Published in twenty volumes between
1907 and 1930, The
North
American Indian contains
photographs and text by a single man, Edward Curtis. As a body, it is an
exhaustive documentation, never before or since equaled, of Native American
tribes and their cultures. Painstaking and enthusiastic, a perfectionist to the
point of fanaticism, Curtis sought to understand thoroughly and portray with
respect and dignity the daily life, rites, and costumes of the peoples he
photographed. Something of his personality is revealed in the intensity of his
gaze and the close attention to detail in his self-portrait. (Even the angle of
his hat is carefully balanced on his head and in the picture.) Perhaps intended
as a frontispiece for his oeuvre (though never published as such), the portrait
is as much a romanticized depiction of a time gone by as are his studied and
often staged documents of the North American Indian.