primitive customs and their ancient beliefs. Would it not
be a worthy work, from the points of view of art and science and history, to represent
them all by photography?”
Curtis had tried to take pictures of these plains natives two years earlier, in 1898,
but came home with little to show for it. Now, with Grinnell, Curtis had a flesh-and-blood
passport to something an outsider could not see on his own. With Bird at his side,
he was a tourist no more—he was in training.
As for the late-afternoon thunderheads, twirls of dust devils and biting flies drawn
to horse flesh and the softer human kind—who could complain? Push on, Curtis urged,
push on. He’d been promised much more than a peek: a chance to witness the Sun Dance,
the oldest and most important religious ceremony to the Piegan, Bloods and related
tribes, resettled on the Blackfeet reservation because of common bonds. Any inconvenience
was a trifle compared to what lay ahead.
They crossed a plateau, the wind tossing thistle over the prairie, and galloped ever
higher, to the near exhaustion of their mounts. Grinnell signaled a slowing as they
seemed to run out of ground. Dismount, he ordered. The two men took the reins of their
horses and walked toward a cliff’s edge, Curtis curious and willful, Grinnell’s eyes
trained ahead. They stepped up to the rim of a high precipice. Below was an encampment,
a circle of large tipis, more than two hundred of them by Curtis’s count, forming
an enclosure a mile or so in diameter. The Indians had brought horses, wagons, carts,
food and the painted buffalo skins that stretched around pine poles to form their
lodges.
Ever since the daughter of Chief Seattle had caught his eye in the tidal flats, Curtis
had been looking for a community of Indians to cast in lasting light on his camera
glass. Mostly he’d found only snippets of life here and there, broken from the whole.
There was nothing of a people living in continuity with the past. Nothing intact.
But here—look at it!—just below the cliff were generations, as many children as grandchildren.
By historical standards, the Piegan encampment was small, but Curtis had never witnessed
so many Indian people together in one place. The only thing to compare to this group,
for sheer numbers, was the engraving he had seen as a child of Indians hanged in that
mass execution in Minnesota.
Take it all in,
Grinnell told him.
Take a long, long look.
To Bird Grinnell, the scene below the cliff already belonged to yesterday. For one
thing, the Holy Family Mission, aided by government Indian agents, was doing all it
could to put an end to this ceremony. The Sun Dance was considered savagery, matching
the law’s description of an “immoral dance.” Under the Indian Religious Crimes Code,
anything deemed unwholesomely pagan could be banned—dances, feasts, chants led by
medicine men. The regulations were specific: “Any Indian who shall engage in the sun
dance, scalp dance, or war dance, or any other similar feast, so called, shall be
deemed guilty of an offense.” As punishment, the agents could withhold food rations
and imprison participants of traditional religious ceremonies for up to ninety days.
The churches had been given broad discretion from the government to spread doctrine
and charity among the Indians, a clear violation of the First Amendment’s religious
establishment clause. Few politicians seemed to mind. “The Indians,” said Thomas J.
Morgan, the man appointed by President Benjamin Harrison in 1889 to oversee their
affairs, “must conform to the white man’s ways, peaceably if they will, forcibly if
they must.” The churches would give them spiritual sustenance; the government agents
would dole out food and goods. The system was fraught with corruption, and enforced
by patronage hacks and militant missionaries. “This civilization may not be the best
possible, but it is
be a worthy work, from the points of view of art and science and history, to represent
them all by photography?”
Curtis had tried to take pictures of these plains natives two years earlier, in 1898,
but came home with little to show for it. Now, with Grinnell, Curtis had a flesh-and-blood
passport to something an outsider could not see on his own. With Bird at his side,
he was a tourist no more—he was in training.
As for the late-afternoon thunderheads, twirls of dust devils and biting flies drawn
to horse flesh and the softer human kind—who could complain? Push on, Curtis urged,
push on. He’d been promised much more than a peek: a chance to witness the Sun Dance,
the oldest and most important religious ceremony to the Piegan, Bloods and related
tribes, resettled on the Blackfeet reservation because of common bonds. Any inconvenience
was a trifle compared to what lay ahead.
They crossed a plateau, the wind tossing thistle over the prairie, and galloped ever
higher, to the near exhaustion of their mounts. Grinnell signaled a slowing as they
seemed to run out of ground. Dismount, he ordered. The two men took the reins of their
horses and walked toward a cliff’s edge, Curtis curious and willful, Grinnell’s eyes
trained ahead. They stepped up to the rim of a high precipice. Below was an encampment,
a circle of large tipis, more than two hundred of them by Curtis’s count, forming
an enclosure a mile or so in diameter. The Indians had brought horses, wagons, carts,
food and the painted buffalo skins that stretched around pine poles to form their
lodges.
Ever since the daughter of Chief Seattle had caught his eye in the tidal flats, Curtis
had been looking for a community of Indians to cast in lasting light on his camera
glass. Mostly he’d found only snippets of life here and there, broken from the whole.
There was nothing of a people living in continuity with the past. Nothing intact.
But here—look at it!—just below the cliff were generations, as many children as grandchildren.
By historical standards, the Piegan encampment was small, but Curtis had never witnessed
so many Indian people together in one place. The only thing to compare to this group,
for sheer numbers, was the engraving he had seen as a child of Indians hanged in that
mass execution in Minnesota.
Take it all in,
Grinnell told him.
Take a long, long look.
To Bird Grinnell, the scene below the cliff already belonged to yesterday. For one
thing, the Holy Family Mission, aided by government Indian agents, was doing all it
could to put an end to this ceremony. The Sun Dance was considered savagery, matching
the law’s description of an “immoral dance.” Under the Indian Religious Crimes Code,
anything deemed unwholesomely pagan could be banned—dances, feasts, chants led by
medicine men. The regulations were specific: “Any Indian who shall engage in the sun
dance, scalp dance, or war dance, or any other similar feast, so called, shall be
deemed guilty of an offense.” As punishment, the agents could withhold food rations
and imprison participants of traditional religious ceremonies for up to ninety days.
The churches had been given broad discretion from the government to spread doctrine
and charity among the Indians, a clear violation of the First Amendment’s religious
establishment clause. Few politicians seemed to mind. “The Indians,” said Thomas J.
Morgan, the man appointed by President Benjamin Harrison in 1889 to oversee their
affairs, “must conform to the white man’s ways, peaceably if they will, forcibly if
they must.” The churches would give them spiritual sustenance; the government agents
would dole out food and goods. The system was fraught with corruption, and enforced
by patronage hacks and militant missionaries. “This civilization may not be the best
possible, but it is
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