My Life Among the Indians

George Catlin was a fascinating figure of the nineteenth century, an artist-explorer who ventured deep into the wilds of the newly discovered Americas to paint the rapidly vanishing indigenous populations, their leaders, warriors, medicine men and scenes from their modes of life. Many of the unique gifts Catlin received over the years from these remote peoples formed the basis for a vast, important collection which Catlin loaned to the world’s biggest museums, together with his portraits. My Life Among the Indians is an eye-opening account of the adventurer’s fearless travels into what is now a lost world, at a time when there were no cameras to record history, just a pencil and paintbrush. Because of the stunning, life-like likenesses Catlin created, the awed tribes dubbed him ‘Te-hee-pe-nee Washed’ which means ‘The Great White Medicine.’ This new 2017 digital edition of My Life Among the Indians includes many examples of Catlin’s artwork.