Wrongheaded obsession with "vanishing" tribes

The wrongheaded obsession with “vanishing” indigenous peoples

Photographer Jimmy Nelson is just the latest artist to act like indigenous groups are about to die out

By Elissa WashutaNelson’s website presents a portrayal of an explorer who “found the last tribesmen and observed them” and an artist who serves as “the last visual witness of flawless human beauty.” While these words have a romantic resonance, Nelson’s mission is built on a horrifying assumption: that these indigenous peoples are on the brink of destruction. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The Māori people, featured in Nelson’s book, make up 15 percent of New Zealand’s total population, and the 2012 census estimate of 682,100 Māori residents is part of a consistent upward trend. Seven seats of the Parliament of New Zealand are designated as Māori. Their communities have been impacted by colonization and the resulting warfare, disease, land loss and assimilation. But, although contact brought changes, far from being erased, the Māori people continue to thrive.

Nelson approached his subjects with a predefined notion of indigenous authenticity, which doesn’t align with the realities that have faced indigenous communities since time immemorial. In an interview with CNN.com, Nelson says that he grew up in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gabon and Cameroon, and feels that Africa “has lost the majority of its ethnicity and authenticity. … [W]hat I saw in my childhood is not there anymore.” Similarly, Nelson told Time that he chose to leave out North American tribes because they haven’t retained their heritage. To critique the “authenticity” of another culture from the outside is a dangerous practice, and Nelson’s evaluation of communities during his lifetime fails to account for the flux experienced over thousands of years. Too often, onlookers expect indigenous peoples to remain static for the entirety of their existence, failing to consider their long histories of change before contact with outsiders.

The questioning and judgment of indigenous authenticity often have their roots in appearance. By treating people as art, Nelson plays into this notion. In his photos of the Kalam people of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, headdresses, necklaces and body ornamentation serve as visual representations of identity. Besides Nelson’s written descriptions of each group he photographs, visual cues are all we can use to form our understanding. He calls himself a “collector of truth,” but how much truth can fit into a work rendered in two dimensions, telling visual stories curated by an outsider? Personal strongholds of identity are often invisible.

Nelson’s publication of “Before They Pass Away” is reminiscent of Edward S. Curtis and his series “The North American Indian.” Beginning in the 1890s, Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs of North American Native peoples. While Curtis has been celebrated for his visual documentation of peoples and ways of life that are said to be gone, he is criticized for his manipulation of shots and subjects. Around 1910, he retouched a photo of Little Plume and his son Yellow Kidney, two Blackfoot men, to remove an alarm clock Curtis thought to be inconsistent with the otherwise traditional image.

In interviews, Nelson frequently cites Curtis as an inspiration for his work. Curtis’s posing of his subjects is treated as a scandal, but Nelson freely admits to the New York Times, “I directed the majority of the pictures, which Curtis also did.” While the people Curtis photographed often appear in their finest ceremonial attire, Nelson continues, “And 80 percent of the people I photographed are dressed as they do daily. About 20 percent are in their Sunday best.”

Curtis made significant contributions to the tribes he photographed by documenting points in their histories. In 1910, he photographed my great-great-grandmother’s half-sister, Virginia Miller, or Whylick Quiuck, with her canoe. He also recorded her account of the hanging of her father, Tumalth of the Cascades, by the U.S. government. Just a year earlier, the young Cascade chief added his signature to the Kalapuya Treaty of 1855. Virginia’s story of false accusations that led to her father’s death would have been lost without Curtis’s documentation. This is an important piece of the history of the Cascade people and of my family.

Although Curtis’s body of work stands as a contribution to tribal histories, he may have done just as much to further the notion of Native peoples as a vanishing race. According to Timothy Egan’s recent Curtis biography “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher,” in 1907, Curtis wrote in a photo caption, “The thought which this picture is meant to convey is that the Indians as a race, already shorn of their tribal strength and stripped of their primitive dress, are passing into the darkness of an unknown future.” Of the Hopi, he wrote, “There won’t be anything left of them in a few generations and it’s a tragedy.” More than a hundred years later, the Hopi people continue to live in Hopituskwa, where they have retained their culture, religion and language.Comment:  For more on "vanishing Indians," see Adrienne Keene Reviews Lone Ranger and Vanishing Cultures Photography Project.

Vanishing Cultures photography project

Photographing Vanishing Cultures With a Huge Camera, Hoping for an Even Bigger Impact

By Alysa LandryA two-story-high photograph of Joe Yazzie towers over the viewer—every scar, wrinkle and hint of emotion on his face magnified. That face, larger than life, is the very essence of a Navajo man caught between traditional and modern worlds.

Yazzie’s portrait will greet the curious who come to see what promises to be the largest photo exhibit in history—not in terms of the number of photos, but in the size and resolution of those photographs.

Chicago-based photographer Dennis Manarchy is making photographs that dwarf most other prints: at 24 feet tall and with a resolution of 97,000 megapixels, he hopes each portrait will tell the story of one of America’s vanishing cultures.

“We’re going to start the exhibit with my portrait of Joe Yazzie, who is Navajo,” Manarchy says. “When you walk into the exhibit, you’ll see Joe. Your head will be smaller than his pupil. As you approach, you will be engulfed by him.”

That “total cultural immersion” is what Manarchy has in mind for the exhibit, which has been in the works for 12 years. “You’ll remember this for the rest of your life,” he says.

Manarchy plans to unveil his supersize, traveling exhibit, Vanishing Cultures: An American Portrait, by 2014. The exhibit space, which will be about two-thirds the size of a football field, will show America a snapshot of itself, Manarchy claims—a snapshot taken before some of the most precious and endangered cultures in the country deteriorate further.

“Portraits are powerful,” he explains, “but they are so much more powerful with stories. In America, there are essential cultures that are vanishing. The people aren’t vanishing, but the cultural identification is vanishing.”

Take Yazzie, for example. Born near Gallup, New Mexico, he attended boarding schools in which he was forbidden to use his native language. After boarding school, he relocated to Chicago, then was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. In the process, Yazzie lost much of his Navajo culture. “When you leave your culture, when you’re very young and you move to the city, then when you go home, you don’t fit in,” Yazzie says. “You miss what you were supposed to be, what you were supposed to learn from your parents, your grandparents, the medicine men.”

Yazzie married an Italian woman after his wartime service. His two sons had little interest in the Navajo culture, and his 8-year-old grandson has no knowledge of it. “We are losing our tongue, our songs, our culture, our heritage,” he says. “It will not be brought back.

“This project is really about a face that’s going away soon,” Yazzie says. “They’re saying, You better get to know this face because you’ll never see it again. And it’s not just the face, but the story behind it.”

The portrait of Yazzie, 70, a graphic artist in Chicago, represents one of 50 cultures Manarchy hopes to capture on film during a year-long journey that will take him from the Inuit people in Alaska to the Cajun communities in the swamps of Louisiana. The project will include about a dozen American Indian tribes, many of which are experiencing loss of culture and language at alarming rates as the younger generations move to cities.

Manarchy is focusing on cultures that are intact and represent an important chunk of American history. His itinerary includes stops among the Amish of Pennsylvania, railroaders of West Virginia, cowboys of Idaho, motorcyclists of South Dakota and blues women of his hometown of Chicago. Tribes on the itinerary include the Chickasaw and Shawnee in Tennessee, the Comanche Nation in Texas, Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, Hopi in Arizona, Navajo in Utah, Northwest Indians in Washington, Blackfoot in Montana, Cheyenne in Wyoming, the Inuit in Alaska and the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Manarchy and his team plan to stay for a week or two each in 25 to 35 locations, shooting portraits of people representing 50 unique cultures that are being swallowed up or homogenized.

“The purpose of the project is to go to the home environments of different cultures,” project director Chad Tepley says. “Most of these people won’t travel 10 to 15 miles from their homes in their lifetimes, so it’s really important to get the camera to them.”

Manarchy, a commercial photographer with decades of experience, is looking to tell the stories behind every photo, and to preserve cultures with the biggest snapshots he can manage. For that, he insists he needs a big camera. His will fit snugly inside a semi-trailer and produce negatives that are six feet tall.

He also plans to produce documentary films and other educational materials about every culture he encounters. The finished exhibit will include portraits, filmed footage, the negatives and the giant camera itself, which weighs about one ton. “This will be a powerful educational tool,” Tepley says. “It will be a visual social studies class with videos of the cultures. It will be a very powerful way to show children what’s out there.”

The exhibit will be particularly poignant when it comes to teaching children about American Indians, Tepley says. The federal government recognizes 566 American Indian tribes today, though many children grow up believing tribes are the stuff of history or folklore. “They are not aware of the role these people played or the true perspective of how tribes have evolved,” Tepley adds.”

During the planning of the project, Tepley and Manarchy researched tribes to pinpoint the ones whose cultures were most intact. They enlisted help from an advisory committee, including members of several different American Indian tribes who are offering cultural advice and will introduce him and his camera to Native communities.

By its nature, the project is bringing various cultures together, says Wendy White Eagle, Ho-Chunk, a project advisor. “I think the conversation today is more important than ever about how everyone is connected,” she says.

Although the exhibit will preserve the cultures as they are being expressed now, the project is not meant to discount future generations who will continue to celebrate tradition. “The world is evolving, not [so] much vanishing,” White Eagle says. “There are people coming behind them, and the expression of the culture might be different, but the core values might not be.”

Natives respond

I quoted the article at length because it refers several times to the "vanishing" concept. This generated a lot of feedback on a Facebook thread started by Adrienne Keene of the Native Appropriations blog. She wrote:Wow, Edward Curtis 2.0? "Vanishing Cultures"? Looking for communities that have their culture most "intact"? Curtis did the same thing--he went to communities that had what he thought were "real" Indians, brought costumes, and physically manipulated photos to erase signs of modernity to fit his created image of Indianness. Glad to know we've come so far. The portraits are beautiful, but framing the project this way really bothers me.Others chimed in:Wait, I'm vanishing like Micheal J. Fox in Back to the Future?

Vanishing cultures? I don't see anything vanishing around these parts, except clean water thanks to mining. And fighting THAT would be a lot more beneficial than taking giant pictures of people's faces.

I like what the Ho-Chunk woman they interviewed said: “The world is evolving, not [so] much vanishing,” White Eagle says. “There are people coming behind them, and the expression of the culture might be different, but the core values might not be.”

I don't think we should be in the business of defining ourselves as having no future existence...

I would agree that using the word vanishing is a bit sensationalist, but I don't think his project is being used to exploit any culture such as Edward Curtis did. He might turn a profit after his 17 million dollar budget is covered, but he's attempting to use real images of real people and their stories.

"Vanishing" = unimportant...needs help... infantile...less than...failed...etc.

Agreed. Vanishing isn't accurate . . . and makes it seem less important to fight for their preservation.My thoughts on the subject:

White Eagle and the photographer himself both contradict the "vanishing" theme at points. But the article repeats the "vanishing" claim repeatedly as if it's a fact.

The writer and ICTMN should've taken a more critical look at the concept. They shouldn't have let a non-Native photographer define it for them.

As people involved in Indian country know, tribes and tribal organizations have launched many language and cultural preservation projects in recent decades. The influx of gaming money has greatly assisted these projects.

Obviously tribal cultures have evolved since Columbus arrived, Americans expanded across the continent, the Indian Wars ended, the government tried to assimilate and terminate tribes, and the modern era of pop-culture and media saturation began. Some cultures have vanished, and many are struggling with change. But some have remained strong, and some have come back with renewed vigor since the activist period of the 1960s and '70s.

So the "vanishing" concept--i.e., a straight line going downhill--is much too simplistic to capture the reality of Indian country. In graphical terms, you'd have lines going in all directions. Some trending down, some trending up, some with jagged peaks and valleys.

Giant photos = game-changer?

Also, I'm not sure how much the giant portraits will help. Edward Curtis didn't just do portraits. He photographed a lot of cultural scenes, some of which he staged. These photos arguably did more to document the changing cultures than his portraits did.

Manarchy talks about filming videos of the cultures, and those will help. But note that hundreds if not thousands of people are photographing and filming Indian country every day. Other than taking really big pictures, is Manarchy doing something they aren't?

The article makes it sound like Manarchy is riding to the rescue before the final death knell sounds. In reality, these cultures will continue with or without him. His project will be one of thousands documenting their evolution. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it'll be a breakthrough or game-changer.

If you want to reverse cultural decline, a key factor is making kids excited about and proud of their traditional cultures. You do that by making it cool to be an Indian. By producing blockbuster movies or TV shows starring Native actors. Developing Native celebrities in music, fashion, or sports. Electing a Native president or appoint one to the Supreme Court. Things like that will have more of an impact than giant photographs in a museum, I bet.

For more on documenting Indians via photography, see Japanese Photographer Specializes in Codetalkers and Project to Photograph 562 Tribes.

Preview of A Year in Mooring

Meet the 2011 SXSW Filmmakers | “A Year in Mooring” Director Chris EyreDisarming in its subtly, “A Year in Mooring” is the quiet cinematic journey about the inevitability of change. Starring Josh Lucas in his first leading dramatic role, “A Year in Mooring” follows the story of a successful businessman (Lucas) attempting to resurrect his life. Entering an idyllic harbor as a broken and haunted man, he buys and boards a dilapidated sailboat. Walking an isolated line between solitude and redemption, he’s watched by three equally mysterious residents: a waitress (Ayelet Zurer), the veteran mariner (James Cromwell), and a newly single father (Jon Tenney). [Synopsis courtesy of SXSW]

Responses courtesy of “A Year in Mooring” director Chris Eyre.

Using images to delve into the past…

I became a filmmaker when I started taking pictures as a teenager. I photographed everything—people, animals and many landscapes. I didn’t know why, but as a Native-American adoptee, I first started looking at all the historical photos of my own tribe in high school and tried to figure out who all these distant relatives might be. I especially loved the historical photos by Edward Sheriff Curtis. I found out later that my great, great grandfather on my Cheyenne-side was photographed by Curtis in 1899. His name was “Cohoe/Nohoe” or “lame man” (due to a bad leg). By using images, I was trying to go back somewhere and understand more of who I was or who my biological people were that I had lost.

My new movie “A Year in Mooring” uses landscapes as atmosphere to help tell the characters stories. Those are the type of movies I like best, one’s that could come from a lost photograph.

In the pipeline…

A remake of the 1983 movie “Running Brave” that follows the true-life story of Native American Olympian Billy Mills from his time growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the 1950s to becoming the only American to win a Gold Medal in the 10,000 meter long-distance race at the 1964 Tokyo games. To this day, his victory is described as one of the greatest moments in Olympic history.Comment:  For more on the subject, see María Hinojosa Interviews Chris Eyre and Filming A Year in Mooring.

Ryan Red Corn on Smiling Indians

Graphic artist Ryan Red Corn explains the video noted in Curtis Photos vs. Smiling Indians:

Ryan Red Corn Explains “Smiling Indians”What were you hoping to accomplish with “Smiling Indians”?

The big picture idea is we’re trying to combat the control of media. There are two ways of doing it. One is the reductionist view, which is you take it apart, and when you get down to the bottom it’s about criticizing established media. I remember once I went to a conference and there was a panel on indigenous media. All these people who had their master’s degrees were talking about media, and it was all just such low-hanging fruit. It’s easy to pick on Bonanza, I Love Lucy, team mascots. It’s easy to say “Indian mascots are bad,” but do you have anything positive to point to? So rather than just complain about what’s negative, you could produce something yourself.

Is this the other way of combating the control of media?

Yes, that’s the flip side: Creating something new to combat the established media, rather than simply criticizing it. It’s what you might call a bandwidth issue.

What do you mean by “bandwidth”?

Take a visual inventory of Native images—which you can do by just running a Google image search on “Native American.” That will tell you what images recur and what images rank highest. And what you see is that Curtis really controlled, and still controls, that image. And his pictures are really good; they deserve to be celebrated. All jokes aside, he was an amazing photographer. But they shouldn’t dominate our idea of how Indians look or who they are. I think people can only process a certain amount of media. We need to add more of our own images to compete against Curtis’s. We have to be aggressive about it—my attitude has always been, create, create, create. Create more and better art and you’ll take up more bandwidth and tip the scales.

That’s a tall order given that the Curtis imagery is so dominant. To some extent it’s like you’re trying to rewrite an official history.

Yes, but there are some good Native photographers right now, in the, I’d say, under-33 crowd. By the time they’re finished they’ll have tipped the scales. I’m confident of that.Comment:  I agree with Red Corn that it's important to aggressively create new images. That's what I'm trying to do with my comic books and with my postings here: to aggressively paint a nonstereotypical portrait of Indians.

But I wouldn't be so negative about being negative. It's easy to criticize old images while creating new images. And obviously I don't think criticizing negative images is a waste of time. We're getting these things removed from the public's consciousness slowly but surely.

And, of course, a lot of people aren't artists who can create alternative views of Indians like this video. What are they supposed to do? Protesting stereotypical images is better than nothing, I'd say.

I definitely don't agree that sports mascots are "low-hanging fruit." Has Red Corn ever debated with the majority of mascot lovers? I have and it can be exhausting. I may have swayed a few minds, but most of these people won't listen to reason. Challenging them is like hitting your head against a wall, not plucking fruit.

For more on the subject, see Are T-Shirt Protests Worth It? and Do Protests Work?

Below:  "A still from Smiling Indians by Ryan Red Corn and Sterlin Harjo."

Curtis photos vs. Smiling Indians

Adrienne Keene tackles the infamous Curtis photographs in her Native Appropriations blog:

Smiling Indians and Edward S. CurtisThe common theme throughout Edward Curtis's portraits is stocism. None of his subjects smile. Ever. Check out this gallery or this gallery if you don't believe me. To anyone who has spent anytime with Indians, you know that the "stoic Indian" stereotype couldn't be further from the truth. Natives joke, tease, and laugh more than anyone I know--I often leave Native events with my sides hurting from laughing so much.

So in response to the sad-stoic-angry Indian images of Edward Curtis, we've got this awesome video by Sterlin Harjo (the man behind Four Sheets to the Wind and Barking Water) and Ryan RedCorn (the man behind Demockratees and Red Hand Media). Simple but powerful, and showcases the diversity of Indian Country too!

Comment:  Adrienne doesn't quite say it, but I think there's a reason Curtis posed his subjects as stoic Indians. He wanted them to look serious, somber, and grim to reflect the idea of the "vanishing race." Having them smile would've conveyed the idea that they were alive, thriving, and looking forward to the future.

This would've sent the "wrong" message to viewers--a message they wouldn't have understood or accepted. Indians have emotions--they laugh and cry--like real people? You mean they're not animals who deserved to be hunted down and corralled in reservations? Inconceivable!

It would've been like photographing a princess playing in the mud or a cannibal eating tea and crumpets in a Victorian parlor. Images like that would've caused a scandal. Today we expect art to challenge our preconceptions, to teach us something about the world. In Curtis's time, not so much.

For similar reasons, we criticize cigar-store Indians and other wooden Indians. And Indian mascots, which are usually stern-looking Indians from the 19th century. The overarching problem is the same: Indians frozen in time, static and unchanging, with no apparent thoughts or feelings. A series of one-dimensional stereotypes--the chief, the "brave," the "squaw"--with nothing to recommend them.

In literature you occasionally see Indians compared to stone-faced mountains. The writers probably didn't intend to stereotype Indians, but they've unintentionally demonstrated the problem. The Curtis photos, cigar-store Indians, and Indian mascots all portray Indians as superficially as a stone-faced mountain. They all render Indians as lifeless as rocks.

Mini-review of video

As for the video, I love the concept. It does indeed bust a few stereotypes and show the diversity of today's Indians. But I'm not crazy about the execution. Many of the smiles look forced, as if someone told the people to smile for the camera. The looming, off-center heads are kind of distracting. And I'd describe the music as elegiac--just about the opposite of what should accompany the happy faces.

If it were me, I would've taken candid shoots of Indians smiling, joking, and laughing. I would've included the raucous sounds of their merriment. And I would've used a peppy tune to punctuate the images.

For more on Edward Curtis, see The Edward Curtis Project and Romantic Roots of Lange's Photos.

Below:  A stoic Hopi Indian photographed by Edward Curtis who resembles Billy Honanie of PEACE PARTY.

The Edward Curtis Project

Play explores themes of cultural identity through story of controversial photographerOut of the potent mix of conflicting values and symbols, playwright Marie Clements has crafted The Edward Curtis Project. Clements, a Metis-Dene writer, has created an imaginary dialogue between Curtis and Angeline, a Metis foreign correspondent.

In the play, as Angeline struggles to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder, she finds herself coming face to face with Curtis and his legacy.

Also part of The Edward Curtis Project is a photo installation by Rita Leistner that juxtaposes Curtis’s romanticized images with contemporary and realistic photographs of contemporary first nations people.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Plays and Other Stage Shows.

Romantic roots of Lange's photos

American Pastoral

By Jonathan RabanPublished in 1935 in the middle of the Depression, William Empson's Some Versions of Pastoral casts a hard modern light on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poems about shepherds and shepherdesses with classical names like Corydon and Phyllida. Pastoral, Empson wrote, was a "puzzling form" and a "queer business" in which highly educated and well-heeled poets from the city idealized the lives of the poorest people in the land. It implied "a beautiful relation between the rich and poor" by making "simple people express strong feelings...in learned and fashionable language." From 1935 onward, no one would read Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar or follow Shakespeare's complicated double plots without being aware of the class tensions and ambiguities between the cultivated author and his low-born subjects.

Although shepherds and shepherdesses have been in short supply in the United States, versions of pastoral have flourished here. The cult of the Noble Red Man, or, as Mark Twain derisively labeled it, "The Fenimore Cooper Indian" (a type given to long speeches in mellifluous and extravagantly figurative English), is an obvious example. So is the heroizing of simple cowboys, farmers, and miners in the western stories of writers like Bret Harte, the movies of John Ford, and the art of Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Maynard Dixon, and Thomas Hart Benton. Both Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Grapes of Wrath might be read as pastorals in Empson's sense. The chief loci of American pastoral have been the rural South and the Far West, while most of its practitioners have been sophisticated easterners for whom the South and West were destinations for bouts of adventurous travel. They went equipped with sketchpads and notebooks in which to record the picturesque manners and customs of their rustic, unlettered fellow countrymen.Raban notes how Lange's famous Migrant Mother photo fits the pastoral template:The picture defines the form of pastoral as Empson meant it, and the closer one studies it, the more one's made aware of just what a queer and puzzling business it is. A woman from the abyssal depths of the lower classes is plucked from obscurity by a female artist from the upper classes and endowed by her with extraordinary nobility and eloquence. It's not the woman's plight one sees at first so much as her arresting handsomeness: her prominent, rather patrician nose; her full lips, firmly set; the long and slender fingers of her right hand; the enigmatic depth of feeling in her eyes.

It also emerged that Florence Thompson was not just a representative "Okie," as Lange had thought, but a Cherokee Indian, born on an Oklahoma reservation. So, in retrospect, Migrant Mother can be read as intertwining two "mythical cult-figures": that of the refugee sharecropper from the Dust Bowl (though Thompson had originally come to California with her first husband, a millworker, in 1924) and that of the Noble Red Man. There is a strikingly visible connection, however unnoticed by Lange, between her picture of Florence Thompson and Edward S. Curtis's elaborately staged sepia portraits of dignified Native American women in tribal regalia in his extensive collection The North American Indian (1900–1930), perhaps the single most ambitious—and contentious—work of American pastoral ever created by a visual artist.Nor is this a coincidence. Lange learned to romanticize the West from her first husband Maynard Dixon. In particular, she learned it from photographing Hopi and Navajo Indians.Lange was twenty-four when they married in March 1920, Dixon twenty years older. She was still a relative newcomer to San Francisco, having arrived there from New York in 1918; marrying Dixon, she also embraced his nostalgic and curmudgeonly vision of the Old West. A born westerner, from Fresno, California, he stubbornly portrayed the region as it had been before it was "ruined" by railroads, highways, cities, Hollywood, and tourism. In his paintings, the horse was still the primary means of power and transportation in a land of sunbleached rock and sand, enormous skies, cholla, and saguaro cacti, with adobe as its only architecture and Indians and cowboys its only rightful inhabitants. Although Lange had already established herself as an up-and-coming portrait photographer in San Francisco, her pictures on these trips to the desert were so faithful to her husband's vision of the West that one might easily mistake many of them for Maynard Dixon paintings in black-and-white.

So she caught a group of Indian horsemen, seen from behind, riding close together across a sweep of empty tableland; a line of Hopi women and a boy, clad in traditional blankets, climbing a rough-hewn staircase trail through the pale rock of the mesa; a man teaching his son how to shoot a bow and arrow; families outside their adobe huts; and somber, unsmiling portraits of Indians whose faces show the same weary resignation to their fate as the faces that Lange would later photograph on the breadlines and in migrant labor camps. It was among the Hopi and the Navajo that she picked up the basic grammar of documentary, with its romantic alliance between the artist and the wretched of the earth.To sum it up, Indians inspired Lange to pursue documentary-style photography, which culminated in her famous Migrant Mother, a portrait of an Indian. Without Indians, she still might've had a career, but it wouldn't have been as successful.

For more on the subject, see Migrant Mother Was Cherokee and Romantic Indians.

Below:  Lange's mask-like photo of a Hopi Indian.

Review of In the Land of the War Canoes

In the Land of the Head HuntersIn the Land of the Head Hunters (also called In the Land of the War Canoes) is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, written and directed by Edward S. Curtis and acted entirely by Kwakwaka'wakw natives. It was selected in 1999 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It was the first feature-length film whose cast was composed entirely of Native North Americans; the second, eight years later, was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North.The Production of the FilmIn 1911, as part of his massive undertaking, Curtis travelled to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to visit the Kwakiutls. By the next year, needing money for his project and to add to his research and still photography work, Curtis decided that the best way to record the traditional way of life and ceremonies of the Kwakiutl people was to make one of the first feature motion pictures. Curtis had already shot footage in 1906 of the Hopi Snake dance, which he had previously showed during his talks, but this was to be on a grander scale. On March 28, 1912, Curtis wrote in a letter to Frederick Webb Hodge: “I am still doing some figuring on the possibility of a series of motion pictures, and am very much in hopes that it will materialize, as such an arrangement would materially strengthen the real cause [his books].” In his promotional letters to raise money for the series, he estimated the profits would be $25,000 to $100,000 a year. This was simply not to be. It took three years of preparation for this one film including the weaving of the costumes; building of the war canoes, housefronts, poles; and the carving of masks. Assisting on the film was George Hunt, a Kwakiutl who had served as an interpreter for the famous anthropologist Franz Boas nearly twenty years before. Hunt helped contribute substantial portions of the film’s story as well.

Originally titled “In the Days of Vancouver,” the detailed scenario for those days of early cinema was elaborate. Curtis had already decided that the film could not be a simple documentary record. It would have to be a story that reflected the rich dramatic character of the people.Plot

Salvaging the film and scoreA single damaged, incomplete print of the film was salvaged from a dumpster and donated to Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History in 1947. Bill Holm and George Quimby re-edited this print in 1974, added a soundtrack by Kwakwaka'wakw musicians, and released the result as In the Land of the War Canoes.Documentary or melodrama?In the Land of the Head Hunters has often been discussed as a flawed documentary: it combines many accurate representations of aspects of Kwakwaka'wakw culture, art, and technology from the era in which it was made with a melodramatic plot based on practices that either dated from long before the first contact of the Kwakwaka'wakw with people of European descent or were entirely fictional. Curtis appears never to have specifically presented the film as a documentary, but he also never specifically called it a work of fiction.

Some aspects of the film do have documentary accuracy: the artwork, the ceremonial dances, the clothing, the architecture of the buildings, and the construction of the dugout, or a war canoe reflected Kwakwaka'wakw culture. Other aspects of the film were based on the Kwakwaka'wakw's orally transmitted traditions or on aspects of other neighboring cultures. The film also accurately portrays Kwakwaka'wakw rituals that were, at the time, prohibited by Canada's potlatch prohibition, enacted in 1884 and not rescinded until 1951.Customer Reviews:  In The Land Of The War CanoesBetter than Nanook in every way, October 11, 2007
By jefferson metcalf (cleveland)

If you like Nanook of the North, I recommend In the Land of the War Canoes. Unfortunately this is all that survives of the only motion picture made by the "super-photographer of the American Indian," Edward S. Curtis, "In the Land of the Headhunters." This film predates Nanook of the North, and it is known that Robert Flaherty visited Curtis to view this film, before he made Nanook. The film has been retitled for two reasons. A) the previous title is considered sensational and outdated (the Kwakiutl had not practiced head hunting for many generations) and B) the film has been significantly altered (in order for it to be presentable, after much of it was destroyed in a fire). The newer film is an erudite reconstruction that involved visiting the original tribe. There are no known complete prints surviving, so this is what we will have to settle for.

What is so fascinating about this film, aside from the subject matter, is how cinematic it is, and considering this in respect to this being the only film made by this photographer. He seems to have an absolutely inspired intuition for drama and the play between realism and form. It is unfortunate we will never see it as the author intended, but the process of viewing a "film artifact" is also very exciting. I know no better example of one.

Amazing glimpse into native american folklore, September 29, 2002
By Joe Sixpack--Slipcue.com

A fascinating docu-dramatization of an ancient folk legend of Vancouver's Kwakiutl Indians....This ethnological tour-de-force has a compelling, if simple, plot, of bloodshed, revenge and justice, but is really noteworthy for its vibrant presentation of the Kwakiutl culture, especially their rich heritage of wood carving, fabric arts, costuming and dance. The animal-spirit costumes are truly amazing, as are the huge canoes and painted lodges. An amazing glimpse at the world of the Pacific Northwest, before white men came, filmed over a three years period by documentarian and folklorist Edward S. Curtis.Rob's review

The first thing we need to address is the burning "documentary or melodrama" question. The answer is "melodrama."

At first the movie shows disjointed scenes of the two young lovers and the jealous old sorcerer. The thin storyline almost seems like an excuse to string together a series of brief, unrelated scenes. You're wondering if Curtis filmed genuine Kwakwaka'wakw incidents and then invented a story to fit them.

Eventually the scenes become longer and more connected, and you realize Curtis must've staged everything. Either that or he just happened to be present during several raids and got the victims' permission to film them being captured or killed.

A DVD featurette titled The Image Maker and the Indians makes it clearer what happened. Curtis built a fake village on Vancouver Island, hired actors to play the parts, and bought or made all sets, props, and clothing needed. In short, War Canoes is fiction.

One question still left unanswered is where the story came from. Did the Kwakwaka'wakw invent it, or did they recount a historical event? Or did Curtis or Hunt invent it? Knowing the story's origin would make a difference in judging it.

According to the featurette, Curtis moved to the Seattle area when he was 19 and lived there 37 years. He spent a lot of time with the Kwakwaka'wakw; his book on them has twice as many pages as the others. So he may have heard the story firsthand. It may have some authenticity.

On the other hand, Curtis was a businessman who needed to recoup his investment. The way to do that was to sensationalize the story with a love triangle, supernatural rites, kidnappings, and warfare. Hence the name change from In the Days of Vancouver to In the Land of the Head Hunters.

Observations

The Kwakwaka'wakw Indians all have long black hair held by a headband. No feathers. They wear shapeless kilts, dresses, robes, shawls, and capes made of skins. It's a good reminder that many of the well-tailored, form-fitting buckskin outfits you see Indians wearing are fake.

After each canoe raid, the returning victors wave decapitated heads, or something. It's hard to tell what they're waving. Some of the items look like wigs--perhaps representing severed scalps. Others look like heads, with their faces barely visible amid the hair. Apparently Curtis used dummy heads in his filming.

Someone said Kwakwaka'wakw hunted heads generations ago, long before Curtis made his film. Maybe so, although I haven't heard anything about it. But since the practice ended ages ago, showing it in the film was inflammatory. The Kwakwaka'wakw were right to demand a name change. The film is more about the war canoes than it is about the heads, which take up only a minute or two of screen time.

At one point two men are wrestling atop a 50-foot-high cliff when one clubs the other and sends him plummeting into the sea. I sure hope Curtis used a dummy for this scene, because the flailing, falling body looks lifelike. I don't think most people would've survived the fall.

The final "drowning" scene doesn't have this problem. The boat capsizes a mere 20 feet from some rocks. I presume that anyone who fell overboard would swim to safety, not drown.

As with Curtis's photographs, we don't see any signs of modernity. No frame houses with glass windows, no missionaries or churches, no passing ships with cargo or passengers, no roads or Model Ts, and no camera equipment. The government probably sent these Indians to boarding schools, cut their hair, taught them English, and made them wear regular clothes.

Today movies give you dates or other cues to tell you when the story occurred. Did anyone in Curtis's audiences realize War Canoes was a historical drama set in the distant past, not a documentary?

The Kwakwaka'wakw Indians come from the same cultural region as the Quileute Indians. War Canoes may be the best film source for learning what these Indians were like. When the Twilight sequel Eclipse shows its phony werewolf history, fans can see how far it is from reality.

How good is it?

In the Land of the War Canoes starts off like any old ethnographic documentary. It gets better as the action (Naida's capture and rescue) kicks in. As Joe Sixpack said, the best parts are the animal-spirit costumes, the canoes, and the painted lodges.

If you're like me, the main problem is that you spend most of the film asking yourself questions. Is War Canoes supposed to be a documentary of Kwakwaka'wakw life? Is it a staged recreation of Kwakwaka'wakw life? Or is it a complete fiction about Kwakwaka'wakw life?

I'd say War Canoes is better than an old documentary. And better than a hokey old silent film from that era. Recall that filmmakers had yet to perfect cinematic techniques such as staging their stories realistically. In that respect, the movie is probably a significant achievement.

But it's not hugely better than an old documentary or silent film. Whether you like it will depend on your tolerance for these genres. If you want to see how traditional Indians looked and acted, it's probably worth watching. If you want a compelling or "fascinating" story, you probably can skip it.

Rob's rating:  6.5 of 10.

For more on the subject, see Curtis's Head Hunters Sucks and In the Land of the Head Hunters.

Below:  "Kwagu'ł girl, Margaret Frank (née Wilson) was featured in Curtis's In the Land of the Head Hunters. Here she is shown in a portrait by Curtis wearing abalone shell earrings. Abalone shell earrings were a sign of the noble class."

Review of Romance of the Vanishing Race

Last year Rich-Heape Films kindly sent me this DVD to review. Here's the text from the case and my thoughts.This DVD includes three historic motion pictures of Native Americans and their life-style in the early 1900s. Featuring Tribal Chiefs who participated in the Last Great Indian Council and several who fought at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Originally produced on 35mm film, this priceless footage, recently discovered within the lost treasures of the National Archives is re-mastered to include an original music score and soundtrack to further preserve Native American history and culture.

Three motion pictures that shed a hitherto dim light on an important chapter in the history of a proud people who inhabited the land before it was "conquered" by another race.The Romance of the Vanishing RaceProgram #1–The Romance of the Vanishing Race–A view of Indian life in the Southwest featuring Navajo, Pueblo, Crow, and Hopi tribes. Originally released in 1916, this footage shows everyday life and a re-enactment of an Indian battle on the plains. Running time 29 minutes.Except for a couple of scenes, Romance is all about the Crow. It shows a pipe ceremony, a sweat lodge, and a lot of staged riding, stalking, and fighting scenes.

It's kind of like a "live" version of Edward Curtis photos. Although the film was released in 1916, there are no signs of modern life or technology other than rifles.

The narration makes some good pro-Indian points:Indian warfare before the coming of the white man was desultory and infrequent. There was no motive for war. The country was large and the tribes were widely separated.

The white man came. Civilization made aggressions upon the Indian's home, his honor, and his life ... robbed him of his God-given heritage. The Indian resisted. It was his right to resist.

Because he was masterful in fighting a masterful foe--because he resented broken treaties and gross injustice--we called him a savage.But it concludes with several heavy-handed "end of the trail" speeches--telling us how the Indians were fated to fade away into the sunset.

Rodman Wanamaker Expedition of CitizenshipProgram #2–Rodman Wanamaker Expedition of Citizenship to the North American Indian–Carrying the Flag and a Message of Hope to a Vanishing Race–Dr. Joseph Dixon explains the symbolism of the flag and dedication ceremonies to numerous Indian tribes who look on with mute interest. Originally released in 1913. Running time 26 minutes.This film covers a little known aspect of Indian history. Apparently the Wanamaker "expedition" crisscrossed the country to convert the recently pacified Indians into patriotic Americans. It wasn't enough to strip them of their freedom and culture; they had to kiss the flag almost literally to prove their loyalty.

Unfortunately, the film consists of a series of repetitious rituals: explaining the flag's symbolism, dedicating the flag, raising the flag, and signing a declaration of allegiance to the US government. Seeing them once is enough.

The film ends with a plea to give Indians their rights and free them of government control--good. And with odd images of sheep and Biblical passages that somehow link Indians and Christianity--bad.Program #3–Winter Farm Life on a Crow Reservation–Featuring WWI French hero General Ferdinand Foch, this film shows reservation life including butchering a cow, raising a teepee, and ceremonies welcoming Foch. Released 1921. Running time 8 minutes.Although it's short, this is probably the most interesting film. You've got a train full of French soldiers; Crow Indians in farm clothes; horse-drawn wagons, tractors, and Model Ts; and tipis and chiefs. It's quite a melange of cultures and images.

Redoing Romance

These films are important for historical reasons. But I don't think they're "a must have resource for schools and libraries," as the package says. I'd say they're worthwhile if you're doing research or if you're a Crow--since the majority of the films feature the Crow--but most people won't find them fascinating.

In fact, if I were Rich-Heape Films, I would've done things differently. Sure, I'd include the films in their original form to preserve them. But they're in the public domain, right? If so, that means anyone can freely edit them.

I'd do something radical like splicing the highlights of the three films into one. Ditch the original flutes-and-drums score for something less New Age-y. Most of all, replace the pro forma narration with one or two historians talking about the scenes. These films desperately need some context to make them meaningful. Tell us what's happening on and off the screen and why.

Add this film to the existing films and then you'd have an interesting package. As it is, I wouldn't recommend Romance except to special libraries. A book of Curtis photos will give you more information at a lower cost.

For a previous Rich-Heape film, see Our Spirits Don't Speak English. For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.

Curtis film with indigenous orchestra

The Coast Orchestra:  Indians Make Beautiful MusicOn Friday night, November 14th, at the American Museum of Natural History here in the NYC the Margaret Mead Film Festival began it’s program with a screening of a restored print of controversial photographer Edward S Curtis’ In the Land of the Head Hunters. The film was accompanied by an all-indigenous live orchestra put together by violinist, Laura Ortman.

A slide show and opening presentation by the descendants of the original cast preceded the screening. It was quite touching to hear the positive words of the current chief of the Kwakwakaa’wakw people who were Curtis’ collaborators in the film. He expressed gratitude for the film’s resurrection and the exhibition to a near capacity crowd in New York City. I was surprised to hear him say as much considering many believe, myself included, that Curtis’ work with the native people of North America was exploitative. However if you could see your great great uncle when he was a young strappin’ man dancing around a prayer fire in a vintage print, even if a jingoistic quasi-racist white man made it, I guess you’d have a different opinion.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.

Edward Curtis the hero?

Cheuse catches lightning in a bottle in his take on Edward Curtis, an American firstThere's something attractive about "firsts." The first to fly a plane, the first to break a color barrier. We like to think of the people who accomplish these firsts as heroes, if only because we're attracted to the obsession that drove them toward that horizon.

Certainly Edward S. Curtis, the Seattle-based photographer who devoted 30 years of his life to producing 20 volumes of photographic images and writings about North American Indians, must be credited with having earned one of those "firsts." And now Alan Cheuse, in "To Catch the Lightning" (Sourcebooks, 492 pages, $25.95), admirably sets out to establish Curtis' right to hero status.

"I only hope my novel," says Cheuse, a book reviewer and commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," "will help people understand what went into the making of our country, just as Curtis himself tried to do."And:If anything detracts from this highly enjoyable, epic novel, it's the occasionally confusing use of point of view. We have two separate first-person narrators competing with Curtis to tell the story. It makes for an awkward moment or two. When Curtis first meets Tasáwiche, for example, and they take an evening stroll into the canyon, Myers suddenly pops out of the shadows like a scolding conscience and claims the narration, saving Curtis from a damaging admission.

But this minor flaw is more than compensated for by Cheuse's full-meal portrayal of Curtis' quest. Readers might well feel persuaded to agree with Curtis' son, Hal, who says to his father, "You are the best man I know."Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

Below:  "A Walpi Man" by Edward Curtis...one model for my PEACE PARTY character Billy Honanie.

Nine Arapaho photographs

Wife of Moon:  Edward Curtis PhotographsBeginning in 1900 and continuing over the next thirty years, Edward Curtis took over 40,000 images and recorded rare ethnographic information from over eighty American Indian tribal groups, ranging from the Eskimo or Inuit people of the far north to the Arapaho people of the Southwest.

Although Curtis made hundreds of images of many tribes, he made only nine images of the Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation, which suggests that he spent only a short time with them. The historical records do not explain why this might have been the case. It is an intriguing mystery, one of the real mysteries in history, and in Wife of Moon, Margaret has imagined circumstances that could explain why the photographer's stay among the Arapahos had been so brief.Comment:  Coel always seems to wrap a new mystery around an old one. This sense of history unfolding and replaying itself makes her stories interesting. Unfortunately, the execution never quite lives up to the promise.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

Review of Wife of Moon

Wife of Moon (A Wind River Reservation Mystery) (Paperback)From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Coel surpasses her own high standard in her 10th whodunit (after 2003's Killing Raven) to feature Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley. An exhibit of Edward S. Curtis's early 20th-century Plains Indians photographs has attracted a lot of visitors to the museum of St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation. When someone shoots to death a descendant of a tribal chief shown in one of the Curtis pictures and the museum's new curator disappears, there could be a connection to a murder committed in 1907 on the rez. Meanwhile, Father John's assistant is preparing the mission for a visit from Wyoming senator Jaime Evans, who may soon be announcing his presidential candidacy and who proves to have a family link to the tell-tale Curtis photo. Handsome attorney Adam Lone Eagle steps from the shadows and resumes his pursuit of Vicky, who is still trying to come to terms with her fatal attraction to Father John. Stir in a crazed ex-CIA operative, and you have a hint of what awaits you in this action-filled page-turner. Coel draws readers into early Arapaho life as smoothly as she brings them into the sinister goings-on at present-day Wind River, masterfully blending authentic history with an ingenious plot.

Vintage Coel, September 26, 2004
By Karen Potts (Lake Jackson, Texas)

Margaret Coel writes an intriguing mystery which is based on the photographs which Edward Curtis took of the Plains Indians in the early 1900s. Curtis recreated battle scenes by hiring Indians to dress like their forefathers and relive scenes from the past. During one of these photo sessions an Arapaho woman is shot and killed. Her Anglo husband testifies that he saw three Indians murder his wife. With this as a background, the book shifts to the present-day Wind River Reservation, where an Arapaho woman is found dead. Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden discover a connection between the Curtis photographs and the recent murder. Their investigation threatens a politician who is running for Senator and who advocates mining the natural resources on the reservation. As usual, Vicky and Father John grapple with their feelings for one another as they attempt to solve the murder and to do what is right. This is an altogether satisfying mystery which gives the reader a look at history and a feel for the Arapaho culture.Comment:  A century ago, Edward Curtis may have photographed a crime. The original glass plates may still exist. If they do, they're potentially valuable and incriminating. They're almost worth killing for.

An intriguing premise, no? Well, Wife of Moon may be the best Coel mystery I've read so far--by a slight margin. That means it's a good mystery, not a great one. It's about as good as a typical Hillerman mystery.

Read the reviews on Amazon.com to learn why it's good. I'll tell you why it's not great.

Curtis supposedly captured a murder in progress when he staged and photographed a raid on an Arapaho village. A few problems with this:

1) I don't think Curtis's camera was fast enough to catch galloping horses. I checked my Curtis book and only a few photographs show Indians in (relatively slow) motion: on trotting horses or in gliding canoes. There are no reenactments of raids, especially not ones with people racing through a village.

2) Curtis was on a slope overlooking the village when he supposedly took the pictures. The figures would've been too small to distinguish.

3) Curtis had to change plates between exposures. The crime would've been over before Curtis could take a second photo, much less a third.

4) Most important, the text specifically says the murder occurred inside a tipi. Unless Curtis was in the tipi also, he wouldn't have seen anything.

Oops. This flaw doesn't ruin the story, but it's a nagging annoyance. It's an ongoing reminder that you're reading a work of fiction contrived by a research-laden author.

Father O'Malley and the readers quickly learn that the grandfather of a potential presidential candidate was involved in the 1907 murder. O'Malley dances around this fact for much of the book before deciding it's relevant. Hello? Hasn't anyone read or seen a mystery before? If a powerful politician is anywhere near the scene of a fictional crime, even if it's a century old, you can bet he's involved somehow. Otherwise, why include a powerful politician in the plot?

The "crazed ex-CIA operative" and the politician's handlers are about the only possible suspects. Readers will quickly decide that one or both of these people must've committed the present-day crimes. So the mystery is more a case of untangling the obvious possibilities than of surprising twists and turns.

As one reviewer noted, the ending is a little unsatisfying. It's wrapped up a little too quickly and neatly. The crimes are revealed to be strictly amateur-hour. Encyclopedia Brown could've unraveled them.

Here's a clue for people with incriminating evidence. Don't use it to threaten one of the most powerful politicians in the country. He won't pay you off and then shake hands to thank you. He'll torture or kill you and your loved ones to get his hands on the goods.

And here's a clue for people faced with incriminating evidence. Don't start robbing and killing people in a desperate attempt to find the goods. The owners may have made multiple copies...stashed them halfway around the world...or leaked them to lawyers, the police, or the media. In short, they'll have a fail-safe backup plan--if they're not complete idiots, that is.

I wouldn't recommend paying off the owners, either. That'll just lead to more threats and payoffs. Your best bet is to gather your lawyers and PR people and spin the evidence before someone else does.

Coel has a habit of overusing the phrases "The Ancestors," "The Elders," and "The Moccasin Telegraph." The narrator recites them as they're holy words etched in stone somewhere.

Sure, Indians may call their ancestors "The Ancestors" sometimes. But they also call them the old ones, the ancient ones, the grandfathers, the forefathers, the people who came before, the previous generations, etc.

The unrequited love between Father O'Malley and Vicki Holden is still unrewarding. Do something about it, Coel. Either consummate the relationship or end it, but don't leave it hanging. Let your protagonists grow and change. Don't keep them frozen in mid-relationship forever.

I was thinking Wife of Moon might be an 8.0 or an 8.5, but the ending didn't live up to the beginning. Here are my ratings for the Coel mysteries I've read:

Wife of Moon--7.5
The Spirit Woman--7.5
The Ghost Walker--7.0

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.