The Lost Tribes of The United States

The Lost Tribes of The United States:

Haunting pictures taken over 30 years

capture Native American life

even as it was dying out

• Edward Curtis dedicated much of his life to profiling and documenting Native American tribes in beautiful portraits
• From 1906 to 1930 he compiled The North American India, a vast library of images showing life on the Great Plains
• He produced over 40,000 negatives, 10,000 recordings of language and music and over 4,000 pages of text

The best photography is that which lets you see past what is being photographed to something else; something beyond the obvious, a feeling, a thought or a way of life so vivid you feel a part of it.
If there was one photographer who became a master at this it was Edward Curtis, born in 1868, who began taking photographs in 1890 and dedicated much of his career to recording traditional American Indian customs.
Curtis is known for expertly documenting the last of America's tribes from 1906 to 1930 in a mammoth collection called The North American Indian. Such was his expertise that powerful bankers J.P Morgan personally financed his work.



+37
Edward Curtis spent many years profiling tribesmen and women and their way of life in images such as this one of a Cheyenne male from 1908




'Bringing the Sweat lodge Willows', 1900, shows Piegan men on horseback triumphantly riding towards an encampment brandishing willows



Curtis produced over 40,000 negatives, 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of language and over 4,000 pages of anthropological text
During these years of work Curtis encountered almost every hardship imaginable to produce over 40,000 negatives, 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of language and music, over 4,000 pages of highly regarded anthropological text and a feature length film.
From 1905 to 1909 Curtis documented Cheyenne Indians. The Cheyenne tribe historically lived on the Great Plains on what is now known as South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas.
One arresting image of a Cheyenne man entitled 'Cheyenne Type' from 1908 appears in soft focus with his hair braided staring into the lens. Another - 'Cheyenne Girl' - is a similarly close up and starkly intense portrait taken three years before, in 1905.


Theodore Roosevelt shakes hands with Natives







+37
One of his most famous images: 'An Oasis in the Bad Lands' taken in 1905 shows Red Hawk, a notorious warrior, letting his horse drink



+37



+37

Curtis is known for expertly documenting the last of America's tribes from 1906 to 1930 in a epic collection called The North American Indian
Curtis's most famous images is the sort-after 'An Oasis in the Bad Lands' from 1905. In it, a character called Red Hawk sits on horseback while his horse drinks from a small pool of water. Red Hawk was born in 1854 and a notorious warrior who fought in 20 battles, including the Custer fight in 1876.
Water is a consistent feature in Curtis's work as he was drawn to its pictorial and metaphorical influence on a composition.
Another striking photograph shows a Piegan man kneeling and holding a decorative medicine pipe in 1910.



The Cheyenne tribe historically lived on the Great Plains on what is now known as South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas. This image taken by Curtis in 1905 shows Little Wolf, a Cheyenne male, wearing plaits and feathers in his hair



A self photo of Edward Curtis, thought to have been taken in 1899. The acclaimed cameraman built his first camera aged 12 after saving $1.25 and using a copy of Wilson's Photographics - a popular manual at the time - as a point of reference.







He started photographing local native Indians digging for clams and mussels during low tides and won plaudits at the National Photographic Convention in 1898 and 1899

In the accompanying caption, Curtis wrote: 'Medicine-pipes, of which the Piegan have many, are simply long pipe-stems variously decorated with beads, paint, feathers, and fur. Each one is believed to have been obtained long ago in some supernatural manner, as recounted in a myth.

'The medicine-pipe is ordinarily concealed in a bundle of wrappings, which are removed only when the sacred object is to be employed in healing sickness, or when it is to be transferred from one custodian to another in exchange for property.'


'On a Sia housetop' taken in 1925 shows a indigenous woman sitting on the top of a house holding a patterned bowl in full jewellery
He didn't shy away from action shots either, as 'Bringing the Sweat lodge Willows - Piegan' shows. The shot depicts a group of young horsemen riding triumphantly towards an encampment with willows 'for the faster's sweat-lodge'.

A picture of a man taken in 1923 show him wearing a tall headdress. Curtis captioned the image with some information: 'The head-dress is of the type common to the Klamath River tribes - a broad band of deerskin partially covered with a row of red scalps of woodpecker.

'The massive necklace of clam-shell beads indicates the wealth of the wearer, or of the friend from whom he borrowed it. He carries a ceremonial celt of black obsidian and a decorated bow.




+37
A Piegan man kneels holding medicine pipe described by Curtis as 'long pipe-stems variously decorated with beads, paint, feathers, and fur'



+37
Water is a consistent feature in Curtis's work as he was drawn to its pictorial and metaphorical influence on a composition
Curtis was christened Edward Sheriff Curtis and born into abject poverty in Wisconsin in 1868 to parents Ellen and Johnson Curtis. After a few years the family moved to Cordova, a rural settlement in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, where Johnson Curtis worked as a preacher.
Canoe trips to visit members of the congregation with his father gave Edward his first experiences of the great outdoors as a boy and their camping trips helped prepare him for research and life in the field.



+37
Edward took canoe trips and went camping with his father as a young boy which helped inform and prepare him for his work in the field


There were many different Native American canoe styles, and tribes could often easily recognize each other just by the profile of their canoes


The 'Indian was the remnant of a savage past away from which civilized men had struggled to grow,' wrote Roy Harvey Pearce in a book called Savagism and Civilization

Aged 12 he saved $1.25 and built a camera using a copy of Wilson's Photographics, a popular manual at the time.

Reports say he apprenticed in a photo studio in Saint Paul from 1885 to 1886 before his family moved to the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Throughout the 1890s, during his twenties, Curtis's interest in photography sharpened. He started photographing local native Indians digging for clams and mussels during low tides and won plaudits at the National Photographic Convention in 1898 and 1899 for a series of three sepia, softly focused images of Native Americas entitled Evening on the Sound, The Clam Digger and The Mussel Gatherer.





Images of the Nunivak tribeswomen wearing beaded hats:
Curtis visited Alaska for scientific research and to photograph its people

Edward Curtis once wrote of himself:
'While primarily a photographer, I do not see or think photographically'






The great photographer apprenticed in a photo studio in St Paul from 1885 to 1886 before his family moved to the Puget Sound region

It was then that his interest in Native peoples took off and Curtis immersed himself in the science behind beautiful portraits and scenic shots.

He once wrote of himself: 'While primarily a photographer, I do not see or think photographically; hence the story of Indian life will not be told in microscopic detail, but rather will be presented as a broad and luminous picture.'




+37
Tolowa Dancing Head Dress, 1923: Klamath River tribesmen often wore headdresses and the necklace of clam shell beads denotes wealth



+37
Cheyenne Girl 1905: An intense portrait of a girl from the Cheyenne tribe wearing earrings and a matching necklace



+37
Curtis's photos show the Native Indians as historical features of an American landscape, supporting the view that they were viewed as a 'vanishing race' by many in the early 20th Century



+37
Curtis's photos evolved to the status of ethnographic representations which were studied for critical analysis



+37
A traditional longhouse photographed by Curtis, who died in 1952 in Los Angeles



+37
Curtis released a movie, In the Land of the Head-Hunters, in 1914 depicting the 'primal life' of Northwest Coast Indians



+37
Thousands of photographs lay forgotten in the basement of the Charles Lauriat Company, a rare book dealer in Boston, until their rediscovery in the 1970s, which marked the revival of interest in Curtis' haunting images of American Indians



+37
Riverside settlement: Curtis was eager to record every aspect of the lives of the Native American Indians



+37
Curtis opened his photographic studio in the early 1890s - the same time that many natives lost their land and their human rights



+37
Fishing for the family: A young Indian is captured by Curtis perched atop a wooden structure built into the rocky outcrop on this river



+37
From the 1890s the Native Indians were pictured as the tragic cultures of a vanishing race



+37
Attempts to forcefully eradicate Indian culture and assimilate Indians into American society cemented the myth of the 'vanishing race'



+37
All the clothes were made by hand, and decorated with designs, beadwork, and other art, so no two people in the tribe had the same dress



Some longhouses could be up up to 200 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 20 feet high,
sleeping up to around 60 in an entire clan



+37
Deer, buffalo, fish, and various birds were the game of choice, with corn, beans, squash, berries, nuts, and melons also consumed



+37
The North American Indian project produced by Curtis is described as one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/t...s-Native-America-dying-out.html#ixzz4d11zdhzW
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/t...s-Native-America-dying-out.html#ixzz4d11UZ9nv
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook