Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 2 100 curate clothing representing each of Montana's sev- en Native American Reservations. Lyle said he had to seek out and rely on the guid- ance of his American Indian friends to ensure he depicted each bust with as much culturally accurate precision as possible. "I had some Northern Cheyenne friends and they said, 'Will you do the Dog Soldier, because that is the highest society of warriors among the Northern Cheyenne," he explained. "So, I did the Dog Soldier." Lyle patterned the warrior's face after a Northern Cheyenne man he knew. "He was about six-foot-two and was a very intim- idating-looking person," he laughed. "I did it out of memory—not actually seeing him, but just of my memory of him." The sculptor chose Cree leader Chief Little Bear to represent the Rocky Boy Reservation. "He's got such an intense expression on his face," Lyle noted. "I was even able to meet his relatives from northern Canada and they gave me a Cree name that means 'Big Brother.'" Approximately half of the seven busts were based off of men Lyle knew. He relied on historic photo- graphs for the rest. Creating accurate representations of the warriors' traditional clothing was also paramount. "Certain tribes have certain characteristics and there has also been a lot of cross-culture, so it was a challenge to get everything as authentic as possible," Lyle said. "Like the straight-up headdress? Only the Piegans or Blackfeet wore that particular headdress." When it came to sculpting the life-size soldier that would become the crow ning element of the sculpture, Lyle fittingly turned to Dave for guidance. "When I first started it, I had Dave come to cri- tique the piece and at the time, I had just straight- cut leather fringes," Lyle recalled. "He's walking around the piece and he's not saying anything and I could see it wasn't meeting his expectations." The sculptor pushed his friend for feedback, but Dave continued to wordlessly study his likeness with a discerning eye until he pinpointed its greatest flaw. "It looks too white-man," he said, according to Lyle. "And I said, 'Okay! Now we're getting somewhere!'" Dave explained that his people "never made a straight cut" because doing so would waste leather. "You followed the line of the hides," he said, ac- cording to Lyle. The sculptor incorporated that knowledge into the life-size piece. "If you look at those pieces, there's no straight cuts on there. The legs come down from the hide," he said before motioning to a gap in the animal hide on the soldier's outer thigh. "Here, the leathers don't quite come together, so you've got bare skin underneath and that was quite common." "I STARTED READING LETTERS FROM SOLDIERS FROM VIETNAM," HE SAID, HIS VOICE LOSING ITS STEADY CONFIDENCE... "AND WHAT JUST KEPT COMING TO ME WAS 'NO MAN LEFT BEHIND... NO MAN LEFT BEHIND."

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