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Performing Archive Main Menu Visualizing the “Vanishing Race”: the photogravures of Edward S. Curtis Front Page for Visualizing the "Vanishing Race" path Curtis' Image and Life: The Network of The North American Indian, Inc. An experiment with data visualization approach to understand and contextualize Curtis' images and his life Media, Technology and Mediations Curtis's Technology, Relationships to Media and Style Contextualizing Curtis, The North American Indian, and Race the collection of essays from the contributors Consulting with Tribes as Part of Archive Development Introduction to Consulting with Tribes by Ulia Gosart Contributing Archives Information on how to participate in Performing Archive Browsing the Media A path of paths that allow users to cut through the collection in a variety of ways. Acknowledgements and Project Information Project Network

Flute dancers at Tureva Spring

29482 The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.

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Oto Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. In Black Cañon - Apsaroke The Apsaroke, although not exclusively mountain dwellers, were ever fond of the hills, preferring the forest shade and the clear mountain streams to the hot ill-watered, monotonous prairies. The picture illustrates the Apsaroke custom of wearing at the back of the head a band from which fall numerous strands of false hair ornamented at regular intervals with pellets of bright-colored gum. Black Cañon is in the northern portion of the Bighorn mountains, Montana.
2. Yellow Kidney - Piegan
3. Evening on Puget Sound
4. Honovi - Walpi snake priest, with Totokya Day painting
5. Flute dancers at Tureva Spring The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.
6. Datsolali, Washo basket-maker The coiled baskets produced by this woman have not been equalled by any Indian now living. Compare her work, shown in Plate 541, with the baskets of another woman as illustrated in Plate 542. The latter, seen alone, would be very excellent examples of Indian basketry, but their comparative coarseness is easily seen even in photographic reproduction. About ninety years old, Datsolali appears to be in the early sixties. She has the pride of a master in his craft, and a goodly endowment of artistic temperament. Persuading her to sit for a portrait is a task not to be lightly undertaken. Tatsolali (said to mean "big hips") is a nickname. Her proper name is Tabuta.
7. Ti'mu - Cochiti
8. Lucero - Santo Domingo Photographing a native of Santo Domingo is comparable to hunting big game with a camera. This pueblo measures its contentment inversely to the extent of unavoidable contact with the hated white race. A guard is detailed to watch the Catholic priest when he visits the village, and the Government has pursued the wise policy of detailing Indian teachers to the local school. The Santo Domingans long resisted the gratuitous digging of wells to be equipped with windmills, continue to deny their sick children the services of the Government physician, and resist the activities of census enumerators. There is no doubt that the death sentence would be past on any individual found guilty of revealing native practices, and if the priestly authorities learned that Lucero sold his likeness to a white man he doubtless had an unpleasant half hour.
9. Terraced houses of Zuni In the early eighties one of the house-groups of Zuni rose to a height of six well-defined stories. In 1903, when the photograph here reproduced was made, there were five stories. In 1910 a single apartment was four stories from the ground, but in 1919 this room was demolished. Note the bottomless pots forming chimneys, the wooden drain piercing the coping, the hemispherical oven of Spanish provenience on a roof.
10. Titishu-kghitluhl ("Deer Running") - Sarsi The Sarsi are an Athapascan tribe which prior to the nineteenth century came out of the far north, crossed the Saskatchewan, and becoming affiliated with the Algonquian confederacy of the Bloods, Blackfeet, and Piegan, became typical plainsmen, following the buffalo, engaging in horse-stealing raids, and in general adopting the religious practices of their allies. Old Sarsi, as the subject of this plate is colloquially known, was ninety-eight years of age when the photograph was made in 1925. In spite of his years, he was still agile and keen.
11. A Sarsi camp
12. Standing Two - Oto
13. Lone Chief - Oto
14. Wakonda - Oto
15. Pipe-stem - Oto
16. Old Eagle - Oto
17. Seeing High - Oto
18. Standing On The Earth - Oto
19. Oto puberty lodge
20. Wife of Wakonda - Oto
21. White Elk - Oto
22. A little Oto
Hopi Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Getting water - Havasupai
2. Buffalo dance at Hano
3. Hopi mother
4. Hopi girl
5. Evening in Hopi land
6. Hopi woman
7. Hopi maiden
8. East side of Walpi
9. Hopi man
10. Hopi architecture
11. Flute dancers at Tureva Spring The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.
12. Kiva stairs, San Ildefonso Pueblo ceremonial chambers are known as kivas (the Hopi name) or estufas (the name applied to them by the Spaniards under the misapprehension that they were sudatories). They are circular or rectangular, wholly or partly subterranean, or simply cells in the communal structure that forms a pueblo. The character of the underlying soil or rock was probably the factor that determined the degree to which a kiva was made subterranean. The one here illustrated is mostly underground, and has a walled stair leading to the roof, which is surrounded by a parapet. Similar structures have been found in excavating ruined pueblos. (See Volume XVII, illustration facing page 68.
13. Hopi architecture
14. A Hopi flock
15. Hopi bridal costume
16. Hopi farmers, yesterday and today
17. A Hopi woman
18. A Hopi mother
19. Tahopik, Diomede
"Ceremony" Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Nesjaja Hatali - Navaho
2. Alhkidokihi - Navaho
3. Hukalowapi ceremony
4. Arikara medicine fraternity
5. Arikara medicine ceremony - Dance of the fraternity
6. Announcement - Arikara
7. Arikara medicine ceremony - The Bears
8. Arikara medicine ceremony - Dance of the black-tail deer
9. Arikara medicine ceremony - The Ducks
10. Arikara medicine fraternity - The prayer
11. Travaux - Piegan
12. Medicine-pipe - Piegan Medicine-pipes, of which the Piegan have many, are simply long pipe-stems variously decorated with beads, paint, feathers, and fur. Each one is believed to have been obtained long ago in some supernatural manner, as recounted in a myth. The medicine-pipe is ordinarily concealed in a bundle of wrappings, which are removed only when the sacred object is to be employed in healing sickness, or when it is to be transferred from one custodian to another in exchange for property. Such exchanges, occurring at intervals of a few years in the history of each pipe, are attended by much ceremony
13. Hamasaka in Tlu'wulahu costume with speaker's staff - Qagyuhl The principal chief of the Qagyuhl is depicted in a "button blanket" (which is simply a woollen blanket ornamented with hundreds of large mother-of-pearl buttons), cedar-bark neck-ring, and cedar-bark head-band. His right hand grasps a shaman's rattle, and his left the carved staff which, as a kind of emblem of office, a man always holds when making a speech. The button designs along the edge of the blanket represent "coppers" (see page 144). The tlu'wulahu ceremony is described on page 243 of Volume X.
14. Wedding party - Qagyuhl
15. Masked dancers - Qagyuhl The plate shows a group of masked and costumed performers in the winter ceremony. The chief who is holding the dance stands at the left, grasping a speaker's staff and wearing cedar-bark neck-ring and head-band and a few of the spectators are visible at the right. At the extreme left is seen a part of the painted mawihl through which the dancers emerge from the secret room; and in the centre, between the carved house-posts, is the Awaitlala hams'pek, showing three of the five mouths through which the hamatsa wriggle from the top to the bottom of the column. See page 175 and footnote.
16. Hesquiat maiden
17. Flute dancers at Tureva Spring The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.
18. Hupa jumping dance costume The Jumping dance was an annual ceremony for averting pestilence. The head-dress worn by the dancers was a wide band of deerskin with rows of red woodpecker crests and a narrow edging of white deer-hair sewn on it. A deerskin robe was worn as a kilt, and each performer displayed all the shells and beads he possessed or could borrow. In the right hand was carried a straw-stuffed cylinder with a slit-like opening from end to end, an object the significance of which is unknown to the modern Hupa.
19. Tablita dancers and singers - San Ildefonso The ceremony called Koheye-hyare ("tablita dance"), occurring in June and again in September, is characterized by public dancing and singing for the purpose of bringing rain-clouds. The name refers to wooden "tablets" worn by female dancers. (See Volume XVII, illustrations facing pages 56,60,62,64,66,68.) In the plate the performers are dancing in to the plaza, men and women alternating in pairs. At the right is the group of singers, their aged leader slightly in advance and the drummer at one side.
20. Zuni woman
21. Tobacco ceremony - Apsaroke
22. Arikara corn ceremony : bearing out the osiers
23. Arikara medicine ceremony : The bears
24. Arikara medicine ceremony : Bear, buffalo, and night men
25. Arikara medicine ceremony : The buffalo
26. Arikara medicine ceremony : Night men dancing
27. Arikara medicine ceremony : The buffalo dancing
28. Dressing at Tawapa Spring, Walpi flute ceremony
29. Wall-painting for the summer Shiwanna ceremony - Santo Domingo
"Dance" Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Woven Sash
2. Bear Song, Winter Dance
3. Sun dancer "As they dance, the performers never leave the spot on which they stand, the movement consisting in a slight upward spring from the toes and ball of the foot; legs and body are rigid. Always the right palm is extended to the yellow glaring sun, and their eyes are fixed on its lower rim. The dancer concentrates his mind, his very self, upon the one thing that he desires, whether it be the acquirement of powerful medicine or only success in the next conflict with the enemy." - Volume III, pages 95-96.
4. Arikara medicine ceremony - Dance of the fraternity
5. Arikara medicine ceremony - Dance of the black-tail deer
6. Arikara medicine ceremony - The Ducks
7. Sun dance encampment - Piegan
8. Grizzly-bear brave - Piegan At least two of the Piegan Warrior societies (the Braves and the All Brave Dogs) included in their membership two men known as Grizzly-bear Braves. It was their duty, at the time of the society dances, to provide their comrades with meat, which they appropriated wherever they could find it. Their expression and demeanor did justice to their name, and in their official capacity they were generally feared by the people. See Volume VI, pages 20-21.
9. Bringing the sweat-lodge willows - Piegan
10. Porcupine - Cheyenne
11. Flathead chief Through the medium of their annual incursions into the buffalo plains east of the Rocky mountains, the Flatheads adopted much of the plains culture. Not only their domicile (the tipi), their garments, weapons, and articles of adornment, came from this source, but many of their dances were in imitation of similar ceremonies practised by the prairie tribes. Prominent features of the accoutrement of this Flathead chief are his war-club of the plains type, and an eagle-bone whistle, such as was used in the Sun Dance. The Flatheads however never acquired the sun rite
12. Flathead dance
13. Masked dancer - Cowichan
14. Kotsuis and Hohhuq - Nakoaktok
15. Coming for the bride
16. Wedding party - Qagyuhl
17. Group of winter dancers - Qagyuhl
18. Nimkish village at Alert Bay The figure at the bottom of the column in the foreground, with the painting on the front of the house, represents a raven. When a feast or a dance is to be held in this house, the guests enter through the raven's beak, the lower mandible of which swings up and down on a pivot. When a guest steps beyond the pivot, his weight caused the beak to clap shut, and thus the mythic raven symbolically "swallows" the tribesman one by one. A view from the other end of this street is shown in the illustration facing page 8, Volume X.
19. Masked dancers in canoes - Qagyhl, A
20. Dancing to restore an eclipsed moon - Qagyuhl
21. Masked dancers - Qagyuhl The plate shows a group of masked and costumed performers in the winter ceremony. The chief who is holding the dance stands at the left, grasping a speaker's staff and wearing cedar-bark neck-ring and head-band and a few of the spectators are visible at the right. At the extreme left is seen a part of the painted mawihl through which the dancers emerge from the secret room; and in the centre, between the carved house-posts, is the Awaitlala hams'pek, showing three of the five mouths through which the hamatsa wriggle from the top to the bottom of the column. See page 175 and footnote.
22. Bridal group
23. Masked dancers in canoes - Qagyuhl, B
24. Buffalo dance at Hano
25. Antelopes and snakes at Oraibi
26. Watching the dancers
27. Honovi - Walpi snake priest, with Totokya Day painting
28. Snake priest
29. Snake dancers entering the plaza
30. Snake dancer in costume
31. Flute dancers at Tureva Spring The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.
32. Hupa jumping dance costume The Jumping dance was an annual ceremony for averting pestilence. The head-dress worn by the dancers was a wide band of deerskin with rows of red woodpecker crests and a narrow edging of white deer-hair sewn on it. A deerskin robe was worn as a kilt, and each performer displayed all the shells and beads he possessed or could borrow. In the right hand was carried a straw-stuffed cylinder with a slit-like opening from end to end, an object the significance of which is unknown to the modern Hupa.
33. Klamath lake marshes
34. Sia buffalo dancer The Buffalo dance of the Keres is almost exactly the same as that of the Tewa. The performers are two young men with head-dresses of buffalo-hair and horns, and a girl wearing the usual female costume and a pair of small horns. The head of the hunters' society plays the part of guard. The dance is very strenuous, and the simulated actions of t he buffalo are quite realistic and readily comprehended by the spectator.
35. Tablita dancers and singers - San Ildefonso The ceremony called Koheye-hyare ("tablita dance"), occurring in June and again in September, is characterized by public dancing and singing for the purpose of bringing rain-clouds. The name refers to wooden "tablets" worn by female dancers. (See Volume XVII, illustrations facing pages 56,60,62,64,66,68.) In the plate the performers are dancing in to the plaza, men and women alternating in pairs. At the right is the group of singers, their aged leader slightly in advance and the drummer at one side.
36. Tesuque buffalo dancers The Buffalo dance is performed, though the original object of exerting prenatural influence on the abundance and accessibility of the buffalo no longer prevails. The two male dancers are accompanied by the Buffalo Girl, who is fully clothed in native costume and has a pair of small horns on the head. These three give a very striking and dramatic performance under the watchful eye of the head of the hunters' society.
37. Corner of Zuni
38. Cheyenne sun-dance lodge
39. Hotamitaye Society, Cheyenne sun-dance
40. Water rite purification, Cheyenne animal dance
41. At the pool, animal dance - Cheyenne
42. Yebichai dancers - Navaho
43. The sun dancer - Apsaroke
44. The sun dance votary - Apsaroke
45. Buffalo dance costume - Mandan
46. Ready for Okipe buffalo dance - Mandan
47. Buffalo dancer - Mandan
48. Atsina scalp dance
49. Atsina fly dance
50. Atsina fly dance : "Robes outstretched"
51. Atsina crazy dance : A dancer kisses the grandfather
52. Atsina crazy dance : The flight of arrows
53. Atsina crazy dancers
54. Singing in the crazy dance - Atsina
55. Piegan dancers
56. Sun dance pledgers - Cheyenne
57. Crazy dancers - Cheyenne
58. Animal dance - Cheyenne
59. Sun dance in progress - Cheyenne
60. A dance in the forest - Flathead
61. Masked dancer - Cowichan
62. Grizzly-bear dancer - Qagyuhl
63. An incident of the winter dance - Nakoaktok
64. Sisiutl dancer - Qagyuhl
65. Spectators at the snake dance
66. Snake dancer and "hugger"
67. Oraibi snake dance
68. Flute dancers dressing at Kuchina house
69. Flute dancers approaching the spring
70. Entering the spring, Walpi flute dance
71. Offering sacred meal, Mishongnovi flute dance
72. Buffalo dance at Hano
73. Flute dancers returning to Walpi
74. White deerskin dance costume - Hupa
75. Dancer with black deer effigy - Hupa
76. Obsidian bearer, White deerskin dance - Hupa
77. Pomo dance costume
78. Picuris harvest dance
79. Sia war-dancer
80. Good luck dance by San Juan hunters
81. Tewa dance - costume
82. Eagle dancer - San Ildefonso
83. Tablita woman dancer - San Ildefonso
84. Tablita dance - San Ildefonso - A
85. Tablita dance - San Ildefonso - B
86. Tablita dance - San Ildefonso - C
87. Tablita dancers returning to the kiva - San Ildefonso
88. Tablita dancers at the kiva - San Ildefonso
89. Tablita dancers - San Ildefonso
90. Frame of the sponsor's tipi, Cree sun-dance
91. The dance - Wichita
92. Dancers - Wichita
93. A Wichita dancer
94. Skidi and Wichita dancers
95. Modern dance costume - Pawnee
96. Chiefs in the sun dance parade - Cheyenne
97. Hivihhnihpoih Society, Cheyenne sun dance
98. Hefatyu Society, Cheyenne sun dance
99. Preparatory lodge, Cheyenne sun dance
100. Sun dance lodge - Cheyenne
101. Interior of sun dance lodge - Cheyenne
102. Sun dancers - Cheyenne
103. Buffalo society, animal dance - Cheyenne
104. Buffalo dancers, animal dance - Cheyenne
105. Animal dance - Cheyenne
106. Brush huts, animal dance encampment - Cheyenne
107. The clowns, animal dance - Cheyenne
108. The wolf, animal dance - Cheyenne
109. Deer society, animal dance - Cheyenne
110. Healing rite of the Deer society, animal dance - Cheyenne
111. A Ponca dancer
112. Curtis and His Collaborators
113. Grass Dance - Atsina Gros Ventres
114. Seven Girl Dance Sung in Plaza
115. Seven Girl Dance When Woman Whips
116. Snake Dance - Nambe Pueblo
117. Squaw Dance - Atsina Gros Ventres
118. The Hopi Maiden and Watching the Dancers
119. Chief Josef –Nez Perce
120. Vanishing Race and Cañon de Chelly
121. Upshaw – Apsaroke
122. At the Old Well and A Zuni Woman
123. Princess Angeline
124. Watching the Dancers
List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume Twelve Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Loitering at the spring
2. Buffalo dance at Hano
3. Tewa girl
4. Hopi mother
5. Antelopes and snakes at Oraibi
6. Watching the dancers
7. Hopi girl
8. Evening in Hopi land
9. Honovi - Walpi snake priest, with Totokya Day painting
10. On the housetop
11. Walpi
12. Hopi woman
13. Hopi maiden
14. Counting the record
15. Chaiwa - Tewa
16. Chaiwa - Tewa, profile
17. At the trysting place
18. East side of Walpi
19. Snake priest
20. Potter mixing clay
21. Hopi man
22. Hopi architecture
23. Snake dancers entering the plaza
24. Primitive style of hairdressing
25. Walpi man
26. Mishongnovi
27. Potter
28. East mesa girls
29. Modified style of hairdressing
30. Walpi snake priest
31. Snake dancer in costume
32. Flute dancers at Tureva Spring The Flute dance is a religious ceremony concerned with bringing rain. It represents the legendary arrival of the Flute people in the Hopi country, their friendly encounter with the clans already there, and the rain-making rites subsequently performed by them for the common good. The episode here represented was photographed at Middle mesa. The individual seated near the right end is an albino, not a white man.
33. Piki maker
34. Depositing a prayer-stick
35. Tewa girls
36. Water carriers