Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Thank you for so wisely speaking for all the many tribes of the far north, Matt. I will promptly find a bottle of white-out correction fluid and change every textbook or atlas found on my shelves printed before the generally public could instantly type in "Inuit" in Wikipedia to see what it means. By if it gives you solace, it's the terminology I'll henceforth use on this forum.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
type in "Inuit" in Wikipedia to see what it means.

It’s faster to see what Wikipedia says under “Eskimo”.

MattKing · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Thank you for so wisely speaking for all the many tribes of the far north, Matt. I will promptly find a bottle of white-out correction fluid and change every textbook or atlas found on my shelves printed before the generally public could instantly type in "Inuit" in Wikipedia to see what it means. By if it gives you solace, it's the terminology I'll henceforth use on this forum.

Nah - it makes no sense to try to rewrite history. Just be willing, in the present, to acknowledge its problems, and deal with the present and the future with current facts in mind.
If a people find offensive a label that was assigned by others, can you blame them if they want to be addressed by something more appropriate?
I find all your references to "Indians" intriguing as well. Not many uses of that term any more around here. Of course, in this area, there are large numbers of people whose background and heritage (and in many cases their birthplace) comes from India, so maybe its just a question of clarity.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

I wonder, though, how Mortensen would depict them in his art?

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Matt, what is horrible around here in California is that all nearly all the so-called tribal identifies were tiny to begin with, and now have been totally re-tooled artificially for sake of a multiplicity of competing casinos. Most Indian kids are only partially of Indian ancestry. And "Indian" is still a routine accepted term among them - but that's the whole problem. They don't know who they are except for watching John Wayne TV movies with all the Indians looking and dressed make-believe. Local dance teams for casino audiences dress up as Iroquois warriors from back east, or plains Chieftains with stereotypical TV movie warbonnets. They're being fed information about their own ancestry and customs by political activists that are simply untrue.

There are exceptions. Among my old 100% authentic tribal friends, a school has been set up trying to distinguish the differences and teach authentic native dialects, in contrast to the mostly white "hippie Indian" colony downstream weaving baskets that looks like they came out of a shopping mall thrift store, and dressed more like a 60's Grateful Dead concert audience than for life in the woods. Others have gone into the system, acquired phD's, and now teach more correct information at the University level. But most of the facts, like it or not are going to remain in the records of past ethnologists and anthropologists; otherwise, not much would be remembered at all.

Just a few months ago, the last "chief" of our local band, a close family friend and son of the last and most acclaimed aboriginal California basketmaker, died of a heart attack while being evacuated from that massive forest fire of which the smoke crossed and darkened the entire country, and then reached even W. Europe.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Brian - how would have Curtis represented them? Probably as fake as the John Wayne movies. Mortensen would have been lucky to get out of town alive. But if you happen to have a copy of Almost Ancestors, Earliest Pictures of California Indian, which was published by the Sierra Club back in the 60's, I personally knew three of the people depicted in it. Of course, they had been photographed as children and were old when I was quite young; but nonetheless, I knew them well and daily interacted with their own kids.

Our own family collection has tintypes and ambrotypes even earlier than those used for that Sierra club book. How were they attired? None of the above, "none" as in none at all. That's why you don't see many reproductions from that period. Down the hill from us, there was a salmon jump prior to the dam being built, in other words, a waterfall with a big whirlpool below. Indians girls would bath there. One of the young gold miners somewhat after the famous gold rush would do his peeping tom thing behind a nearby rock. One of the girls was swept over the fall one afternoon and trapped in the whirlpool. He came running, dived in, and rescued her ... love at first wet embrace. They founded a well-known local clan, but exactly which?
That was a well kept secret. The fall itself, and now the park and prominent cliff above it became known as "Squaw Leap".
They routinely used that term "squaw" themselves. It's the white activist outsiders who claim it's demeaning, and demand a
place name change.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

We know how Curtis depicted them. In this thread I’m wondering about Mortensen. I’m planning on visiting him over the weekend so I’ll ask.

You certainly know and are related to a lot of people!

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

I admire Curtis as a photographer, Brian, not as an honest ethnologist! You know the story behind him no doubt. J.P. Morgan hired him to photograph all the tribes he could before his railroad empire spelled the total demise of what remained of them. So Curtis gathered garb and paraphernalia wherever he could, and carried it around with him. Julia Cameron is another individual who dressed people up utterly kitchy, pre-Raphaelite style or Victorian, yet nonetheless produced stunning prints. Mortensen should have stuck to portraits himself;
I'd have a far higher opinion of him if he did.

Brian, yes, but I mainly have NW pioneer roots from a civil war hero great grandfather who actually lived with the Nez Perce after the war before moving to the coast. He lost an arm in the war, and part of his journal, specifically his interviews with the Lincolns, was published about 20 yrs ago. It's one of the key sources for scholars understanding just how badly Abe and Mary were getting along, along with many incidentals about Abe, like how he had a habit of spitting chewing tobacco on the military hospital floor when telling dirty jokes to the patients - things that seldom got recorded because everyone else did the same thing back then. I recently owned the oldest pioneer cemetery in Oregon, but deeded it over to my nephew. My parents moved to California after the war for sake of a Central Valley Project job, going from dam project to dam project, NW first, including Grand Coulee, then down here.

removed account4 · Feb 3, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
And you were there and therefore can testify to that.

As stated before you might look into reading some published works by Anthropologists who have studied and laid down the critical framework about the history of art and museums, its quite enlightening, you might learn a bit.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Julia Cameron is another individual who dressed people up utterly kitchy,

Negative. Julia Margaret Cameron photographed people artistically... in style at the time. Her prints are indeed stunning but flawed. The lady could not focus.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Flawed? She focussed exactly to the point she wanted it, deliberately. These are her compositions, not yours. And as far as style - ha - I've got a lovely full plate albumen print nearby of my mother as a little girl holding a kitten, and her little brother dressed up as Little Lord Fauntleroy in Edwardian style by the studio photographer, and plainly scowling displeased about it, ruffled collar and all. No wonder he grew up to become a communist alcoholic atheist right out of a Eugene O'Neill play.

Wayne · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Wayne - your next remark. What you like to call an "error" was once standard terminology, and still is for the majority of the common public, at least in this country. Everyone knows that "Eskimos" dwell in the far north; many laymen have never heard the term "Inuit". The Canadian custom might be different now. It's nice to use correct terminology about specific tribes while poisoning them with tar sand effluent, and turning a blind eye to sea-level rise destroying the lives of others. Want to go climbing Mt Everest? That is how you'd book a guide. Chomolungma might be more correct to one specific local ethnicity, but that's what's still on the maps. Lighten up.

I am old enough to recall bitter exchanges between two old Indians in the same elderly facility who had both grown up prior to White contact, but from lethally opposing tribes. I'm sure they both used terms for one another far worse and derogatory than any I can think of.

There are no Inuit in the tar sands. But do go on.

Vaughn · Feb 3, 2021

eddie said:
It's not so much that we've become more intelligent. It's that our prehistoric ancestors need for survival was a full time pursuit. Leisure time, and with it aesthetic pursuits, are a more modern luxury.

A misconception -- tough times came and went, but based on recent and present day hunter/gatherers, all the work required for survival (food gathering, cave chores) was generally about a 32 hour week. That leaves a lot of leisure time to do things like memorizing and teaching the group's oral history, making observations of natural phenomenon, and understanding the world around them.

We are much more civilized now -- we got computers!

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

jnantz - what kind of chip do you have on your shoulder, or what kind axe are you trying to grind anyway? Does it even cross your mind that you're throwing around a lot of prejudicial stereotypes of your own? ONLY Europeans were mistreating American tribes? They never did anything cruel to each other? No difference. Europeans have done terrible things to each other seemingly every century; native Americans warred, tortured, took captives and enslaved them, and sometimes even committed genocide against each other. Societies all over the world have done awful things. Don't point the finger just one direction and not expect a finger pointed straight back.

And yes, Wayne, I quite aware the Inuit are well north of the tar sands; that's why I mentioned their own dilemma in a separate phrase.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
These are her compositions, not yours

... and not yours either. You say they were “kitschy” and I say poorly focused. So what?

... and Mortensen’s were his compositions too... not yours or mine.

Not much left to discuss then. Good night.

Arthurwg · Feb 4, 2021

I read a book once that claimed the Inuit would offer visitors the comfort of their wives.

Patrick Robert James · Feb 4, 2021

I think some of you old farts need to eat more bran. Just because you think you are an expert doesn't make your opinion mean much.... Especially those that claim they are photographers but never even show an image. I suppose after all these years of reading the blather of some I should be used to it.

Vaughn · Feb 4, 2021

Arthurwg said:
I read a book once that claimed the Inuit would offer visitors the comfort of their wives.

That is the white male fantasy version of the practice.

Wayne · Feb 4, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
jnantz - what kind of chip do you have on your shoulder, or what kind axe are you trying to grind anyway? Does it even cross your mind that you're throwing around a lot of prejudicial stereotypes of your own? ONLY Europeans were mistreating American tribes? They never did anything cruel to each other? No difference. Europeans have done terrible things to each other seemingly every century; native Americans warred, tortured, took captives and enslaved them, and sometimes even committed genocide against each other. Societies all over the world have done awful things. Don't point the finger just one direction and not expect a finger pointed straight back.

And yes, Wayne, I quite aware the Inuit are well north of the tar sands; that's why I mentioned their own dilemma in a separate phrase.

Well it was still awful nice of you to dumb it down for the laymen, instead of presuming there is other intelligent life here.

BrianShaw · Feb 4, 2021

Vaughn said:
That is the white male fantasy version of the practice.

Ok... from a non-white-male perspective, educate us. Please. And since this is a photography forum... illustrations would be very nice too! And since this thread is about the diverse styles of Adams and Mortensen... feel free to emulate one, or the other, or both.

DREW WILEY · Feb 4, 2021

Arthur - what you mentioned was routine hospitality among some plains tribes - loaning daughters and wives to visitors. It's how French fur trappers spread syphilis so far and wide even before US sponsored expeditions mapped the western frontier. Even Meriwether Lewis (ot Lewis and Clark) contracted it. The expedition carried mercury with it, which was a known and effective cure. But mercury has severe side effects of course, and is the probable cause of Lewis' fits of insanity later in life.

It was definitely NOT the practice of tribes in my area.

Isolated small Polynesian island populations had a similar custom, and for a reason - they were concerned about the risk of inbreeding. That would have logically been a concern among widely scattered small groups in the far north too.

Vaughn · Feb 4, 2021

Actually, Lewis and Clark and their men took mercury-containing medicine for constipation, not syphilis (but possible it was a dual purpose drug?) Most likely due to a high meat diet. Their campsites have been found by the mercury in the latrine pits.

Brian - I'll leave it up to others to do their research on it...from religious practices to hospitality to women beating the shit of their husbands and tossing them into the snow for offering them to someone else.

DREW WILEY · Feb 5, 2021

The two most common and obvious outright "chemo" cures were mercury and arsenic, and were long used for a number of things, including parasitic worms. There was a hush-hush antibiotic resistant strain of syphilis still treated with an arsenic derivative as recently as 20 yrs ago. I don't know about now; it's still hush-hush, but they've probably found a safer treatment. The whole point was to kill off the pathogen faster than the person himself; but the side effects were awful. Get ahold of an old Parasitology textbook from, say, the 1940's - downright spooky.

As far as Meriwether Lewis goes, the relevant scholars can debate that. But he did exhibit symptoms of prolonged mercury treatment for something serious, and syphilis is the logical explanation. The customs of tribes are well documented, as is the fact the early imprint of the syphilis epidemic pretty much matches the wide geographic range of French fur trapper along the river interior rivers. Lewis himself was appointed or rewarded as the governor of the Louisiana Purchase from the French, but went erratic. I've known cases of prolonged mercury poisoning, and they can get pretty wild. "Mad Hatter", daguerrotypists.

Sirius Glass · Feb 5, 2021

Is it possible to get back on topic?

macfred · Feb 5, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
Is it possible to get back on topic?

Great idea! What do we have until now ... ?
Ansel persuaded the Native American people who traditionally lived in the Yosemite Valley to offer the comfort of their wives to Mortensen ? Mortensen got infected and due to the mercury therapy he became wild ?

Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?

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