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Performing Archive

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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.