This photograph by the Canadian photographer Harry Pollard (1880-1968) captures an early moment in the medicine pipe ritual; the pipe bundle has been opened, revealing the sacred pipestems, birdskins, paint-bags and other objects. The bundle keeper sits to one side, a feather decorating his hairdo. At the age of eighteen, Pollard left his home in Tillsonburg, Ontario and sought his fortune in the rapidly developing West. He met the famous artist Charles Russell (see illustration 1) who convinced him to record photographically the changing West for posterity.
