Lapowinsa and Tishcohan

Two Delaware Chiefs with Undressed Hair Painted by Gustavus Hesselius

Lapowinsa by Gustavus Hesselius
Courtesy of the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia

Tishcohan by Gustavus Hesselius
Courtesy of the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia

Examining the paintings of the two Delaware Chieftains provided and discussed here, Lapowinsa looks part Irish and mostly Amerindian and Tishcohan looks to be all or mostly Irish. As for skin tone, these men merely have a tan, and proof that Hesselius worked as a realist can be seen by viewing his monstrous self-portrait further down the page. The fact that these chiefs have uncropped and undressed hair is strange, unless one considers that they were treaty chiefs, not war chiefs and that the hair style depicted is that of young English colonists not yet wearing a wig do to male pattern baldness, which did not much afflict natives. The shoulder-length hair tied at the nape was the English and Dutch style at this time in North America.

The dressed and cropped hair of Eastern Woodland Indians warriors served as a ready-made war trophy, marking these tribes as far more violent than the Western tribes of the long hair beyond the Mississippi.

Why did they adopt this contemporary Euro-American hairstyle?

Was it due to their participation in the peace treaty?

Had they renounced war and devoted themselves to peace?

Was it at the request of the painter or of the patron, Mister Penn?

Was it an attempt to assimilate with the German Quakers and their Gaelic slaves?

In any case, the wearing of cloth rather than skins marks these men as partially assimilated just as their pipe and pouches mark them as still holding to their ancient traditions. Tishcohan looks almost exactly like a coworker of mine from two decades ago named Jimmy Ritz, down to the tan. It is of further interest that the younger Tishcohan shows predominantly Caucasian parentage in his features while the elder chief is obviously at least half native, with darker skin, though light compared to Western Indians.

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(c) 2018 James LaFond