A TETON TIPI COVER DEPICTION OF THE SACRED PIPE MYTH.

Much of the Sioux Indians' religion, including the sacred pipe myth, was recorded on a buffalo-hide tipi. These paintings were on the inside of the tipi, although an extant model in Berlin's Royal Museum of Ethnology presents them on the outside for display purposes. The Berlin museum came into possession of the original from a French nobleman who had acquired it through a Quebec collection of artifacts captured from the Sioux. It remained in storage until 1900 when an artist-ethnographer with a description of the tipi from a Sioux medicine man discovered it in the museum's storage. Interpretations of the paintings are here presented insofar as they are understood. Some meanings are still unknown, as is the overall theory and plan of the figures. However, it is clear that they represent the theology of the Sioux in many of its aspects. It may have served to aid memorization of songs, traditions, and dances.