Bón-són-gee, New Fire, a Band Chief

George Catlin called New Fire, a chief of the Kiowa, “a very good man” and described the ornaments hanging on his breast as a boar's tusk and a war whistle. Catlin painted this portrait at a Comanche village in 1834. (Catlin, <i>Letters and Notes</i>, vol. 2, no. 43, 1841; reprint 1973)