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Elder Stories
Denver Horn, Artist
"I Smoked the Peace Pipe with the White Man",
1967 painting by Denver Horn Denver Horn touched on the heart of the poverty, hunger, and frustration of his people in this painting. Living on the reservation, they watched the wealth of mainstream America while they ate commodity food and dreamt of their past free lives. |
Native artist Denver Horn created hundreds of wonderful paintings in his lifetime, and he sold them to people who appreciated his Indian spiritual perspective of life. A few days before Thanksgiving Day 1967, I bought a special painting from Denver entitled "I Smoked the Peace Pipe with the White Man." He brought the picture to my office because he needed money to feed his family, and I was happy to oblige.
A copy of the painting can be found on this page. I want you to see an Indian depiction of what hunger and poverty meant and still means to the Northern Cheyenne people. As you can see, an Indian elder sits under a tree with an open box of government commodities. He gazes into the past, while at the same time, the reality of his life is what you can see in the distance -- the skyscrapers of a huge city where people are enjoying a far better life than his own.
Years later, in the early 1990s, one of Denver's white friends, whom I shall call Dave, had a massive stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak. Five years passed and Virginia, Dave's wife, continued to work, while a paid caregiver took care of Dave at home. One day, the caregiver called Virginia at work and told her to come home immediately.
It seems that Dave was in his room talking to an imaginary friend. Every so often she could hear bursts of laughter, and when she opened the door to his bedroom, Dave appeared to be gesturing with a paralyzed arm and having a happy conversation -- but nobody was in the room! Virginia hurried home and was thrilled to find her husband sitting up. "Who were you talking to Dave?" she asked the man who had not spoken a word to anyone for five years.
"Oh, Denver Horn paid me a visit. He wanted to thank me for buying his paintings over the years. He said he'll come to see me again soon." Virginia tried to ask him another question, but her husband had drifted back into his former comatose state.
That afternoon, Virginia was horrified when she heard the awful news that Denver Horn had died in a house fire about the same time that Dave had been talking to him! A couple of days later, Dave quietly passed away and Virginia drew comfort by the thought that Denver Horn, her husband's dear friend, had come for him.
