremely noticeable. Yet
researchers have been remarkably silent on this subject, other than occasionally noting that, on
a given piece where the flags are clearly upside down, "The interpretation of the flags is most
unusual" (Herbst and Kopp 1993:55; plate 39). Other than commentary of this type, little else
has been said about the possible symbolism associated with inverted flags in late nineteenth
century Plains Indian cultures.

Any discussion of the meanings ascribed to inverted flags by Indian peoples during this time
period must be done with restrained caution, and for three reasons. First, we have not found,
despite years of searching, a single recorded statement from a Native American of this day
concerning the indigenous symbolism connected to inverted flags. The ethnohistoric literature is
frustratingly silent on this topic.

Second, one cannot assume that any opinions about inverted flags expressed today by Indian
peoples are necessarily identical to those held by their forebears during the late 1800s.
Although they certainly could be the same, this cannot be established as fact without the
required ethnohistorical narratives needed to support such a claim. For example, we have heard
repeatedly, and from a diverse array of individuals, including scholars, park rangers, collectors
and Indian activists, that inverted flags symbolized a state of distress (see Crow Dog and
Erdoes 1991:58). Flags positioned upside down served as a visual signal or call for immediate
help. Yet again, without corroborating text from Plains Indians of the past, these interpretive
claims cannot be accepted as fact. Moreover, use of an inverted flag, according to Öuenter
(1990:45), was originally a "naval sign of distress," and it seems highly unlikely that this
maritime code would have diffused to nineteenth century Indians in the west.1

The third reason why caution is needed when attempting to reconstruct the symbolism of
inverted flags among nineteenth century Plains Indians is that there were probably several
different reasons or motives for members of these tribal nations to depict or employ flags in an
inverted position. Öiven these three cautionary restrictions, what can be said about the symbolic
meanings associated with upside down flags? The answer, we suggest, is quite a bit.

Perhaps the most obvious point is that inversion of the flag was done for a reason. It served as
a highly visible means of conveying messages important to the artist or those displaying an
inverted flag. The ability to correctly "read" the message depended, in large part, on the viewer's
ethnicity and cultural heritage. The historical time frame when the message occurred also
affected a viewer's ability to interpret the signal in a manner consistent with that of the sender.
White Americans, either then or today, would typically fail to comprehend the meanings
ascribed to inverted flags by their Native American contemporaries. Simply consider, once
again, the glaring errors made in the published captions adjoining the photograph of a beaded
gauntlet and the photograph of Osage Iloshka dancers. Such "misreadings" would not surface,
of course, among tribal viewers in the late 1800s.

Inverted flags undoubtedly symbolized something significant to those who crafted or used them
in this way. But what did they represent or stand for? In other words, how should contemporary
viewers "read" these images from the past? While most authors who have written about flags in
Plains Indian art have not attempted to answer these questions, we have identified several lines
of evidence that, when taken collectively, suggest at least two highly probable reasons why
some Native Americans chose to invert the American flag.

First, inversion may have symbolized the Indians' utmost displeasure with U.S. policies that had
so adversely affected them. We suggest here that broken treaties, loss of lands, forced
relocation, denial of human rights, stark racism, economic dependency, and the death of so
many innocent victims were collectively recalled or encapsulated into a singular image of
protest, the inverted flag. Native Americans, of course, were fully aware of the respect, even
reverence, that whites expressed towards the national banner. After all, similar proscriptions
were demanded in the Indians' use of sacred bundles (Forbes 1972:45). By displaying flags in
an inverted position, or by crafting flags upside down, as well as depicting them inaccurately in
terms of colors, Native Americans created a veiled, though meaningful, gesture of defiance and
disrespect. Put simply, they took something of great salience from white American culture and
"messed" with it.2

The Osage, in particular, had all too many reasons to do this. In 1825 they were forced to
relinquish all claims to their aboriginal homeland in western Missouri and northern Arkansas and
relocate to a tract of land in southeastern Kansas. As a result of this single treaty, they lost over
45,000 square miles of territory (Christiansen 1988:14). In Kansas, though, the demands among
white farmers for access to Osage lands grew to such a point that the federal government, in
1871, ordered the Osage to sell their holdings there and move, yet again, to Indian Territory.
The Osage now had to use the money earned from the sale of their farms in Kansas to
purchase reservation land from a traditional enemy, the Cherokee (Bailey 2001:477-478). In
1893, if not earlier, the federal government expressed its desire to allot or privatize the Osage
reservation in Oklahoma (Bailey 2001:488). Full-bloods and admixed traditionalists vehemently
opposed the projected allotment program, for they knew it would further erode their land base,
an outcome painfully realized by Indian peoples as a result of the Dawes Act of 1887 and the
Curtis Act of 1889. Though many Osage tribal members opposed privatization of their lands,
Congress passed the Osage Allotment Act in 1906 (Bailey 2004:138).

Öiven this history, it becomes sufficiently clear why the Osage placed inverted flags on poles
wedged into the rock caim burials of their chiefs (Figure 6). This custom began as early as
1832, the year Washington Irving visited several Osage villages (Mathews 1961:591, 630-631).
Two prominent leaders of this tribe, White Hair and Traveling Rain, had met years earlier with
President Jefferson, who, as a sign of good faith, gave them peace medals bearing his image.
They also received, according to Mathews (1961:630-631), "general's dress tunics and flags
and hats." Mathews goes on to say, however, that "the flags, they ordered, must be placed on
their graves, upside down" (1961:631). Irving observed the burial of White Hair on October 4,
1832 (Mathews 1961:591). And true to the wishes of this Osage chief, his grave was decorated
with an inverted flag. Concerning this custom, Mathews (1961:591) simply remarks that "this is
the manner in which they were placed on the cairns of the chiefs," yet he does not suggest that
inverted flags symbolized the death of a given leader. The reader should recall, though, that
only seven years prior to the death of White Hair, the Osage had been forced to cede virtually
all their lands in Missouri and northern Arkansas and Oklahoma. It becomes equally clear why
an inverted flag was placed on the roof of an Iloshka lodge. Many of the participants shown in
Figure 3 could remember their forced move to Oklahoma Territory. In each case inverted flags
reflected disapproval of the governmental policies that so adversely impacted the Osage,
especially full bloods and traditionalists. While other forms of protest, such as armed conflict,
would have proven pointless, use of American flags in an inverted position was a safe way to
express the bitterness some tribal members felt over their mistreatment. Whites of the day,
however, would not recognize this behavior as a sign of protest and contempt on behalf of the
Indians. They would simply consider such gestures a mistake, something soon forgotten.

The gauntlet mentioned earlier with two inverted flags on poles projecting upward from the back
of a horse or mule (Figure 4) is designated as Crow. On stylistic criteria alone this attribution
can be challenged. Crow artisans of the nineteenth century rarely employed naturalistic motifs in
their beadwork (Logan and Schmittou 1998). And when they did the figures depicted were floral
images, not those of animals. Zoomorphic designs were quite popular, however, among tribes in
the Plateau culture area (Duncan 1998).
There are also historical reasons to question this attribution. The Crow, of course, aligned
themselves with the U.S. Army. Because many Crow warriors served as military scouts for the
Seventh Cavalry, as well as other units, this tribe received very favorable treatment from the
federal government (Viola 1999:105-132). Consequently, the Crow simply had no reason to
incorporate flags into their art and rituals.3 This was certainly not the case for neighboring
tribes, such as the Lakota and Cheyenne, who were repeatedly attacked by U.S. forces. The
Nez Perce, former allies of the Crow, also experienced the wrath of the government and its
brutal campaign to subordinate and control indigenous peoples.

Under the leadership of Joseph and other "nontreaty" chiefs, several Nez Perce bands sought
sanctuary, first in Montana and then, ultimately, in Canada. By doing so, they hoped to end,
once and for all, the harsh mistreatment they had endured in eastern Oregon and Idaho. In
1877 the beleaguered Nez Perce embarked on an arduous march through Idaho and the
western sections of Wyoming and Montana in a desperate attempt to reach Canada. The
hardships that mey endured were many and severe. Throughout their 1,700 mile retreat they
were pursued by some 2,000 soldiers under the command of Öeneral Oliver Otis Howard. Luck
finally ran out for the Nez Perce on October 5, 1877, when Joseph was forced to surrender.
Sadly, they were only 40 miles south of the Canadian border. Many who participated in this ill-
fated journey were later arrested and shipped to Indian Territory where they were detained for
years as prisoners of war. It was not until 1885 that those held in Oklahoma gained permission
to return to the Northwest (Josephy 1997:641-642).4

In retrospect, it should now be evident that the woman who beaded the pair of gauntlets with
inverted flags was not, in all probability, a Crow. Öiven the tragic history of the "nontreaty" Nez
Perce, it seems much more likely that this now unknown artist was in fact a member of that
tribal division. Members of this faction had every reason to show disrespect for the national
banner. The decision of this skilled artisan to bead the flags upside down thus becomes quite
understandable. Again, inversion served as a "hidden" symbol of resistance and displeasure.

A final clue regarding the provenience of this beaded gauntlet should be noted. If the animal
depicted is not a horse but actually a mule, a possibility suggested by the size of the animal's
ears, then the woman who crafted this piece may well have used that anatomical detail to
commemorate an event that caused deep embarrassment, as well as a significant tactical
setback, for Öeneral Howard and his men. Then only a day's march behind the fleeing Nez
Perce, Howard made camp at Camas Prairie, in eastern Idaho Territory, on August 19, 1877.
The Nez Perce had spent the previous night there and Black Hair, a wounded man, received a
strong vision, one that foretold the capture of many Army horses. After learning of the proximity
of Howard's force, a raiding party of twenty-eight men, led by Ollokot, Joseph's younger brother,
followed the trail back to Howard's camp and, shortly before daybreak, drove off some 200
mules (Josephy 1997:594-596). Initially, the Nez Perce were bitterly disappointed at their failure
to unseat Howard's cavalry. But, as Capps observes, "The Nez Perces gained three days on
Howard while his troops scoured the local settlements to replace their lost mules" (Capps
1975:180).

The animals adorning this pair of beaded gloves served as a mnemonic for this fleeting victory
when the Nez Perces stole 200 mules the Army needed to carry supplies. This beadworker also
inverted the flags that projected upward from the mule's back. Her decision to do so arose from
her people's universal abhorrence of the 2,000 soldiers and their Indian auxiliaries who
doggedly pursued the Nez Perce on their frantic flight to gain freedom.
Similar sentiments were most likely held by the woman who beaded the moccasins seen in
Figure 7. Although Lessard attributes this pair to the Lakota, with a date of ca. 1917, we are
convinced that these moccasins were made in the late nineteenth century, not by a Lakota
artisan, but a Cheyenne (see Kostelnik 2005 for an overview of traits characteristic of Cheyenne
moccasins). The American flags are shown at half-staff, a universal sign of mourning among
whites. It should be noted, however, that each flag is not attached to a pole, but to a sacred
pipe-a symbol of peace as well as war among Plains Indians. Moreover, when the person who
wore these moccasins looked at the flags they would appear in an inverted position, which, we
feel, was the intended goal of the artist who beaded them. Lessard (1989) expressed exactly
the same point in his handwritten notes for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
(appraisal records, accession no. 1191). The flags were intentionally inverted. In doing so, this
woman could safely express her utmost displeasure with U.S. policies that so adversely affected
the Cheyenne and their allies, the Lakota. A solid-beaded vest with precisely the same stylistic
treatment of the flag on a pipe appears in Pohrt's (1975:145) pioneering book on American
Indians and American flags.

Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn was a pivotal event in the history of Indian-white relations in
the Öreat Plains. Red Horse, who was a combatant, created a diverse array of colored drawings
of events and scenes he witnessed at the battlefield site. In one composition this Lakota artist
drew a number of dead or wounded soldiers, and four of the victims were shown either holding,
or lying next to, an American flag (Figure 8). In each case the flag is inverted.

A similar scene was also etched onto a piece of brass kettle (Figure 9) recently found by a
private landowner whose property parallels the Little Bighorn River, precisely where Sitting
Bull's camp was located on June 25, 1876. The scene created by this anonymous artist shows
two soldiers on horseback being chased by Indian warriors, and one of the troopers is carrying
an American flag. It, too, is inverted (Scott, et al. 1997).

It is not known whether or not members of the doomed Seventh Cavalry deployed flags in this
manner. The literature on Custer and this historic event contains, as far as we can tell, no
description of flags being inverted either before or during the battle. We asked Douglas D. Scott,
a Park Service archaeologist, who has long conducted field research at the battlefield, if he
knew of any source documenting the use of inverted flags at the Little Bighorn. Scott replied that
he was not aware of any reports confirming this practice. He also added that "This seems
unlikely in a combat situation." He went on to say that "the Indians knew what a flag or guidon
looked like" and portraying it in an inverted position "was a way to show some disrespect toward
the army and government. I imagine that such depictions are a statement of dissatisfaction with
U.S. policy" (Douglas Scott, personal communication 2003).

We concur totally with Scott's assessment. The credibility of his remarks is certainly elevated
when one considers the following point. The literature on the battle of the Little Bighorn is vast.
Yet no one who participated in the battle, or inspected its aftermath, made reference to use of
inverted flags by members of the Seventh Cavalry. The literature, despite its size, is silent on
this issue. Plains Indian art dating to the 1880s and 1890s, however, is far from being silent. It
speaks volumes about the currency of portraying flags upside down. And the visual evidence is
indisputable.

For Lakota and Cheyenne artists of this day, there may have been a second reason for inverting
the American flag. All Indians who fought Custer and his troops were undoubtedly aware of
Sitting Bull's vision that foretold of an encounter with U.S. troops and the great victory the
Indians would enjoy. This Lakota holy man had seen soldiers falling head first from the sky and
their bodies crashing into a large Indian camp. All who heard of this vision knew they would
resoundingly defeat their enemy. They did not know exactly where or when, but the Indians
knew the outcome with certainty (DeMallie 1993).

We have seen several solid-beaded vests of Lakota origin where the artist conjoined an inverted
flag to the top of a tipi adorning each front half of the vest. We have also obtained a copy of a
photograph (Figure 1 0) from the National Anthropological Archives that shows a Lakota boy
wearing a vest with inverted flags attached to sacred pipes. The juxtaposition of these design
elements (tipis, pipes, and inverted flags) would certainly have been an effective way to recall
the imagery of Sitting Bull's vision, as well as the outcome of the battle itself, without conveying
anything about these events to white Americans during the 1890s.

Two days prior to Custer's annihilating defeat, Arikara scouts serving with the Seventh Cavalry
arrived at an abandoned Lakota campsite. "Inside a sweat lodge," notes McCoy (2000:173),
"they discovered a picture drawn on a ridge of smoothed sand: a line of hoof prints on one side,
Lakotas arrayed on the other, and soldiers lying between with their heads pointing towards the
warriors .... That drawing represented Sitting Bull's vision of soldiers falling into a Lakota camp
head first-or, as anyone fluent in the standard warrior art lexicon knew, out of control, helpless,
dead." McCoy (2000:173) further states, and we certainly concur, "However ambiguous these
messages may seem to us today, the intended audience readily grasped their essential
meaning." This was undoubtedly true for inverted flags as well, especially when associated with
tipis or pipes.

The appearance of flags and other federalist symbols in nineteenth century Native American art
is certainly paradoxical given the brutal mistreatment of indigenous peoples by the U.S.
government. This custom arose at the height of interethnic tension between Indian Nations and
the United States. It was but one strategy among many that the Lakota, Cheyenne, and other
tribes employed as they attempted to navigate through the powerful and dangerous currents of
racism that swept across the High Plains during this time. The depth of such racial hatred is
painfully seen in the published remarks of L. Frank Baum, who served as the editor of the
Aberdeen, South Dakota newspaper in 1890. Baum, while reflecting about the assassination of
Sitting Bull on December 14, advanced the following justification for the outright extermination of
all Plains Indians:

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies . . . lingered last in the bosom of
Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished . . . The Whites, by law of
conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of
the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.
Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that
they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are (Venables 1990:37).

Two weeks later, following the massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29, Baum renewed
his advocacy for the "total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries,"
he concluded, "we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong
and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth" (Venables
1990:37). Ironically, this staunch racist would later pen the beloved children's book, The Wizard
of Oz.

In an era when genocide was openly and publicly advocated, many Plains Indians adopted the
flag as a strategy for survival. As Howard Bad Hand (1993:12), a contemporary Lakota
observes, "History shows that a conquered people will adopt something, a symbol or some
material representation from their captors to maintain a sense of being or identity that helps
them survive." The symbol, in this case, was, of course, the American flag. But what value did
this symbol convey to Plains Indians in the late 1800s?

The answer, we feel, lies in what, at first glance, appears to be an unlikely source, a book about
inequities associated with slavery, serfdom, and caste organization. The author, James C. Scott
(1990), who is a political scientist, makes no reference to American Indians, but his work on
institutionalized forms of supremacy and subordination offers a theoretical perspective that is
highly germane to the subject explored here. Scott (1990:xii), in a very persuasive analysis,
observes that "Every subordinate group creates, out of its ordeal, a 'hidden transcript' that
represents a critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant." Scott then adds that
"short of actual rebellion, powerless groups have . . . a self-interest in conspiring to reinforce
hegemonic appearances." Moreover, "the greater the disparity in power between dominant and
subordinate and the more arbitrarily it is exercised, the more the public transcript of
subordinates will take on a stereotyped, ritualistic cast. In other words, the more menacing the
power, the thicker the mask" (Scott 1990:3).

Flags became an integral component of the "mask" created and sustained by nineteenth
century Plains Indians, especially the Lakota. No other image symbolized more clearly the
hegemonic policies and practices of the U.S. government than the American flag. It was part of
the Indians' "public transcript." And whites of the day who read this transcript would likely
conclude, as others in positions of power have, "that subordinate groups endorse the terms of
their subordination and are willing, even enthusiastic, partners in that subordination" (Scott
1990:4). Herein lies, for native peoples, the value of flags. Through copious displays of this
image in their ethnic arts, as well as through use of actual flags during parades, powwows, and
other public events witnessed by whites, the Lakota and Cheyenne hoped to forestall, or more
so eliminate, additional persecution by the U.S. military. This was a salient feature within the
Indians' "public transcript," which was created, of course, for those holding power.

This was no doubt central to Red Cloud's decision, as an elderly man, to copiously display
American flags, as well as drawings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, in his log home, as shown in
Figure 11. Red Cloud, who was generally regarded as the mastermind behind the Powder River
War of the 1860s, where the victorious Lakota forced the U.S. Army to close the Bozeman Trail
and to abandon the forts along this roadway, had been reduced, by the early 1890s, to a life of
accommodationist pleas for more humane treatment for himself, his family, and all members of
his tribe. It should be noted here that the photograph of Red Cloud's bedroom, wherein at least
Ave flags had been attached to the interior walls, was taken, according to Katherine Wyatt of the
Nebraska State Historical Society (personal communication 2005), sometime during the spring
of 1891, just a few months after the assassination of Sitting Bull and the slaughter at Wounded
Knee.5

In raising this point, it should be understood that we do not challenge Red Cloud's heartfelt
conviction that an accommodationist stance was in the best strategic interest of the Lakota
people, nor do we question the sincerity of his conversion to Catholicism. However, given the
historical con- text in which this photograph was taken, it is equally clear that significant political
capital could be gained by Red Cloud or any Lakota, for that matter, from the prominent display
of flags and objects bearing flag imagery. Consequently, flags became an increasingly important
aspect of the Lakotas' public transcript, one that was featured in a variety of settings for all area
whites to see.
With respect to this practice, William K. Powers (1996:11) has noted that many Lakotas ofthat
era appeared publicly "literally wrapped in flags, something their white counterparts could never
have done without some sense of patriotic guilt." A vivid case in point is a photograph of an
elderly Red Cloud posing with his wife. This legendary warrior is wearing an American flag as if
it were a shawl needed for warmth (Figure 12). His motives for doing so, however, ranged far
beyond the realm of physical comfort. Rather, his conspicuous display of the flag was a
politically motivated gesture, one intended for public view by whites holding administrative
authority over the Lakotas. It was a plea to allow him, his family, and all his people to live in
peace.

When flags were inverted, however, the gesture became part of the "hidden transcript," which
takes place "offstage" beyond the attentive scope of nearby powerholders. As Scott (1990:4-5)
points out, such offstage events were frequently initiated to contradict something in the group's
public transcript. And the audience for such reversals was restricted exclusively to those without
power. In other words, the performance was for the Indians themselves. Inversion of the
American flag was an effective and safe way of expressing the contempt that arose among
Plains Indians as a result of white-imposed subordination during the closing decades of the
nineteenth century. Yet, at the same time, a hidden transcript authorizes a "false impression of
compliance and subordination" . . . (Öreenhouse 2005:358). In other words, there is an inherent
duality of meaning within a hidden transcript.

A clear example of this appears in a beaded panel on a Lakota pipe bag dating to the 1890s
(Figure 13). Pictured is a school house with an inverted American flag on its roof. In the caption
appearing next to the photograph of this specimen, Lois Sherr Dubin (1999:557) remarks that
this distinctive composition "may suggest the Lakota's perspective of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs school programs, which their children were forced to attend." Dubin's assessment of the
inverted flag is undoubtedly correct. Indians hated the boarding-school experience, and one
parent found an effective means of signaling her displeasure with forced schooling when she
beaded this pipe bag. While her message was certainly understood by other tribal members, it
remained opaque to any and all whites who viewed this piece when used or displayed by a
Lakota man in some type of public event. The message, in short, was hidden from those in
power, who would invariably judge the presence of the flag on this specimen as a sign of the
Indians' compliance and subordination. Some would also conclude that inversion of the flag
simply reflected the backwardness and inferiority of Native Americans.

The literature contains a wealth of other examples where Indian peoples employed one means
or another to conceal from whites a message they openly shared among themselves. A
particularly interesting case involves a handwritten note that was inscribed onto a pencil and
paper drawing created by White Bear (Cheyenne) and Elk Head (Öros Ventre) while detained in
the 1880s at the Montana Territorial Penitentiary in Deer Lodge (see Chronister 1998:34-35).
The drawing (Figure 14) depicts more than a dozen Indian warriors engaged in armed combat.
The person who obtained this drawing was most likely someone of authority, perhaps me
warden or a jailor. The note, which appears in the lower left corner of the drawing, identifies the
combatants as Cheyenne and Comanche Indians. It also gives an approximate date for the
battle-the 1830s. Allen Chronister, in his intriguing analysis of mis drawing, rightfully concludes
that a number of discrepancies exist between the written caption and the drawing's content. The
defeated warriors are clearly not Comanches. They are Crows or possibly Arikaras (see Öreene
2006:84). The date assigned to this victorious battle for the Cheyennes is also in error-by some
40 years. It seems highly probable that "White Bear drew a fight for which the Cheyennes still
may have feared official retribution.. . . White Bear or his companions may have used a
description of a legendary, fifty-year-old battle with the Comanches to conceal the true identity
of a fight with Crow scouts for the army" (Chronister 1998:41).6 "In other drawings of the
period," Chronister (1998:41) notes, "Cheyennes 'dressed up' white soldiers or civilians widi
Indian clothing to conceal the victims' identity." Their motive, of course, was to use deception as
a strategy for avoiding persecution. These artists of the past were certainly aware of the political
gains that could be made by revising certain events in their tribe's history of conflicts with
whites.

For Native Americans today, an inverted flag conveys a message virtually unchanged from that
of the past. It is a sign of protest, an expression of discontent. Interestingly, though, its use is no
longer part of the Indians' hidden transcript. The intended audience has also changed. Inverted
flags are now part of the public transcript of Indian activists who openly confront institutions and
individuals having governing power over Indian affairs. Regardless of the setting-Alcatraz
Island, Wounded Knee, or the offices of the BIA-the sentiments associated with inverted flags
remain consistent with those held by their tribal kin in the past. Telling evidence that this is
indeed the case can be seen on a web site for the Brule Lakota. Pictured on one page is the
image of an inverted American flag. Appearing below the banner is "1851 Fort Laramie Treaty"
and "1868 Fort Laramie Treaty." Typed into the white horizontal stripes of the flag, the following
message is conveyed: "This piece of _____ stole my country" (Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human
Rights Advocacy Coalition 2007). There is certainly nothing hidden about this message or its
intent.

It must be emphasized here, however, that thousands of Native American men and women
have served valiantly in the U.S. Armed Forces from WWI to the present day (see Barsh 1991;
Bernstein 1991:35, 40-63; Hale 1992; Holm 1981, 1986). Flags appearing in the beaded and
quilled art made by or for these individuals commemorate their courageous service to our
country. Depiction of the national banner, in these many instances, was certainly not a protest.
Rather, it signified honor and their willingness to sacrifice all to protect our freedom. Today flags
are an analog to the eagle feathers formerly worn by warriors to commemorate their war
exploits. For contemporary Native Americans the national banner represents the ongoing
warrior tradition.

Cultural expressions of groups that have endured a long history of domination share something
in common, irrespective of time or place. "Their members," Scott (1990:157) notes, "select
those songs, tales, dances, texts, and rituals that they choose to emphasize, they adopt them
for their own use, and they of course create new cultural practices and artifacts to meet their felt
needs."7 The borrowing of the American flag by American Indians during the nineteenth century
was a significant cultural innovation. So, too, was the custom of displaying or depicting it upside
down. These new cultural practices were products of hegemonic subordination and each should
be viewed through the lens of public and hidden transcripts then current among Indians and
whites. Moreover, when one considers these innovations related to flags, it must be
remembered that whatever survives and flourishes in the culture of subordinated peoples "is
largely dependent on what they decide to accept and transmit" (Scott 1990:157).

It is clear that an increasing number of artisans in the late 1800s decided to incorporate flags
into their material expressions of tribal ethnicity. Undoubtedly, the reasons underlying these
decisions were both diverse and complex. Yet one thing remains certain. Inversion of the
American flag, whether seen in beaded art, ledger drawings, or historic photographs, was a
purposeful decision made by many individuals who had to cope with the stark realities of
reservation life. By placing the national banner upside down they created a masterfully
deceptive transcript, one well known to themselves but one also hidden from white
powerholders of the day. It was literally an art of deception.
p

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