dropped into
the Grand Canyon. From the great chasm’s edge, he hired a mule, which was loaded with
his gear, and hiked with a translator down the narrow trail, dropping more than three
thousand vertical feet over nine miles, stepping gently over crushed pebbles and knuckle-sized
stones through tiers of time wearing the colors of different ages, at last reaching
the village of Supai, home of the People of the Blue-Green Water. “The strangest dwelling
place of any tribe in America,” Curtis called it. They had lived in the most remote
area of the United States for about seven hundred years, the natives told Curtis,
and been relatively undisturbed. Yes, they had trouble with the Navajo—who didn’t?
When Kit Carson burned the Navajo peach orchards to the ground and marched those Diné,
as the tribe called itself, off to exile in New Mexico, the Havasupai were left untouched.
They were too small a tribe to bother with, hidden in a deep pocket of the Colorado
Plateau. Over the years, few whites had visited: a Spanish missionary, Father Garces,
dropped into the canyon in 1776, and an American explorer, Frank Cushing, came along
more than a hundred years later. They found well-watered little gardens of squash,
beans and corn, and a tribe that wanted to be left alone. By the start of the twentieth
century, the Havasupai were penciled into a tiny reservation just off the floor of
the Grand Canyon, less than a single square mile. The Indians were tired of being
told how to live and what to do by government agents—a familiar complaint in the Southwest.
But they were powerless to do anything because of their peculiar limbo status: neither
citizens nor foreign nationals. “We are no longer men,” a Havasupai leader told Curtis.
“We are like little children. We must always ask Washington.”
What Curtis saw of the Havasupai was not a healthy people. Measles had started to
ravage the tribe, killing the young, especially. They feared going hungry after their
hunting range had been severely restricted. Curtis counted 250 tribal members. He
recorded their language, wrote down their songs on staff paper, took pictures of families
living in an extraordinary setting. The way the Blue-Green Water People had fashioned
homes into the cliffs of the slot canyon in particular drew his photographic eye.
During the same trip to Arizona, Curtis went to see the Hopi and the Navajo. He tried
again to get permission to participate in the Snake Dance. And again the head of the
Snake Society, Sikyaletstiwa, turned him down. But the priest was friendly enough
with Curtis that he let him take his picture. By this time, Curtis was referred to
by one of his many nicknames, The Man Who Sleeps on His Breath, because of the air
mattress he inflated at camp.
After a year’s absence, Curtis noticed that natives of the Southwest had changed.
Government agents had banned even more ceremonies. As in Montana, children were hauled
off to boarding schools run by the missions, where their spiritual lives were handed
over to another God. The boys were supposed to learn how to farm and read, the girls
how to be homemakers and serve tea. Those who resisted were threatened with a loss
of provisions and derided as “blanket Indians.” The Hopi were torn between incentives
for giving up the traditional ways and the uncertainty of staying the course. The
tribe broke down into factions, and in those villages that had given over entirely
to missionaries, it was forbidden to speak the native language. Would the Snake Dance,
which was as important to the Hopi as Easter Sunday mass is to Roman Catholics, soon
be outlawed? Feeling the sand slipping through the hourglass of his project, Curtis
picked up the pace.
He hurried off to Walpi, one of his favorite places in the Hopi Nation. This village
was perched atop bare stone on a high mesa, with views of open country below that
the Grand Canyon. From the great chasm’s edge, he hired a mule, which was loaded with
his gear, and hiked with a translator down the narrow trail, dropping more than three
thousand vertical feet over nine miles, stepping gently over crushed pebbles and knuckle-sized
stones through tiers of time wearing the colors of different ages, at last reaching
the village of Supai, home of the People of the Blue-Green Water. “The strangest dwelling
place of any tribe in America,” Curtis called it. They had lived in the most remote
area of the United States for about seven hundred years, the natives told Curtis,
and been relatively undisturbed. Yes, they had trouble with the Navajo—who didn’t?
When Kit Carson burned the Navajo peach orchards to the ground and marched those Diné,
as the tribe called itself, off to exile in New Mexico, the Havasupai were left untouched.
They were too small a tribe to bother with, hidden in a deep pocket of the Colorado
Plateau. Over the years, few whites had visited: a Spanish missionary, Father Garces,
dropped into the canyon in 1776, and an American explorer, Frank Cushing, came along
more than a hundred years later. They found well-watered little gardens of squash,
beans and corn, and a tribe that wanted to be left alone. By the start of the twentieth
century, the Havasupai were penciled into a tiny reservation just off the floor of
the Grand Canyon, less than a single square mile. The Indians were tired of being
told how to live and what to do by government agents—a familiar complaint in the Southwest.
But they were powerless to do anything because of their peculiar limbo status: neither
citizens nor foreign nationals. “We are no longer men,” a Havasupai leader told Curtis.
“We are like little children. We must always ask Washington.”
What Curtis saw of the Havasupai was not a healthy people. Measles had started to
ravage the tribe, killing the young, especially. They feared going hungry after their
hunting range had been severely restricted. Curtis counted 250 tribal members. He
recorded their language, wrote down their songs on staff paper, took pictures of families
living in an extraordinary setting. The way the Blue-Green Water People had fashioned
homes into the cliffs of the slot canyon in particular drew his photographic eye.
During the same trip to Arizona, Curtis went to see the Hopi and the Navajo. He tried
again to get permission to participate in the Snake Dance. And again the head of the
Snake Society, Sikyaletstiwa, turned him down. But the priest was friendly enough
with Curtis that he let him take his picture. By this time, Curtis was referred to
by one of his many nicknames, The Man Who Sleeps on His Breath, because of the air
mattress he inflated at camp.
After a year’s absence, Curtis noticed that natives of the Southwest had changed.
Government agents had banned even more ceremonies. As in Montana, children were hauled
off to boarding schools run by the missions, where their spiritual lives were handed
over to another God. The boys were supposed to learn how to farm and read, the girls
how to be homemakers and serve tea. Those who resisted were threatened with a loss
of provisions and derided as “blanket Indians.” The Hopi were torn between incentives
for giving up the traditional ways and the uncertainty of staying the course. The
tribe broke down into factions, and in those villages that had given over entirely
to missionaries, it was forbidden to speak the native language. Would the Snake Dance,
which was as important to the Hopi as Easter Sunday mass is to Roman Catholics, soon
be outlawed? Feeling the sand slipping through the hourglass of his project, Curtis
picked up the pace.
He hurried off to Walpi, one of his favorite places in the Hopi Nation. This village
was perched atop bare stone on a high mesa, with views of open country below that
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