The twenty volumes of ethnographic text and pictorial photography and the twenty portfolios of large, finely printed photogravures that together comprise "The North American Indian" were the product ...of an extraordinary labor by Edward S. Curtis, an extensive and shifting team of co-workers, and the participation of hundreds of Native Americans. By the time the last volume was published, Curtis' work has resulted in over 40,000 photographs that showcased American Indian primitive customs and traditions. Although recent accounts of the encounter between photography and Native American cultures have shifted attention away from the objectification of Native subjects within romantic and racialist iconographies and toward narratives that focus on Native understanding of the photographic process and on the active use of photography by Native individuals and groups for the purposes of self-representation, there has been no attempt to develop a sustained account of the extent and nature of Native involvement in the making of "The North American Indian." The use of Curtis's portfolio portrait of Alexander B. Upshaw, his gifted Crow (or "Apsaroke") interpreter and fieldworker, as an illustration of the triumph of romance over reality, of genre conventions and racial typology over individuated portraiture, is exemplary of the critical failure to take account of Native agency. Upshaw, who worked extensively with Curtis between 1905 and 1909, was the son of Crazy Pend d'Oreille, a prominent Crow warrior and leader. Several critics such as Mick Gidley and Christopher Lyman, have commented on Curtis' portrayal of Native cultures especially Upshaw's images. In this essay, the author argues that the critics' accounts of Curtis overgeneralize the meanings of particular images and their textual framings in "The North American Indian," thereby misshaping people's understanding of Curtis's achievements as a photographer and as a maker of photographic and textual combinations. If these ethical and ideological critiques of Curtis are undertaken in the name of Native cultures, it is a surprising paradox that these very critiques turn away from fully confronting the question of Native agency in the making of "The North American Indian." (Contains 4 figures and 50 notes.)
Ryttare som rider bort från fotografen längs en väg. På baksidan av papperet varpå bilden är monterad finns en klisterlapp i nedre vänstra hörnet med texten: "This picture is copyrighted and so ...stamped on is face. Publishers are closely watched and infringement will be vigorously prosecuted. - E. S. Curtis".
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navajo
Photograph shows Navajos on horseback riding away from photographer.
Copyright E. S. Curtis 1904
Canyon De Chelly –Navaho, 1904. På baksidan av papperet varpå bilden är monterad finns en klisterlapp i nedre vänstra hörnet med texten: "This picture is copyrighted and so stamped on is face. ...Publishers are closely watched and infringement will be vigorously prosecuted. - E. S. Curtis".
0772.0003
navajo
Photo shows seven Native riders on horseback and dog traveling against a background of canyon cliffs.
Copyright 1904 by E. S. Curtis
Red Hawk, en oglala lakota sioux krigare, med sin häst som dricker ur en källa.
På baksidan av papperet varpå bilden är monterad finns en klisterlapp i nedre vänstra hörnet med texten: "This picture ...is copyrighted and so stamped on is face. Publishers are closely watched and infringement will be vigorously prosecuted. - E. S. Curtis".
0772.0002
An Oasis In The Badlands Sioux, 1905. Photograph shows Red Hawk, an Oglala warrior, sitting on a horse that is drinking from a small pond in the Badlands of North Dakota.
X1450-05. The Curtis studio, Seattle
Skolprogram: Forna kulturer
Forna kulturer: Nordamerika
Forna kulturer: Nordamerika - Lakota/Sioux
