During the mid-19th century, George Catlin created two large collections of paintings featuring portraits of Native Americans, genre scenes, and western landscapes. The first collection, which he called his "Indian Gallery," included more than 500 works completed during the 1830s. Most of the surviving paintings from this group are now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. During the 1850s and 1860s, Catlin created a second collection, numbering more than 600 works, which he called his "Cartoon Collection." The surviving works from this collection were acquired by the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1912. Paul Mellon purchased more than 300 paintings from the Cartoon Collection when they were deaccessioned. In 1965, he gave 351 works from this collection to the National Gallery of Art.

When Catlin exhibited the Cartoon Collection in New York in 1871, he published a catalog listing all the works. The catalog entries often included additional information about the subject of each painting. Catlin's catalog entry for this painting follows.

"Cartoon No. 1. Kónza.

a. -- Sho-me-kós-se (The Wolf); head chief of the tribe, dressed in a rich costume of skins; on his Buffalo robe is curiously painted a Buffalo chase, and in his hand he holds a handsome pipe.

b. -- Wa-hón-ga-shee (No Fool).

c. -- Chesh-oo-hóng-ha (The Man of Good Sense).

d. -- Meach-o-shín-gaw (The Little White Bear); three distinguished warriors of the Konza tribe, dressed and painted for war; their heads shaved and ornamented with red crests, made of the hair of deer's tails, dyed red, and horse hair; the uniform mode of the warriors of that tribe.

e. -- Din-dée (-----); wife and child of the Chief.

The remnant of a numerous and warlike tribe, decimated by rum and whiskey and the small pox, on the Kansas river west of Missouri. Painted in 1831."