ABSTRACT
In the first part of this century, Edward Curtis set out to capture forever in photographs what had come to be called a Vanishing Race. In his insistence upon erasing all bits of modern life from these gauzy, sepia-toned portraits of the men, women, and children of Indian nations across the North American continent, he set for us an image which became a powerful prototype for non-Indians and Indians alike. It mattered little that these photos were fictions (Hathaway, 1990:12); they held American Indians and their nations in time and space-historical artifacts which fascinated Americans then as they continue to today if we are to judge by
the number of number of Curtis materials currently available on the mass market. Calendars, cards, and posters reproduce those photos; even the set designers for Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves used Curtis images of prairie encampments as models for that film.
