Old Arapaho Story-Teller

The storyteller played an important part in Arapaho culture. It was his function to pass down the lore and legends of the tribe from one generation to the next. As there were no written legends, this was the only way stories lived on. Mike Brown was a storyteller. A full-blooded Arapaho, Mike converted to Catholicism (hence his Christian name) and lived at the St. Stephen's Catholic Mission for Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. At the time of this painting, he was in his early eighties.