Photo by Edward S. CurtisThis is what a California girl would have probably looked like before the Spanish and Americans changed everything. She is a Pomo girl (N. California tribe centered in the present day areas of Sonoma, Lake, and Mendocino counties, and renowned for their superb basket weaving skills).
Although the photographer is a controversial figure due to the fact that a number of his images were staged or historically inaccurate, his anthropological writings, wax cylinder recordings, and photography were often the only records of their kind. He seemed genuinely sympathetic to the plight of the Native American people, and had a master's eye for composition. His life spanned the period of the "Wild West" through the atomic age. Most of his Native American images were made in the late 1800's through the early 1900's.
4 comments:
Here is a film clip about Edward S. Curtis's "Indian Picture Opera" of 1911.:
Canyon De Chelly Film Clip
It's from a dvd on Edward S. Curtis, which bears on other Indian lands as well.
Down here there's tons of Chumash trails, street names, towns etc... Not to far from me there's an old protected kiln that the Chumash used to use for art, pretty cool.
Mishe Mokwa!
I've never done that one, I will though.
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