Anthropology and Photography at the American Museum of Natural History

At first glance, it is easy to become lost in the subject matter of the photograph, Invocation-Sioux (Curtis 1907: photograph). A Native American man is standing on a mountain top in traditional clothing, a headdress, moccasins, and cloth covering, posed in what appears to be a ritual stance, with one leg forward, one are raised up, holding a pipe, with minimal other items surrounding him such as feathers, and a small gathering of plants and tools in leather coverings. Set among a backdrop that is half cloudy sky, half expansive mountains the beauty and vastness of the landscape, the tranquility the photograph possesses, or the feeling that you have stumbled upon a very real, very private ceremony could strike the viewer; it is not hard to imagine this photo as a work of art. The title, Invocation-Sioux only furthers these notions.
The first questions that this photo raises revolve around the subject matter and actions in the photo. What is this invocation? Is it part of a larger sequence of photographs showing other moments in this ceremony? What is the significance of the items being used, do the tools or beadwork have religious significance or meaning? What was the purpose of the photo? Was it part of ethnographic fieldwork, was it documenting “vanishing” cultures? How did he come upon the moment? Was it staged? What can this photo show us of colonial contact or a larger history of Native/White relations? While not all of these questions are answerable by the information in the photo or the information available, they give us an idea of the materiality and history both of the reality shown within the image, and the life of this photograph outside of its subject matter.

Using this photograph as an historical document and looking further outside of its contents, we come upon tremendous amounts of information that aid us not only in figuring out what is going on in the photograph, but tell us about its larger history. Questions wrapped up in the moment the picture was taken, such as who made this, where, when, and why are added to questions of the individual photographs history, how the photograph ended up in the museum, what different versions it has gone through, or what different purposes it has played.

When we look closer at the title information given by Cutis when it was printed in its original publication, the date of this photograph is in 1907. This date is after many important events in Native American history, such as removal to reservations, the battle at Wounded Knee, and other events in the long history of Native American and White American relations and seems to be at odds with the traditional elements at play. What were the circumstances of this moment? Was it on a reservation? Was it an effort to capture these “vanishing cultures,” or part of an ethnographic expedition? What does this photo say about Native/White relations? Looking at a larger historical back-story and some history of the colonial contact and policies of the American government towards this people help to contextualize this part of the story.
American Indian Policy is concerned with a constant struggle over land and power. One of the first government sponsored removals came in 1830, when President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. It was believed that land West of the Mississippi was unsuitable for farming, and eastern Natives, most notably the Five Civilized Tribes, were forced into the then mainly undeveloped territory, with other Natives who already lived there (Olson 1984:22). White settlers were pushing Native Americans further and further west as they expanded their territories, and further conflicts and violations of land treaties occurred as white settlers moved westward. This was especially true if Native land was found to have valuable resources. Native reservations in Oklahoma were compromised when oil speculators entered the state in the 1850s, and during the progressive moment, acres of Indian land were reclassified by Roosevelt from reservation to national parks and forests (Parman, 1994: 28). Other acts and policies such as the Dawes Act of 1887, the Burke Act of 1906, focused on allotting Native Americans setter increments of land, and then slowly passing legislation to take it away.

Native American life began to be changed by the white man from the moment of the first contact. Trade brought new items into their culture, and missionaries began trying to give them a more civilized way of life by introducing European notions of education and religion; they were introduced into society in 1834 (Sturtevant 2001: 734). Natives also had to deal with forced removal onto reservation, the outlawing of traditional practices, and throughout the 1860s through 1880s, the Indians Wars ravaged the west (Olson 1984: 50). Starving Natives were forced off reservations to search for food, as government rations had lessened and become inefficient (Viola 2003: 58). Raids by Native Americans usually resulted in harsh reactions by white army officials. Insult only added to injury, and usually the conflicts were retaliations for past violence as with the Battle of Little Bighorn and its aftermath. On some occasions, white men looking for hostile Indians would ignore symbols of truce, which resulted in massacres like those at Sand Creek in 1864, or Wounded Knee in 1890, after which much warlike resistance to moving to reservation life subsided (Viola 2003: 194).

In trying to follow what information I could from the imagery in the photograph, I looked at the tribal history of the Sioux to see if there was an explanation of the stance, dress, and other elements. The Sioux nation is part of three tribes which share a similar language, history, social organization, and culture. Of the three, Santee, Yankton/Yanktonai, and Teton, volume three has a large section on the Teton Sioux, and a small portion on the Yanktonai, but does not explicitly mention the other (Curtis 1907: The North American Indian). It does not say on the image or its description which Sioux nationality the figure belongs to. Sometime during the 19th century, the Sioux pushed westward to follow buffalo herds. This caused them to come in contact with other tribes, and “during this time the Sioux developed cultural traits that became central to Plains culture, doubtless incorporating old elements with new ones borrowed from other tribes. These included the intertribal pipe adoption ceremony and the Sun Dance.” (Sturtevant 2001: 727) It is not definite that the image Invocation-Sioux is demonstrating a Sun Dance. The caption that Curtis gave with the photo mentions no specific ceremony or ritual, which would have been the case if there were one, especially an important, documented one like the Sun Dance.

“

Scattered throughout the Indian country are found spots that are virtually shrines. These are often boulders or other rocks which through some chance have been invested with mythic significance, and to them priest and war-leaders repair to invoke the aid of the supernatural powers. The half-buried boulder on which the suppliant stands is accredited with the power of revealing to the warrior the foreordained result of his projected raid. Its surface bears what the Indians call the imprint of human feet, and it is owing to this peculiarity that it became a shrine. About it the soil is almost completely worn away by the generations of suppliants who have journeyed hither for divine revelation.”(Northwestern University 2009)

Looking through other photos in drawer 149, I found other photographs that had shared components of my photo, but they did not define the action of my photo, though they made interesting parallels. Both photos were from volume three of North American Indian. One, “Prayer to the Mystery” portrayed a man in similar dress standing with a pipe, while the other “Sun Dancer” depicts a man standing in profile with his hand raised in a similar fashion.

Also in the title information is another jumping off point. Edward S. Curtis is listed as the photographer, and in finding out information about this man and his practices, we can also learn more about the photo itself. In 1907 Curtis was commissioned by J.P. Morgan to write a series of books on the Native American Indian. He was to photograph and research the lives of Native American tribes west of the Mississippi from as far south as New Mexico to as far north as Alaska (Curtis 1972: 8). He collected over 40,000 images; many appear in his twenty-volume series, The North American Indian. The series was sold by subscription issued as a limited edition of 500 copies for $3,000 each and aimed at museums, libraries and wealthy private collectors (Gidley 2000: 5). Because of the monumentality of its subjects and its limited availability, his collection fell into ignobility shortly after the last book was published in 1930, and remained that way until the 1970s (Gidley 2000:9).
How Curtis’ photographs fell out of public memory is a tale of possibilities. Curtis was often looking for monetary support for his family and his work, and this led to a very messy home life that affected his work. After a 1916 divorce settlement granted his wife control of Curtis’ studio in Washington, as well as his negatives, he traveled back home and destroyed a good portion of his glass negatives from his American Indian expeditions (Gidley 2000:7). Later on, in need of money, he sold much of his remaining collection of negatives to a wealthy business man from Boston. They were forgotten and remained his basement until he died in 1971. Upon finding these negatives, Curtis’ work was praised as a forgotten genius of photography (Gidley 2000:11). Scholarship was done on the work he did, and books featuring highlights of his photographs were printed. It is at this time that this copy is placed into the American Museum of Natural History’s library. Though the reasons are not clear, it could be due in part of this revival. These photos could have been taken for a book the AMNH was going to print, though if this were true, this plan never came to fruition as the museum has no publications made by them about him. While the twenty volume work The North American Indian was full of photographs and ethnographies of various Native American tribes, each volume also had a portfolio of supplementary photos that went along with it. While the AMNH has each volume in this collection, they do not list having the portfolios in their library catalog. The photo Invocation-Sioux, and others in drawer 149 taken by Curtis, could show the museums attempt at completing its collection of his work by copying these pictures after they became known. This would also explain the stamps created for the information that would be consistent on every photo, such as the date, and the publication. However, since my photo never seems to have been used by the museum in publications, displays, or otherwise, it is difficult to ascertain its exact purpose in the museum’s holdings.

Looking into Curtis’ life holds an interesting story, and a different way of attaching ourselves to the photograph and understanding its messages. His story as a photographer is entirely wrapped up in the story of the photo. He was a photographer based in Seattle, and his studio was one that attracted the upper crust of society, the place for elite women to be photographed (Curtis 1972: 5). Curtis’ preoccupation with taking photographs of Native Americans began before his commission through Morgan. He entered a photo contest in which he won a grand prize by showing of a portrait of a Native American woman, know as Princess Angelina and in 1905 had an exhibit of his work at the Waldorf-Astoria. Here he caught the attention of Teddy Roosevelt, who became an advocate of Curtis’ work (Curtis 1972:8). In 1906, he aided scientists on their journey up some mountain, which got him their approval and his introduction to J.P. Morgan and his endeavor.
Curtis spent most of the year on site in “Indian country” photographing and documenting his work for his books. His assistant and principle ethnologist, William Meyers, would have been in the area and already started to document the culture of the tribe they were studying; Curtis would enter with some prior knowledge of their culture. Curtis would also have Native informants and other assistants on his team (Gidley 2000:9). Not only was Curtis taking pictures and collecting information for the text of his books, but he collected oral histories, legends and other folklore, and songs, recorded on wax, many of which still survive. His work on this project also included some early motion picture work, including the first documentary film In the Land of the Head Hunters made in 1914 (Gidley 2000:1).

Most of his images were portraits or staged scenes of Native American life. According to his son, he would pay his subjects a silver dollar each time they posed.”(Curtis 1986: i) His subjects were almost always in traditional dress or depicting traditional elements of their lifestyle. These preoccupations with showing the Native American past was due in part to a movement to capture these vanishing races before they permanently disappeared, and Curtis refused to show modern elements of Native American lifestyle in his photographs. He “insisted that the Indians he photographed should be dressed like Indians, and if there was a background scene it had to contain a vital part of their life or land.”(Curtis 1986: 4) It is problematic to get a grasp on what his relationships were like with the various native tribes that he saw. He conducted research on over eighty tribes, and had a variety of experiences. In one account, Native Americans in Canyon de Chelly in the southwest, the Native Americans purposely fouled drinking water, and stole food and horses from the party. They would then offer to find the horses, for a price (Curtis 1986: iii). This portrayal seems slightly skewed to put the Native Americans in a negative light, and even though they would agree to be paid and photographed, subjugating their culture to be used by the white man, it is the white man that is seen as the victim. Curtis would sometimes take his children on his expeditions with him over the summer. His daughter, Florence, would write that Native Americans were instantly trusting of her father, because by “accepting the Indians and their beliefs, Father made no effort to influence or change their way of life.”(Curtis 1986:3) Yet while she talks about “Father’s remarkable rapport with the Indians,” she also mentions that upon entering a camp during one exhibition, “no one warmly welcomed us, yet I sensed feelings of friendliness.” (Curtis 1986:3) While his daughter’s accounts are most likely biased, they overlook the fact that Curtis paid Native Americans to sit for his photographs, and that to a great extent contact between the two was most likely handled by interpreters on Curtis’ staff, who would have facilitated much of the good feelings.

Curtis was always on the outside of the scientific field, fighting between being labeled as an amateur ethnographer, or a professional photographer. It is debated whether Curtis’ work is a romanticized illusion of what Native American life was, and not based in scientific fact and careful research. Franz Boas questioned the authenticity of Curtis’ research and writing, based on its scholarly credibility, among other things do to the fact that Curtis did not have an academic degree (Curtis 1986: 28). Teddy Roosevelt, in a move that shows Curtis’ influential ties to American government and elite, appointed a committee of men including Henry Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, who was often at odds with Boas, as well as members of the BEA and Smithsonian to establish its authenticity (Curtis 1986:28). The hint of the romantic in Curtis’ images is obvious. Though he was working with modern subjects, he used them in a way that reconstructed an illusion of a Native past, in some ways bringing back the notion of the Noble Savage and all the connotations that went along with it. While his photographs can be seen as providing us with another visual legacy of anti-white American racism, they are also seen as capturing the spirit of Native American lifestyle, himself an interpreter of the Native ethos (Curtis 1972: 6). Native Americans also took his images in different ways. At the time, knowledge of his work and what he was doing was being spread throughout the tribes by word of mouth. It became almost a mark of status, a prestige that tribes did not want to be left out of to say that their tribe had been photographed and would have a marker of tradition for the next generation. Looking back on the work of Curtis today, Native Americans are still in dispute on whether he had a positive or negative effect. Some still believe in the racist viewpoint held by these photographs, and see exploitation of their culture. Others, such as Peigan Jerry Potts, see them as a way to stir interest in traditional aspects of their culture and recreate these ceremonies in modern times, while there are still some elders in the community that are able to conduct the ritual (Prins 2000:893). Regardless of whether they are viewed as traditional representations or incorrect illusions, Curtis photographs are hold a snapshot of their time by showing either the historical moment, or alluding to the historical sentiments that sustained such viewpoints. This photo is a marker of all of those moments, the struggle of the Native American in the United States, the idea of capturing a vanishing race and how that is viewed, either as a preservation of tradition or racism that started with colonial contact and control.

Tara Dawson, NYU Museum Studies

Works Cited

Curtis, Edward S. Invocation-Sioux. 1907 American Museum of Natural History

Curtis, Edward S. 1907 The North American Indian. Vol.3 E.S. Curtis: Seattle

Curtis, Edward S. 1986. Edward Sheriff Curtis: visions of a vanishing race. Houghton Mifflin: Boston

Curtis, Edward S. 1972. Portraits from North American Indian Life. Promontory Press: New York.

Gidley Mick. 2000. The North American Indian, Incorporated. Cambridge University Press: New York

Northwestern University. Edward S. Curtis’s the North American Indian http://curtis
library.northwestern.edu/curtis/viewPage.cgi?showp=1&size=2&id=nai.03.port.00000035.p&type=port&volume=3 accessed 3/30/2009.

Olson James S, 1984. Native American in the Twentieth Century. Brigham Young University Press: Provo,
Utah.

Parman Donald. 1994. Indians and the American West in the Twentieth Century. Indiana University Press:
Indianapolis.

Prins, Harold. E.L. 2000. “Review of Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian”
by Anne Makepeace. American Anthropologist. n.s. 102 No 4 (December) 891-895.

Sturtevant, William C. 2001. Handbook of North American Indians. vol 13 part 2. Smithsonian Institution,
Washington D.C

Viola, Herman. 2003 Trail To Wounded Knee: the last stand of the Plains Indians 1860-1890. National
Geographic Society: Washington D.C..