Pride and Dignity

Luminace: Aboriginal photographic portraits

Looking at photographs of Indian people from the past always leaves me with a feeling of wanting to know more about them. When I was a child, I stayed on the family farm at the Six Nations reserve in southern Ontario. At night or when people were visiting, I would sit in the kitchen and listen to the stories being told about people in the community. At times, talk would center around the old-time traditional chiefs (Fig. 2). There were no photographs of those I heard about, and none were needed because the stories created such a strong visual impression in my mind. During my research at the National Archives, I came across several photographs of people from my reserve. These photographs brought back memories of the vivid images I had as a child (Fig. 3). I bring these memories and stories, along with my own work as a photographer.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, American and Canadian governments, as well as academic and cultural institutions, viewed the Aboriginal world as a vanishing culture. The Great Plains tribes, ravaged by smallpox epidemics, were experiencing the loss of the buffalo, military subjugation and forced confinement on reservations. Although a similar fate happened to the tribes living east of the Mississippi River much earlier, the majestic horse-mounted warriors of the North American Plains held a special appeal for non-native society. Indian tribes in the east simply faded away on reserves and reservations in Canada and the United States.

Source

Figure 2 — Chiefs from the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ontario, reading Wampum belts. Photographer: Unknown. Photo copied by Electric Studio, Brantford, Ontario. Original probably 1870s. National Archives of Canada

Source

Figure 3 - Studio portrait taken in July 1882 of the surviving Six Nations warriors who fought with the British in the War of 1812. Photographer: Unknown. Albumen print. National Archives of Canada

 

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