Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition

10. Being a Living Exhibit

266 10. Being a Living Exhibit Before the exposition opened, reporter W. C. M’Carty imagined what life would be like for Native participants. Relying heavily on McGee’s rhetoric, he boldly asserted that the Native peoples “will live exactly as they would were they at home on their reservation instead of being the center of the greatest exposition ever held” (M’Carty 1903, 6). M’Carty did not stop to think about what life would really be like, nor did McGee ever admit that living in a compound with strangers constantly peering through windows could never remotely be like life at home. To have done so would have undermined his promise of authenticity. What was life like for the people who were on exhibit? Was it an adventure? Was it tedious? Was it enjoyable? Was it dangerous? Was it absurd? Did it resemble in any way what visitors would have seen and experienced if they had visited the people in their homelands? What was it like to have people constantly asking questions and peering in windows and doorways, and to have no privacy? What did the people think of the fairgoers? How did they deal with the tedium and repetition of their work? How did they feel about having their skin color equated with savage exoticism or as a symbol of racial inferiority ? We will never know the answers to these questions for certain because we cannot interview the participants, but it is important to ask the questions nonetheless because, as indicated in earlier chapters, we cannot understand the meaning of exposition anthropology by looking only at McGee’s intentions and practices. We must try to grasp the meaning of performance events for participants as well as organizers, visitors, reporters, and publicists. Luckily some hints are available in documentary records. To say that life in St. Louis appears to have been memorable but difficult and sometimes intolerable may sum it up. We have more evidence of the negative than the positive aspects, because problems were related more frequently than successes in correspondence, newspapers, and lpec files. From these documents, we get glimpses of areas of contention: living conditions, safety issues, boredom, health, and contact with peoples from other cultures (especially fair visitors), Being a Living Exhibit | 267 lack of money, bureaucratic impediments, and personal rivalries. Other issues (a desire for certain foods that were impossible to obtain) are mentioned less frequently. Food was most likely a bigger concern (we have not found the sutlery transaction records) and it is unlikely that most interpreters wrote formal complaints to McGee about Natives’ wishes. Informal verbal requests were likely common, but these cannot be traced in the extant documentary record. Fig. 10.1. Stereocard of woman buying pottery from Acoma women in the ramada of their encampment in front of the Indian School. Photograph by William H. Rau. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, 2966-j696-58. | Being a Living Exhibit 268 What is evident is that individuals and groups used different strategies to cope with the many problems of living constantly in the public gaze. Native people managed daily life by using role inversions, pranks, ironic language, poise, authority, educative speeches directed at officials and fairgoers, defiance, humor, and compassion. Often they ignored and actively defied rules. They staged passive protests, renegotiated extensively, and controlled economic transactions (fig. 10.1). When all else failed, Indians simply left; the foreign Natives did not have that option. In no case were the Native performers the compliant individuals of McGee’s, McCowan’s, Jenks’s, or the concessionaires’ dreams. Other adaptive techniques must have been used behind the scenes. Life on stage made people circumspect. As one reporter noted, “During the day, when they know they are under inspection, the red people are very reserved; they are as careful regarding what they do and say as if life itself depended on their actions; but in the evening, when they are left to themselves they fully enjoy their freedom.”1 Coping with “Rubbering” Fairgoers One reason for this reserve was that demonstrators had to cope with visitors’ insatiable curiosity and boorishness. This story is fairly typical: “An Indian woman came running toward her sod lodge, and behind her a white woman sped in pursuit. The Indian got there first, and entering, quickly closed the door behind her, or pulled down the curtain, or whatever they do in sod...