This action packed, gripping, and beautiful ETV Classic is an amazing find from the recesses of the ETV Tape Vault! Starting in 1900 and continuing over the next thirty years, Edward Sheriff Curtis, or the “Shadow Catcher” as he was called by some of the tribes, took over 40,000 images and recorded ethnographic information from over eighty American Indian tribal groups, ranging from the Eskimo or Inuit people of the far north to the Hopi people of the Southwest. Additionally, he captured the likeness of Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, Medicine Crow, and others.
In 1898, while photographing scenic views, Curtis came across a party that had experienced difficulties on a glacier on Mount Rainier. One of the members of the party was George Bird Grinnell, naturalist, anthropologist, historian, and editor of the Field and Stream Magazine. The following year, Grinnell asked him to be the official photographer on his scientific expedition North to the Bering Sea. Curtis' Indian pictures on the trip impressed Grinnell, and the following summer, Grinnell asked him on a trip to Northern Montana, home of the Blackfoot and Piegan tribes. It was on that trip that Curtis realized that he was seeing things that would never be seen again. In the summer of 1906 at Canyon De Chelly, Arizona, Curtis observed the changes that the Navajo were experiencing, and how the loss of each elder of the tribe resulted in a loss of knowledge of a way of life and spiritual traditions. He resolved to undertake a life of exploration, to document the traditions and ways of the tribes before they were lost forever.
After taking his wife and two daughters on one particularly harrowing trip to Navajo country, he did not take them on further expeditions. With the help of guides and interpreters, Curtis spent much of his life trying to get inside the rituals that were a part of the life of each tribe that he encountered. When he wasn't exploring, he was trying to get his books written and ready for publication.
The labors of his life filled volumes of books, and proved a struggle to get published. The exertions of his life of exploration and hardship took a toll on his heath. At the end of his life, he was unremembered, but this documentary seeks to remind the world of his photographic skill, as well as his scholarship, sensitivity, determination, and above all, his appreciation of Native Americans. This documentary includes re-enactment footage, as well as interviews shot for the film. The documentary relies heavily on archival footage and photography. We are taken on a journey that entails rockslides, high heat, chronicles a wedding ceremony, a treacherous voyage on the Hesperus, unfriendly sea lions, and the perils of sweeping high tides. This is a must-see production, and we hope that you will enjoy it!
Side Notes
- Edward S. Curtis dies at the age of eighty-four from a heart attack at the home of his daughter, Beth Curtis Magnuson, in Los Angeles on October 19, 1952. A six-sentence obituary is published in The New York Times on October 20, 1952. 1970 - Karl D. Kernberger, a professional photographer, rescues the original copperplates and over 200,000 photogravures from The North American Indian located in the bookstore of the deceased rare book dealer Charles E. Lauriat in Boston. This revelation sparks a reexamination of the life and work of Edward S. Curtis, which dovetails with the cultural reawakening in native communities that continues today with gallery and museum exhibitions, published works, and art and photography created by contemporary native artists.
- Curtis Comes Back to Seattle: Rediscovering Edward S. Curtis and Native American Culture.
- George Bird Grinnell - September 20, 1849 – April 11, 1938 was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student of Native American life. Grinnell has been recognized for his influence on public opinion and work on legislation to preserve the American bison. Mount Grinnell in Glacier National Park in Montana is named after him.
- Curtis Colleagues: George Bird Grinnell - Among those who were reported by various authors to have been in the group that Curtis encountered were important scientists Gifford Pinchot, C. Hart Merriam, and George Bird Grinnell. As it has been told, that encounter led to Grinnell inviting Curtis to be the official photographer of the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899. That trip would prove to be the first major turning point in Curtis’s life.
- Bering Sea - The Bering Sea is separated from the Gulf of Alaska by the Alaska Peninsula. It covers over 2,000,000 square kilometers (770,000 sq mi) and is bordered on the east and northeast by Alaska, on the west by the Russian Far East and the Kamchatka Peninsula, on the south by the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands and on the far north by the Bering Strait, which connects the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean's Chukchi Sea.
- The Photogravure Process - The photogravure process is not only one of the most beautiful techniques for printing photographs, but also one of the most complex.
- Piegan Blackfeet - are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They are the largest of three Blackfeet-speaking groups that make up the Blackfeet Confederacy; the Siksika and Kainai are the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern Great Plains during the nineteenth century.
- Canyon De Chelly National Monument - This canyon is home to Diné families who raise livestock, farmlands, and live here. People have lived in these canyons for nearly 5,000 years, which is longer than anyone has lived continuously on the Colorado Plateau. In this place called Tsegi, their homes and images tell us their stories. Today, the park and Navajo Nation work together to manage the rich cultural and natural resources.
- Explore the History, Culture, and Traditions of Native Americans. Learn more!
