{"id":33578,"date":"2011-03-30T10:25:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T15:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=33578"},"modified":"2015-09-20T23:25:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T04:25:07","slug":"representation-of-the-primitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/03\/30\/representation-of-the-primitive\/","title":{"rendered":"Representation of the “Primitive” American Indian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Racialicious<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We owe many iconic images of American Indians to photographer\u00a0Edward S. Curtis. Growing up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Curtis began photographing Indians in 1895 and, in 1906, was offered $75,000 by JP Morgan to continue documenting their lives (wikipedia<\/a>). \u00a0The 1,500 resulting photographs inevitably impacted the image of Indians in the American imagination.<\/p>\n

Later it came to light that Curtis’ photographs weren’t exactly pure <\/em>representations. \u00a0In some photographs, for example, he erased signs of modernity. \u00a0 The first photograph below, the un-edited version<\/a>, includes a clock between the two men, whereas the edited version does not.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Curtis also sometimes staged scenes and dressed paid participants in costumes, as in this photograph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"12\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia contributors:<\/p>\n

In Curtis’ picture,\u00a0Oglala War-Party<\/em><\/a>, the image shows 10\u00a0Oglala<\/a> men wearing feather headdresses, on horseback riding down hill. The photo caption reads, “a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy’s camp.” \u00a0In truth headdresses would have only been worn during special occasions and, in some tribes, only by the chief of the tribe. \u00a0The photograph was taken in 1907 when natives had been relegated onto reservations and warring between tribes had ended. Curtis paid natives to pose as warriors at a time when they lived with little dignity, rights, and freedoms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Curtis’ photographs, then, pushed his subjects back into a false past that non-Indian Americans would misrecognize as authentic for a hundred years.<\/p>\n

The problem of mis<\/em>representation of groups who have little power to control their own images is a widespread one. \u00a0Shelby Lee Adams’ work<\/a> was mired in controversy, with critics suggesting that he contributed to the belief that\u00a0Appalachians\u00a0were backward, imbred, and unintelligent. \u00a0\u00a0We might apply the same critical eye to representations of marginalized peoples today, like the representation of Arabs in video games<\/a> and Italian-Americans on Jersey Shore <\/em>and spin-offs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Dolores R. and\u00a0Adrienne at Native Appropriations<\/a>\u00a0for the post idea.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Racialicious. We owe many iconic images of American Indians to photographer\u00a0Edward S. Curtis. Growing up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Curtis began photographing Indians in 1895 and, in 1906, was offered $75,000 by JP Morgan to continue documenting their lives (wikipedia). \u00a0The 1,500 resulting photographs inevitably impacted the image of Indians in the American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8070,253,285,1758],"class_list":["post-33578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artliterature","tag-history","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-american-indiansaboriginals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33578"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68019,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33578\/revisions\/68019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}