Digging In at Sappa Creek by western artist Howard Terpning

Digging In at Sappa Creek by Howard Terpning.

 

Cheyenne men and women wanting only to go home, frantically dig rifle pits with belt axes, butcher knives and whatever else they can find as cavalry and white buffalo hunters approach on bushlined Sappa Creek in northwestern Kansas....

"Sappa beans black," the artist says. "I was out at the exact spot where this took place. It is symbolic to me of all the fights between the Cheyenne people and the cavalry. This painting is dedicated to the Cheyenne people for their courage and strength and their belief that they had the right to live in a country where their ancestors were buried." (The Art of Howard Terpning - Elmer Kelton).

 

Print released 1991.