This uncompleted drawing clearly is related to the warrior society celebration depicted in Plate 94. There, it will be shown why the type of rattle depicted here, held by the man in the black vest at top, represents the Kit Fox Society. The activity occurring here may be the acceptance of young men as new members of the society.

"Boys from thirteen to sixteen years of age might elect to join almost any of the soldier bands...sons of a member would be likely to join the father's band. The father and mother of a candidate usually accompanied him to the first dance of the society that he attended, and two or three horses were given away by them...A gift must be made on the occasion...The candidate...was dressed for the dance before he left his own lodge" (Grinnell, 1923, II: 49).

Twenty young men, all with faces festively painted, and with breechcloths indicated, though uncolored, stand in a row facing a crowd of spectators of both sexes. Those in the first two rows are men; women---three carrying children---stand behind the men. In the upper left corner, two disproportionately large profiles represent other men. These probably were drawn first; but Arrow quickly realized he needed to reduce the scale of the figures for such an ambitious composition.

By replicating essentially the same profile outline in close order, the artist has managed to depict quite a large number of figures, in a surprisingly small compass. Twenty young men stand in the row of inductees; fifty-five adult figures are in the facing crowd.

At the top, center of the crowd an experimental, full-face portrait represents a bold departure for Arrow---the ledger art genre generally was expressed in profile. In Plates 88 & 148, Arrow will bring this experiment to successful and impressive fruition.

One of the babies is also shown full-face, wrapped in the soft, hood-style of Cheyenne baby carrier---less well known than the board-frame style of cradle, with back boards projecting above the baby's head. Compare this drawing with Cowdrey, 1999: Fig. 32. The circle surrounding the baby's head is the bead-decorated hood of the wrapper. Projecting above this is a rectangular tab of stiff parfleche, usually decorated with beadwork, or with appliqued cloth and shells.

Hood cradles were elegant wrappers for bundling a baby into a safe and easily-handled form. Such wrappers were common to all the Algonkian tribes, although this particular form, with a trapezoidal beaded hood, was employed only by the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes. Originally, the wrapper was made from a buffalo calfskin, with the animal's head forming the hood, and its ears rising above the baby's head. In essence, such a wrapper is a little "tipi" home for the baby, and the same symbolism is applied to the buffaloskin cover of a tipi, where the smoke flaps projecting at the top are called "ears", the smoke hole is called the "throat", etc.