Entering the camp Curtis immediately became fascinated by Piegan culture He found all the tribe’s generations from children to grandparents living together in one village Grinnell cautioned him to take plenty of time in getting to know the residents He should also smile a lot to put the Piegans at ease Curtis carefully followed this advice He smiled almost constantly and most of the villagers smiled back DO NOT SAY CHEESE Some of Curtis’s modern critics have pointed out that the smiles and laughter he reported did not come through in his photos of the Piegans and other Natives Curtis is known to have posed his subjects to fit his conception of what Indians should look like Indeed The common theme throughout Edward Curtis’s portraits is stoicism says Cherokee scholar and blogger Adrienne Keene None of his subjects smile Ever Yet To anyone who has spent any time with Indians you know that the stoic Indian stereotype couldn’t be further from the truth Natives joke tease and laugh more than anyone I know I often leave Native events with my sides hurting from laughing so much 6 Curtis eagerly got to know White Calf chief of the Piegans That leader introduced him to other members of the tribe who came to like and trust the young photographer They told him about their lives and were even candid about their recent problems with hunger Their main food source the buffalo was swiftly disappearing from the plains they explained As a result a few years before one-quarter of the tribe had died in a single winter 5 8
Piegan women play an integral role in the sun dance Curtis wrote down nearly everything the Piegans told him He also took numerous photos of both individuals and customs White Calf said he would allow him to photograph almost anyone and anything he desired The one exception was the sun dance ceremony itself It was extremely private the chief said and must be observed only in person by selected guests When it came time for that sacred ritual to unfold Curtis watched all of it closely He also took careful detailed notes 9
Curtis’s beliefs were clear in photos such as this one which he captioned The vanishing race According to Curtis each year a woman of the tribe promised the sun she would build a lodge in return for curing the illness of a family member During the five-day ceremony itself tribe members sweat in the lodge made an offering of dried buffalo tongues to the sun and sang and danced A Massive Undertaking Curtis had been greatly impressed by everything he had seen at the Piegan camp In particular however the sun dance ceremony deeply moved him He called some portions of it wild terrifying and elaborately mystifying He added I was intensely affected 7 Curtis was so inspired by the experience he made a fateful decision He would devote several years of his life to documenting American Indian cultures It appears his motivation for such a project was twofold First he had a genuine interest in Native cultures Second and perhaps more pressing he worried that many Native nations and their cultures were fast disappearing and therefore must be documented before they were gone 10
