The Medicine Man (Slow Bull), Oglala Lakota (c. 1907 CE)

The Medicine Man (Slow Bull) is a compelling photogravure by Edward S. Curtis, presenting Slow Bull—an Oglala Lakota medicine man and warrior—with striking dignity and stillness. In this full-length portrait, he faces forward, holding a sacred pipe, while a buffalo skull rests at his feet. Together, these elements turn the image into far more than a formal likeness. They place him within a spiritual world in which prayer, power, and communal responsibility were deeply intertwined, offering a glimpse of Lakota tradition at a moment of immense historical pressure.

From Warrior to Holy Man

The image comes from Edward S. Curtis’s larger effort to document Native American life in The North American Indian, the ambitious project that occupied decades of his career. Photographed in 1907 and later issued as a photogravure, it portrays Slow Bull, or Tatanka-hunkeshni, who was born in 1844 and lived through one of the most turbulent periods in Lakota history. The Oglala Lakota, part of the Sioux nation, had become powerful equestrian people of the Plains after westward migration and the adoption of horse culture, but the nineteenth century brought repeated war, broken treaties, and forced confinement. Slow Bull’s lifetime spanned the years of Red Cloud’s War, the victory at the Little Bighorn, the theft of the Black Hills after the gold rush, and the devastation of Wounded Knee. Like many Lakota leaders, he moved between two worlds: the earlier life of buffalo hunting, warfare, and mobility, and the later reservation era shaped by loss, surveillance, and colonial control. He first earned renown as a warrior, fighting in dozens of intertribal conflicts, before later becoming known as a medicine man and subchief, a figure of healing and spiritual authority as much as of personal bravery.

Vision, Bravery, and Reputation

Stories about Slow Bull help explain the force of his presence in the portrait. One account recalls that, at only seventeen, he captured 170 horses from the Crow in a daring raid, a feat that would have marked him immediately as a man of exceptional courage and skill. Another detail gives his life a different kind of depth: unlike many holy men who sought visions through deliberate fasting and isolation, Slow Bull is said to have received his spiritual calling unexpectedly, through a dream of a buffalo while resting on a hill during a war expedition. That dream redirected his life, shifting him from the path of combat toward that of spiritual service. Even in battle, his reputation reflected Lakota values that prized daring and mastery as much as killing. In one fight he earned distinction not by taking a life, but by unhorsing an enemy and striking him with his bow, an act closer to the Lakota ideal of counting coup than to simple destruction. These stories make clear that his authority was not abstract. It had been earned through action, vision, and recognition within his community.

The Pipe, the Skull, and Lakota Meaning

Within Lakota culture, the portrait carries strong symbolic weight. A medicine man, or wicasa wakan, was not only a healer but a mediator between the visible and invisible worlds, someone who interpreted visions, guided ceremony, and helped maintain balance between people, spirit, and land. The sacred pipe in Slow Bull’s hand points directly to that role. In Lakota belief, the chanunpa is not merely an object but a living ceremonial instrument, associated with prayer, kinship, and the unity of creation, traditionally linked to the gift of White Buffalo Calf Woman. The buffalo skull at his feet deepens the image further. For the Lakota, the buffalo was not simply a source of food and materials, but a being bound to life, continuity, and sacred power. In that sense, the photograph stages a whole cosmology in visual form: the holy man, the pipe, and the buffalo together suggest a world ordered through relationship and reverence. Curtis’s image, though shaped by his own romantic sensibility, still preserves something essential about Lakota spirituality—the sense that strength was never only physical, but moral, ceremonial, and communal.

Print, Tone, and Presence

The work is a photogravure, a photomechanical process prized for its richness and tonal depth, especially in Curtis’s published portfolios. That medium suits the portrait well, giving weight to the textures of clothing, the contours of Slow Bull’s body, and the solemn clarity of the sacred objects beside him. Exact dimensions for this particular print are not recorded, though Curtis’s photogravures from this period were often produced in formats around 30 by 40 centimeters, with some variation by edition. The process gives the image a quiet gravity. Rather than feeling like a casual photograph, it feels composed, dense, and almost ceremonial in itself.

From Curtis’s Portfolio to the Archive

The photogravure began as part of Curtis’s early twentieth-century effort to gather and publish images of Native American life for collectors, institutions, and subscribers. Like many works from The North American Indian, it was issued in limited form and later entered major research collections. Today it is preserved in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. There it remains not only as an example of Curtis’s artistry, but as a lasting record of a Lakota man whose life bridged war leadership, spiritual calling, and survival through one of the hardest eras in Plains history.