Judge — December 20, 1890 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical Judge magazine cartoon depicts **Sitting Bull** (labeled "Sitting Bull Cleveland") as a grotesque, mechanized figure—a "stuffed prophet" operated by gears and pulleys. The caricature appears designed to ridicule Native American spiritual authority and practices. The caption references the "Great Spirit," suggesting mockery of Indigenous religious beliefs. The figure's exaggerated, mechanical nature implies artificiality and fraudulence. Figures on the right appear to be other Indigenous people or shamans observing this spectacle. The cartoon likely satirizes either: - Fraudulent Native American spiritual claims circulating in the era - President Grover Cleveland's (implied by "Cleveland" in the label) Native American policies - General late-19th-century attitudes dismissing Indigenous cultures as primitive or deceptive The crude, dehumanizing caricature reflects the era's prevalent racist attitudes toward Native Americans in mainstream American humor.