Photographer Captured Changing Lives of His People

 

Detail: Horace Poolaw (Kiowa), posing for a photo during his work as an arts and crafts supervisor¹. Old Town Anadarko, Oklahoma, ca. 1940. 45ACOT6 ? 2014 Estate of Horace Poolaw.

For more than 50 years, photographer Horace Poolaw captured the lives of members of his American Indian tribe.

Now, The National Museum of the American Indian is showing the American Indian photographer’s rare work.

The exhibit is called “For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw.” Poolaw’s photos show the cultural assimilation that was taking place in American Indian communities during his lifetime.

Poolaw was a member of the Kiowa tribe. He took pictures of American Indian subjects. He used pictures to form a history of his friends, family and events important to them.

Linda Poolaw is his daughter from his second marriage. One of the 80 photos in the exhibit, she said, is of her and her older brother, Robert coming home from school.

“He put cowboy hats on our heads and gave us pistols to hold,” Linda remembers. Whether the photo was meant to be ironic² or not, Linda is not sure. All she knows is that she never much cared for it.

“No, it’s not because of the ‘cowboyness’ of it or the whiteness or racism³ or anything like that,” she said. “It’s just that Dad made us pose for him all the time. We had to be still. We had to wait for him to get the shot just right when all we wanted to do was go play.”

From tipi to mainstream⁴

Horace Poolaw was born in 1906 in Mountain View, Oklahoma. Until the late 19th Century, Oklahoma’s Indian Territory belonged to tribes native to the area or that had been sent there from other parts of the country.

Poolaw’s tribe is called the Kiowa Comanche. They lived with the Apache tribe on a reservation that covered 1.2 million hectares of land.

But 20 years later, a law known as the Dawes Act permitted Congress to divide the land. Individual Indians were given their own land. The rest was opened up to non-Native settlers.

Horace Poolaw lived with his parents in a traditional tipi early in life. His father, Kiowa George, was the son of a warrior⁵. Poolaw’s mother was descended⁶ from a Mexican woman who had been captured during a Kiowa raid. They moved into a house that still remains⁷ with the family today.

Then, settlers from the east came to live in Mountain View. Photographer George W. Long moved there and became a mentor⁸ to Poolaw. He gave the young man his first camera.

His work

Poolaw’s photos captured images of Kiowa women wearing traditional American Indian clothes and Kiowas in cars with headdresses.

But he had very little money to make photographs.

“He developed his own pictures, even though there was no electricity or water in the house back in those days,” said his daughter Linda. “He had to send to Chicago for film and developing supplies.”

The high cost of photographic paper and film meant that Poolaw worked hard to get his pictures right on the first try. He developed only a small number of the photographs he took. And he took all of his photographs outdoors so he would not need lighting⁹ equipment.

“We were poor, dirt poor,” said Linda. “But we didn’t know it because everybody around us was poor too.”

Today, those postcards sell for as much as $50 on the internet.

Poolaw continued taking pictures until the 1970s when his eyesight began to fail. In 1979, the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko organized an exhibit of his photographs. It would be the only showing of his work during his lifetime.

In the late 1980s, Poolaw’s daughter Linda established a research program at Stanford University to archive and digitize her father’s work. When her father died in 1984, he left behind 2,000 photographic negatives.

Today, art historians and critics consider Poolaw’s work equal to many better-known photographers working in the western United States in the early 20th Century. His photographs are often described as documenting the change from traditional to mainstream ways of life for American Indians.

Words in This Story

assimilation – n. to fully¹⁰ become part of a different society, country, etc.

pistols – n. a small gun

exhibit – n. a collection of objects that have been put out in a public space for people to look at

ironic – adj. relating to or characteristic of a famous person or thing that represents something of importance

reservation – n. an area of land in the U.S. that is kept separate as a place for Native Americans to live

tipi – n. a tent that is shaped like a cone¹¹ and that was used in the past by some Native Americans as a house

warrior – n. a person who fights in battles and is known for having courage and skill

mentor – n. someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person

headdress - n. a decorative¹² covering for your head

photographic negatives – an image on a photographic film that shows dark areas as ligh and light areas as dark, from which the final picture is printed

mainstream – n. the thoughts, beliefs, and choices that are accepted by the largest number of people

1 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

2 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

3 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

4 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

5 warrior   

n.勇士，武士，斗士

参考例句：

• The young man is a bold warrior.这个年轻人是个很英勇的武士。
• A true warrior values glory and honor above life.一个真正的勇士珍视荣誉胜过生命。

6 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

9 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

10 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

11 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

12 decorative   

adj.装饰的，可作装饰的

参考例句：

• This ware is suitable for decorative purpose but unsuitable for utility.这种器皿中看不中用。
• The style is ornate and highly decorative.这种风格很华丽，而且装饰效果很好。