Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography by Nicole Dawn Strathman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography by Nicole Dawn Strathman Audrey Goodman (bio) Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography by Nicole Dawn Strathman University of Oklahoma Press, 2020 THROUGH A NATIVE LENS DEMONSTRATES the many ways that Native people in North America practiced photography, participated in image production and exchange, and integrated photographs into their communities. By design, it is not a comprehensive study. Instead, it offers a selective, well-paced overview of situations, practices, and interpretations of images made of Native subjects and/or by Native photographers between 1840 and 1940. It presents a clear critical framework or "rubric" for approaching both familiar and archival images, and the extensive illustrations in the book complicate and enrich existing published records and recent museum exhibitions. Rather than delve into the politics of repatriation, develop a sustained theoretical argument, or explore in detail the ongoing social lives of the images, the book realizes the value of the author's extensive archival research by concentrating on the conditions and contexts of image production. Strathman examines in detail how Indian subjects crafted their public personas and identities on many scales. With its wide range of visual materials, appealing design, high-quality reproductions, and clear structure, this informative and well-researched book is a pleasure to view and read. Strathman worked extensively in state, territorial, and tribal archives, including the Autry National Center's Braun Research Library, the National Anthropological Archives, the Oklahoma Historical Society, the American Heritage Center, the University of Wyoming, the Yukon Archives, and the Cherokee National Archives. The book shares her discoveries through narrative sketches of each photographer's experience. Divided into two parts, "Native Participants" and "Native Practitioners," the book distinguishes between the agency exercised by subjects and that exercised by creators. Within those parts, each chapter assembles topics, figures, and visual materials according to the degree of the subject's public notoriety or the photographer's professional expertise. It reports on the origin and status of each archival collection and invites readers to view, interpret, and delight in the array of photographs on display. The book contends that Native subjects and photographers "used photography to assert their right of self-representation," whether through small [End Page 154] gestures of resistance visible in the photographs themselves, negotiations for payment, or running a successful studio (179). Part I advances this claim through discussions of leaders such as Red Cloud (Oglala), the Hawaiian royal family, and Sarah Winnemucca (Paiute), each of whom used portrait photography to craft political strategies and public personas. Other examples reveal how Native people negotiated with non-Native photographers to control the production and circulation of images: at times they restricted the events that outsiders could photograph, or adapted rituals to make only secular elements visible, or chose whether to admit a photographer to witness and record family life. While many of the images reproduced in this section will be familiar to readers, they continue to command attention and have a cumulative power. The most original and rewarding chapters of the book are found in Part II, where Strathman explores a broad cross-section of practices by semi-professional and amateur Native photographers: visual ethnographers and collectors such as Louis Shotridge (Yeilgooxu); Bureau of Indian Affairs employee Richard Throssel (Crow/Scottish/adopted Cree); Benjamin Haldane (Tsimshian), owner of a photography studio in Metlakatla, Alaska; Jennie Ross Cobb (Cherokee), whose archive flaunts the confidence, independence, and personal style of young Cherokee women during the Progressive era; and George Hunt (Tlingit/British), whose snapshots convey the Tlingit community's pride in hunting and other rituals. For each, Strathman deftly assesses the archive, probes the limits of the historical record, teases out stylistic and rhetorical contrasts between the Native photographers and their mentors, and summarizes the political, commercial, and cultural pressures of each location and moment. Through a Native Lens is a fascinating and beautifully produced record of Native photography as a diverse enterprise. As Strathman writes in the conclusion, "There is no single Native American way of practicing photography but, instead, multiple photographies" (177). The study is a substantial contribution to recent and ongoing appraisals and revisions of Native photographic histories by a diverse group of...