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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

Typical Spokan woman

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Spokan Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Spokan man
2. On Spokane River Spokane river, from a short distance below its head in Coeur d?Alene lake to its confluence with the Columbia, flows through the midst of what was the territory of the Spokan Indians. The character of the country through which the stream passes for some miles above its mouth is well shown in the picture. Northward from the stream lie the mountains among which the three Spokan tribes hunted deer and gathered their supplies of roots.
3. Spokan camp
4. Luqaiot - Kittitas The original of this portrait is a son Owhi (Ohai), who as chief of the Salishan band inhabiting Kittitas valley, Washington, at first appeared to favor the Stevens treaty of 1855, but a few months later was drawn into the Indian uprising by the act of another son, Qahlchun, in killing some prospectors. At the termination of hostilities Luqaiot made his permanent home among the Spokan, taking for his wife the daughter of a Spokan chief and widow of his executed brother Qahlchun. Luqaiot's recollections of the events of these times will be found scattered through the account of the Yakima war in Volume VII.
5. On the move - Spokan
6. A hill camp - Spokan
7. Spokan woman
8. Author's camp among the Spokan
9. Returning to camp - Spokan
10. Spokan matron
11. Pukimanstula - Spokan
12. Typical Spokan woman
13. In the mountains - Spokan
"Woman" Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:
1. Apache reaper
2. Pima woman
3. Mohave water carrier
4. Judith - Mohave
5. Tonovige - Havasupai
6. Ogalala woman
7. Sioux girl
8. Two Bear Woman - Piegan
9. Dusty dress - Kalispel
10. Nespilim woman
11. Piopio-maksmaks - Wallawalla Piopio-maksmaks, quoted in Volume VIII, pages 20-21, is the son of the Piopio-maksmaks who as principal chief of the Wallawalla negotiated a treaty with Governor Isaac I. Stevens in the Wallawalla valley in 1855. The father was killed while a captive of the Oregon volunteers, and the son thereafter lived permanently among the Nez Perces, having married a woman of that tribe. Piopio-maksmaks possesses as unusually strong face, and his remarkably piercing eye betokens a man possessing the courage characteristic of his family and tribe.
12. Wishham woman
13. Columbia near Wind River
14. On the beach - Chinook
15. Chief's daughter - Skokomish
16. Suquamish woman
17. Princess Angeline
18. Lummi woman
19. Painting a hat - Nakoaktok The painter is clad in a short, seamless, cedar-bark cape, which is worn for protection from rain. That she is a woman of wealth and rank is shown by the abalone-shell nose-ornament and the gold bracelets, no less than by her possession of a "chief's hat". These waterproof hats, of a form borrowed from the Haida are made of closely woven shreds of fibrous spruce-roots, and are ornamented with one of the owner's crests - a highly conventionalized painting of some animal or mythological being.
20. Koskimo woman
21. Hesquiat woman
22. Into the shadow - Clayoquot
23. Nootka woman wearing cedar-bark blanket
24. Bark gatherer
25. Nootka woman
26. Haiyahl - Nootka
27. Hopi woman
28. Potter mixing clay
29. Klamath woman
30. Karok baskets The basketry of the Karok does not differ from that of the Hupa and the Yurok. The process is always twining, and the usual materials are hazel rod for the warp, roots of the digger or the yellow pine for the weft, and Xerophyllum grass for white overlay, bark of the maidenhair fern for black, and fibres from the stem of Woodwardia fern, dyed in alder-bark juice in the mouth of the workwoman, for red. Represented in the plate are the receptacle for the storage of seeds and nuts, the burden-basket, the winnowing tray, various sizes of mush-baskets and food containers, and the cradle-basket.
31. Old Klamath woman
32. Hupa woman
33. Woman's primitive dress - Tolowa
34. Achomawi basket-maker The Achomawi, or Pit River Indians, produce baskets only by the process known as twining, which is true weaving, never by coiling, which is actually a sewing process. In general their baskets have bottoms and sides slightly rounded, openings broad, and depth rather shallow. The usual materials are willow rods for the warp, or upright elements, and pie-root strands for the weft, or horizontal elements. The structure in the background is a summer hut, a rudely conical or hemispherical tipi covered with tule mats. The workwoman is wearing a rabbit-skin robe.
35. Hupa woman in primitive costume
36. Coast Pomo woman
37. Aged Pomo woman
38. Wappo woman
39. Yaundanchi Yokuts woman
40. Cupeño woman The Cupeño are a small Shoshonean group of mountaineers formerly residing at the head of San Luis Rey river in north-central San Diego county. Popularly known as Aguas Calientes and as Warner's Ranch Indians, they gained considerable prominence at the beginning of the century when the Supreme Court ruled adversely upon their title to the land of their nativity. In 1903 they were settled at Pala reservation on lands adjoining those of the Luiseños, and their former habitat is now beautiful Warner's ranch. Cupeño is a Spanish derivative of Kupa, the name of their former village. The surviving population of Wolak, the other Cupeño settlement, is now on Los Coyotes reservati
41. Serrano woman of Tejon The Serranos (Spanish, "mountaineers"), a Shoshonean branch comprising numerous local groups, occupied San Bernardino valley, San Bernardino mountains north of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, a portion of Mojave desert north of that range and east of Mojave river, and Tehachapi mountains. This last group, who lived principally on El Paso and Tejon creeks, were the Kitanemuk. In 1853 most of the resident Indians, including not only various Shoshoneans but many Yokuts, were taken to Tule river reservation. Tejon rancheria remains, however, a settlement of various Shoshoneans, but predominantly Kitanemuk
42. Desert Cahuilla woman
43. Diegueño woman of Santa Ysabel
44. Diegueño woman of Campo
45. 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.
46. Washo woman
47. Walvia
48. Taos woman
49. Aiyowitsa - Cochiti
50. Acoma woman
51. Zuni woman
52. Maricopa woman mealing
53. An Apache-Mohave woman
54. Good Day Woman - Ogalala
55. Apsaroke woman
56. A young horsewoman
57. Flathead woman - Apsaroke
58. Hidatsa woman
59. Scattered Corn Woman - Mandan
60. Arikara woman
61. Piegan woman
62. Cheyenne woman
63. Cheyenne young woman
64. Flathead young woman
65. Spokan woman
66. Kutenai woman
67. Typical Spokan woman
68. Cayuse woman
69. Wishham young woman
70. Cowichan woman
71. Chimakum woman
72. A woman of Hesquiat
73. A shaman or medicine woman
74. Costume of a woman shaman - Clayoquot
75. Woman shaman looking for clairvoyant visions - Clayoquot
76. Clayoquot woman in cedar-bark hat
77. A Clayoquot woman
78. A Makah woman
79. A woman of Nootka
80. A Hopi woman
81. Hupa woman
82. Hupa woman's dress
83. Karok woman
84. Achomawi woman
85. Klamath woman
86. A Kato woman
87. A Wailaki woman
88. Old woman in mourning - Yuki
89. A Yuki woman
90. Eastern Pomo woman
91. A southern Miwok woman
92. A Maidu woman
93. A Chukchansi woman
94. A Chukchansi woman - Profile
95. A Yaudanchi Yokuts woman
96. A Chukchansi Yokuts woman - A
97. A Chukchansi Yokuts woman - B
98. A Cupeño woman
99. A desert Cahuilla woman
100. A Santa Ysabel woman -
101. A southern Digueño woman
102. Paviotso woman of Pyramid Lake
103. A woman of Palm Springs - Cahuilla
104. A Capitan Grande woman -
105. A young woman of Campo -
106. A Paviotso woman of Walker Lake
107. A Washo woman.
108. An Isleta woman
109. A Cochiti woman
110. Tablita woman dancer - San Ildefonso
111. A Chipewyan woman
112. A Piegan woman
113. An old woman - Blood
114. A Blackfoot woman
115. Isqe-sis ("Woman Small") and chile - Cree
116. Cree woman with fur robe
117. A Sarsi woman
118. Missi-tsatsa -- "Owl Old-woman"
119. Woman's costume and baby swing - Assiniboin
120. Woman's costume - Cheyenne
121. Selawik woman
Vol. 7 Illustrations Erik Loyer
Contents of this path:

This page is referenced by:

Distant View of the Image Collection
David J. Kim, UCLA

This network visualization began as an attempt to provide a different view of Curtis’ documentation of the subjects whom he fastidiously organized by their tribal affiliations. One approach was selecting a few notable images as evidence fit for “close reading” of their individual details that may attest to a set of conventions that Curtis’ used in his construction of the Native American identity in the early twentieth century. The result of this approach is Ken Gozales-Day's series of exhibits, as well as the video edited by Heather Blackmore. The network view of the images came out of our curiosity with what “distant reading” of the collection has to offer for our analysis.⁵ While both potential in-class materials address a similar set of critical questions regarding the images, they provide different pathways of considering them in practice. We began with a few broad questions that served as our critical/theoretical aspirations for our visualizations: What “types” of subjects did Curtis’ see and privilege to document his subjects? What "data" and "information" does Curtis collect and communicate through the images? Since Curtis himself only provides titles for the images but rarely specific descriptions of the subjects, is there a way to more closely approximate what one sees in the images instead of taking his titles as given referents? Following Willard McCarty's concept of "knowledge modeling," defined as "a continual process of coming to know by manipulating representations," can the heuristic process of describing and categorizing the images for the purposes of locating any patterns lead to a different understanding of the materials?⁶ Is there any teaching and learning value in the process of manually creating and curating this set of comparatively "small data" as well as "big data"?⁷ We considered "network analysis" as a way of providing a different framework for Curtis' archive, as it has become one of the most productive data-driven approaches in the digital humanities for visualizing known connections and for supporting new discoveries. By leveraging the increasing availability and the computability of large datasets, many projects have developed sophisticated algorithms and visualization modes to offer many new insights into various topics ranging from the "Republic of Letters" in the period of Enlightenment to the contemporary Research Oriented Social Environment (RoSE) in the rhetorical form of "nodes" and "edges."⁸ However, as Elijah Meeks has recently noted, for the humanities-oriented research, “network representation” is often the more accurate description of the approach taken, especially for those projects that do not aspire to the high-level quantitative analysis of "big data" usually associated with network analysis.⁷By "representing" The North American Indian as a network of tribes, Curtis' images, and the subjects represented in those images, this experiment is, in a sense, a simplified visual "model" that reflects our critical priority on unveiling the constructedness of Curtis' archival or documentary mode of signifying the "vanishing race" in the early twentieth century.

With our set of theoretical questions and Meeks' helpful reorientation of how the network is visualized for our purposes, we developed the following goals for this experiment: 1) seeing the collection of images from a distance; 2) visualizing in some graphical form our thoughts behind the need to separate the Curtis’ given titles of the images (ex. “Typical Navaho”) and what the images contain (“[Old Man in Native Dress]”). We relied on the Library of Congress’ description of each of the images as much as possible, and when it wasn’t available we supplied our own approximation of the physical attributes of the subjects, focusing on gender, age, clothing and the activity the subjects are performing (ex. "Storytelling") when discernible. 3) noticing any patterns in his selection of the subjects he chose to represent each of the tribes; 4) supplying searchable categories for the images for the volumes we have studied.

["Typical" Images in The North American Indian]
^{5. For a recent discussion on "distant reading" and helpful introduction to Franco Moretti, see the introduction and chapter 5 of Stephen Ramsay, Reading Machines: Towards Algorithmic Criticism (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2012); as an approach for analyzing a large set of image data, see Lev Manovich, Jeremy Douglass and Tara Zepel, "How to Compare One Million Images" (2011).↩} ^{6. The concept of "small data" as a different set of practices than "big data" was first brought to my attention by my colleague Amelia Acker. See Context and Collection: A Small Data Research Agenda.↩}
^{7. Willard McCarty, “Modeling: A Study in Words and Meanings,” in A Companion to Digital Humanities, eds. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).↩} ^{8. For an interdisciplinary discussion of the process of developing RoSE, see Chuk, Erik, Rama Hoetzlein, David Kim and Julia Panko. “Creating Socially Networked Knowledge through Interdisciplinary Collaboration.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 11. 1-2 (2012).↩} ^{9. https://dhs.stanford.edu/algorithmic-literacy/learning-network-analysis-and-representation-with-a-pedagogical-toy/↩}