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Photographing sacred ceremonies is extremely sensitive and controversial on
most Indian reservations today. Hopis do not allow non-Indians at their
ceremonies; anyone caught with a camera will be escorted off the mesa, and
their camera taken away. Most Plains tribes prohibit photography at their
Sundances or other ceremonies. Navajo police patrol healing ceremonies for
cameras and send violators home.
In Curtis' time, there were often as many white people photographing
ceremonies as there were Indian people participating in them. Photography
became controversial on some reservations because the pictures exposed
practices that Indian people wanted to keep secret from the missionaries and
government agents. When missionaries saw the photographs, they were outraged
that rituals, which they saw as pagan impediments to progress, were still
going on, and eventually they succeeded in outlawing them. Many Plains
Indians managed to hold their outlawed Sundances under the guise of Fourth of
July celebrations, but they certainly did not want cameras there showing what
they were really doing.
 In 1900, Curtis photographed parts of a Blackfeet Sundance in Montana-- Brave
Dog warriors on horseback bringing in the willows, the felling of the
Sundance pole, and the building of the lodge - but the Blackfeet Chief White
Calf drew the line when it came to the more sacred rituals inside the lodge.
In 1998, I was also allowed to film the Brave Dogs riding in the hundred
willows, due to the kindness and generosity of a member of the Brave Dog
society who comments on photography in this section of the Web site. I
attended other parts of the ceremony, but was not allowed to bring my camera
inside the lodge. This is a good example of Indian people having a say in
what can be photographed and what is off limits, both in Curtis' time and
today. In a similar way, the Navajos who performed the Yeibechei ceremony
for Curtis' camera in 1904 withheld certain parts of the ceremony, and
Navajos today have done the same thing, withholding the most sacred parts
from the camera.
Why did Curtis so obsessively pursue photographing Indian ceremonies? He was
passionately determined to show the beauty in Indian life, and to him, the
religious rituals were the most beautiful and moving aspects of that life. He
was deeply affected by the faith and spirituality he found among Indian
people. It was the Blackfeet Sundance and the Hopi Snake Dance that inspired
him to begin his life's work among the Indians.
The responses of contemporary Indian people to Curtis' ceremonial
photographs vary tremendously, as you can see on this Web site. Some are very
glad to see his pictures of rituals that, in some cases, have died out.
Others are enraged that such sacred things were captured in photographs for
anyone to see. The one response I never encountered was indifference. For
American Indians, these photographs contain images of beauty and power that
command respect, awe, and reverence.
-- Anne Makepeace
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