Preface

People have been taking pictures of Native Americans for well over a century-for almost as long as they have been taking pictures. The earliest known photograph of an American Indian was exposed soon after the invention of the medium in 1839. Ironically enough, it was taken in Great Britain in 1844, and it depicted Kahkewaquonaby (known as the Reverend Peter Jones), the son of a Mississauga Indian and a Welshman. Thus, from its very beginnings, the photography of Native Americans has been inextricably bound up with the crossing of cultural boundaries. As photographers fanned out across the American continent, native peoples struggled to render their strange activities comprehensible. A term that appears to have been devised repeatedly and independently was shadow catcher. This ominous phrase spoke to one of the most profound aspects of photography: its seemingly magical ability to appropriate and remove some sort of essence of a person’s character. As it was phrased by Yurok author Lucy Thompson, “The old Indians do not like to look at a photograph or to have their photographs taken because they say it is a reflection or a shadowy image of the departed spirit, O-quirlth.” Contemporary Creek writer Joy Harjo remembers her “Aunt Lois’s admonishments about photographs. She said that they could steal your soul. I believe it’s true, for an imprint remains behind forever, locked in paper and chemicals.