ABSTRACT
Anthropologists who read Eugene Linden's article might well wonder whether it is not a hoax, whether Time had not unearthed the story in the century's archives. The phrase "persistence of vision" was used—incorrectly, as it turns out—to describe the physical process by which a series of still pictures could be perceived as a single continuous but moving image. Persistence of vision was invoked as the biological and phenomenological ground of film qua "movies." The choice of a field is always problematic, and this is especially true, where the connotations of sight and culture area have such profound consequence. Since the days of Boasian anthropology, the Northwest Coast has been a disciplinary fascination, central to all discussions of "culture area." The motivating assumption of such a liberal act is, of course, that Native peoples do not and cannot anticipate their own loss.
