• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A Lakota carving of a horse that seems to be dying of battle wounds, a signature piece held by the South Dakota State Historical Society, is about to hit the road.
• The Horse Effigy dance stick will be included in an exhibit featuring American Indian art from the Great Plains that will be displayed over the two next years at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo.
• Jay D. Vogt, director of the South Dakota State Historical Society, said the 3-foot-long wooden carving is believed to have been made in about 1870 by a Lakota artist or warrior as a tribute to a horse that died in battle. The carving, used in various dances, is so highly regarded that it serves as the society's logo.
• Red paint, representing blood, seems to seep from wounds on the carving, which also features a real horsehair mane and tail.
• "It looks like it's leaping and there's obviously blood coming from different spots on the body. Whether it was shot with bullets or arrows, we don't know," Vogt said. "Obviously, it's a horse that's in its last throes of life."
• Gaylord Torrence, senior curator of American Indian Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, said the horse carving will be part of a 140-piece exhibit that features objects from private and museum collections from North America and Europe. The exhibit, "Art of the Plains Indians," will feature some of the greatest icons of Native American art from a region stretching from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rocky Mountains and from Texas to Canada, he said.
• Torrence, guest curator for the exhibit, said it will open in Paris in April 2014 at the musee du quai Branly, which features indigenous art from around the world. It will move to Kansas City in September 2014 and New York in March 2015. The ex

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