of being ours . Like other world's fairs, the AYPE was intensely didactic, brazenly ambitious, and thoroughly racist. 24
For all the power of Curtis's photos and the titillation of scalps and “grotesques,” it was the display of actual Native people that most captivated the attention of Seattle fairgoers. The most popular attraction of the entire exposition was the Eskimo Village on the Pay Streak, where “expert reindeer men, skin-boat builders, ivory carvers and the best looking women,” most of them from Siberia, served as living examples of primitivism as they undertook everyday activities in their plaster “frozen north.” Meanwhile, Indian schoolchildren from Tulalip were put on display to show “what the bureau of Indian affairs has accomplished for the Indian people during the last few years.” And just outside the fairgrounds at the White City Amusement Park, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota men attacked stagecoaches day after day as part of a Wild West Show, only to be rebuffed every time by white gunslingers. Whether as harmless primitives, emblems of assimilation, or violent barbarians, Native people, like Native things, were used by fair organizers to articulate a clear message: witness our realm, see our burdens. 25
It is all too easy to see Native people at the AYPE as mere captives to Seattle's imperial fantasies. To some extent, they were. But at the same time, Native people had their own reasons to go to the fair. Two days after arriving in Seattle to tend reindeer at the Eskimo Village, for example, Iñupiat Oliver Angolook decided to return to his community near Nome. When the agent who had procured his services confronted him at the wharf, Angolook was reported to respond, “Got money. Pay my own fare.” Indeed, Angolook's salary was reportedly enough to “keep an entire family in affluence through several seasons”—and ironically, it provided the means for him to leave Seattle altogether. Similarly, many Indian Wild West Show participants saw such performances as a way to visit faraway places while earning money for displays of traditional skills like horsemanship. Still another performer, the “Eskimo belle” known as Columbia, reaped a more unique reward; after winning theAYPE beauty contest (trouncing several white competitors), the young Labrador Inuit woman received a lot in one of Seattle's new suburbs. Like hop fields or curio shops, the AYPE was an opportunity. Meanwhile, Skhandoo, a Chilkoot Tlingit shaman, wowed audiences with dances and ceremonies at the Eskimo Village alongside other Tlingits of the Chilkat, Hoonah, and Taku bands. He had once earned great wealth thanks to the Otter spirit that gave him power to heal, harm, and see far-off events, but after two prison terms for deaths caused by his ministrations, he found himself destitute until landing the job at the world's fair. For Skhandoo, the AYPE served two purposes: it allowed him to continue performing the work for which he had received prestige from both Tlingit and white observers, and it provided him with a living. For a man in Skhandoo's tenuous position, participation in the AYPE may have been the best of few options. For all these Native people, coming to the fair, like coming to the city more generally, often simply made good economic sense. 26
Seattle's fair was also a place to play out long-standing rivalries between indigenous communities. In early 1909, for instance, fair organizers received a telegram from Harry Hobucket, a Quileute from Washington's outer coast, noting that the rival Makah were having trouble acquiring a gray whale to bring to the fair and offering to bring one on behalf of the Quileute. While exposition organizers appear to have declined the offer, the proposal suggests that some Native people saw the fair as an opportunity to shame old enemies in a new setting with a huge audience. Several weeks later, a challenge came from Chief Taholah of the Quinault and his sub-chief
For all the power of Curtis's photos and the titillation of scalps and “grotesques,” it was the display of actual Native people that most captivated the attention of Seattle fairgoers. The most popular attraction of the entire exposition was the Eskimo Village on the Pay Streak, where “expert reindeer men, skin-boat builders, ivory carvers and the best looking women,” most of them from Siberia, served as living examples of primitivism as they undertook everyday activities in their plaster “frozen north.” Meanwhile, Indian schoolchildren from Tulalip were put on display to show “what the bureau of Indian affairs has accomplished for the Indian people during the last few years.” And just outside the fairgrounds at the White City Amusement Park, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota men attacked stagecoaches day after day as part of a Wild West Show, only to be rebuffed every time by white gunslingers. Whether as harmless primitives, emblems of assimilation, or violent barbarians, Native people, like Native things, were used by fair organizers to articulate a clear message: witness our realm, see our burdens. 25
It is all too easy to see Native people at the AYPE as mere captives to Seattle's imperial fantasies. To some extent, they were. But at the same time, Native people had their own reasons to go to the fair. Two days after arriving in Seattle to tend reindeer at the Eskimo Village, for example, Iñupiat Oliver Angolook decided to return to his community near Nome. When the agent who had procured his services confronted him at the wharf, Angolook was reported to respond, “Got money. Pay my own fare.” Indeed, Angolook's salary was reportedly enough to “keep an entire family in affluence through several seasons”—and ironically, it provided the means for him to leave Seattle altogether. Similarly, many Indian Wild West Show participants saw such performances as a way to visit faraway places while earning money for displays of traditional skills like horsemanship. Still another performer, the “Eskimo belle” known as Columbia, reaped a more unique reward; after winning theAYPE beauty contest (trouncing several white competitors), the young Labrador Inuit woman received a lot in one of Seattle's new suburbs. Like hop fields or curio shops, the AYPE was an opportunity. Meanwhile, Skhandoo, a Chilkoot Tlingit shaman, wowed audiences with dances and ceremonies at the Eskimo Village alongside other Tlingits of the Chilkat, Hoonah, and Taku bands. He had once earned great wealth thanks to the Otter spirit that gave him power to heal, harm, and see far-off events, but after two prison terms for deaths caused by his ministrations, he found himself destitute until landing the job at the world's fair. For Skhandoo, the AYPE served two purposes: it allowed him to continue performing the work for which he had received prestige from both Tlingit and white observers, and it provided him with a living. For a man in Skhandoo's tenuous position, participation in the AYPE may have been the best of few options. For all these Native people, coming to the fair, like coming to the city more generally, often simply made good economic sense. 26
Seattle's fair was also a place to play out long-standing rivalries between indigenous communities. In early 1909, for instance, fair organizers received a telegram from Harry Hobucket, a Quileute from Washington's outer coast, noting that the rival Makah were having trouble acquiring a gray whale to bring to the fair and offering to bring one on behalf of the Quileute. While exposition organizers appear to have declined the offer, the proposal suggests that some Native people saw the fair as an opportunity to shame old enemies in a new setting with a huge audience. Several weeks later, a challenge came from Chief Taholah of the Quinault and his sub-chief
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