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TRIBAL

EDWARD CU RTIS

EDITED BY JONATHAN REX

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ribal: a group o people having a common character, occupation, orinterest.Subculture: an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibitingcharacteristic patterns o behavior sucient to distinguish it rom otherswithin an embracing culture or society.

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

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FORWORD

Edward S. Curtis built his rst camera aer quitting school in the sixth grade andlater became an apprentice at the age o seventeen. wo years later his amily moved rom

Minnesota to Washington State. In Seattle he purchased a new camera and worked along-side other photographers until a chance encounter with a group o scientists while he wasphotographing Mt. Rainier. One o the scientists, George Bird Grinnell, became a closeriend o his and helped get him appointed to the Harriman Alaska Expedition o 1899.Having only photographed one Native American woman named Kikisoblu (also knownas Princess Angeline), the daughter o Chie Siahl (Chie Seattle, whom the city is namedaer), the expedition marked a pivotal moment in his lie and career as a visual ethnogra-pher. Te expedition, organized by Clinton Hart Merriam (a ounder o the National Geo-graphic Society) and nanced by the railroad executive E.H. Harriman, included some othe most prominent biologists, botanists, oresters, geologists, geographers, ornithologists,paleontologists, zoologists, writers, artists and arctic experts o the late 19th Century. Ed-ward Curtis was the sole photographer aside rom his assistant.

Te ollowing year he traveled with Grinnell to Montana where he photographed theBlackeet. Six years later J.P. Morgan paid Curtis $75,000 to produce a series on the vari-ous Western tribes o American Indians. Tis series was to include 25 volumes with 1,500photos. During the course o his career he wound up photographing over 80 tribes, tookover 40,000 photos, produced over 10,000 wax recordings o their languages and music

and hired William E. Myers to write about their myths, oods, housing, clothing, cer-emonies and unerary customs. In 1914 he also employed the use o motion pictures andreleased a eature length silent lm titled In the Land of the Head Hunters.

His work has been the target o critics concerned with its accuracy as an ethnographicstudy due to the act that he avoided showing many hardships that the people in themactually aced. In some instances he also conused the tribal members with other tribes,paid them to pose as noble savage warriors in a time when they struggled with their mostbasic rights and liberties and intentionally removed signs o modernity rom his portraits(such as a clock or wagon). While his photos cannot be viewed as a true work o visual

ethnography but more o an ethnographic simulation his intention was to capture a way olie that would soon be almost entirely lost and that is what ethnography itsel is all about(capturing cultures and subcultures or academic and historical purposes). Te North

American Indian deviated drastically rom the Dime Novel depictions as well as rom

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Vaudeville shows such as Bufalo Bills Wild West Show which eatured Sitting Bull and in-spired the reimagined storytelling o perormers such as e Ata Fisher in the ChautauquaCircuit 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 marchwest o settlements was ending the way o lie or the people o the plains during the turn

o the 19th Century. Although his lies work may not live up to the expectations o mod-ern academia it is stunning, astounding and an inspiration or people around the world.

Following my oreword will be the one written by U.S. President Teodore Rooseveltor Edward Curtis original bookTe North American Indian and aer that I will concludethis with Curtis own words on why he undertook this project. Te images in this book aretaken rom his complete published collection. I have personally gone through each indi-vidually, selected the images which stood out or me and edited them rom their originalorm with Photoshop or presentation purposes here. Teir original tint was a desertorange 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 thesubject matter in any way, shape or orm. ribalis not intended to be an academic workon visual ethnography but it was created with the eld in mind. Others who may be inter-ested in documentary lm making, ethnographic research, photography, Native Americanculture or human history and our shared past and present tribal ways o living in generalmay nd inspiration in these images. Whatever your reason or opening this book I hopethat you enjoy his photos and my efort to select, edit and organize them here.

Jonathan Rex

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Foreword by U.S. President Teodore Roosevelt:In Mr. Curtis we have both an artist and a trained observer, whose pictures are

pictures, not merely photographs; whose work has ar more than mere accuracy, becauseit is truthul. All serious students are to be congratulated because he is putting his work inpermanent orm; or our generation ofers the last chance or doing what Mr. Curtis hasdone. Te Indian as he has hitherto been is on the point o passing away. His lie has beenlived under conditions thru which our own race past so many ages ago that not a vestigeo their memory remains. It would be a veritable calamity i a vivid and truthul record o

these conditions were not kept. No one man alone could preserve such a record in com-plete orm. Others have worked in the past, and are working in the present, to preserveparts o the record; but Mr. Curtis, because o the singular combination o qualities withwhich he has been blest, and because o his extraordinary success in making and using hisopportunities, has been able to do what no other man ever has done; what, as ar as we cansee, no other man could do. He is an artist who works out o doors and not in the closet.He is a close observer, whose qualities o mind and body t him to make his observationsout in the eld, surrounded by the wild lie he commemorates. He has lived on intimateterms with many diferent tribes o 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 thecamp. He knows their medicine men and sorcerers, their chies and warriors, their youngmen and maidens. He has not only seen their vigorous outward existence, but has caughtglimpses, such as ew white men ever catch, into that strange spiritual and mental lie otheirs; rom whose innermost recesses all white men are orever barred. Mr. Curtis inpublishing this book is rendering a real and great service; a service not only to our ownpeople, but to the world o scholarship everywhere.

HEODORE ROOSEVELOctober 1st, 1906

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From his own Introduction in Te North American Indian:Te great changes in practically every phase o the Indians lie that have taken

place, especially within recent years, have been such that had the time or collecting mucho the material, both descriptive and illustrative, herein recorded, been delayed, it wouldhave been lost orever. Te passing o every old man or woman means the passing o sometradition, some knowledge o sacred rites possessed by no other; consequently the inor-mation that is to be gathered, or the benet o uture generations, respecting the mode olie o one o the great races o mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will

be lost or all time. It is this need that has inspired the present task.

EDWARD S. CURISTe North American Indian, 1907

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RIBAL

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