CHARLES M. RUSSELL

The Chaperone, 1897. Charles M. Russell.
Watercolor, 19 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches. Charles M. Russell Museum, Anonymous Gift.

In Blackfeet social life, the parents of a girl were anxious for her to marry well. While young men enjoyed a degree of freedom, the unmarried women were expected to remain close to home. Young men would often single out an unmarried woman and lie in wait for her, either outside her tipi at night or along the paths to water and wood-gathering places to force her attention, as Russell shows here. (Text courtesy of Rick Stewart, Ph.D., and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art)