Friday Photo: Drying Meat

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 981-032

This Northern Cheyenne family dried meat in the traditional manner. They sliced it thin, salted it, and hung it on a rack. The meat would have been carefully turned over every day so that it dried evenly. When it was ready to eat, it might have been roasted or boiled with bacon for flavor. L. A. Huffman snapped the photo in 1896.

Ghost on the Little Rosebud

Bob Ferguson was a cowboy who lived alone on a ranch on the Little Rosebud, a tributary of Rosebud Creek. He ran some cattle and seemed to prosper. In May of 1890, Ferguson disappeared. Neighbors noted that he was missing after a few weeks, and searched for him, but they found no trace of him. During the spring roundup, all the cowboys kept an eye out for him especially since he had been one of their own. Sure enough, one of them eventually came upon Ferguson’s body buried in the red shale hills near his cabin. It appeared that he had been killed by the Cheyenne. Ferguson left a sister who sold the ranch to a man named Beattie. Not long after Beattie and his wife had moved in, they began to experience a nightly rapping on the cabin door. When Beattie flung it open, no one was there. When Mrs. Beattie’s husband was away, as he sometimes traveled, she was not a timid woman and had no hesitation in opening the door. But no one was ever there, and she declared that there was something wrong with the ranch. Beattie thought perhaps someone was playing a trick on him who wanted to drive him away since this was prime ranch land. So he hung onto the ranch. His wife died and he remarried, and the second Mrs. Beattie also experienced the rapping. Finally the government bought the ranch as part of the Cheyenne Reservation. Many Cheyennes applied for this desirable land. The family that secured it moved in and immediately was plagued with the mysterious nighttime rapping. They did not stay long, nor did the next occupants, nor the next. The buildings were abandoned and crumbled back to the earth, and no one can tell where the haunted ranch used to be, or if Bob Ferguson still roams his property.

Julia Tuell

Today at noon I'll be telling stories about women homesteaders and ranchers, including Julia Tuell. It's a fundraiser for the Friends of the Historical Society, so bring your lunch and $5.00 to the Historical Society and join us! By the way, I posted an event calendar if you want to see what else is coming up.

Montana’s Northern Cheyennes and the Sioux of South Dakota in the early twentieth century are the subjects of Julia Tuell’s little-known photographic legacy. Through her camera lens, Tuell recorded details she must have known would someday be valued. She was sixteen in 1901 when she married forty-three-year-old teacher P. V. Tuell. The couple headed west, where P. V. had a job teaching Indian children.

Julia Tuell photographing tipi ribs. At the time this photo was taken, she was three weeks short of delivering her third child.
Photo from Women and Warriors of the Plains by Dan Aadland

By 1906, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation at Lame Deer, Tuell had begun collecting images of the Plains Indians at a time of agonizing change when traditional skills were still part of reservation life. With her own small children in tow, Tuell captured intimate details: women scraping hides, dogs hitched to travois, chiefs in full regalia, and children at play.

Tuell hand colored this photo of Northern Cheyenne children.
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming

Later, on the Sioux reservations of South Dakota, Tuell continued her photographic journal in a Model T, her camera on the seat. Her photographs parallel those of Evelyn Cameron, who so beautifully documented eastern Montana homesteading. But Tuell’s images capture a different perspective of those who saw their lives turned upside down with the tilling of the prairie sod. Her work is a pictorial tribute to the people of the plains. You can find Tuell’s poignant photographs in Dan Aadland’s book, Women and Warriors of the Plains.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go