DEPICTING NATIVE AMERICANS

    Your family group is very large. Wondrous stories have been passed down from generation to generation about the nature of existence, what is good, what is bad, what happens when we die. Beautifully costumed celebrations happen every season. Gambling games help pass the time during the long winters, and joking is encouraged. Sounds like an admirable way of life.

    Although you have horses, you do not have the wheel. You move your home several times a year by dragging and carrying all your possessions across the plains. Sometimes you do not have enough food. You struggle not to freeze to death in winter. Your neighbors twenty miles away might be plotting to kill you. Foreign intruders are bringing diseases and more than half your village dies.

    Still want to romanticize the 19th century lives of the plains Indians? How about honoring who they really were, and showing sensitivity to their descendants, most of whom are trying to balance the honoring of their ancestors with living in the 21st century American culture. Those whose families have chosen to remain on the reservations that were established back in 1890 mostly live in deep poverty, with substance abuse and gang activity rampant, as in this photo taken at the Rosebud Reservation.

    18th and 19th century paintings that depicted Native Americans were mostly Anglicized images. 

Photographer Edward Curtis famously captured Indian portraits, as in this photo of a Washoe woman, but many of the scenes he photographed were highly staged. Indeed most of his better known photos were actually taken in the early 20th century.

And recently a very popular painting was "I am Crow" by artist Kirby Sattler, which actor Johnny Depp used as makeup and costume inspiration in the movie "The Lone Ranger". It turns out that the non-native artist pretty much just imagines his images "in the spirit" of Native American culture.

   

     In the 1970's a contemporary California Luseino Native American by the name of Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) made a breakthrough in the art market, with his contemporary styled yet Native American themed artworks becoming very well-known and in demand. He paved the path for other contemporary Native American artists.

    Those of us who love Native American art can help the cause by searching out today's Native American artists (easily done on the internet) and purchasing their works, such as this one by California Quechan artist, Victor Curran. 

    Beware of "Native American" items from China. Also, one can view authentic historic photos by going to the websites of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian, and find photos such as this one of a Lakota village.