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3 On the Plains The vast region of North America roughly between the line of the Mississippi River in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west was populated in precontact times by numerous tribes speaking an assortment of languages. Algonkian speakers included the Blackfeet, the Cheyennes, and, in the far north, the Chipewyans and the Crees. Peoples whose languages belonged to the Siouan family included theAssiniboines,the Lakotas or Teton Sioux, the Apsarokes or Crows, and the Hidatsas. Tribal members of the Athapascan linguistic family from the Plains were, among others, the Sarsis of Alberta and the Kiowa-Apaches of the Arkansas River valley. Certain Plains peoples were Shoshonean speakers, notably the much-feared Comanches, while others, such as the Wichitas and the Pawnees, spoke brands of Caddoan. In historical times—as well as, to a large extent, in earlier periods recoverable only through orally recorded myths and archaeological remains—these speakers of very different tongues nevertheless manifested some cultural affinities: similar hunting practices, especially in the pursuit of buffalo (including, latterly , a marked reliance on horses); the development of military societies and powerful warrior codes; and often a religious sensibility directed to the attainment of a visionary state of being. Also, they frequently participated in shifting alliances with tribes belonging to other linguistic groups—sometimes against tribes belonging to their own linguisticfamilies.InprereservationdaysmanyPlainspeopleswerenomadicandmoved over great tracts of land, living in hide tipis. Others hunted but also farmed and inhabited lodges constructed of timbers and packed earth or, in the south, wood and grass. Since the six volumes of The North American Indian devoted to Plains peoples appeared in two sequences—the first between 1908 and 1911 and the second much later, between 1928 and 1930—Curtis and his associates inevitably dedicated many visits over a protracted period to the gathering of data on this extensive culture area. The accounts that follow relate to the fieldwork that fed almost exclusively into the earlier sequence of volumes, which were predominantly devoted to northern Plains peoples. 57 58 On the Plains From a Newspaper Item,“Did You Ever Try to Photograph an Indian?” 1900 (1898–1900) This October 1900 item from the San Francisco Sunday Call—noticeably shot through with the nonchalant racism all too characteristic of the period—was one of the earliest newspaper accounts of Curtis’s Indian activities as he began to establish a national reputation. He visited the Blackfeet, or Piegans, of Montana at least as early as 1898, possibly again in 1899, and returned once more in the summer of 1900, most likely in the companyof GeorgeBirdGrinnell,whoalreadyenjoyedalongstandingrelationshipwith this people. The experience of the Piegan sun dance so moved Curtis, at least according to Curtis family tradition, that it was one of the factors that led him to conceive of building the Indian work into a comprehensive record. The sun dance ceremony, as well as some of the figures mentioned in the article, did indeed feature prominently in volume 6 of The North American Indian (1911).1 There is just one feat more difficult than introducing an Indian to the bathtub, and that is, to make him face a camera. E. S. Curtis is probably the only “paleface” who is past grand master of the art of photographing Indians. The famous Curtis collection of Indian pictures now on exhibition at the art store of William Morris [in San Francisco] is attracting a great deal of comment. The pictures won the first prize at the recent National Photographic Convention, and aside from their photographic and artistic value they are of ethnological interest.2 For the kodak fiend these pictures are irresistible. Only the “button pressers” realize the difficulty of photographing Indians. To go among the red men armed with a camera usually means inevitable defeat. The Indian is the photographer’s Waterloo. There isn’t any mystery about the methods of Mr. Curtis. The average Indian will neither be cajoled nor bullied into posing. Mr. Curtis does very little urging. His rule is an old one—“money talks.” It is with gold and silver bait that he catches the Indian and charms away his ingrained aversion for the camera. . . .3 AmongtheBlackfootpeople,whosereservationsarefoundinamongthefoothills of the Rocky Mountains, Mr. Curtis is regarded as a brother. He went among them three years ago and remained many months, finally breaking through the well-nigh impassable barriers to their confidence. The Blackfoot people have a sun dance once a year commencing in the first week in July...

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