The Buffalo Chase

In the mural, The Buffalo Chase, by Zia Pueblo artist Velino Herrera, two hunters, described by Herrera as “the arrow man and the spear man in action,” chase a herd of buffalo. Two of the buffalo have broken away and appear to charge toward the viewer. The arrow man rides alongside them and has just released an arrow from his bow. The spear man on his white horse follows the rest of the herd and thrusts a spear toward one of the bison. The artist provides a mere suggestion of the setting by placing tufts of grass under the hooves of the running buffalo and horses and by including a cactus in the lower right corner. On the other side of a doorway, to the right of the main composition, Herrera includes a third hunter who rides in to join the hunt on a rearing horse. 

Velino Shije Herrera, also known as Ma Pe Wi, was commissioned in 1939 to create a series of murals at the new Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. He was one of four Native American artists who painted 2,200 feet of murals for the eighth-floor penthouse, which served as the employee lounge. While Herrera painted the north corridor, Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo covered the south corridor. In the main room, the walls were divided between Chiricahua Apache artist Allan Houser and Navajo painter Gerald Nailor. The Secretary of the Interior at the time, Harold Ickes, insisted on commissioning artworks by Native American artists. Because of this mandate, the Section of Fine Arts invited Crumbo, Herrera, Houser, and Nailor to participate in the penthouse project and commissioned two Kiowa artists, James Auchiah and Stephen Mopope, to paint murals for the cafeteria.