Photographer's Spectacular Portraits Taken at Native American Powwows

[Bayard]

More at
https://petapixel.com/2023/10/13/photographers-spectacular-portraits-taken-at-native-american-powwows/

[Maraya1969]

1. Stunning!

[Butterflylady]

2. I love the native American culture.

[hlthe2b]

3. Those are truly remarkable. Beautiful.

I'd like to see them show up where they can be admired by many... perhaps a traveling exhibit?

[wnylib]

26. I don't know if any of the tribes would be willing to put themselves on display.

Some might, in the interest of public education.

The pow wows are social get togethers to celebrate culture with each other. Many of the dances at them are sacred, like a prayer.

The Seneca nation has territory near me, so I've been to their pow wow a few times. The pow wow was not part of the original Seneca tradition, but they have adopted it as a cultural celebration. It draws people from all over Indian Country, e.g. Navajo, Lakota, etc.

The Seneca pow wow is open to anyone who wants to attend. I don't know if that's the case with other tribal nations.

[hlthe2b]

32. Oh, yes. I've been to Pow Wows in Denver and Albuquerque

I think different tribes do feel differently about these issues. Four Corners Pueblo/Navajo tribes versus the northern Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapahoe. But, they are beautiful images.

[LoisB]

4. Beautiful!

[Duppers]

5. Thank you for posting these!

Good job, sis.

👍

[Emile]

6. Beautiful photography

[Hekate]

7. These are gorgeous photos. Must gorgeous.

[PortTack]

8. Really nice...very enjoyable!

[erronis]

9. Thank you. So much culture and history in these photos.

I wish I had much better knowledge of all of the indigenous peoples - not just the white/europeans that run this country.

[llmart]

11. You may be interested in this program.

PBS just released a documentary on indigenous tribes albeit in Canada and the sorry history of what they term the 60's scoop. It refers to how indigenous children were stolen from various tribes to put up for adoption or fostering. I haven't watched all of it yet, but it's stunning what white people have done in the past. I believe it's called "Little Bird".

[Lonestarblue]

10. Wow! Amazing photos.

[Martin Eden]

12. Wonderful, thanks for sharing!

Humanity.

[Wounded Bear]

13. Wow! Good stuff! nt

[democrank]

14. These photographs are so, so beautiful.

Thank you so much for posting them.

[mountain grammy]

15. These are great..

Thanks for posting.. Anyone who's never been to a Powwow should really try to do that at some point. I've enjoyed a few of them. A memorable experience..

[republianmushroom]

16. Awesome photography and models.

Thank you.

[LittleGirl]

17. Wow! Stunning! nt

[AllaN01Bear]

18. ohm myyy.

[twodogsbarking]

19. The real founding fathers.

[niyad]

20. Just. . .WOW. Thank you so much.

`Interesting timing for me, as I have just been watching a number of documentaries and interviews about "Killers of the Flower Moon", being widely released this week.

[wnylib]

27. November is Native American Heritage Month, so

you might see more documentaries, films, and programs in the coming weeks.

[Bayard]

38. I'll be going to see that

The book was so engrossing.

[beveeheart]

43. Both of my book clubs have this book for discussion this month.

And my grandson is taking me to see the movie next weekend.

[TomDaisy]

21. George Catlin vibes

[niyad]

22. Just. . .WOW. Thank you so much.

`Interesting timing for me, as I have just been watching a number of documentaries and interviews about "Killers of the Flower Moon", being widely released this week.

I wish that the portaits had been labeled and identified.

[Backseat Driver]

23. Lovely photos - thanks for posting!

[BlueIdaho]

24. Beautiful.

So happy to see Native Americans reclaiming their cultures. Their past is the key to their future.

[PatrickforB]

25. These are wonderful! That little girl is so cute! I know someone who does the beaded

edges around hat brims. Very cool!

[Kali]

46. oooohhh!!!

when I saw that hat, I was all WANT! does your acquaintance take orders or have an online presence?

[AltairIV]

28. Absolutely stunning.

[Lucinda]

29. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[PufPuf23]

30. Not Powwows, photos in Curtis Collection at Library of Congress

The Edward S. Curtis Collection offers a unique glimpse into Curtis's work with indigenous cultures. The more than 2,400 silver-gelatin photographic prints were acquired by the Library of Congress through copyright deposit from about 1900 through 1930. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in Curtis's multi-volume work, The North American Indian. The collection includes a large number of individual or group portraits, as well as traditional and ceremonial dress, dwellings and other structures, agriculture, arts and crafts, rites and ceremonies, dances, games, food preparation, transportation, and scenery. More than 1,000 of the photographs have been digitized and individually described.

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/ecur/about.html


Curtis (Edward S.) Collection: Search Results

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&co=ecur

[Bayard]

40. Curtis did wonderful and historic work

I have a book of his photos.

[CaptainTruth]

31. Wow! Those are stunning & beautiful! Thank you so much for posting!!!

[slightlv]

33. I love the dignity shown

in these photos. They are stunning... beautiful!

I also have a strange OT question I hope someone can point a clue towards me...

A (now deceased) family member did a genealogy on my mother's side of the family, as much as he could. He traced my great grandfather's parentage and showed that his mother was Native American. However, no tribe was listed. Word of family was always that she was Cherokee, but I have no proof of that, and you know how things can get when they're handed down among generations of family. With only a name... and not wanting to give over my DNA to anything like 23andme, etc., where would I start to try to trace down the specifics?

I know more about my great-grandmothers' family line (and that's not much!) from Ireland, than I know about my great-grandfather's, and yet whenever I do anything artistic, it always comes out with Native American flare, so I know the bloodlines run deep. Everyone who would know is dead now. I'm 67. I have one grandchild who is as curious as I am about family lineage. I'd like to be able to pass some facts on to him; more than that, I'd really like to know... just for myself. I only knew my great-grandfather for 3 years of my life before he died. Yet everyone tells me I'm just like him. I'd just really like to know more.

[4dog]

36. You could try joining ancestry.com to look up what is publicly available about names you know

But it's tedious, and many people left few traces. And not all is digitized. There are city directories; there are also grave marker records (findagrave.com) and Mormon records. Try to find or appeal to someone with more experience than I if you have the energy to pursue this. About Cherokee ancestors, it's a common guess. Ancestry is expensive but is half price periodically.

[slightlv]

39. Thank you, 4dog...

ancestry.com is where I validated the hand written pages I was given. I just kick myself for not doing this when I was younger and my grandmother was still here. But when you're young, I guess, you think those around you will just always be here. Now, so much family history is lost. And I seem to be the only one in my family who is mourning it. Like I said, I at least have a grandson who seems to value it like I do. That is something. I lost a lot of time by being away from home and family by military service, and then for a long time settled "anywhere by home" (LOL). They say youth is wasted on the young, but that saying is more than just physical limitations as you grow older. It's also things like this. You wait too long... and one day you discover all those who could tell you the answers to your questions are gone.

[PufPuf23]

42. Dawes Roll is another place to look for documentation, particularly for Cherokee.

However, there are problems with the Dawes Roll (not saying this is true about your family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Rolls

Lots of murkiness about Native American ancestry.

Some Tribes use blood quanta for enrollment.

[wnylib]

37. You might either find him (or his mother) on

Cherokee rolls, or eliminate Cherokee if that's not what his heritage was, by checking the Dawes rolls for his name or his mother's name. There is another list of Cherokees, I think, but I don't remember what it's called.

The Dawes roll is a compilation of names of people who were removed to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. For someone to be an enrolled member of the Cherokee nation today, they have to be a direct descendant of a person on an official list, like the Dawes roll. I came across the list online once, but don't know how to find it today. Ancestry.com might have access to it for their members. Some libraries have free access to Ancestry for their patrons who have a library card.

But, some Cherokees remained hidden in the east when the Cherokee nation was removed. Today they are called the Eastern Band of Cherokee. They have their own records, which I think are less complete for the time period because they remained hidden.

A few things to consider.

First, many people who believe or know that they have some Native heritage latch onto the Cherokee name. It might be the only tribal name they can think of. Or, since the Cherokee nation is large, they think it must be their ancestry. So, consider where your great grandfather was born or where he lived. It's true that people travel and move, but usually the location of birth is a clue to what tribal nation a person descends from.

The Cherokee locations are Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina before removal. After removal, it's Oklahoma mostly, but possibly Arkansas or a nearby state. If your great grandfather was from Oregon or Massachusetts, for example, it's very unlikely that his ancestry was Cherokee.

Second, pay attention to dates. When was he born? How close to the date of Cherokee removal (which I don't recall off hand)?

Third, if you do find a name match in the Dawes roll, don't assume that it is your great grandfather. Check for his mother's name, too. Check the name with other sources. Some Native people have very English sounding names. Some have names that are in the Native language or a translation of it. Some names are more common than we think. When I browsed the Dawes roll online, just out of curiosity, I saw the names of my great grandmother and her husband. But, although she had Native ancestry, I knew for a fact that it was not Cherokee. But her first name and her husband's first name were very popular ones for the time period. Their last name was not a common one like Smith or Jones, but it was also not rare.

So I looked up that couple online and found that their birth and death dates were different from my g-grandparents.

Fourth, do not trust family trees on Ancestry without very careful verification. A lot of people are careless about copying anything onto their tree without checking for accuracy. If you take your info from them, you will just pick up their mistakes.

Fifth, even if you do have a DNA test with 23 & Me, such tests often do not pick up Native ancestry for a variety of reasons that would take too much time and space to explain here.

Good luck.

[slightlv]

41. thank you so much wynlib!

The individual who did the hand genealogy was one of the meticulous, anal type individuals. Nothing was ever put to paper unless it was checked, verified, validated, and then rechecked twice. He was from another branch of my family... I'm just grateful that our "meeting point" on the chart included our great-grandfather and his family. I noticed *he* didn't annotate Cherokee, or any other tribe... which again goes to his meticulousness is drawing this. Believe it or not, my mother was going to toss this into the trash before I grabbed it out of her hands! I did ask her then why we didn't know tribe we were descended from, her answer was that people in those days didn't make such things public knowledge. And that's the only answer I ever got from anyone in the family I asked. My assumption (and it was pure assumption) was that something bad had happened when it was discovered at one point, and so it was buried once again... and buried deep.

Both the Midwest and North Carolina track with my family roots. I'll look up this Dawes Roll you speak about. Thank you so much for the information!

[wnylib]

45. Reasons for mixed people not knowing the tribe of their

Native ancestry vary.

One reason is that, due to racism, some people denied their Native ancestry and claimed that their physical appearance - dark hair, olive or dark beige skin - came from Italian or southern French ancestors. There was a well known case in the 1800s of a young Mohawk man of mixed English and Mohawk ancestry who claimed to be French and a descendant of the French Royal family who escaped being killed in the French Revolution and was smuggled into French Canada. His Mohawk grandmother went public to debunk his claim.

Another reason is the forced removal of children from their families to put them in boarding schools where they were taught to despise their Native culture, language, and customs. They lost connections to tribe and family and did not pass info on to their children.

Another reason occurred in my family. My grandmother's Native ancestry was Seneca and we know that. But her husband, my grandfather, also had mixed ancestry, Native and German Swiss. He did not know what tribe his Native ancestry came from. His brother, my great uncle, told me it was because their Native ancestor came from a tribally mixed village.

There were many such mixed tribal villages in the past. Sometimes it was due to the westward expansion of European Americans forcing tribes to give up their lands and seek refuge with other tribes. Sometimes it was due to English, French, or Americans setting up trading posts near or on Native territories. That drew people from various tribes. Some became acclimated to to the culture of the trading post owner, had mixed marriages, and settled into the village that grew around the trading post. Albany, NY began as a trading post like that, first established by Dutch fur traders as Fort Orange, then taken over later by the English. Early Albany was a mix of Dutch, English, Mohawk, Pocumtuk, Wobaniak (Abenaki), and a few other tribes.

I have not been able to locate even the region of my grandfather's Native ancestry because his family moved around in each generation, from Missouri to Ohio to PA. I have some strong hunches from dates and tracing the White side of his family, but no proof in records yet.

[wnylib]

55. An afterthought - something I should have mentioned

in my earlier post.

There were 4 other tribal nations removed from the US Southeast to Oklahoma with the Cherokee. They were Choctaw, Chicksaw, Seminole, and Creek (not to be confused with the Cree nation which is in Canada).

So being in Oklahoma or the Midwest and originally from the Southeast, does not necessarily mean being Cherokee. I'm not trying to complicate things for your search. Just thought that you should know that there are other possibilities.

[PufPuf23]

44. Should have read complete thread before suggesting Dawes Roll.

What you wrote is excellent.

[electric_blue68]

53. You might also want to contact The National Museum of the American Indian (DC, or NYC)...

I know the one in NYC (most likely DC too) helps people trace their Native American roots.

Good luck!

[patphil]

34. You can feel the amazing energies coming off these photo's...even the chidren.

[alfredo]

35. Excellent

[Duppers]

47. More...

Scroll thru; their stories are included.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/project-562-matika-wilbur-hyphenated/index.html

Glad CNN did this series.

So many of us have some Native American ancestors, including myself* and my husband.


*My Irish and German heritages dominated my physical features however. But folks ask where our son got such dark hair.

[Martin68]

48. Beautiful, moving collection. Thanks for sharing!

[TheBlackAdder]

49. K&R for extreme awesomeness!

[burrowowl]

50. Beautiful photos!

[CrispyQ]

51. These are beautiful, but I feel galleries like these should come with this educational reminder.

The headdresses are fabulous. The feathers are stunning, but possessing most bird feathers is illegal. Native American tribes are the exception, but even they have to go through a process to get feathers from a government repository. It’s called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act passed in 1916.

Even if you find feathers in your backyard or on a hiking trail you should leave them be. I know it sounds weird and extreme, but it's to discourage the sale & trade of feathers which in turn puts birds at risk of being hunted. There are some exceptions, birds you hunt, obviously, & some others, I believe.

https://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/feathers-and-the-law.php

https://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/browse.php

https://www.nativeamericahumane.org/uploads/6/4/2/5/64257269/feather_repository_handout_for_website_5-2-19.pdf

https://www.audubon.org/news/the-migratory-bird-treaty-act-explained

There are organizations that collect donated feathers to give to Native Americans or you can bury your personal collections, but please don't donate or sell them. All because people will kill birds to extinction for money.

We look one quarter ahead instead of seven generations.

[calimary]

52. The warrior with the black tears down both cheeks.

Speaks volumes.

The symbolism! The artistry! The embellishments! The beadwork!

Hard to pick my jaw up off the floor when I see photos like these!

[electric_blue68]

54. Ty. Deeply beautiful photos.

I've attended a few Pow Wows in NYC.
Good experiences. Watch dancers, listen to the drumming, see people's Art and Craft works.
.
And sheer good memories for me if I get to eat
fry bread...
Where I first had it in a little restaurant during a Greyhound bus stop either in New Mexico, or Arizona. At that point I was meeting up with a friend to visit the Navajo and Hopi Nations.

Then traveling to San Francisco, LA, and more.

[malthaussen]

56. Ceremonial attire and makeup.

Most of the time at powwows, people just hang out in jeans and sweatshirts like regular folks.

Powwows generally have two things going on at once. Out front, various craftsmen sell "authentic" souvenirs to the marks who come to gawk at the natives. Behind the scenes, the elders get together and smoke and decide on tribal policy. High point is when the dancers put on a show or ceremony.

Although I was at one powwow in a State park where they weren't allowed to have a fire, so they just danced around in a circle. A powwow without a Sacred Fire is weird, but the park regulations didn't allow fires.

-- Mal

[Grumpy Old Guy]

57. Great work!

Reminds me of Yosuf Karsh's work from the Fifties.

[Stuart G]

58. Thanks for sharing these photos.