North American Indians: Letters and Notes on the Manners

First published in 1841, this work presents George Catlin's letters and notes from his travels in the 1830s among Native nations of the Plains and upper Missouri. He describes lodges, dress, hunts, councils, games, and ceremonies as he painted portraits and scenes, and he records meetings with Mandan, Blackfoot, Comanche, and other peoples. The stance is that of a visiting artist arguing that these manners should be recorded before they vanished under settlement and disease. The book is ethnographic travel narrative with pictures in mind, not a novel.

Bound in tan cloth with blue stripes and Indian head-dress design in shades of brown. Color map endpapers. Brown slipcase.