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  • Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field
  • John P. Bowes
Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian Project in the Field. Edited by Mick Gidley. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Pp. xiii, 200. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $64.95 cloth; $23.00 paper.

From 1900 to the late 1920s, photographer Edward Curtis and a team of ethnological assistants traveled throughout the continental United States to capture in print and photographs the Indian peoples and cultures then viewed to be on the verge of disappearing. This ambitious anthropological endeavor not only produced twenty volumes over those three decades but also recorded memorable images of native individuals and rituals. Having already addressed Curtis's work in prior books and articles, American literature professor Mick Gidley now presents written accounts from the North American Indian project.

Gidley's primary intention in this work is to portray the relationships between the members of the Curtis project and the American Indians they studied. Excerpts from letters, newspaper articles, lectures, and journal entries are organized geographically and chronologically to present the perspective of Curtis and his colleagues, as well as something of the ways of life of the Native Americans they described. While Gidley does provide both introductory and editorial commentary throughout the book, for the most part he allows the writers' words to speak for themselves. Previously unpublished or neglected, these accounts combine to highlight the "episodes of interaction" (p. 29) that occurred throughout the course of the fieldwork.

In the first chapter, Gidley introduces Curtis and his co-workers, summarizes the North American Indian project, and clarifies his own intentions. One monograph cannot encompass the entirety of the project undertaken by the photographer and his colleagues, and the author admits that this book offers only sample accounts of the fieldwork. Gidley is also quick to acknowledge the lack of native voices within the over 140 pages of text. Since the documents were almost all written by Curtis or other members of the project, the images of the native cultures they visited will always be seen through a filtered lens and the Indian participants never have the opportunity to speak for themselves. However, though he places the selected excerpts within the so-called "literature of the encounter" (p. 3), Gidley similarly asserts that a careful reading of these documents reveals important and interesting Indian actions and perspectives.

The five chapters that follow this introduction frame the project's work within a variety of geographical settings. Documents on the Southwest constitute the best of Gidley's compilation. Reports by Curtis and W. W. Phillips on encounters with the Apaches and the Pueblos flow together in smooth transitions created by the author's informative but non-intrusive commentary. These selections also provide some of the richest episodes of interaction that display at least partial insights into the perspectives of all parties involved. Subsequent chapters do not always work as seamlessly, as Gidley's desire to incorporate disparate encounters and accounts at times creates an uneven presentation of the material. Nevertheless, these collections still provide valuable insights into the thoughts of Curtis and his colleagues who traveled [End Page 151] throughout the North American continent to document the peoples they viewed as a vanishing race.

Despite Gidley's intentions, the documents most often reflect one side of this complicated relationship. This book creates an enlightening, if not unsurprising, image of the ways in which Curtis and other anthropologists viewed the Indians they studied. Their attitude toward their native informants is particularly telling, as Curtis and others assumed that money and persistence would always override cultural taboos. However, while Gidley aims to present a "double focus" (p. 2) on white perspectives and native ways of life, the reader comes away with only glimpses of native lives and voices. Those glimpses are admittedly fascinating, with Curtis's Apache encounters providing some of the highlights, but they are still few and far between. "In these written documents of American Indian encounters," Gidley writes, "Native people frequently vanish, but they also live" (p. 148). Although some of the selected documents validate this argument, overall the book does not reflect the intended balance...

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