The Sun Vow

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

1899, cast 1919 · Bronze · The American Wing

Although MacNeil originally claimed he drew on a Sioux legend that captured his imagination while traveling in the American West, he later admitted to inventing this coming-of-age ritual: before a boy entered adulthood, he must shoot an arrow directly into the sun. If the elder judging his prowess was so blinded by the sun’s rays that he could not follow the flight of the arrow, the young archer had passed the test. MacNeil presented his self-invented fable at the pivotal moment of the arrow’s release, both heightening the narrative suspense and reinforcing the fabricated trope of Native Americans as inhabitants of an idyllic, vanishing past.

Artist

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

Date

1899, cast 1919

Medium

Bronze

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1919