Edward S. Curtis: The American Indian Singer

“May not those mournful eyes to phantoms grow – 
When, wronged and lonely, they have drifted on
Into the voiceless shadow whence they came?”
(Ella Higginson, 1860-1940)

 

Edward S. Curtis. “The Vanishing Race”, Navaho, 1904

I am interested in the so-called ethnographic photography.

It is another purpose that Photography can have.

That of knowing, documenting and saving the memory of peoples who have been lost or have changed over time. I have already talked about Bernatzik, and his three monumental books dedicated to Africa, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

In this period where the statue, the images and the film that discriminated against the black people of America are removed, Edward S. Curtis, on the other hand, is the example of someone who devoted his whole life to make the Native Americans, also known as American Indians, known to the world.

 

“Edward S. Curtis”, 1899

Edward S. Curtis: One Hundred Masterworks

 

Born in 1868, he managed to bring an epic and mastodontic project to an end, with immense difficulty: his encyclopedia “The North American Indian”, 20 volumes with about 2,200 photographs, which occupied one and a half meters of space.

It took almost thirty years, even sacrificing his marriage, to carry out this project, which had various financiers, including friends of Roosevelt who loved his portraits and his enthusiasm.

It is said that he was a “robust and ingenious type, endowed with great strength as well as physical strength”.

He visits over eighty tribes, and half the work was the same Indians who contacted him to be portrayed and told. Because, the main problem is that all Indian cultural tradition was exclusively oral; Curtis was helping them perpetrate their memory.

“A tribe visited and studied tells another thing, once the generation of today has disappeared, the Indians will know from my books what they were once, what they did, and this tribe does not want to be left out.” (Edward S. Curtis)

 

“Taos water carriers”, 1905

"An Apsaroke mother and child", 1908

Not only did he portray them in a splendid and melancholy way, but Curtis wrote down everything: the biographies of the Indian chiefs, of warriors, healers and shamans. He transcribed the lyrics and the music. He divided the chapters, for each tribe, into “Customs”, “Work, crafts and religion”, “Ceremonies”, “Medicine and healers”.

The last he portrayed were the Inuit’s, the Eskimos of the far north.

The most important aspect is that Curtis was different from all his predecessors, whose photographs of the Indians only endorsed the prejudices with which this folk was seen: the “savages adorned with feathers”.

The Indians, in that case, were only models used to confirm and reinforce preconceived ideas and fears that the Americans felt towards them (present in almost all the first western films with the Indians), and the Indians themselves had no power to overturn them . They were passive objects, simple postcard stereotypes.

Curtis instead travel with them, try to understand the language, he lived with them, in such an empathetic way that he reminds us of what Koudelka did with the “Gypsies” in his most famous book. And more than anything else, he was deeply outraged by the injustices they were forced to suffer.

 

“Woman Hupaa”, 1923

“Curtis has chosen a social and humanitarian stance. His portraits gave a face to the indigenous peoples of the American continent who were in danger of extinction,” writes Hans Christian Adam in the introduction to the book.

Some faces seem to have a magnetic empathy, seem to be able to let us ride into the grasslands of sadness and pride of this people.

There is a way and another way to tell who is “different” from us.

And making it as “close to us” as possible is one of the most beautiful and touching ways.

 

"Navajo Girl", 1920 

“Mosa – Mohave”, 1903

“Chaiwa-Tewa”, 1921

 

“Flathead Warrior”, 1910

READ ALSO:

• Painting and Photography: A Glance (Part One)
• Bogor, the Story of a Flower: “My Indonesia” Photo Series (7) 

“Edward S. Curtis” by Hans Christian Adam (Taschen, 2012)
https://www.edwardscurtis.com/ 

 Italian version