ABSTRACT
Photographing the Indians was seen as an essential part of scientific investigation. Indeed photography seems to be emblematic, to verify the existence of the scientific attitude as much as the existence of that which was photographed. Here the logic of mystical participation between subject and object, between Primitive person and the world, is reborn thanks to reproductive technology. It is therefore curious, that this rebirth discussed in Modernist theory with overwhelming predominance in terms of the optical medium of cinema, is highlighted by the mise en scene of the phonograph. What seems crucial about the fascination with the Other's fascination with the talking machine is the magic of mechanical reproduction itself. In the West this magic is inarticulable and is understood as the technological substance of civilized identity-formation. In Europe the fascination with the "talking machine" was no less intense.
