The Man who Documented the Last American Tribes At the height of Edward Curtis’ career, he had one of the most powerful bankers of his era, J.P. Morgan, personally financing him. But much like the subjects Curtis chose in his photographs, he and his work seem to have been tragically forgotten in the past… A born adventurer, Curtis befriended a group of prominent scientists who invited him on his first quest as the official photographer for an expedition to Alaska in 1899, a two month journey discovering remote Eskimo settlements and glaciers. When the scientists invited him to come on a visit to the Piegan Blackfeet in Montana the following year, he packed his camera, months worth of supplies and left his young family again to travel by foot and by horse deep into the Indian territories. Curtis was instantly taken with the North American Indian tribe and their way of life. It was an encounter that would change the course of his life. The Native Americans came to call Curtis, “Shadow Catcher”. He documented more than 80 tribes , collecting 10,000 recordings of songs, music and native speech. The tribes even obliged (sometimes for a small fee) to reenact traditional ceremonies and battle calls among the natives for Curtis to capture with his 14-inch by 17-inch view camera. But the truth is, by this time, Native American culture had already been penetrated by American colonial expansion. Many of the tribes Curtis visited had already been “influenced” by the government; their children forcibly sent to boarding schools, their native tongue banned and their traditions forbidden. Curtis found it hard to accept this and preferred his images to represent a timeless, untainted vision of Native American culture, choosing only to photograph people in traditional clothing and surroundings, even going as far as retouching his photographs if they contained any giveaways of modern outsider influence. I don’t think these photographs and their subjects are being remembered enough. I can’t even begin to pretend to talk about the injustice the Native American people have faced. But I think in reminding ourselves what has been lost, words aren’t always needed.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 03:11:45 +0000