How might I use a number written over portrait image to help identify the person or tribe, if Indigenous Indian?

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Getting a look at the photo gave me an impression of images I have seen of individuals in fraternal orders. The three digit number also aligns with the pattern of lodge numbers I have encountered in other research.

The Oklahoma Historical Society has a helpful page on fraternal orders in Oklahoma history and discusses the presence of various fraternal orders:

Among the nation's numerous fraternal orders, the Masons, the Odd Fellows, and the Knights of Pythias have enjoyed the largest membership.

Each of these orders also had women's auxiliary orders. The article mentions the Masons auxiliary was the Order of the Eastern Star:

Women had an auxiliary, known as the Order of the Eastern Star, which organized in the United States in 1876. On February 25, 1879, Murrow formed the O-Ho-Yo-Hom-Ma Chapter, the first Eastern Star chapter at Atoka, I.T. He helped set up eight others and the Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star of the Indian Territory in 1889.

But is the 394 number actually associated with the masons? A source on lodges in Oklahoma, a pdf listed as the Blue Book gives us a list of all lodges, past and present in Oklahoma. Page 60 of this document lists a now defunct lodge 394:

  1. . . Tinney. . . . . . . . . . Tinney. . . . . . . . . . . Consolidated-Lawton # 183.. . . . . . June 15, 1931

Lodge #394 was consolidated with the lodge in Lawton. Lawton is about 15 miles northwest of the town of Walters, where you mention your mother grew up.

So I believe the number 394 on your photo has some association with a fraternal order lodge, so you might with to look for family members with such associations. Often historical publications and biography collections such as A Standard History of Oklahoma will mention such affiliations.

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