Coming to Light

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Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) was a driven, charismatic, obsessive artist, a pioneer photographer who set out in 1900 to document traditional Indian life. He rose from obscurity to become the most famous photographer of his time, created an enormous body of work — 10,000 recordings, 40,000 photographs, and a full length ethnographic motion picture — and died poor and forgotten. His work was rediscovered in the 1970s and is now synonymous with photography of Indians.

Coming to Light tells the dramatic story of Curtis' life, the creation of his monumental work, and his changing views of the people he set out to document. The film also gives Indian people a voice in the discussion of Curtis' images. Hopi, Navajo, Eskimo, Blackfeet, Crow, Blood, Piegan, Suquamish, and Kwakiutl people who are descended from Curtis subjects or who are using his photographs for cultural preservation respond to the pictures, tell stories about the people in the photographs, and discuss the meaning of the images.

In 1900, Curtis attended a Piegan Sundance, a ceremony that had recently been outlawed. Curtis believed this would be the last Sundance, and it was this experience that set him on his path to document traditional Indian cultures. Eighty years later, some of Curtis' photographs inspired the Piegans to revive the ceremony, and it is still going strong today. The documentary begins with footage shot at a contemporary Piegan Sundance last year intercut with Curtis' 1900 photographs that led to its revival.

When Curtis began photographing Indians, he believed that their cultures were vanishing. When he finished in 1930, his own work vanished into obscurity, then was rediscovered in the 1970s and helped to inspire the revival of traditional culture on many reservations.

Coming to Light presents a complex, dedicated, flawed life, and explores many of the ironies inherent in Curtis's story, the often controversial nature of his romantic images, and the value of the photographs to Indian people and to all Americans today.

'COMING TO LIGHT tells more than the story of its main subject, 'Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians.' It tells, too, of the tragedy of cultural loss and hopes for recovery of memory. The film honors the great achievements of Curtis by placing his pictures in a vibrant frame of sorrow, desire, and promise. In its sensitive and intelligent fusion of image, sound, and story, the film offers an extraordinary experience of living history. It cannot be praised enough.' Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University

'The Odyssean photographic career and poignantly forlorn private life of Edward S. Curtis are charted with impressive sensitivity in this very welcome portrait...It's an outstanding subject, one that...emerges compellingly in documentary form.' Todd McCarthy, Variety

'Beautifully filmed, skillfully edited and well-paced, Coming To Light is highly recommended for courses on North American Indians, visual anthropology, and American popular culture. Well researched and deftly touching on the complex politics of cross-cultural visual representation, Makepeace's film exhibits a balanced perspective on Curtis as a trailblazer in visual ethnography.' Harald Prins, American Anthropologist

'A beautifully crafted epic...' David Ansen, Newsweek

'An unusually well-balanced view of Edward Curtis' life and works as the best known photographer of North American Indian people during the first part of the twentieth century.' Bill Sturtevant, Curator of Ethnology, National Museum of National History, Smithsonian Institution

'Remarkable, a fascinating and thorough look at a photographer whose 40,000 images recorded Native American life.' Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

'A phenomenal film. Well crafted, intelligent, and beautiful to behold...brings historical depth and cultural context to our understanding of Curtis' photographs and his monographs on Native Americans...I highly recommend this piece for use in Art History courses, Photography courses, Native American Studies, and especially in Anthropology.' Julia Thompson, Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College

'Anne Makepeace has done total justice to the myth and the man that Edward S. Curtis was. Coming to Light is a thoroughly researched masterpiece of its own, honoring the man whose portraits continue to honor the beauty and glory of American Indians.' Wishelle Banks, Nevada Outpost

'This superlative movie will serve the classroom well, for its historical value as well as the many issues it raises: the nature of culture, cultural representation and revitalization; Native perspectives, and the ongoing relationship between Indians and non-Indian' Raymond A. Bucko, Creighton University (Anthropology Review Database)

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Main credits

Makepeace, Anne (Producer)
Lacy, Susan (Producer)
Pullman, Bill (act)

Other credits

Camera, Uta Briesewitz, Jennifer Lane, Emiko Omori; editor, Jennifer Chinlund; voice of Edward Curtis, Bill Pullman; sound, David Springbett, Lewis Wheeler; composer, Todd Boekelheide.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Edward Curtis, photographer, photography of Indians, Hopi, Navajo, Eskimo, Blackfeet, Crow, Blood, Piegan, Suquamish, Kwakiutl, cultural preservation, Piegan Sundance, sundance, vanishing cultures, North American indians,"Coming to Light",Bullfrog Films,doc,art

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- This program has been
made possible by a grant

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from the National Endowment
for the Humanities.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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- They're coming back
from getting willows

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on the third day
of the sun dance.

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- I can remember, at
the cultural center,

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there being a number of
Curtis's photographs in there,

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like back in '75.

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- There hadn't been
a sun dance here

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on the Peigan
reserve for 45 years.

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- We were really hungry for
traditional things to happen,

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and looking at the photographs,
I can recall in my mind,

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like, looking and
saying, jeez, how

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come we couldn't have
things like a sun dance

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and these kinds of
things happening?

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And we started to
talk to the elders,

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and there were still
elders that were alive that

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still could run the ceremonies.

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We did make that happen again.

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- 100 years ago,
Edward Curtis set out

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to capture what he called
the beautiful in Indian life

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and to show that
beauty to the world.

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He risked everything he had and
spent 30 years photographing

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and recording
traditional Indian ways

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that he thought were vanishing.

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By 1930, when he had
finished the work,

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most people had lost
interest in Indian subjects.

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Thousands of his original images
were sold to a Boston bookstore

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for practically nothing.

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Curtis's photographs, books, and
recordings vanished from sight.

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40 years later, a clerk
in the Boston bookstore

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was looking for something
in the basement.

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To his amazement, he
discovered hundreds

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of Curtis's
photogravures, prints,

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and the copper plates that had
been hand-etched from his glass

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negatives.

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When these images
began to circulate,

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they told stories of the
people in the pictures

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and of the man who
had photographed them.

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- The first photograph
I ever made of Indians

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was of Princess Angeline, the
digger and dealer in clams.

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- Angeline was the
elderly daughter

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of Seattle, the last great
chief of the Suquamish tribe.

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The city of Seattle was
built on Suquamish land.

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- I paid the princess $1
for each picture I made.

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This seemed to
please her greatly,

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and with hands and
jargon she indicated

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that she preferred to spend
her time having pictures

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made than digging clams.

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- Curtis was the most
popular society photographer

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in Seattle, but he was
drawn to the people who

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had lost the land they had
lived on for centuries.

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Born in 1868, Edward
Curtis grew up

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on a poor, hardscrabble
farm in Minnesota.

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As a boy, he had built himself
a camera, using diagrams

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in a book and a lens his
father had brought back

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from the Civil War.

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At the age of 19, he
went west with his family

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to homestead on Puget Sound.

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He worked in lumber yards,
fished, and dug clams

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to support the family.

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When his father
died a year later,

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Edward moved the whole
family into the bustling city

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of Seattle.

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- Knowing a little
about photography,

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I bought an interest in
a small photography shop.

00:05:06.710 --> 00:05:09.650
- Although he had only
a sixth-grade education,

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he read everything about
photography and taught himself

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the latest techniques.

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By 1895, he had a large
and prosperous studio

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in downtown Seattle.

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He married Clara Phillips, who
helped him run the business,

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and they began a
family of their own.

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Curtis often escaped
from his busy studio

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to photograph along the sound.

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- I feel as though I've
grown up with Curtis's work.

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I was hungry for my own culture.

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And in so many of
these photographs,

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there are definitely
things locked up

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in there that are
available to us.

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- I like these pictures with
the canoes and the clam digger--

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I guess especially
the clam digger.

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I've seen this
one several times.

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And the elders say that when
the tide's out, the table's on.

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- We had everything we
wanted when we was young--

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clams and fish, ducks,
lived on duck soup.

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And I always thought
if they left us alone

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that we could survive,
just living near the beach,

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you know.

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- When you look at it, in
a lot of the photographs

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they show the traditional people
in their traditional garb.

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They're depicting
a side of us that

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goes back thousands of years.

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But they weren't showing what
Indian agents and governments

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and everybody else were doing
to our people at the same time.

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The state that Indian
communities were in

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was really terrible.

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- By the time Curtis began
his work, Indian people had

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been forced onto reservations.

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Their children were being taken
away to military-style boarding

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schools run by missionaries.

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- Well, they wanted you
to forget your heritage.

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They were going to
remodel your mind,

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I guess, and live
like the rest of them.

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- Curtis assumed
that assimilation

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was inevitable for the Indians.

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- A visit to the average
Indian reservation

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means to go away discouraged.

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You find a lack of
sympathy for the Indians

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on the part of those responsible
for their management.

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- I was four years old,
and I was taken away.

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And I was given a number.

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All my clothes were numbered.

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My toothbrush, my bed,
everything had my number.

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- We could not
speak our language.

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If we got caught, we
were severely punished.

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- I lost my language.

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Once you lose the language,
you lose pretty near everything

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with it, because all our
stories and everything, all

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our rules and regulations about
life, are in our language.

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And if you don't speak our
language, then you're kind of--

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you're lost.

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- Edward Curtis was an
avid mountain climber

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and often took pictures on Mt.

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Rainier.

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On one of his
expeditions, he rescued

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a group of lost climbers,
helped them down the mountain,

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and then discovered that they
were all famous scientists.

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These men arranged
for Curtis to become

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the official photographer
on the Harriman expedition

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to Alaska, the last grand
scientific expedition

00:08:59.260 --> 00:09:00.980
of the century.

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- And that seems to have
been a huge point for Curtis.

00:09:05.430 --> 00:09:08.050
Here is this
inspiring, hardworking,

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already-workaholic,
ambitious person,

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and suddenly the lights
go on that there could

00:09:14.650 --> 00:09:16.570
be a bigger arena for him.

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- Curtis took some of his
earliest ethnographic pictures

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on the Harriman expedition.

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Many native people had
left their villages

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to work in canneries.

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The houses along the
coast seemed deserted.

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Curtis's friend
on the expedition,

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the naturalist George
Bird Grinnell, wrote--

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- There is an inevitable
conflict between civilization

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and savagery, and wherever
the two touch each other,

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the weaker people
must be destroyed.

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- Curtis wondered
what life had been

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like for the Alaskan natives
before white people had come.

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The following year, Grinnell
invited Curtis to a sun dance

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in Montana.

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- The sun dance
of the Peigans was

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one of the most profound
displays I ever saw

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in all my Indian experience.

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Neither house nor fence
marred the landscape,

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and the broad, undulating
prairie stretching away

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towards the little Rockies,
miles away to the west,

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was carpeted with tepees.

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- When Curtis saw
this sun dance,

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he thought that it was going
to be the last one, perhaps

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forever.

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Everyone thought that.

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The best academic
minds believed deeply

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that the onrushing
white culture was just

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going to sweep away this
entire pattern of life

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and that in a few years, all
evidence of it would be gone.

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- Curtis watched as the
participants tied offerings

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to the center pole, some of
them piercing their chests

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and offering
themselves to the sun.

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He was not allowed to
photograph the ceremony.

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- It was at the start
of my concerted effort

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to learn about the
Plains Indians,

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and I was intensely affected.

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- Curtis was incredibly moved
by seeing these people who

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were in a very
different, other culture,

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nevertheless having a
profound religious sense--

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and to get a sense of somebody
with a genuine respect

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for, and love of, profound
religious awareness.

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- When I first
discovered Curtis,

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I found this photograph
of three Peigan chiefs

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out on the plains.

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And I still hadn't
come home yet.

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So for me, this was
like coming home.

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I mean, I looked
at this landscape,

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and it felt so familiar--
although I had never

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seen it, except for
maybe as a young child.

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And it allowed me to
go on my own journey.

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And I knew that deep down in
my heart I needed to come home.

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And when I came
home, everybody says,

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well, we're glad you
finally made it home.

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And it's that sense of
community that stunned me.

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I think Curtis
understood something

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about the power of
that cultural spirit.

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- Curtis went home to
Seattle after the sun dance.

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10 days later, he
packed up again

00:13:05.190 --> 00:13:09.300
and left for Arizona and
the Hopi reservation.

00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:13.960
He arrived at Hopi just in time
for the famous snake dance.

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Government agents
and missionaries

00:13:15.640 --> 00:13:18.550
had been trying to stop
the ceremony for years,

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but the railroads had turned it
into a huge tourist attraction.

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Every August, photographers,
anthropologists,

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and sightseers flocked
to Hopi to see the dance.

00:13:29.230 --> 00:13:30.910
Most sightseers
viewed the ritual

00:13:30.910 --> 00:13:34.210
as a weird, savage,
Stone Age entertainment.

00:13:34.210 --> 00:13:37.120
Curtis saw the
ceremony differently.

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- In reality, it
is not a dance, but

00:13:39.790 --> 00:13:43.150
a beautiful, dramatized
prayer for rain.

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If the gods are angry
and withhold the rain,

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famine and subsequent
death stalk the land.

00:13:49.770 --> 00:13:51.870
- The dancers sing
to the snakes,

00:13:51.870 --> 00:13:55.470
then release them to bring
their messages to the gods.

00:13:55.470 --> 00:13:58.890
- After witnessing the snake
dance ceremony in the plaza,

00:13:58.890 --> 00:14:01.440
I was profoundly
moved and realized

00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:04.620
if I was to fully
understand its significance,

00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:09.150
I must participate, if
permission could be obtained.

00:14:09.150 --> 00:14:12.870
- Curtis asked the snake chief,
Sikyaletstiwa, to initiate him

00:14:12.870 --> 00:14:15.000
into the snake society.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:17.280
Sikyaletstiwa did not
give him an answer.

00:14:20.290 --> 00:14:25.990
A huge project began to take
shape in Curtis's imagination.

00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:28.750
- The passing of
every old man or woman

00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:31.390
means the passing
of some tradition,

00:14:31.390 --> 00:14:35.260
some knowledge of sacred
rites possessed by no other.

00:14:35.260 --> 00:14:36.850
Consequently, the
information that

00:14:36.850 --> 00:14:40.380
is to be gathered for the
benefit of future generations

00:14:40.380 --> 00:14:43.590
must be collected at
once, or the opportunity

00:14:43.590 --> 00:14:44.910
will be lost for all time.

00:14:52.654 --> 00:14:54.890
- Curtis traveled
to Washington, D.C.,

00:14:54.890 --> 00:14:57.980
hoping to convince the
Smithsonian Institution to fund

00:14:57.980 --> 00:14:59.960
his Indian work.

00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:02.870
When he mentioned his hope of
photographing a Navajo yabachi

00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.540
ceremony, he was told
that ethnographers

00:15:05.540 --> 00:15:08.960
had been trying for 20
years just to see the dance.

00:15:08.960 --> 00:15:12.200
The Smithsonian would
not endorse the project.

00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:15.200
- They say I'm trying
to do the work of 50 men

00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:19.035
and don't believe I can do it.

00:15:19.035 --> 00:15:21.070
- Curtis added a new
motion picture camera

00:15:21.070 --> 00:15:24.310
to his equipment, headed
for Arizona and the Navajo

00:15:24.310 --> 00:15:27.717
reservation, and succeeded
in filming a yabachi dance.

00:15:32.010 --> 00:15:33.960
The ceremony is a nine-day
prayer for healing.

00:15:51.030 --> 00:15:53.040
The masks were
buried until winter

00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:56.010
when the ceremony
would take place.

00:15:56.010 --> 00:15:58.830
With bolts of calico
and silver dollars,

00:15:58.830 --> 00:16:02.430
Curtis paid three Navajos
to help him carve new masks

00:16:02.430 --> 00:16:04.800
and stage a yabachi
dance for his camera.

00:16:07.940 --> 00:16:11.360
He returned to Seattle with
his rare motion pictures.

00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.670
- Edward S. Curtis,
the local photographer,

00:16:13.670 --> 00:16:15.260
has the distinction
of accomplishing

00:16:15.260 --> 00:16:18.110
what the Smithsonian Institution
has tried for years to do

00:16:18.110 --> 00:16:19.970
and failed.

00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:23.153
Curtis overcame suspicion and
broke into the sacred precincts

00:16:23.153 --> 00:16:24.320
of a guarded religious rite.

00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:28.870
- The songs and the prayer--

00:16:28.870 --> 00:16:34.030
they're supposed to heal
the sickness and illness.

00:16:34.030 --> 00:16:35.880
It's supposed to
leave the patient

00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:39.660
and go on into another
time or a dimension.

00:16:39.660 --> 00:16:44.670
But when you take it and film
it, or record it, or photo,

00:16:44.670 --> 00:16:45.890
you capture that.

00:16:45.890 --> 00:16:49.050
And the patient
will not get healed.

00:16:49.050 --> 00:16:52.530
I think Curtis should
have respected the Navajo

00:16:52.530 --> 00:16:55.010
and just left it
alone, all alone.

00:16:55.010 --> 00:16:56.510
- You're not supposed
to take those.

00:16:56.510 --> 00:16:57.480
- Yeah, you're not--

00:16:57.480 --> 00:16:58.860
- Even me, my son.

00:16:58.860 --> 00:17:01.230
- Right now, Oshkosh could
confiscate these pictures.

00:17:01.230 --> 00:17:02.260
You can't take them.

00:17:02.260 --> 00:17:03.107
- Let's sue them.

00:17:03.107 --> 00:17:04.690
- They were taken a
hundred years ago.

00:17:04.690 --> 00:17:07.079
- Yeah, but we're saying
we could confiscate them

00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:08.640
right now.

00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:12.540
We would disagree what
your documentary is saying.

00:17:12.540 --> 00:17:15.740
You're putting all the
pictures into today's world,

00:17:15.740 --> 00:17:17.410
which is not right.

00:17:17.410 --> 00:17:20.670
Our relatives are
supposed to be let down.

00:17:20.670 --> 00:17:22.650
It's supposed to be over.

00:17:22.650 --> 00:17:26.220
We're not here to bring it
up from what's in the past.

00:17:29.780 --> 00:17:33.740
- If you took your video
to a flute ceremony,

00:17:33.740 --> 00:17:35.520
you're probably history.

00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:38.560
You probably be thrown
over the cliff alive,

00:17:38.560 --> 00:17:44.800
like we did the
Spaniards in 1680.

00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:46.540
- Indian people set
their own limits

00:17:46.540 --> 00:17:49.800
on what they would
let Curtis photograph.

00:17:49.800 --> 00:17:52.700
- [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE]

00:17:52.700 --> 00:17:55.880
- The person that's putting
up the sun dance is the boss.

00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:59.510
If he says it's all right
to have pictures taken,

00:17:59.510 --> 00:18:01.380
it's not a problem.

00:18:01.380 --> 00:18:03.170
And then I asked
him, what would you

00:18:03.170 --> 00:18:06.020
do if you were
putting the sun dance?

00:18:06.020 --> 00:18:08.630
And he came and asked
you to take a picture.

00:18:08.630 --> 00:18:12.503
And that's where he said,
I tell him to go to hell.

00:18:12.503 --> 00:18:16.850
[LAUGHTER]

00:18:16.850 --> 00:18:20.870
- I think these people that are
hired to perform for Curtis,

00:18:20.870 --> 00:18:28.850
they didn't want to let Curtis
take the whole ceremony on film

00:18:28.850 --> 00:18:31.180
and to take it with him.

00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:33.290
On that footage,
it's all reverse.

00:18:33.290 --> 00:18:36.860
They're holding their
rattle with their left hand,

00:18:36.860 --> 00:18:39.110
so they're out of timing.

00:18:39.110 --> 00:18:43.640
All the dancers, they were
going counterclockwise.

00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:46.010
- For the first time,
Navajos had allowed a camera

00:18:46.010 --> 00:18:48.830
to record the ceremony,
but they had performed

00:18:48.830 --> 00:18:52.070
the dance backwards and had
kept the most sacred parts

00:18:52.070 --> 00:18:54.600
to themselves.

00:18:54.600 --> 00:18:56.790
The three Navajos
who had helped Curtis

00:18:56.790 --> 00:18:59.010
were later arrested
by the Indian agent

00:18:59.010 --> 00:19:02.780
for participating in
a forbidden ceremony.

00:19:02.780 --> 00:19:07.250
- In 1887, the government
Secretary of Interior

00:19:07.250 --> 00:19:12.220
ordered all tribal
cultural activities stop.

00:19:12.220 --> 00:19:14.650
Medicine men were not
supposed to practice,

00:19:14.650 --> 00:19:17.420
or they'd get thrown in jail.

00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:23.030
Tobacco ceremony, most sacred
of all tribal ceremonies,

00:19:23.030 --> 00:19:24.350
they have to hide and do it.

00:19:27.370 --> 00:19:32.400
- This picture here is actually
my husband's grandfathers,

00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:34.850
Little Plume and Yellow Kidney.

00:19:34.850 --> 00:19:36.680
The stories that I'm
hearing about them,

00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:39.650
they carried on a lot
of the ceremonies.

00:19:39.650 --> 00:19:43.460
That was all outlawed for
us, but they did it and kept

00:19:43.460 --> 00:19:46.960
it going during the hard times.

00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:48.490
And when you look
at this picture,

00:19:48.490 --> 00:19:50.740
you see all the things
hanging in there.

00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:53.715
And you know that apparently
they were the keepers.

00:20:00.110 --> 00:20:03.140
- One of Curtis's prize-winning
society portraits came

00:20:03.140 --> 00:20:05.810
to the attention of
President Roosevelt.

00:20:05.810 --> 00:20:09.320
- I had traveled from the
West Coast the summer of 1904,

00:20:09.320 --> 00:20:12.140
at the president and Mrs.
Roosevelt's invitation,

00:20:12.140 --> 00:20:14.810
to visit them at Sagamore
Hill and to photograph

00:20:14.810 --> 00:20:17.130
the entire family.

00:20:17.130 --> 00:20:19.790
- It was an amazing
journey for Edward Curtis,

00:20:19.790 --> 00:20:22.640
a self-made photographer from
the west with little formal

00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:24.260
education.

00:20:24.260 --> 00:20:26.720
His natural charm won
the Roosevelts' affection

00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:28.550
and friendship.

00:20:28.550 --> 00:20:32.330
- I found the Roosevelts a
most vital, energetic family

00:20:32.330 --> 00:20:36.412
and enjoyed being included
in their activities.

00:20:36.412 --> 00:20:38.120
They made me feel like
one of the family.

00:20:53.510 --> 00:20:56.000
- Curtis showed Roosevelt
some of his photographs

00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:58.100
and explained his
idea of documenting

00:20:58.100 --> 00:21:00.440
traditional Indian ways.

00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.840
- Your photographs
stand by themselves,

00:21:02.840 --> 00:21:05.480
both in their wonderful
artistic merit

00:21:05.480 --> 00:21:09.020
and their value as
historical documents.

00:21:09.020 --> 00:21:12.440
You have begun just in time,
for these people are rapidly

00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:15.590
losing the distinctive
traits which they have slowly

00:21:15.590 --> 00:21:18.440
developed through the ages.

00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:21.080
- Stimulated by
Roosevelt's encouragement,

00:21:21.080 --> 00:21:23.840
I was determined to produce
a photo history of the North

00:21:23.840 --> 00:21:25.640
American Indian.

00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:29.360
In the beginning, I assumed
it would take about 15 years.

00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:31.700
Little did I realize
the full magnitude

00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:35.280
of the task I contemplated,
or the vicissitudes ahead.

00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:50.000
- While Curtis was in the
field, his wife, Clara,

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:52.430
ran the studio, which
supported the family

00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:54.860
and paid for the Indian work.

00:21:54.860 --> 00:21:57.620
Curtis had been away from home
for most of the last three

00:21:57.620 --> 00:21:58.880
years.

00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:01.490
When he was at home, he
gave special attention

00:22:01.490 --> 00:22:03.260
to his children,
who all adored him.

00:22:07.090 --> 00:22:10.870
In Seattle, Curtis sold
his images as postcards,

00:22:10.870 --> 00:22:15.760
published them in magazines, and
gave lectures and slide shows.

00:22:15.760 --> 00:22:17.800
Though far away in
the west, he was

00:22:17.800 --> 00:22:20.200
influenced by Alfred
Stieglitz and other members

00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:23.470
of the Photo-Secession
movement in New York.

00:22:23.470 --> 00:22:25.360
- Stieglitz and the
Photo-Secession,

00:22:25.360 --> 00:22:27.070
and the pictorialists
in general,

00:22:27.070 --> 00:22:28.427
wanted to make a picture.

00:22:28.427 --> 00:22:30.010
They didn't want to
make a photograph.

00:22:30.010 --> 00:22:32.800
They wanted to make a picture
that would stand alone

00:22:32.800 --> 00:22:36.160
like other kinds of pictures--
paintings, lithographs,

00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:37.810
etchings, and drawings.

00:22:37.810 --> 00:22:41.080
That's where the word
pictorialist comes from.

00:22:41.080 --> 00:22:44.050
- Curtis often blurred
his images with soft focus

00:22:44.050 --> 00:22:47.150
to create a misty effect
or photographed people

00:22:47.150 --> 00:22:49.940
against sunsets, turning
them into silhouettes

00:22:49.940 --> 00:22:53.510
and obscuring their
modern clothes.

00:22:53.510 --> 00:22:55.730
In the expressive
pictorialist style,

00:22:55.730 --> 00:23:00.252
he found the perfect form
for his nostalgic images.

00:23:00.252 --> 00:23:01.710
- There are a lot
of pictures where

00:23:01.710 --> 00:23:03.960
the people are kind of
disappearing with their backs

00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:05.732
to you out of the frame.

00:23:05.732 --> 00:23:08.190
And that was to symbolize the
whole notion of the vanishing

00:23:08.190 --> 00:23:10.330
race.

00:23:10.330 --> 00:23:13.540
- The plan in mind is to
make a complete publication

00:23:13.540 --> 00:23:16.780
of every phase of Indian
life of all tribes

00:23:16.780 --> 00:23:18.910
yet in a primitive condition.

00:23:18.910 --> 00:23:21.250
- Curtis was borrowing
thousands of dollars

00:23:21.250 --> 00:23:23.590
to support his Indian work.

00:23:23.590 --> 00:23:27.100
At Roosevelt's suggestion, he
approached J. Pierpont Morgan

00:23:27.100 --> 00:23:28.640
to ask for financial assistance.

00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:30.820
- Dividing the whole
into 20 volumes,

00:23:30.820 --> 00:23:33.940
containing 1,500
full-page plates,

00:23:33.940 --> 00:23:37.270
the text to treat the subject
much as the pictures do,

00:23:37.270 --> 00:23:41.950
going fully into their history,
life and manners, ceremony,

00:23:41.950 --> 00:23:44.890
legends, and mythology.

00:23:44.890 --> 00:23:48.190
- Morgan agreed to see Curtis,
then brusquely turned down

00:23:48.190 --> 00:23:49.900
his proposal.

00:23:49.900 --> 00:23:53.680
Instead of leaving, Curtis
opened his portfolio.

00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:55.750
After seeing the
pictures, Morgan

00:23:55.750 --> 00:23:59.590
agreed to provide $15,000
a year for five years,

00:23:59.590 --> 00:24:02.650
in exchange for 25
sets of the volumes.

00:24:02.650 --> 00:24:06.250
This would cover half the
costs of the fieldwork.

00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:09.070
- And then he said, my
staff will take care

00:24:09.070 --> 00:24:11.710
of the financial arrangements.

00:24:11.710 --> 00:24:13.781
I walked from his
presence in a daze.

00:24:16.870 --> 00:24:20.270
- J. Pierpont Morgan, the
richest man in the world,

00:24:20.270 --> 00:24:25.780
was funding a project which
was recording and celebrating

00:24:25.780 --> 00:24:31.150
the lives of the poorest
people in America.

00:24:31.150 --> 00:24:34.900
And then when the volumes
were subscribed to,

00:24:34.900 --> 00:24:39.220
they were subscribed to by
very wealthy individuals--

00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:44.830
industrialists, railroad
tycoons, bankers.

00:24:44.830 --> 00:24:48.400
Virtually all these
people had interests

00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:52.540
which were diametrically
opposed to the interests

00:24:52.540 --> 00:24:55.360
of Native Americans.

00:24:55.360 --> 00:24:58.630
The project is, to
some degree, aimed

00:24:58.630 --> 00:25:03.160
at appealing to
financial elites.

00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:08.860
And I think that Curtis did
have very deep contradictions

00:25:08.860 --> 00:25:10.810
in his nature.

00:25:10.810 --> 00:25:15.400
Although he believed in what
he called the old-time Indian,

00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:19.990
at the same time he was thinking
that Native Americans would

00:25:19.990 --> 00:25:24.520
be economically destroyed
if they didn't assimilate

00:25:24.520 --> 00:25:25.590
as rapidly as possible.

00:25:31.160 --> 00:25:35.810
- Curtis hired a small crew
and set out for Arizona.

00:25:35.810 --> 00:25:37.400
- Eager to have
the family with me,

00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:40.430
I had made arrangements to
meet them at Gallup, New Mexico

00:25:40.430 --> 00:25:43.610
as soon as school closed.

00:25:43.610 --> 00:25:47.990
There were three ecstatic
children, 7, 9, and 11,

00:25:47.990 --> 00:25:50.660
with their mother herding
her brood for the start

00:25:50.660 --> 00:25:54.410
of a great adventure.

00:25:54.410 --> 00:25:57.470
Canyon Duchesne in
northeastern Arizona

00:25:57.470 --> 00:26:00.080
was to be a particular area
in which I would be working.

00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:22.700
Gradually, the red
sandstone walls

00:26:22.700 --> 00:26:25.490
increased in height until
they extended from hundreds

00:26:25.490 --> 00:26:28.920
to thousands of feet
into the turquoise sky.

00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:32.920
From dripping water through the
ages, a tapestry of patterns

00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:36.750
has developed in a tracery
on the walls, changing color

00:26:36.750 --> 00:26:38.322
with the sun's illumination.

00:26:45.210 --> 00:26:47.640
- Medicine men in the
canyon made sand paintings

00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:48.525
for Curtis's camera.

00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:55.680
These photographs were
later hand-colored

00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:58.460
in the Curtis studio.

00:26:58.460 --> 00:27:02.570
- In ceremonies, dry paintings--
or sand altars-- are made,

00:27:02.570 --> 00:27:04.835
depicting the characters
and incidents of myths.

00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:13.950
- [SPEAKING NAVAJO]

00:27:13.950 --> 00:27:18.060
- He said that he is very
happy to see these photos.

00:27:18.060 --> 00:27:20.070
It brings back
memories of his dad.

00:27:20.070 --> 00:27:23.430
You know, I guess his dad used
to do all kinds of ceremonies.

00:27:23.430 --> 00:27:27.323
It's good to see old-time
pictures of sand paintings,

00:27:27.323 --> 00:27:28.740
and it makes him
feel good inside.

00:28:12.230 --> 00:28:14.630
- There seems a
broadly prevalent idea

00:28:14.630 --> 00:28:17.660
that the Indians
lack a religion.

00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.990
Rather than being without a
religion, every act of his life

00:28:20.990 --> 00:28:23.074
is according to
divine prompting.

00:28:51.770 --> 00:28:54.650
- Curtis sent the family
home and drove his wagon

00:28:54.650 --> 00:28:57.640
100 miles west to
the Hopi reservation.

00:29:00.930 --> 00:29:03.450
- Yeah, that's Mr. Curtis.

00:29:03.450 --> 00:29:07.700
I used to carry water
for him, and cameras.

00:29:07.700 --> 00:29:12.030
I was a water boy, a Gunga Din--

00:29:12.030 --> 00:29:13.740
Gunga Din of the Hopi land.

00:29:18.070 --> 00:29:20.880
He camped out.

00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:23.210
He used to hike all over.

00:29:23.210 --> 00:29:26.460
And he used to study the plain.

00:29:26.460 --> 00:29:31.220
And the Hopis showed him
quite a few herb medicine.

00:29:31.220 --> 00:29:34.460
And he wasn't a tricky
person, like people

00:29:34.460 --> 00:29:40.040
who went out to get
information for their own good.

00:29:40.040 --> 00:29:41.930
- Curtis asked the
snake chief again

00:29:41.930 --> 00:29:45.230
if he would initiate him
into the snake ritual.

00:29:45.230 --> 00:29:48.710
Sikyaletstiwa showed him the
captured snakes in the kiva

00:29:48.710 --> 00:29:52.510
but did not invite
him to participate.

00:29:52.510 --> 00:29:54.100
On the morning of
the snake dance,

00:29:54.100 --> 00:29:58.160
Curtis photographed a boy
dressed for the ceremony.

00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:03.630
- This little boy here, I used
to do that when I was a kid.

00:30:03.630 --> 00:30:08.900
It's an honor to the spirits if
you present yourself this way.

00:30:08.900 --> 00:30:11.912
My brother [? Elf ?]
and I used to do this.

00:30:11.912 --> 00:30:13.370
We asked so many
questions-- why do

00:30:13.370 --> 00:30:16.200
we have to dress up in these
stupid things like this?

00:30:16.200 --> 00:30:21.102
And now I appreciate
what I have done.

00:30:21.102 --> 00:30:25.555
- Curtis never barged
into the Hopi house.

00:30:25.555 --> 00:30:28.580
But he's got to be invited.

00:30:28.580 --> 00:30:31.610
But he made many friends.

00:30:31.610 --> 00:30:33.660
The Hopis help him out.

00:30:33.660 --> 00:30:34.512
They welcome him.

00:30:54.710 --> 00:30:57.240
- That's my mother making piki.

00:30:59.860 --> 00:31:04.350
My mother had long hair.

00:31:04.350 --> 00:31:08.332
[? Dayumana-- ?] Coyote Girl.

00:31:08.332 --> 00:31:09.040
- [? Dayumana. ?]

00:31:09.040 --> 00:31:52.370
- [SPEAKING HOPI]

00:31:52.370 --> 00:31:55.730
- When I first saw the pictures,
I didn't know who they were.

00:31:55.730 --> 00:31:59.240
I didn't know that one
of them was my grandma.

00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:04.640
I was excited because I got
to see my grandma young.

00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:08.008
And she says she remembers this
white man coming out and taking

00:32:08.008 --> 00:32:08.550
the pictures.

00:32:12.050 --> 00:32:16.310
It took a long time for
the pictures to be taken.

00:32:16.310 --> 00:32:19.160
She just said, yeah,
I remember that.

00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:24.610
We had to all get our hair
fixed and get all dressed up.

00:32:24.610 --> 00:32:28.120
I think they normally
wore cotton dresses.

00:32:28.120 --> 00:32:30.970
They rarely wore this
outfit unless there

00:32:30.970 --> 00:32:33.877
was a special occasion.

00:32:33.877 --> 00:32:35.460
- On the one hand,
they're being asked

00:32:35.460 --> 00:32:38.490
to dress up and sing
and make their pottery

00:32:38.490 --> 00:32:40.680
for the white people
that are showing up,

00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:42.370
to demonstrate their culture.

00:32:42.370 --> 00:32:44.430
On the other hand,
they're being sent to jail

00:32:44.430 --> 00:32:46.097
because they don't
want their kids to go

00:32:46.097 --> 00:32:47.640
to the Indian training schools.

00:32:47.640 --> 00:32:49.283
And then what's the third hand?

00:32:49.283 --> 00:32:50.950
Well, the third hand
is their own lives.

00:32:50.950 --> 00:32:52.610
What are they thinking?

00:32:52.610 --> 00:32:54.950
What are they thinking
about all this?

00:32:54.950 --> 00:32:57.140
It's amazing to me
that native people

00:32:57.140 --> 00:33:00.070
were able to accommodate
all these conflicting ideas

00:33:00.070 --> 00:33:02.750
and survive.

00:33:02.750 --> 00:33:05.360
- She says sometimes
it's funny what

00:33:05.360 --> 00:33:08.510
he tells them to do,
to grind and look

00:33:08.510 --> 00:33:12.230
at the camera at the same time,
because they're used to looking

00:33:12.230 --> 00:33:14.060
at what they're doing.

00:33:14.060 --> 00:33:18.530
She said it was fun because
they giggled and laughed a lot.

00:33:18.530 --> 00:33:20.780
When they needed to laugh,
they just put their head

00:33:20.780 --> 00:33:22.672
down so that they could laugh.

00:33:22.672 --> 00:33:28.220
[LAUGHTER]

00:33:28.220 --> 00:33:30.920
You look back at these
pictures, and you really

00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:34.220
see what tradition
was back then.

00:33:34.220 --> 00:33:39.060
When I was growing up, we
already had regular clothing.

00:33:39.060 --> 00:33:42.050
Tradition wasn't
really that big.

00:33:42.050 --> 00:33:46.640
And now it's going back
towards being more traditional.

00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:50.720
And we have these
pictures to show us

00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:52.460
how they really were back then.

00:33:59.390 --> 00:34:02.450
- Curtis published the first
volume of "The North American

00:34:02.450 --> 00:34:07.150
Indian" in 1907.

00:34:07.150 --> 00:34:10.120
"The New York Herald" called
it the most giant undertaking

00:34:10.120 --> 00:34:12.190
in the making of books
since the King James

00:34:12.190 --> 00:34:13.253
edition of "The Bible."

00:34:20.659 --> 00:34:24.000
President Roosevelt
wrote in his foreword--

00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:28.610
- In Mr. Curtis, we have both an
artist and a trained observer,

00:34:28.610 --> 00:34:32.830
whose pictures are pictures,
not merely photographs.

00:34:32.830 --> 00:34:35.889
He has caught glimpses
such as few white men

00:34:35.889 --> 00:34:40.630
ever catch into that strange
spiritual and mental life

00:34:40.630 --> 00:34:41.230
of theirs.

00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:52.830
- There's a man holding
a medicine pipe.

00:34:52.830 --> 00:34:57.630
This picture could have been
taken back in the 1500s.

00:34:57.630 --> 00:35:00.125
The trade beads he's wearing
might have been different,

00:35:00.125 --> 00:35:01.500
but that medicine
pipe would have

00:35:01.500 --> 00:35:05.490
been the same,
because these go back

00:35:05.490 --> 00:35:09.330
hundreds and hundreds of years.

00:35:09.330 --> 00:35:14.545
I became interested in
following the traditional ways.

00:35:14.545 --> 00:35:16.920
And one of the things some
elders were telling me-- well,

00:35:16.920 --> 00:35:19.980
if you're going to do anything,
you have to have a pipe.

00:35:19.980 --> 00:35:22.050
And I told him, I
never made one before.

00:35:24.972 --> 00:35:27.640
It's just the
difference between this

00:35:27.640 --> 00:35:34.020
is rubbing two sticks
together or using a match.

00:35:41.740 --> 00:35:44.990
I was basically on my
own for the first pipe

00:35:44.990 --> 00:35:46.460
that I had ever made.

00:35:50.450 --> 00:35:55.320
The ironic thing is that even
my dad and my grandfather

00:35:55.320 --> 00:36:01.200
all advised me not to have
anything to do with it.

00:36:01.200 --> 00:36:04.080
Those were the people
that were really

00:36:04.080 --> 00:36:06.660
influenced by missionaries.

00:36:13.980 --> 00:36:16.380
And this old lady, Many Guns--

00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:20.970
when I had completed the pipe,
she was very touched by it,

00:36:20.970 --> 00:36:24.750
saying she was waiting for
young people to be coming.

00:36:24.750 --> 00:36:27.690
She was very emotional
when I handed her this pipe

00:36:27.690 --> 00:36:28.610
to give it a blessing.

00:36:31.690 --> 00:36:34.060
When you smoke a
pipe with somebody,

00:36:34.060 --> 00:36:37.210
that means there's
going to be no lies.

00:36:37.210 --> 00:36:39.580
There's going to be--

00:36:39.580 --> 00:36:42.760
our world is-- we're opening
our world to each other.

00:36:46.680 --> 00:36:49.830
- I discovered early on that
the way to understand the Indian

00:36:49.830 --> 00:36:53.550
was to participate in his
ceremonial life, the knowledge

00:36:53.550 --> 00:36:56.910
of which he guarded zealously.

00:36:56.910 --> 00:36:59.040
I made a study of the
comparative religions

00:36:59.040 --> 00:37:02.760
of the world as a
basis for discussion.

00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:05.530
If information
seemed contradictory,

00:37:05.530 --> 00:37:08.510
we endeavored to talk to
several of the old men.

00:37:08.510 --> 00:37:12.184
But our information was at all
times drawn from the Indians.

00:37:17.290 --> 00:37:21.320
I returned to the Hopi villages
over a period of many years,

00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:24.020
renewing my sincere
request to be made

00:37:24.020 --> 00:37:26.650
a priest in the snake ceremony.

00:37:26.650 --> 00:37:32.120
- They watch him that he
is true and honest man.

00:37:32.120 --> 00:37:36.320
He wanted to learn for himself.

00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:39.050
- After six years
of polite refusals,

00:37:39.050 --> 00:37:42.050
Sikyaletstiwa finally
agreed to initiate Curtis

00:37:42.050 --> 00:37:44.240
into the snake society.

00:37:44.240 --> 00:37:50.120
- My grandfather, Sikyaletstiwa,
the snake priest, adopted him,

00:37:50.120 --> 00:37:53.080
made him a regalia.

00:37:53.080 --> 00:37:57.200
They went through the ceremony
and gave him a Hopi name.

00:37:57.200 --> 00:37:59.870
- As part of his
initiation, Sikyaletstiwa

00:37:59.870 --> 00:38:03.920
invited Curtis along on
the secret snake hunt.

00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:06.950
- There was no lack
of snakes to be found.

00:38:06.950 --> 00:38:10.400
There were diamondbacks,
sidewinders, bull snakes,

00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:11.870
whip snakes.

00:38:11.870 --> 00:38:14.900
But the majority of
them were rattlers.

00:38:14.900 --> 00:38:18.590
Our sacks soon became heavy
with the weight of snakes.

00:38:18.590 --> 00:38:20.540
I think they wanted
to make doubly sure

00:38:20.540 --> 00:38:22.820
of my brotherly
love for the snake,

00:38:22.820 --> 00:38:25.670
for they indicated I must
wrap it around my neck

00:38:25.670 --> 00:38:28.790
before it was placed in my bag.

00:38:28.790 --> 00:38:32.820
- That feather there
hypnotized the snake somehow.

00:38:32.820 --> 00:38:36.020
That rattlesnake will coil
up, and all of a sudden

00:38:36.020 --> 00:38:38.660
they'd be able to handle it.

00:38:38.660 --> 00:38:41.750
- Having experienced sweat
baths for purification

00:38:41.750 --> 00:38:45.530
with various tribes,
I knew only too well

00:38:45.530 --> 00:38:48.050
that the Indians seemed
to particularly enjoy

00:38:48.050 --> 00:38:52.780
giving the white man
the full treatment.

00:38:52.780 --> 00:38:55.870
- If my grandfather
call him, he'll come,

00:38:55.870 --> 00:38:58.150
but otherwise he stays.

00:38:58.150 --> 00:39:02.920
What they want him to see,
they let him watch it.

00:39:02.920 --> 00:39:06.440
And during that dance,
he is to sit there.

00:39:06.440 --> 00:39:10.440
He never take part in a dance
where he's all dressed up.

00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:14.060
But he knows the song.

00:39:14.060 --> 00:39:16.130
- I was fortunate
enough to be able to go

00:39:16.130 --> 00:39:19.660
through the whole ceremony,
participating in the snake

00:39:19.660 --> 00:39:22.210
hunt and, in fact,
everything that a snake

00:39:22.210 --> 00:39:26.226
man would do, except take
part in the public part.

00:39:26.226 --> 00:39:28.750
The only reason
that I did not was

00:39:28.750 --> 00:39:30.760
that I feared
newspaper publicity

00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:32.294
and missionary criticism.

00:39:42.250 --> 00:39:44.440
Hopi has become a
spiritual crossroads

00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:49.108
in my work, a still place in
the middle of the continent.

00:39:56.230 --> 00:39:59.980
These events are beyond
words, but the urgency

00:39:59.980 --> 00:40:02.530
of continuing my work
carries me forward.

00:40:06.470 --> 00:40:08.450
- Curtis left the
Hopi mesas behind

00:40:08.450 --> 00:40:11.270
and headed for the Grand Canyon.

00:40:11.270 --> 00:40:13.610
He and his crew packed
their gear on a mule train

00:40:13.610 --> 00:40:15.185
and started down
the steep trail.

00:40:17.690 --> 00:40:21.550
- The pack mule, with my only
camera fastened to its back,

00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:24.200
slipped and rolled
down the canyon a mile.

00:40:24.200 --> 00:40:25.990
[WHINNYING, GLASS BREAKING]

00:40:25.990 --> 00:40:29.050
The camera was spread out on the
mountainside, seeming nothing

00:40:29.050 --> 00:40:30.690
but fragments.

00:40:30.690 --> 00:40:34.420
12 hours' steady, patient
work, and it was patched

00:40:34.420 --> 00:40:36.220
up so that it could be used--

00:40:36.220 --> 00:40:37.480
but such a sight.

00:40:44.530 --> 00:40:47.590
- The following year, Curtis
completed his second volume

00:40:47.590 --> 00:40:49.220
of "The North American Indian."

00:41:05.880 --> 00:41:09.640
- When Curtis published
these photographs,

00:41:09.640 --> 00:41:13.210
people had never seen
this many dimensions

00:41:13.210 --> 00:41:15.340
of Native American culture.

00:41:15.340 --> 00:41:19.900
Very few people had any idea of
the real scope and complexity

00:41:19.900 --> 00:41:22.570
and even of the
number of cultures

00:41:22.570 --> 00:41:26.920
that had been impacted
by Western settlement.

00:41:35.540 --> 00:41:39.110
Many people, if they thought
about Indians at all,

00:41:39.110 --> 00:41:41.450
they thought about
them as something kind

00:41:41.450 --> 00:41:45.260
of troublesome and unpleasant
that they wished would go away.

00:41:45.260 --> 00:41:50.852
And suddenly, here were these
very dramatic, very imposing--

00:41:50.852 --> 00:41:52.310
these were portraits
like you might

00:41:52.310 --> 00:41:56.030
see of Roman emperors, of
the king or of the president.

00:41:56.030 --> 00:41:58.250
And here were these
people presented

00:41:58.250 --> 00:42:01.850
with that much authority
and that much dignity.

00:42:01.850 --> 00:42:03.260
And that was stunning to people.

00:42:12.560 --> 00:42:14.390
- Curtis had to
sell subscriptions

00:42:14.390 --> 00:42:17.960
to pay for the publishing
costs and other expenses,

00:42:17.960 --> 00:42:20.810
as Morgan's funds only
covered half the fieldwork.

00:42:23.380 --> 00:42:25.480
He went to New York
to raise money,

00:42:25.480 --> 00:42:28.600
but his timing could
not have been worse.

00:42:28.600 --> 00:42:32.340
A financial crash crippled
banks and made sales impossible.

00:42:32.340 --> 00:42:34.350
He wrote to a friend.

00:42:34.350 --> 00:42:37.680
- Confidentially, the fact
that the stock market has gone

00:42:37.680 --> 00:42:42.230
to the bow-wows is making
my work a bit difficult.

00:42:42.230 --> 00:42:45.220
I have but three weeks
more here in the East,

00:42:45.220 --> 00:42:47.360
and then I shall start for camp.

00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:49.580
And no word can tell
you how I look forward

00:42:49.580 --> 00:42:52.680
to getting out in the open.

00:42:52.680 --> 00:42:56.260
- In July, he traveled
west to Montana.

00:42:56.260 --> 00:42:58.360
Clara and my son
Harold were included

00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:02.450
in the party, along with
Myers, my assistant, Upshaw,

00:43:02.450 --> 00:43:06.370
the Crow Indian interpreter,
and Justo, the cook.

00:43:06.370 --> 00:43:09.400
- Now I was to be really one of
the party, living in camp month

00:43:09.400 --> 00:43:10.330
after month.

00:43:10.330 --> 00:43:12.440
That would be real life.

00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:15.230
- Curtis and his son Harold
rode out to the Little Bighorn

00:43:15.230 --> 00:43:17.540
battlefield where
Custer and all his men

00:43:17.540 --> 00:43:19.400
had been killed by
Sioux and Cheyenne

00:43:19.400 --> 00:43:22.830
warriors 30 years earlier.

00:43:22.830 --> 00:43:25.410
- With the Crow scouts, I went
over the ground to the point

00:43:25.410 --> 00:43:27.660
where Custer sent them
back out of the fight

00:43:27.660 --> 00:43:29.520
to save their lives.

00:43:29.520 --> 00:43:32.970
Then I took up inquiry
with the Sioux scouts.

00:43:32.970 --> 00:43:34.950
- No one else had
talked to Indian people

00:43:34.950 --> 00:43:38.700
who had been in the battle and
then published their accounts.

00:43:38.700 --> 00:43:41.520
- We were working from the
Indians' point of view,

00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:45.000
regardless of its differing
from the view of the Caucasian.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.580
- Curtis concluded
that in seeking glory,

00:43:47.580 --> 00:43:50.430
Custer had ignored the
warnings of the Crow scouts

00:43:50.430 --> 00:43:53.490
and the evidence
of his own eyes.

00:43:53.490 --> 00:43:55.310
- There is absolutely
no question

00:43:55.310 --> 00:43:59.300
that Custer could have won this
fight with little loss of life.

00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:01.790
When the wise old Indian
warriors that were there

00:44:01.790 --> 00:44:03.770
in this fight are
asked what they

00:44:03.770 --> 00:44:06.560
think of Custer's
course in the battle,

00:44:06.560 --> 00:44:08.870
they point to their
heads and say,

00:44:08.870 --> 00:44:11.810
he must have been wrong up here.

00:44:11.810 --> 00:44:15.570
They can explain his
actions in no other way.

00:44:15.570 --> 00:44:18.450
- These words, published
in "The New York Herald,"

00:44:18.450 --> 00:44:20.820
shocked some of
Curtis's supporters,

00:44:20.820 --> 00:44:22.920
members of the Eastern
elite who preferred

00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:25.540
to see Custer as a hero.

00:44:25.540 --> 00:44:27.580
Curtis wrote a less
incendiary account

00:44:27.580 --> 00:44:32.380
for Volume 3 of "The
North American Indian."

00:44:32.380 --> 00:44:35.350
[SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

00:44:39.810 --> 00:44:43.440
Curtis recorded hundreds of
Indian songs in the field

00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:46.260
and later had them transcribed
for publication in the volumes.

00:44:49.510 --> 00:44:52.900
- I was four years old when
Curtis came to our home.

00:44:52.900 --> 00:44:54.640
And there were other
Indians who came in,

00:44:54.640 --> 00:44:57.160
that particular
evening that they sang.

00:44:57.160 --> 00:45:00.220
I just remember that
singing so well.

00:45:00.220 --> 00:45:03.490
Could have been that
he was recording.

00:45:03.490 --> 00:45:06.070
He was joining in on some
songs, as I remember,

00:45:06.070 --> 00:45:09.760
and some he was listening
to the Indian people.

00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:13.790
- The songs were all
recorded on wax rolls.

00:45:13.790 --> 00:45:16.020
The singers and
fellow tribesmen were

00:45:16.020 --> 00:45:18.750
awestruck on hearing the
song repeated from what

00:45:18.750 --> 00:45:21.570
they called the magic box.

00:45:21.570 --> 00:45:24.460
- My folks were jovial, and
they were laughing and singing,

00:45:24.460 --> 00:45:27.206
and that wasn't too
common at my home.

00:45:35.150 --> 00:45:37.370
- At the end of the
summer, Curtis's son

00:45:37.370 --> 00:45:40.106
Harold came down with a fever.

00:45:40.106 --> 00:45:43.670
- Clara soon diagnosed
his illness as typhoid,

00:45:43.670 --> 00:45:46.740
having nursed me with
it some years before.

00:45:46.740 --> 00:45:51.380
And all thoughts and efforts
were given to the boy's care.

00:45:51.380 --> 00:45:54.440
- Harold was in
a coma for weeks.

00:45:54.440 --> 00:45:58.700
With Clara's careful nursing,
he slowly began to improve.

00:45:58.700 --> 00:46:01.190
- As soon as Harold
was partially well,

00:46:01.190 --> 00:46:03.080
we drove to the railroad.

00:46:03.080 --> 00:46:05.570
It was a great relief
to have the train stop

00:46:05.570 --> 00:46:08.640
when we flagged it.

00:46:08.640 --> 00:46:12.520
- Clara never accompanied her
husband into the field again.

00:46:12.520 --> 00:46:15.280
Back in Seattle, she
was rarely at home.

00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:17.500
When she was not busy
running the studio,

00:46:17.500 --> 00:46:21.190
she was involved with civic
and charitable activities.

00:46:21.190 --> 00:46:23.230
13-year-old Harold
did the cooking

00:46:23.230 --> 00:46:27.750
and took care of his younger
sisters, Florence and Beth.

00:46:27.750 --> 00:46:31.290
- The cost of Curtis's
work, to him personally

00:46:31.290 --> 00:46:32.895
and to his family,
was just enormous.

00:46:35.910 --> 00:46:38.580
He was never at home.

00:46:38.580 --> 00:46:43.280
He clearly became just
driven by this project.

00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:46.410
And you can explain it
in terms of ambition,

00:46:46.410 --> 00:46:48.960
but ambition of what kind?

00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.270
Even with Morgan's
support, it was

00:46:51.270 --> 00:46:54.360
going to cost far more
than anyone imagined.

00:46:54.360 --> 00:46:57.240
He needed three times as many
people to work on the project

00:46:57.240 --> 00:46:59.010
and had no way to get them.

00:46:59.010 --> 00:47:02.370
So he was draining money off the
studio, which his family needed

00:47:02.370 --> 00:47:03.580
to support themselves.

00:47:09.600 --> 00:47:11.130
- Curtis spent
the winter working

00:47:11.130 --> 00:47:14.501
with two assistants in a
cabin on the Crow reservation.

00:47:25.310 --> 00:47:28.470
- I like that picture
because I had grandmothers,

00:47:28.470 --> 00:47:30.730
and sometimes they'd
carry a great big canvas

00:47:30.730 --> 00:47:32.730
and then put the wood in
it and then just put it

00:47:32.730 --> 00:47:34.830
over their back and go off.

00:47:34.830 --> 00:47:36.552
So I understand
that sort of thing.

00:47:42.460 --> 00:47:47.260
In Curtis's book, it
mentions a couple of men here

00:47:47.260 --> 00:47:50.790
that are listed as warriors.

00:47:50.790 --> 00:47:55.530
And there were no Crow
war parties after 1876.

00:47:55.530 --> 00:47:58.740
There was no way that these
fellows were war party people,

00:47:58.740 --> 00:48:00.460
because that was no more.

00:48:00.460 --> 00:48:01.020
- Right.

00:48:01.020 --> 00:48:03.520
So how do you think that
photograph came to be?

00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:05.490
- I think it was just posed.

00:48:05.490 --> 00:48:08.933
They didn't actually take horses
when they went on war parties.

00:48:08.933 --> 00:48:10.350
If you're going
to go steal a car,

00:48:10.350 --> 00:48:13.290
you don't use a car
to go steal a car.

00:48:13.290 --> 00:48:16.080
That's just that
simple kind of thing.

00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:19.490
So they were always
going on foot.

00:48:19.490 --> 00:48:21.620
They didn't go out
in the wintertime.

00:48:21.620 --> 00:48:22.920
It's just that simple.

00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:24.200
They just flat didn't.

00:48:24.200 --> 00:48:28.660
I've never heard of
anything like that.

00:48:28.660 --> 00:48:30.240
- Some anthropologists
in the East

00:48:30.240 --> 00:48:33.340
criticized Curtis's
work as unreliable.

00:48:33.340 --> 00:48:35.550
- Boaz, I believe, was
critical of Curtis,

00:48:35.550 --> 00:48:38.610
primarily because
Curtis was an amateur

00:48:38.610 --> 00:48:43.130
and he was treading
in Boaz's territory.

00:48:43.130 --> 00:48:47.040
He felt Curtis wasn't
really professional.

00:48:47.040 --> 00:48:49.950
- One of the treasured objects
in Curtis's original negative

00:48:49.950 --> 00:48:53.658
of this Peigan lodge
was an alarm clock.

00:48:53.658 --> 00:48:55.200
But Curtis removed
it from the image.

00:48:57.840 --> 00:49:00.270
In framing out signs
of modern-day life,

00:49:00.270 --> 00:49:03.910
Curtis was following standard
ethnographic practice.

00:49:03.910 --> 00:49:06.300
Franz Boaz screened
out modern houses

00:49:06.300 --> 00:49:09.240
by holding a blanket behind his
traditionally-dressed Indian

00:49:09.240 --> 00:49:10.680
subject.

00:49:10.680 --> 00:49:12.960
Curtis and Boaz both
retouched their negatives

00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:16.140
to obscure modern objects.

00:49:16.140 --> 00:49:19.500
When word of Boaz's criticisms
reached him in the field,

00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:22.800
Curtis wrote to his
editor, Frederick Hodge.

00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:27.150
- I am making a series as good
and honestly made as I can.

00:49:27.150 --> 00:49:30.120
And I feel that as long
as I continue in this way

00:49:30.120 --> 00:49:32.670
and attempt to avoid error
by having you carefully

00:49:32.670 --> 00:49:37.670
edit the work, I should be
given a chance for my life.

00:49:37.670 --> 00:49:40.502
- I made the acquaintance
of people in academia,

00:49:40.502 --> 00:49:41.960
and many of them
had the impression

00:49:41.960 --> 00:49:45.260
that he made up a lot of
things, that he exaggerated,

00:49:45.260 --> 00:49:49.420
that you really couldn't
count on his information.

00:49:49.420 --> 00:49:53.580
It's true that he put costumes
on people, but not very much.

00:49:53.580 --> 00:49:55.902
See, but because
he did it, people

00:49:55.902 --> 00:49:57.110
think he did it all the time.

00:49:59.950 --> 00:50:02.297
He had a shirt that
apparently belonged to him.

00:50:02.297 --> 00:50:03.880
It seems it must
have belonged to him,

00:50:03.880 --> 00:50:07.330
because it appears on
about 10 different guys,

00:50:07.330 --> 00:50:09.850
in the whole many
hundreds of photographs,

00:50:09.850 --> 00:50:12.480
in several different tribes.

00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:15.310
The shirt's not really
out of place in those,

00:50:15.310 --> 00:50:16.310
but it's the same shirt.

00:50:16.310 --> 00:50:18.410
So clearly, it's
worn by people who

00:50:18.410 --> 00:50:21.080
are in a different tribe
from which it had originated.

00:50:21.080 --> 00:50:22.480
It's the only case.

00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:24.820
It's the only one
that you can point to.

00:50:24.820 --> 00:50:27.320
And now he's got one picture
with a dozen war bonnets in it.

00:50:27.320 --> 00:50:30.007
Did he have a whole suitcase
full of war bonnets?

00:50:30.007 --> 00:50:30.590
No, he didn't.

00:50:30.590 --> 00:50:31.673
They were their own thing.

00:50:36.523 --> 00:50:38.940
- It's important to remember
that before Curtis got there,

00:50:38.940 --> 00:50:41.550
Indians had the conventions
of being photographed

00:50:41.550 --> 00:50:44.340
that were taught to them
by the white photographers.

00:50:44.340 --> 00:50:45.450
You sit very still.

00:50:45.450 --> 00:50:46.560
You don't smile.

00:50:46.560 --> 00:50:48.930
You stare straight at the lens.

00:50:48.930 --> 00:50:51.455
- I guess, too, at
the time, if you

00:50:51.455 --> 00:50:55.410
were going to be photographed
in the Victorian era,

00:50:55.410 --> 00:50:57.795
everybody has their
suit and their tie on.

00:51:03.500 --> 00:51:04.820
Put on your best dress.

00:51:04.820 --> 00:51:07.790
So they would put
on their best dress.

00:51:07.790 --> 00:51:10.430
And those best dress were always
used for special occasions,

00:51:10.430 --> 00:51:10.930
too.

00:51:10.930 --> 00:51:14.840
And these were special
occasions to our people.

00:51:14.840 --> 00:51:18.290
Well, like, in this photograph
of Yellow Kidney in his lodge,

00:51:18.290 --> 00:51:21.200
he's wearing a weasel-tail suit.

00:51:21.200 --> 00:51:22.940
It's just like wearing a tuxedo.

00:51:22.940 --> 00:51:24.575
It's probably your best dress.

00:51:27.110 --> 00:51:30.410
- I think that Curtis's
view of the Indian

00:51:30.410 --> 00:51:34.580
is, for the most part, romantic.

00:51:34.580 --> 00:51:38.120
But I think we were more
to him than happy snaps.

00:51:38.120 --> 00:51:42.140
I hear people criticizing
that he carried around shirts.

00:51:42.140 --> 00:51:44.810
But he did a monumental job.

00:51:44.810 --> 00:51:48.500
And if he didn't come
along and record this,

00:51:48.500 --> 00:51:50.570
the loss would be tremendous--

00:51:50.570 --> 00:51:52.790
Incalculable loss.

00:51:52.790 --> 00:51:58.170
So when people start
criticizing stereotypes,

00:51:58.170 --> 00:51:59.730
I look at my great-grandfather.

00:51:59.730 --> 00:52:02.730
I mean, he's not a stereotype.

00:52:02.730 --> 00:52:04.050
He can't stage that.

00:52:04.050 --> 00:52:09.200
You can't stage the eyes
and the determination.

00:52:09.200 --> 00:52:11.810
And these were powerful
people, and he recorded them.

00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:16.900
- When you look
at the pictures--

00:52:16.900 --> 00:52:18.940
like, sometimes we
look at the face.

00:52:18.940 --> 00:52:21.070
We'll look at the person.

00:52:21.070 --> 00:52:23.620
But the longer you
look, you really

00:52:23.620 --> 00:52:26.410
have to study what's
in that picture.

00:52:26.410 --> 00:52:30.250
And the more you learn
about the culture,

00:52:30.250 --> 00:52:33.430
the more you appreciate
his pictures,

00:52:33.430 --> 00:52:35.740
because at first,
it's like, oh, that's

00:52:35.740 --> 00:52:39.640
a bird on their headdress.

00:52:39.640 --> 00:52:43.300
Then, all of a sudden, as you
participate in the culture,

00:52:43.300 --> 00:52:45.670
you recognize the
spirit of that bird

00:52:45.670 --> 00:52:47.260
is what's on the headdress.

00:52:47.260 --> 00:52:49.150
It's like the world
comes alive again.

00:52:51.770 --> 00:52:53.570
To me, that's the
real key to what

00:52:53.570 --> 00:52:56.340
Curtis did by taking the
photographs that he did.

00:52:56.340 --> 00:53:00.890
Because otherwise we would
be an imaginary thought only,

00:53:00.890 --> 00:53:04.148
because there would
be no concrete for us.

00:53:04.148 --> 00:53:06.440
And I think that's what
Curtis's photos will contribute

00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:09.790
to us back as a
people, is he's going

00:53:09.790 --> 00:53:13.578
to trigger those memory
stops to start again.

00:53:13.578 --> 00:53:16.566
[CHANTING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE,
DRUMMING]

00:53:56.940 --> 00:54:00.870
- Curtis came home for
Christmas at the end of 1908.

00:54:00.870 --> 00:54:03.600
His marriage was falling apart.

00:54:03.600 --> 00:54:07.140
Early in 1909, he moved into
a cabin across the Sound

00:54:07.140 --> 00:54:09.210
to write Volume 5.

00:54:09.210 --> 00:54:11.490
- The long strain of
work here was such

00:54:11.490 --> 00:54:14.820
that I was seriously
worn out towards the end.

00:54:14.820 --> 00:54:17.310
In the last week of the
final reading and correcting

00:54:17.310 --> 00:54:20.250
a manuscript, I could
not leave my bed.

00:54:24.720 --> 00:54:28.880
- Curtis moved into the Rainier
Club in downtown Seattle.

00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:32.480
His last child, Catherine,
was born in 1909

00:54:32.480 --> 00:54:34.330
and grew up without
knowing her father.

00:54:39.930 --> 00:54:45.030
- My greatest desire tonight
is that each and every person

00:54:45.030 --> 00:54:49.830
see this poetic,
mysterious, yet simple life,

00:54:49.830 --> 00:54:53.910
and span the gulf
between today's turmoil

00:54:53.910 --> 00:54:59.800
and the faraway enchanted
realm of primitive man.

00:54:59.800 --> 00:55:03.340
- Curtis devised an
elaborate picture musical

00:55:03.340 --> 00:55:05.890
to raise funds
for the fieldwork.

00:55:05.890 --> 00:55:08.980
While he projected
hand-colored lantern slides,

00:55:08.980 --> 00:55:11.200
a full orchestra
played music inspired

00:55:11.200 --> 00:55:14.280
by his field recordings.

00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:16.260
The musical toured
the East Coast

00:55:16.260 --> 00:55:18.766
and drew record crowds
to Carnegie Hall.

00:55:18.766 --> 00:55:19.758
[APPLAUSE]

00:55:19.758 --> 00:55:24.718
These were the nostalgic
images the public liked to see.

00:55:24.718 --> 00:55:28.970
The program received standing
ovations and glowing reviews,

00:55:28.970 --> 00:55:32.420
but the expenses were huge
and the project lost money.

00:55:34.930 --> 00:55:38.230
- At the end of June, I gave
up the effort for further money

00:55:38.230 --> 00:55:42.100
and went west and at once
into camp, inadequately

00:55:42.100 --> 00:55:44.020
outfitted and short
of funds to do

00:55:44.020 --> 00:55:47.860
efficient work, the small
amount used being, in fact,

00:55:47.860 --> 00:55:51.790
available through a second
mortgage on my home.

00:55:51.790 --> 00:55:54.430
Things are fearfully
discouraging,

00:55:54.430 --> 00:55:56.350
but I am always
hoping for the best.

00:56:00.020 --> 00:56:03.530
- By the end of 1911, Curtis
had published only eight

00:56:03.530 --> 00:56:07.130
of the 20 volumes, and his
arrangement with J. Pierpont

00:56:07.130 --> 00:56:09.530
Morgan had come to an end.

00:56:09.530 --> 00:56:12.440
Curtis wrote to Morgan's
secretary, Belle da Costa

00:56:12.440 --> 00:56:13.520
Greene.

00:56:13.520 --> 00:56:15.800
- I have not yet
quite brought myself

00:56:15.800 --> 00:56:18.700
to think the undertaking
must be given up.

00:56:18.700 --> 00:56:21.920
And I will fight on until
some anxious creditor

00:56:21.920 --> 00:56:24.680
asks for a receiver.

00:56:24.680 --> 00:56:31.010
- Curtis and the people with him
worked at an unbelievable pace

00:56:31.010 --> 00:56:34.610
under just the most
extraordinary pressure,

00:56:34.610 --> 00:56:37.160
year after year after year.

00:56:47.730 --> 00:56:51.810
- Curtis took 45,000 to 50,000
photographs in the field,

00:56:51.810 --> 00:56:55.800
made 10,000 recordings, and
published 20 volumes of text

00:56:55.800 --> 00:56:58.080
about the cultures of more
than 80 different tribes.

00:57:03.470 --> 00:57:06.440
- During the field
season of 1905,

00:57:06.440 --> 00:57:10.720
60,000 miles of railroad
mileage were used.

00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:15.230
- He made 125 trips to
New York on the train

00:57:15.230 --> 00:57:16.130
during those years--

00:57:16.130 --> 00:57:19.580
125 trips, plus
rushing back and forth

00:57:19.580 --> 00:57:23.480
to Montana or the Southwest.

00:57:23.480 --> 00:57:25.850
- Our camp equipment
weighing from 1,000 pounds

00:57:25.850 --> 00:57:29.030
to a ton, a motion picture
machine, phonograph

00:57:29.030 --> 00:57:31.880
for recording
songs, a typewriter,

00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:34.820
a trunk of reference books,
correspondence in connection

00:57:34.820 --> 00:57:40.100
with the work, tents, bedding,
our foods, saddles, cooking

00:57:40.100 --> 00:57:42.860
outfit, four to eight horses--

00:57:42.860 --> 00:57:45.080
such was the outfit.

00:57:45.080 --> 00:57:48.260
- It's probably the largest
anthropological project

00:57:48.260 --> 00:57:50.030
ever undertaken.

00:57:50.030 --> 00:57:55.070
He must have had amazing
stamina, amazing energy.

00:57:55.070 --> 00:57:56.750
It's just awesome.

00:57:56.750 --> 00:57:59.510
I think he had
extraordinary charisma.

00:57:59.510 --> 00:58:01.940
They all seem to have
called him the chief--

00:58:01.940 --> 00:58:04.240
which, of course, he liked,
too, because he was also

00:58:04.240 --> 00:58:06.170
an egomaniac.

00:58:06.170 --> 00:58:12.710
Sometimes he rode over people
without realizing he'd done it.

00:58:12.710 --> 00:58:14.870
The needs of the
work were so great

00:58:14.870 --> 00:58:19.738
that petty human needs like
being paid are insignificant.

00:58:23.650 --> 00:58:26.050
- For every hour
given to photography,

00:58:26.050 --> 00:58:28.000
two must be given to writing.

00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:31.360
[OPERA MUSIC PLAYING]

00:58:31.360 --> 00:58:34.210
- At night, Curtis would
sit up, and he would write

00:58:34.210 --> 00:58:38.770
six or eight letters for money.

00:58:38.770 --> 00:58:43.240
- The everlasting struggle to do
the work, do it well and fast,

00:58:43.240 --> 00:58:47.610
is such that leisure and
comfort are lost sight of.

00:58:47.610 --> 00:58:50.100
But for every hour of
misery, I could tell you

00:58:50.100 --> 00:58:51.900
of one of delight.

00:58:51.900 --> 00:58:55.760
And the most stormy days
have had glorious sunsets.

00:58:55.760 --> 00:58:58.830
And for every negative
that is a disappointment,

00:58:58.830 --> 00:59:00.828
there is one that is a joy.

00:59:10.110 --> 00:59:12.720
- Curtis hoped to cash in
on the growing popularity

00:59:12.720 --> 00:59:14.850
of motion pictures.

00:59:14.850 --> 00:59:17.190
He planned a series of
films on Indian life

00:59:17.190 --> 00:59:20.047
that would bring in enough money
to complete "The North American

00:59:20.047 --> 00:59:20.547
Indian."

00:59:24.130 --> 00:59:26.440
He had been impressed by
the costumes and dances

00:59:26.440 --> 00:59:28.960
he had seen in Kwakiutl
potlatch ceremonies

00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:31.840
on Vancouver Island
a few years before.

00:59:31.840 --> 00:59:34.960
- Their ceremonies are
developed to a point which fully

00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:38.890
justifies the term, "dramatic."

00:59:38.890 --> 00:59:41.170
- Never one to
keep things simple,

00:59:41.170 --> 00:59:42.940
Curtis decided to
make a film that

00:59:42.940 --> 00:59:46.330
would show every aspect of
traditional Kwakiutl culture

00:59:46.330 --> 00:59:48.490
and at the same time
tell a dramatic story

00:59:48.490 --> 00:59:50.220
that would attract audiences.

00:59:55.980 --> 00:59:59.550
He hired Kwakiutl people to
make pre-contact costumes,

00:59:59.550 --> 01:00:03.000
to carve canoes, totem
poles, and masks,

01:00:03.000 --> 01:00:05.790
and to recreate headhunting
raids and ceremonies that

01:00:05.790 --> 01:00:07.440
had become illegal.

01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:09.780
- One of the neat
things about this film

01:00:09.780 --> 01:00:12.820
was that eventually people
discovered that it was

01:00:12.820 --> 01:00:15.720
the first ethnographic film.

01:00:15.720 --> 01:00:19.680
For years, people had thought
that Flaherty's "Nanook

01:00:19.680 --> 01:00:24.460
of the North" was the very
first, but Curtis beat him.

01:00:24.460 --> 01:00:27.750
We were there first.

01:00:27.750 --> 01:00:29.330
Oh, there's that handsome man.

01:00:29.330 --> 01:00:30.038
- Who's that guy?

01:00:30.038 --> 01:00:31.010
- Oh, look at that guy.

01:00:31.010 --> 01:00:31.510
- Hey.

01:00:31.510 --> 01:00:32.900
- Hey.

01:00:32.900 --> 01:00:34.900
Yeah.

01:00:34.900 --> 01:00:37.860
Oh, this guy here,
he's my father.

01:00:37.860 --> 01:00:41.400
He was 19 when this was taken.

01:00:41.400 --> 01:00:43.290
- That's my mom.

01:00:43.290 --> 01:00:45.720
My mom was 17 years old.

01:00:45.720 --> 01:00:52.680
She was picked for this movie
because of her high ranking.

01:00:52.680 --> 01:00:59.970
She was trained to be one of
the noble women of her village.

01:00:59.970 --> 01:01:01.740
- Everyone is here
for a potlatch

01:01:01.740 --> 01:01:04.950
given in memory of Mary's
mother, the star of Curtis's

01:01:04.950 --> 01:01:07.870
film, who died last
year at the age of 99.

01:01:29.490 --> 01:01:31.050
- What I am doing
when I am dancing

01:01:31.050 --> 01:01:35.520
is I'm reenacting
one of our stories.

01:01:35.520 --> 01:01:39.090
You kind of look within
yourself to find yourself

01:01:39.090 --> 01:01:42.280
and where you fit into
the scheme of things here.

01:01:46.670 --> 01:01:48.243
The government
passed regulations

01:01:48.243 --> 01:01:49.410
that are banning a potlatch.

01:01:49.410 --> 01:01:52.675
That's when my father
was born, in 1895.

01:01:52.675 --> 01:01:55.645
[SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

01:01:58.130 --> 01:02:00.240
- When Curtis came
to make his film,

01:02:00.240 --> 01:02:02.670
the potlatch
ceremony was illegal.

01:02:02.670 --> 01:02:05.190
- This white guy is
going to pay them

01:02:05.190 --> 01:02:09.870
to do these dances that they
would otherwise go to jail for.

01:02:09.870 --> 01:02:13.860
And this is in the middle
of potlatch prohibition.

01:02:13.860 --> 01:02:18.000
And from all accounts,
they just really enjoyed

01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:20.076
being part of this.

01:02:20.076 --> 01:02:22.974
[SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

01:02:33.340 --> 01:02:35.370
- Our people never
hunted whales.

01:02:35.370 --> 01:02:36.770
Why would we hunt whales?

01:02:36.770 --> 01:02:39.370
We had all this
wonderful salmon.

01:02:39.370 --> 01:02:42.450
But Curtis was
desperately trying

01:02:42.450 --> 01:02:44.580
to make money in whatever way.

01:02:44.580 --> 01:02:46.950
So he wants to
make a film that's

01:02:46.950 --> 01:02:52.980
going to be full of adventure
to attract audiences,

01:02:52.980 --> 01:02:57.630
so he includes things like
this whale hunting sequence.

01:02:57.630 --> 01:02:58.980
- They borrowed this whale.

01:02:58.980 --> 01:03:00.810
- Yeah, here's the rented whale.

01:03:00.810 --> 01:03:03.540
This is the story I really love.

01:03:03.540 --> 01:03:09.780
Curtis took his cast up to the
commercial whaling station,

01:03:09.780 --> 01:03:12.030
and he rented this dead whale.

01:03:16.080 --> 01:03:18.390
- The picture is a
compromise between what

01:03:18.390 --> 01:03:21.240
I would like to make, if I
were in the position to say,

01:03:21.240 --> 01:03:24.900
the public be damned, and what
I think the public will support.

01:03:27.960 --> 01:03:31.620
- Curtis would be standing in
the water with these great big

01:03:31.620 --> 01:03:35.730
long rubber pants,
and he kept saying,

01:03:35.730 --> 01:03:39.360
come in, row faster, row
faster, row harder, go this way.

01:03:39.360 --> 01:03:43.740
So they were off course then,
because they knew their beach,

01:03:43.740 --> 01:03:45.190
and he didn't.

01:03:45.190 --> 01:03:47.190
And they hit a rock.

01:03:47.190 --> 01:03:49.620
And most of the people
inside the canoe

01:03:49.620 --> 01:03:52.590
had fallen off of
their bench seats.

01:03:52.590 --> 01:03:55.410
And they just started
laughing, like they

01:03:55.410 --> 01:03:56.613
couldn't stop laughing.

01:04:03.860 --> 01:04:05.670
And he just was so upset.

01:04:05.670 --> 01:04:08.600
He actually took the
film out of the camera

01:04:08.600 --> 01:04:11.960
and threw it in the water.

01:04:11.960 --> 01:04:14.030
So they had to do
it all over again.

01:04:19.720 --> 01:04:22.195
- I mean, our ancestors
were real showmen.

01:04:22.195 --> 01:04:24.970
[SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

01:04:28.860 --> 01:04:31.080
- If it wasn't
for the film here,

01:04:31.080 --> 01:04:32.910
we wouldn't have
had the opportunity

01:04:32.910 --> 01:04:39.490
to look back and see some
of our older people again.

01:04:39.490 --> 01:04:42.270
And for me to sit here and
watch my father and some

01:04:42.270 --> 01:04:48.510
of my other relatives, it's
moving for me to see them.

01:05:01.310 --> 01:05:05.480
- Curtis's film opened
in 1915 to rave reviews,

01:05:05.480 --> 01:05:09.050
but audiences did
not flock to see it.

01:05:09.050 --> 01:05:11.750
The First World
War had just begun,

01:05:11.750 --> 01:05:14.220
and Americans were turning
their attention towards Europe.

01:05:17.080 --> 01:05:19.810
- "In the Land of the Head
Hunters" is a complete bust,

01:05:19.810 --> 01:05:20.890
financially.

01:05:20.890 --> 01:05:23.230
He made this film
as a fundraiser,

01:05:23.230 --> 01:05:26.140
and in fact it
shows a few times.

01:05:26.140 --> 01:05:30.060
He later in up selling
it for like $1,500.

01:05:30.060 --> 01:05:34.730
And he spent $75,000 or
$100,000 on the film.

01:05:34.730 --> 01:05:37.350
Indian subjects just go
entirely out of fashion.

01:05:37.350 --> 01:05:39.020
Nobody's interested anymore.

01:05:39.020 --> 01:05:40.820
He had been on the
crest of the wave,

01:05:40.820 --> 01:05:42.380
and now he was high and dry.

01:05:52.630 --> 01:05:56.050
- After 24 years of married
life, Mrs. Clara J. Curtis,

01:05:56.050 --> 01:05:59.500
wife of Edward S. Curtis,
well-known Indian photographer,

01:05:59.500 --> 01:06:02.800
filed suit for divorce against
her husband in the Superior

01:06:02.800 --> 01:06:04.520
Court.

01:06:04.520 --> 01:06:07.610
- Curtis and his wife had
been separated for years,

01:06:07.610 --> 01:06:11.720
but divorce was scandalous,
shocking, and rare.

01:06:11.720 --> 01:06:14.210
Their three older children
felt closer to their father

01:06:14.210 --> 01:06:17.310
than to their mother, and
they remained loyal to him.

01:06:21.810 --> 01:06:25.110
The court awarded Clara
the house, the studio,

01:06:25.110 --> 01:06:27.090
and everything in
them, including

01:06:27.090 --> 01:06:29.936
thousands of Curtis's
glass plate negatives.

01:06:35.200 --> 01:06:39.340
Beth Curtis, now 20 years
old, was running the studio.

01:06:39.340 --> 01:06:43.060
She was furious at her mother
for divorcing her father.

01:06:43.060 --> 01:06:46.690
Beth and an assistant copied
many of the glass negatives,

01:06:46.690 --> 01:06:49.610
then broke the originals,
so that her mother would not

01:06:49.610 --> 01:06:50.860
profit from them.

01:07:04.360 --> 01:07:08.950
Curtis had lost his marriage,
his studio, and his home.

01:07:08.950 --> 01:07:13.640
He stopped working on "The
North American Indian."

01:07:13.640 --> 01:07:17.180
He moved to Los Angeles with his
daughter Beth, who established

01:07:17.180 --> 01:07:18.260
a new studio downtown.

01:07:21.060 --> 01:07:24.120
In the early 1920s,
Curtis began working

01:07:24.120 --> 01:07:27.450
as a still and motion picture
photographer on Tarzan movies

01:07:27.450 --> 01:07:31.170
starring Elmo Lincoln, fantasies
about a white man living

01:07:31.170 --> 01:07:32.580
in the wild.

01:07:32.580 --> 01:07:36.390
He called the movies a
circus kind of business,

01:07:36.390 --> 01:07:38.721
but it was a living.

01:07:38.721 --> 01:07:41.703
[ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING]

01:07:46.190 --> 01:07:48.590
- I am now working on the
picturization of the 10

01:07:48.590 --> 01:07:51.680
commandments, and aside
from breaking the one which

01:07:51.680 --> 01:07:55.060
mentions the fact that we
should keep the Sabbath holy,

01:07:55.060 --> 01:07:59.500
I am working about 18 hours
a day, both on said Sabbath

01:07:59.500 --> 01:08:00.640
and on the days between.

01:08:17.000 --> 01:08:19.310
- After three years
in the film business,

01:08:19.310 --> 01:08:22.370
he was finally able to
escape from Hollywood

01:08:22.370 --> 01:08:23.660
and return to the Hopi mesas.

01:08:27.130 --> 01:08:31.300
- The very atmosphere seems
to breathe of contentment,

01:08:31.300 --> 01:08:33.279
and one has but
to close his eyes

01:08:33.279 --> 01:08:35.020
to the few things
in modern life which

01:08:35.020 --> 01:08:38.439
have crept in to feel
that this is as it has

01:08:38.439 --> 01:08:40.718
been for untold generations.

01:08:46.100 --> 01:08:47.840
- The following year,
Curtis published

01:08:47.840 --> 01:08:50.120
Volume 12 on the Hopi.

01:08:50.120 --> 01:08:52.672
It was his first
publication in six years.

01:08:58.960 --> 01:09:02.460
- He pulls himself together
and gets a little money here,

01:09:02.460 --> 01:09:04.750
gets a little money there.

01:09:04.750 --> 01:09:07.340
Piece by piece, he
pulls it back together.

01:09:07.340 --> 01:09:09.819
And he goes out and
does the fieldwork

01:09:09.819 --> 01:09:13.475
on a much smaller scale,
in terms of his crew,

01:09:13.475 --> 01:09:15.322
but he persisted.

01:09:24.569 --> 01:09:26.640
- Curtis took his
daughter Florence with him

01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:29.790
on a field trip to
northern California.

01:09:29.790 --> 01:09:31.979
- I asked if her
husband could spare her

01:09:31.979 --> 01:09:35.290
for a couple of months.

01:09:35.290 --> 01:09:39.200
We erected our tent under a
canopy of living greenery.

01:09:39.200 --> 01:09:42.609
The pungent fragrance
of pine and tarweed

01:09:42.609 --> 01:09:45.060
and the persistent
chant of crickets,

01:09:45.060 --> 01:09:47.819
dusk with its sleepy
call of birds,

01:09:47.819 --> 01:09:52.050
and then the stars
of night enfolded us.

01:09:52.050 --> 01:09:56.280
- I think Curtis himself
was much more vulnerable

01:09:56.280 --> 01:10:02.040
in his later years, partly
as a result of the divorce,

01:10:02.040 --> 01:10:05.000
partly his health
wasn't so good.

01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:10.980
But I think he had sense
of his own mortality

01:10:10.980 --> 01:10:14.190
and his own fragility.

01:10:14.190 --> 01:10:16.920
Perhaps because of
that vulnerability,

01:10:16.920 --> 01:10:19.890
he becomes more aware
of the fragility

01:10:19.890 --> 01:10:21.240
and the humanity of others.

01:10:24.720 --> 01:10:27.390
One way in which
Curtis's own attitude

01:10:27.390 --> 01:10:32.430
changed towards Indians was that
because the California tribal

01:10:32.430 --> 01:10:39.120
groups were small, they had
been so badly decimated.

01:10:39.120 --> 01:10:46.860
And he would hear stories of how
settlers had hunted people down

01:10:46.860 --> 01:10:51.820
and killed them off, so whole
languages had disappeared.

01:10:51.820 --> 01:10:55.750
He was very distressed
at the severity,

01:10:55.750 --> 01:10:59.030
at the rapidity of the change.

01:10:59.030 --> 01:11:02.000
- While practically all
Indians suffered seriously

01:11:02.000 --> 01:11:04.850
at the hands of
settlers and government,

01:11:04.850 --> 01:11:08.930
the Indians of California
suffered beyond comparison.

01:11:08.930 --> 01:11:11.330
The principal outdoor
sport of the settlers

01:11:11.330 --> 01:11:14.315
during the '50s and
'60s, seemingly,

01:11:14.315 --> 01:11:15.440
was the killing of Indians.

01:11:21.630 --> 01:11:23.430
- A few years
later, Edward Curtis

01:11:23.430 --> 01:11:28.230
set out for Alaska to photograph
Eskimo people for Volume 20.

01:11:28.230 --> 01:11:31.320
It would be his last
trip into the field.

01:11:31.320 --> 01:11:34.980
His daughter Beth financed the
voyage, hired an assistant,

01:11:34.980 --> 01:11:37.140
and went along
for the adventure.

01:11:37.140 --> 01:11:39.150
- And it truly seemed
as though I was going

01:11:39.150 --> 01:11:41.120
to the other end of the world.

01:11:41.120 --> 01:11:44.370
And I was finally on my way
for the much-longed-for trip

01:11:44.370 --> 01:11:45.690
with Dad.

01:11:45.690 --> 01:11:48.510
- Curtis, Beth, and their
assistant, Stewart Eastwood,

01:11:48.510 --> 01:11:52.680
sailed out into the Bering
Sea for Nunivak Island.

01:11:52.680 --> 01:11:56.550
They immediately encountered
dangerous waters.

01:11:56.550 --> 01:12:01.365
- Ice thick, headway slow, and
there is the constant sound

01:12:01.365 --> 01:12:04.670
of grinding, shifting ice--

01:12:04.670 --> 01:12:06.560
not so good a start.

01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:10.460
We ran into a thick fog
and hit a sand shoal.

01:12:10.460 --> 01:12:12.500
The engine went dead.

01:12:12.500 --> 01:12:16.560
Each swell carried us a
little further under the sand.

01:12:16.560 --> 01:12:18.890
- They were miles from
shore and hundreds

01:12:18.890 --> 01:12:21.530
of miles from any settlement.

01:12:21.530 --> 01:12:24.170
No boats came out at
that time of year.

01:12:24.170 --> 01:12:25.550
They were in serious trouble.

01:12:28.110 --> 01:12:31.380
- Beth is a brick,
and if she's worried,

01:12:31.380 --> 01:12:33.600
she's not letting
anyone know it.

01:12:33.600 --> 01:12:36.090
- We are now high
and dry on the sand,

01:12:36.090 --> 01:12:39.432
so we go out and play around
making pictures of the boat.

01:12:46.240 --> 01:12:49.570
- After two days, they were
able to get off the sandbar.

01:12:49.570 --> 01:12:51.190
- Oh, boy.

01:12:51.190 --> 01:12:54.430
What a relief it was to
feel her floating free.

01:12:54.430 --> 01:12:57.430
- They sailed 10 more
days on treacherous seas

01:12:57.430 --> 01:12:59.440
and finally reached
Nunivak Island.

01:13:27.180 --> 01:13:29.740
- Beth and I have been
ashore and exchanged smiles

01:13:29.740 --> 01:13:31.660
with the natives.

01:13:31.660 --> 01:13:34.660
They are certainly
a happy-looking lot.

01:13:34.660 --> 01:13:36.610
We know now our
decision to visit

01:13:36.610 --> 01:13:42.850
this island, regardless of
the problems, was a wise one.

01:13:42.850 --> 01:13:46.780
Think of it-- at last, and
for the first time in all

01:13:46.780 --> 01:13:49.070
my 30 years' work
with the natives,

01:13:49.070 --> 01:13:53.830
I have found a place where
no missionary has worked.

01:13:53.830 --> 01:13:55.990
They are so happy
and contented as they

01:13:55.990 --> 01:13:59.350
are that it would be a crime
to bring upsetting discord

01:13:59.350 --> 01:14:00.820
to them.

01:14:00.820 --> 01:14:02.620
Should any misguided
missionaries

01:14:02.620 --> 01:14:06.514
start for this island, I trust
the sea will do its duty.

01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:14.920
- Curtis was nearly
60 years old,

01:14:14.920 --> 01:14:17.710
with a lame hip and
painful arthritis,

01:14:17.710 --> 01:14:21.010
but he and Beth enjoyed
themselves immensely.

01:14:21.010 --> 01:14:23.276
They were especially charmed
by the Nunivak children.

01:14:33.524 --> 01:14:35.480
- Me.

01:14:35.480 --> 01:14:40.090
Mama, I just see my mother right
there as she's piggybacking me.

01:14:40.090 --> 01:14:41.010
I was tired.

01:14:41.010 --> 01:14:42.155
That's why.

01:14:42.155 --> 01:14:43.906
I gotta go.

01:14:43.906 --> 01:14:45.084
See you.

01:14:45.084 --> 01:14:45.584
Bye.

01:15:02.810 --> 01:15:06.530
- 10 years after Curtis's
visit, Swedish fundamentalist

01:15:06.530 --> 01:15:10.070
missionaries founded a
church on Nunivak Island.

01:15:10.070 --> 01:15:13.388
They confiscated the masks and
destroyed the Eskimo icons.

01:15:19.480 --> 01:15:21.870
- [SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

01:15:42.130 --> 01:15:47.160
(SINGING) I shall know
him, I shall know him.

01:15:47.160 --> 01:15:52.380
And redeemed by his
side, I shall stand.

01:15:52.380 --> 01:15:54.940
[SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE]

01:16:34.080 --> 01:16:36.450
- Curtis had finished
30 years of fieldwork

01:16:36.450 --> 01:16:39.630
for "The North American Indian."

01:16:39.630 --> 01:16:42.570
- Great is the satisfaction
the writer enjoys

01:16:42.570 --> 01:16:44.940
when he can at last
say to all those

01:16:44.940 --> 01:16:47.570
whose faith has been unbounded--

01:16:47.570 --> 01:16:48.530
it is finished.

01:16:54.300 --> 01:16:56.580
- He sailed from Nome to
Seattle and went directly

01:16:56.580 --> 01:16:58.770
to the train station.

01:16:58.770 --> 01:17:03.360
As he was boarding a train for
Los Angeles, he was arrested.

01:17:03.360 --> 01:17:07.080
- Edward S. Curtis, originator
of the famous Curtis Indian,

01:17:07.080 --> 01:17:10.170
was taken to the county
jail by deputy sheriffs.

01:17:10.170 --> 01:17:12.630
His divorced wife,
Clara J. Curtis,

01:17:12.630 --> 01:17:14.760
alleged he has been
in contempt of court

01:17:14.760 --> 01:17:17.430
for failure to pay alimony.

01:17:17.430 --> 01:17:20.070
- Curtis told the judge
that he had no money

01:17:20.070 --> 01:17:22.500
and could never
expect to have any.

01:17:22.500 --> 01:17:25.410
- When I made my
contract with Mr. Morgan,

01:17:25.410 --> 01:17:28.920
I agreed that I contribute all
the time devoted to research,

01:17:28.920 --> 01:17:32.730
promotion, and sales
of published volumes.

01:17:32.730 --> 01:17:35.700
The records show that
for more than 17 years,

01:17:35.700 --> 01:17:38.430
I did not receive any
remuneration for time

01:17:38.430 --> 01:17:40.450
devoted to the project.

01:17:40.450 --> 01:17:43.903
- So here he was in this
humiliating circumstance.

01:17:43.903 --> 01:17:46.320
He had to go up in front of
people, in front of the judge,

01:17:46.320 --> 01:17:47.760
and explain.

01:17:47.760 --> 01:17:50.910
And he broke down in front
of everybody, and he wept.

01:17:50.910 --> 01:17:55.710
And he said, this
is my life's work.

01:17:55.710 --> 01:17:59.144
And it was the only work that
I knew that was worth doing.

01:18:04.520 --> 01:18:07.520
- The judge eventually
threw the case out of court,

01:18:07.520 --> 01:18:09.370
and Curtis returned
to Los Angeles.

01:18:13.170 --> 01:18:17.190
Volume 20, the final volume of
"The North American Indian,"

01:18:17.190 --> 01:18:20.340
was published in 1930.

01:18:20.340 --> 01:18:23.010
The publication was met
with resounding silence.

01:18:26.010 --> 01:18:27.990
The Depression had struck.

01:18:27.990 --> 01:18:31.470
Few people were interested
in Indian subjects,

01:18:31.470 --> 01:18:35.790
and fewer still could afford
the expensive volumes.

01:18:35.790 --> 01:18:37.890
Curtis vanished from sight.

01:18:37.890 --> 01:18:41.940
Exhausted, ill, and depressed,
he moved to Colorado

01:18:41.940 --> 01:18:45.900
and was treated by an
osteopath at a Denver clinic.

01:18:45.900 --> 01:18:50.760
In 1932, he wrote again to Belle
Greene at the Morgan Library.

01:18:50.760 --> 01:18:53.100
- Following my season
in the Arctic collecting

01:18:53.100 --> 01:18:56.370
final material for
Volume 20, I suffered

01:18:56.370 --> 01:18:59.490
a complete physical breakdown.

01:18:59.490 --> 01:19:02.650
Ill health and uncertainty
brought a period of depression,

01:19:02.650 --> 01:19:05.420
which about crushed me.

01:19:05.420 --> 01:19:07.630
I could not write to my friends.

01:19:07.630 --> 01:19:11.110
No one wants to listen
to the wail of lost souls

01:19:11.110 --> 01:19:13.750
or the down-and-outers.

01:19:13.750 --> 01:19:18.400
I am again writing and hoping
I may do something worthwhile.

01:19:18.400 --> 01:19:20.500
Do drop me a line.

01:19:20.500 --> 01:19:25.290
Even a word from my old
friends gives added courage.

01:19:25.290 --> 01:19:28.642
- Belle Greene sent Curtis's
letter to a colleague, saying--

01:19:28.642 --> 01:19:30.100
- As you will see
from the enclosed

01:19:30.100 --> 01:19:33.230
letter from Mr. Curtis, he
does not ask any favor of me.

01:19:33.230 --> 01:19:35.122
But I think it wiser
not to reply to it.

01:19:38.030 --> 01:19:39.914
- His letter went unanswered.

01:19:42.850 --> 01:19:45.190
He turned his attention
to gold mining

01:19:45.190 --> 01:19:49.120
and spent many seasons at his
claim near Colfax, California,

01:19:49.120 --> 01:19:52.510
often in the company
of his son Harold.

01:19:52.510 --> 01:19:56.050
He even invented and patented
an ingenious gold concentrator

01:19:56.050 --> 01:19:58.516
device.

01:19:58.516 --> 01:19:59.983
But he never struck it rich.

01:20:03.900 --> 01:20:08.190
In his 80s, he decided to
write a book about gold mining.

01:20:08.190 --> 01:20:10.800
- I have been so busy
writing "The Lure of Gold"

01:20:10.800 --> 01:20:13.690
that everything
else is neglected.

01:20:13.690 --> 01:20:17.160
Why anyone at my age
should attempt such a task

01:20:17.160 --> 01:20:20.100
is beyond my understanding.

01:20:20.100 --> 01:20:22.170
- He was also planning
a trip to the Amazon,

01:20:22.170 --> 01:20:26.230
but his health failed him.

01:20:26.230 --> 01:20:28.090
He died in Los
Angeles at the home

01:20:28.090 --> 01:20:41.260
of his daughter Beth in 1952.

01:20:41.260 --> 01:20:45.340
- So during the years from when
he finished to when the plates

01:20:45.340 --> 01:20:49.600
were rediscovered in Boston and
we began to see them everywhere

01:20:49.600 --> 01:20:51.130
in the '70s--

01:20:51.130 --> 01:20:54.386
during those years, it
was as though it was lost.

01:21:10.500 --> 01:21:13.230
- Partly inspired by
Curtis's photographs,

01:21:13.230 --> 01:21:52.080
several Peigans in Canada
revived the sun dance in 1977.

01:21:52.080 --> 01:21:55.620
- Since then, sun dances
started happening again

01:21:55.620 --> 01:21:58.480
in Blackfoot country
on a regular basis.

01:21:58.480 --> 01:22:01.152
And it's there, and
it's alive and well.

01:22:04.610 --> 01:22:09.370
The whole community healing
is happening at that point.

01:22:09.370 --> 01:22:10.840
It's a celebration.

01:22:26.060 --> 01:22:29.550
- Now, as I look
back on those years,

01:22:29.550 --> 01:22:34.410
my brain is a scrambled
jumble of desert sandstorms,

01:22:34.410 --> 01:22:38.460
cyclone-wrecked camps,
exhaustion in waterless

01:22:38.460 --> 01:22:43.990
deserts, frozen feet and
hands in northern blizzards,

01:22:43.990 --> 01:22:46.601
wrecked river canoes
and ocean-going crafts.

01:22:49.410 --> 01:22:54.300
On the other hand, hours
of utmost peace, comfort,

01:22:54.300 --> 01:22:58.560
and joy at delightful
camps, the exaltation

01:22:58.560 --> 01:23:02.070
of accomplishment on some
particularly difficult fragment

01:23:02.070 --> 01:23:05.480
of information was secured.

01:23:05.480 --> 01:23:07.344
Many of the highlights
of those years

01:23:07.344 --> 01:23:10.332
stand out clearly,
as though they were

01:23:10.332 --> 01:23:12.324
the happenings of yesterday.

01:24:02.190 --> 01:24:04.740
- Funding for this program has
been provided by the National

01:24:04.740 --> 01:24:07.440
Endowment for the Humanities,
the Arizona Humanities

01:24:07.440 --> 01:24:10.770
Council, and the California
Council for the Humanities,

01:24:10.770 --> 01:24:14.300
with support from the
Rockefeller Foundation.