Nanye'hi (19in. x 13in.)

Limited-edition high detail print. After 100 prints this will no longer be sold.
 
A depiction of the Cherokee woman, Nanye'hi (ᎾᏅᏰᎯ; c.1738-c.1822), a member of the Wolf Clan of the Old Cherokee Nation. She was granted the title of ‘Ghigau’ (ᎩᎦᎤ; ‘Beloved Woman’) and made a voting member of the Cherokee General Council for her actions in the Battle of Taliwa (1755) where her first husband Tsu’la (Kingfisher) was killed. She was also named the leader of the Women's Council of Clan Representatives, which authorized her to become an ambassador and negotiator on behalf of her people.

I originally painted this for my wife for our 10th wedding anniversary (my wife is a descendant of hers by her first marriage to Tsu’la through their daughter Ka’ti). No known portraits of Nanye’hi exist (only some brief descriptions), so I took artistic liberties with how she is portrayed.
 
This was started as an oil painting, but I ended up wanting to make a larger painting and add more fine detail that wouldn't have been feasible with the original, so I digitized it and finished it as a digital painting (you can still see some of the original canvas texture in the face). The full size of the primary painting is 16,200 pixels by 12,150 pixels. The color and design of the blanket wrapped around her reflects the western and eastern Cherokee bands' flags. The seven-pointed star is slightly turned in relation to its bordering stripes so that it can be seen as either group's emblem (Nanye'hi was born in and lived in the Cherokee people's original eastern lands before the Trail of Tears, but her descendants' line that led to my wife were forced west on the trail). In the black band that makes up the star are her title and name in written Cherokee (ᎩᎦᎤ and ᎾᏅᏰᎯ respectively). The wolf represents the clan she belonged to. She was described as having tattoos along the length of her left arm, but the only description of their nature that I could find was a statement by Nanye'hi when she was older saying that they were "fashionable designs" during her younger days. The tattoos I incorporated are reflective of motifs described by historians donned by Cherokee peoples during the 1700s, but are not necessarily true representations of actual Cherokee body art.