Edward Curtis Photography - "Tribal"

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TRIBAL TRIBAL
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E D WA R D C U R T I S
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E D I T E D B Y J O N AT H A N R E X
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Tribal: a group of people having a common character, occupation, or interest. Subculture: an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish it from others within an embracing culture or society. -Merriam-Webster Dictionary
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FORWORD
Edward S. Curtis built his first camera after quitting school in the sixth grade and later became an apprentice at the age of seventeen. Two years later his family moved from Minnesota to Washington State. In Seattle he purchased a new camera and worked alongside other photographers until a chance encounter with a group of scientists while he was photographing Mt. Rainier. One of the scientists, George Bird Grinnell, became a close friend of his and helped get him appointed to the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. Having only photographed one Native American woman named Kikisoblu (also known as Princess Angeline), the daughter of Chief Siahl (Chief Seattle, whom the city is named after), the expedition marked a pivotal moment in his life and career as a visual ethnographer. The expedition, organized by Clinton Hart Merriam (a founder of the National Geographic Society) and financed by the railroad executive E.H. Harriman, included some of the most prominent biologists, botanists, foresters, geologists, geographers, ornithologists, paleontologists, zoologists, writers, artists and arctic experts of the late 19th Century. Edward Curtis was the sole photographer aside from his assistant. The following year he traveled with Grinnell to Montana where he photographed the Blackfeet. Six years later J.P. Morgan paid Curtis $75,000 to produce a series on the various Western tribes of American Indians. This series was to include 25 volumes with 1,500 photos. During the course of his career he wound up photographing over 80 tribes, took over 40,000 photos, produced over 10,000 wax recordings of their languages and music and hired William E. Myers to write about their myths, foods, housing, clothing, ceremonies and funerary customs. In 1914 he also employed the use of motion pictures and released a feature length silent film titled In the Land of the Head Hunters. His work has been the target of critics concerned with its accuracy as an ethnographic study due to the fact that he avoided showing many hardships that the people in them actually faced. In some instances he also confused the tribal members with other tribes, paid them to pose as noble savage warriors in a time when they struggled with their most basic rights and liberties and intentionally removed signs of modernity from his portraits (such as a clock or wagon). While his photos cannot be viewed as a true work of visual ethnography but more of an ethnographic simulation his intention was to capture a way of life that would soon be almost entirely lost and that is what ethnography itself is all about (capturing cultures and subcultures for academic and historical purposes). The North American Indian deviated drastically from the Dime Novel depictions as well as from
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Vaudeville shows such as Buffalo Bills Wild West Show which featured Sitting Bull and inspired the reimagined storytelling of performers such as Te Ata Fisher in the Chautauqua Circuit during the 1930s. Just as the Eastern Woodland and Appalachian tribes (Iroquois, Shawnee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Miami etc.) had mostly assimilated, adopted Christianity and/or relocated to reservations it was clear that the onward march west of settlements was ending the way of life for the people of the plains during the turn of the 19th Century. Although his lifes work may not live up to the expectations of modern academia it is stunning, astounding and an inspiration for people around the world. Following my foreword will be the one written by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt for Edward Curtis original book The North American Indian and after that I will conclude this with Curtis own words on why he undertook this project. The images in this book are taken from his complete published collection. I have personally gone through each individually, selected the images which stood out for me and edited them from their original form with Photoshop for presentation purposes here. Their original tint was a desert orange and the changes Ive made have been merely tone correction, color correction, brightness, contrast and to remove any noise or sharpen the images. I have not edited the subject matter in any way, shape or form. Tribal is not intended to be an academic work on visual ethnography but it was created with the field in mind. Others who may be interested in documentary film making, ethnographic research, photography, Native American culture or human history and our shared past and present tribal ways of living in general may find inspiration in these images. Whatever your reason for opening this book I hope that you enjoy his photos and my effort to select, edit and organize them here. Jonathan Rex
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Foreword by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt:

In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose pictures are pictures, not merely photographs; whose work has far more than mere accuracy, because it is truthful. All serious students are to be congratulated because he is putting his work in permanent form; for our generation offers the last chance for doing what Mr. Curtis has done. The Indian as he has hitherto been is on the point of passing away. His life has been lived under conditions thru which our own race past so many ages ago that not a vestige of their memory remains. It would be a veritable calamity if a vivid and truthful record of these conditions were not kept. No one man alone could preserve such a record in complete form. Others have worked in the past, and are working in the present, to preserve parts of the record; but Mr. Curtis, because of the singular combination of qualities with which he has been blest, and because of his extraordinary success in making and using his opportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as far as we can see, no other man could do. He is an artist who works out of doors and not in the closet. He is a close observer, whose qualities of mind and body fit him to make his observations out in the field, surrounded by the wild life he commemorates. He has lived on intimate terms with many different tribes of the mountains and the plains. He knows them as they hunt, as they travel, as they go about their various avocations on the march and in the camp. He knows their medicine men and sorcerers, their chiefs and warriors, their young men and maidens. He has not only seen their vigorous outward existence, but has caught glimpses, such as few white men ever catch, into that strange spiritual and mental life of theirs; from whose innermost recesses all white men are forever barred. Mr. Curtis in publishing this book is rendering a real and great service; a service not only to our own people, but to the world of scholarship everywhere. THEODORE ROOSEVELT October 1st, 1906
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From his own Introduction in The North American Indian:

The great changes in practically every phase of the Indians life that have taken place, especially within recent years, have been such that had the time for collecting much of the material, both descriptive and illustrative, herein recorded, been delayed, it would have been lost forever. The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other; consequently the information that is to be gathered, for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost for all time. It is this need that has inspired the present task. EDWARD S. CURTIS The North American Indian, 1907
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Edward Curtis Photography - "Tribal"

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Foreword by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt:

From his own Introduction in The North American Indian:

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Edward Curtis Photography - &quot;Tribal&quot;

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Edward Curtis Photography - &quot;Tribal&quot;

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Foreword by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt:

From his own Introduction in The North American Indian:

You might also like

Edward Curtis Photography - "Tribal"

Edward Curtis Photography - "Tribal"