Second Lieutenant Read, Third Infantry ["The Old Guard"] and Chief of Scouts John O. Austin examine the body of hunter Ralph Morrison, who had been killed and scalped near Fort Dodge, Kansas, 7 December 1868, less than an hour before.
(Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Bureau of American Ethnology Collection)
Apparently scouts didn't always dress in rough-and-ready field gear. Chief of Scouts Austin would be quite at home in a fancy gambling parlor. Or maybe he'd been in one when he got the word that he was needed quickly. In any case, he cuts quite a dashing figure.
Now it wouldn't be that one of the pastimes of the 19th century seemed to be photographing death. Or better yet, having yourself in the picture with said dead body. Think of all the death photos of the Daltons, 'Bloody Bill' Anderson, Wes Hardin. . .countless others either
in situ or propped up on a board or on the mortician's slab. Or still dangling from the hanging tree.
Considering the photography equipment that needed to be carried around and the process, any picture like this is 'staged' in a sense. The chemicals used had to be mixed and used fresh, so it's not like it was a quick snapshot.
I can just see someone running into Fort Dodge squawking that they'd found a scalped body just over the hill, and the good people, including the local 'likeness artist', scurrying out to see it.
"Here, Lieutenant, you and , oh. . YOU!- Yes, you Sir,. . . kneel behind the body as if discovering it just now. Yes, yes! Put on the gauntlets."
Even in the Civil War neither Matthew Brady or his peers were above 'rearranging' elements, including bodies or parts of bodies, for effect.
No way of knowing what the Lt. or Scout were actually doing prior to this photo, but both of them seem a bit too fresh to have been out in the field on duty. I feel too it's convenient that the victim seems to be nicely laid out, with his head turned just so. And not looking like a pin cushion with arrows? Maybe not that particular tribe's way of doing things.
Oh well.