File:Library of Congress Keystone Portrait Lakota Che-ta-wau-kou-va-ma-ni, "The Hawk That Hunts Walking" or Lakota Chief Ito-na-gaju, "Rain In The Face"? (Washington, DC) (292984768).jpg

One of thirty-three "ethnological" heads on the Jefferson Building by sculptors Henry Jackson Ellicott & William Boyd.

Herbert Small makes the claim in his 1901 Handbook of the new Library of Congress in Washington that "All portraiture was avoided, both as being somewhat invidious and unscientifically personal, and, more especially, because no one man can ever exemplify all the average physical characteristics of his race."

Despite the phrenological exuberance (or should I say out and out racism?) of the 19c "science" of ethnology, many--including this keystone on the north side--are based at least in part on existing photographs and sculptural portrait busts that were in the collections of the "National Museum" (now the Smithsonian) prior to 1891.

Seems high time we fully recovered the identities of all of those depicted. So who does this one depict? The original Che-ta-wau-kou-va-ma-ni plaster sculpture by Achille Colin was commissioned by the Bureau of American Ethnology. Colin also sculpted Lakota Chief Ito-na-gaju (a.k.a. Exa-ma-gozua or Rain-In-The-Face), who fought with Tatanka Iyotake (a.k.a. Sitting Bull) at the Battle of the Greasy Grass in 1876. Apparently either, or both, of these sculptures by Colin could have served as a partial source for this keystone.