Carlson writes:
“Harry Robinson’s account of literacy being stolen from Coyote by his white twin conform to all the standard criteria associated with a genre of Salish narratives commonly referred to by outsiders as legend or mythology with one exception – they appear to contain post-contact content” (Carlson 56).
Why is it, according to Carlson or/and Wickwire, that Aboriginal stories that are influenced or informed by post-contact European events and issues are “discarded to the dustbin of scholarly interest”? (56).
Upon my own reflection, I would suggest that one of the reasons that these post-contact myths are often overlooked (or deliberately ignored) by contemporary and past scholars alike can actually be linked to a piece of technology that has become ubiquitous. When Daguerre and Talbot individually invented the first versions of what would evolve into modern-day cameras, in 1839 and 1840 respectively, they created a medium that allowed viewers to shape the world around them in an entirely new way. As camera technology developed, becoming faster and more portable, many sought to preserve their quickly changing surroundings through the camera lens.
The Vanishing Race, taken by Edward S. Curtis. The haziness of the camera and the way the men on horseback recede into the distance with their backs to the camera, gives the sense that these men are disappearing/leaving for good.
Amongst these early photographers was one Wisconsin-born Edward S. Curtis (b. 1868, d. 1952), who made it his photographic mission to capture images of Indigenous tribes before they ‘disappeared’. Through his colonially tinged photographic lens, Curtis created countless images of Indigenous tribes, all interpreted according to his own vision of Indigeneity. As his photographs were popularized across America, they reinforced the notion of Indigenous peoples as being “The Vanishing Race”- incidentally (or perhaps not) the title of his most famous photograph and accompanying photo book. Aside from using photographic techniques to perpetuate this assumption, Curtis sometimes took liberties with the editing of his photographs, removing artefacts of modernity (most famously, a clock) in order to marry reality with his colonial vision: primitive peoples on their way out of existence, disappearing to make room for the modern White Man. Of course, Curtis was not the first, nor the last, to engage in this erasure of post-colonial Indigeneity: renowned anthropologist Franz Boas is also guilty of this, as Wickwire informs us, through his erasure of the word ‘gun’ from a certain myth in order to locate the story in the deep past (Wickwire 23).
This notion of the ‘vanishing race’ perpetuated by both men is, I think, a major part of why scholars – even highly lauded ones like Franz Boas, who is often called the ‘Father of Modern Anthropology’ – are not interested in post-contact mythologies. The primary interest seems to be in primitivizing Indigeneity, locating it in a perpetual past. This thought is reflected in the writings of both Wickwire and Carlson. Wickwire quotes Harkin, who says that collectors of Indigenous myth sought to document “some overarching, static, ideal type of culture, detached from its pragmatic and socially positioned moorings among real people” (qtd. in Wickwire 22). Carlson provides another perspective on this erasure, establishing that “it is [] a working assumption that orality antedates literacy, and that all historical movements between the two states […] is unidirectional, with literacy following orality. Exceptions to this rule, if they existed, would signal a civilization’s decay or a culture’s decline” (Carlson 45). Thus, these oral myths that speak of European contact indicate the persistence of oral storytelling, even after the ‘introduction’ of writing, and thus flout the oral/literacy continuum that has been painstakingly formulated by European thinkers and settlers. This way of thinking serves a confirmation bias of Indigenous archaism; if they are rejecting literacy, then they must be moving backwards. This ties into to why Indigenous tribes are often portrayed, for example by Curtis, as stagnating and needing help to progress.
This is all to say, essentially, that the reason that I think why post-contact Indigenous mythologies are often discarded is because of colonial perspectives on Indigenous modernity, and this view seems to be granted by Carlson and Wickwire. Colonially influenced scholars, whether conscious of this influence or not, are interested in upholding this story of Indigenous peoples as “the vanishing race,” as this fanciful story alleviates continuing guilt by portraying the erasure of Indigenous peoples as something past that must be forgiven and not as something present that must be actively halted. In this way, Indigenous peoples were and are being systematically removed from the present, not only by mass genocide and displacement, but also through an erasure of modern Indigenous identity.
The original (top) and edited (bottom) versions of In a Piegan Lodge taken by Edward S. Curtis. Note the clock (or lack thereof) in between the two men.
Works Cited
Carlson, Keith Thor Orality and Literacy. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011. 43-72.
“Edward S. Curtis Gallery.” Edward S. Curtis Gallery. Web. 05 Mar. 2021.
“Myth of the “Vanishing Indian”.” The Pluralism Project. Harvard University. Web. 05 Mar. 2021.
National Academy of Sciences – Http://www.nasonline.org. “National Academy of Sciences.” Franz Boas. Web. 05 Mar. 2021.
Wickwire, Wendy. “Living by Stories a Journey of Landscape and Memory.” Introduction. Living by Stories a Journey of Landscape and Memory. By Harry Robinson and Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon, 2005. 7-30. Print.
Image Credit
Curtis, Edward S. In a Piegan Lodge, Two Versions. Digital image. Smithsonian Magazine. 21 Mar. 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2021.
Curtis, Edward S. The Vanishing Race. 1904. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Library of Congress. Web. 4 Mar. 2021.
Hi Victoria,
Thank you for your perceptive post (and for your recent comment on my blog). I find your comparison between the strategies of colonial photography and anthropology very compelling. The selectiveness of the settler perspectives you describe seems to amount to denying Indigenous people a history (beyond a mythic, static one) and thus denying a future. I agree that the insidious “vanishing race” logic goes well with the anthropological concern for “authenticity” or “purity”; after all, if stories are compromised (worthless, inauthentic) by traces of contact, then that seems to suggest that there just can’t be “real” Indigenous people any more (after contact)–they’re relegated to a mythologized past. (I’m conscious of writing “they” and “them” a lot in this comment . . . )
In bringing up photography, you’ve drawn attention (brilliantly, I think!) to the importance of forms and ways of mediating the past (and present). We know (from Marshall McLuhan, for one) that media tend not to be value-neutral and transparent–perhaps we see this especially in contact zones like the one we continue to occupy. I guess I’m just musing about the role, the deployment, of media in the work of decolonization (whatever that might mean exactly). Thomas King’s own photographic work (with which I’m almost totally unfamiliar) comes to mind. Perhaps you (being clearly more knowledgeable than I about photography!) might find it interesting to ponder the potentialities of media in this direction . . .
Hi Connor!
Yes, I think you’re absolutely right in your observations about Indigenous myths being ‘compromised’ by settler contact meaning that they are denied movement into the future. I just had this thought now, but myths are meant to preserve history on some level, so perhaps this willful ignorance of post-contact myths is also some subconscious attempt at denying colonialism?
I admit that the only reason I seem to know so much about photography is because I took a history of photography class (ARTH 345) last semester, so it all happens to be fresh in my head – I am by no means an expert! But, I am really interested in how different forms of mediating history affect our perceptions of said history. I know very little about King’s photographs as well, and I am by no means a colonized person, but if I were to muse on how media might play a role in decolonization, I think it actually has a huge role. Allowing Indigenous people to create their own image through media (or just their own individual identity as an Indigenous person), can have a huge impact on public perception of them; perhaps it can help dismantle the ‘vanishing Indian’ myth. Media gives minorities ways to express their realities, and helps other people understand what their experience is really like. Of course, getting people to listen is a different story…
Great post! Bringing in Curtis is great. I once read “The Edward Curtis Project” for a seminar on film and literature – with a focus on photography and photographic depictions of trauma and counter-identity – a few years ago. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, but if not, and for anybody else reading, it’s a play by Metis playwright Marie Clements, and in her artistic statement she writes that “there is no Vanishing Indian, never was, but for a convenient thought” (1). It’s a fantastic work that seeks to understand Curtis’ legacy as perpetuating the myth of a post-contact fading of Indigeneity, the voyeuristic delineations of his “A Vanishing Race.” It is also multimedial, presenting alongside Clements’ play a collection of photographs taken by artist Rita Leistner in collaboration with Clements; these photographs trace the members of North America’s First Nation communities, forcing a confrontation with the very genre of photojournalism. These photographs are fascinating: they depict, on one page, a young Haida man in work boots, jeans, a hoodie, and a snapback cap: on the next, the same man in traditional Haida wear.
This practice, of depicting First Nations Canadians as simultaneously modern yet connected well to their communities and traditions, challenges any notion of a “vanishing Indian,” of a culture, collective, identity, and history that is in any way gone. It is not; presenting the “indian” as vanished is one particularly potent, and insidious (Curtis as the White saviour freeing their subjects from bonds of colonial oppression, but nevertheless documenting their bodies as artifacts to be spectated upon) means by which Indigenous history and culture are erased.
For my post, I focussed on King and his “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” where he critiques the very term “post-colonial” and considers its implications of a linear development from “pre” to “post,” of there be a sequential order from pre-contact Indigenous primitivism, to post-contact vanishment. The term “supposes that contemporary Native writing is largely a construct of oppression,” and while the term “strives to escape to find new centres, it remains, in the end, a hostage to nationalism.” Perhaps Curtis’ work is that “striving to escape to find new centres,” ultimately failing to do so and reverting back to the tired lens of nationalistic voyeurism and marginalization.
Do you think that, with works like “The Edward Curtis Project,” we can actually begin to shift the gaze beyond the kind that Curtis employed? With a photographer like Rita Leistner – whom I haven’t been able to find is Indigenous or not – does photojournalism still remain subject to nationalism and the implications of “post-colonial” thinking?
Hi Leo,
Thanks so much for your comment. I am super interested in “The Edward Curtis Project,” and will definitely have to check it out ASAP! I absolutely think something like this work are shifting the Curtisean (for lack of a better word) paradigm. It is making an extremely powerful statement – that Indigenous people are capable (and DO) exist in modernity while also participating in Indigenous culture. These two things are not mutually exclusive, as Curtis is making them seem with his image(s). I think the multimedia aspect of it is especially powerful: while obviously a false assumption, it is often thought that camera images are capturing some kind of objective truth (ie. photographic evidence being used in court often). The fact that the creators of this work are using this aspect inherent to the photographic medium to their advantage is really smart; can you really deny their existence if they are right there? (well, you can, because photographs are of course fallible, but our first intuition would be to say no, you can’t).
As for photojournalism, it has historically been known to portray a selective reality rather than an objective one; this is probably often a result of nationalistic loyalties. Indeed, i would stipulate that this is still the case in places where censorship is heavily deployed. However, I also think that really good photojournalists can engage in projects like this that can totally change the way we think about events or groups. So, I suppose the answer is yes and no – it really depends on the project, the person, the situation, and the context.