Free Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan

distance, the shadows of their figures
     reflected in the water. The resulting photograph was called
The Three Chiefs.
    Curtis talked White Calf into posing. He was drawn to the chief’s head, which stood
     out because he was bald. At the appointed hour, the chief showed up—but he had donned
     a blond wig and was dressed in a faded blue army uniform, with a soldier’s hat on
     top. Curtis got a laugh out of that, but nothing that was worth bringing to light
     later in the studio. This episode with White Calf showed the kind of conflict Curtis
     would face time and again, the clash of the old with the new. Curtis would always
     side with the old, no matter how much it had been supplanted, because the fast-disappearing
     past, he felt, was the authentic. The twentieth century had no place in the nascent
     Curtis Indian project.
    Near the end of the Blackfeet summer, Curtis told Grinnell his mind was set. He would
     embark on a massive undertaking, even bigger than Bird had suggested: a plan to photograph
     all intact Indian communities left in North America, to capture the essence of their
     lives before that essence disappeared. “The record, to be of value to future generations,
     must be ethnologically accurate,” he said. As sketched by Curtis, it was an impossibly
     grandiose idea, and he was vague on the specifics of how to pay for it, how inclusive
     it would be, how long it would take and how he would present the finished product.
     What’s more, after recording the songs of the Sun Dance, Curtis further expanded his
     scope and ambition: he would try to be a keeper of secrets—not just a photographer,
     but a stenographer of the Great Mystery. And did Edward Curtis, with his sixth-grade
     education, really expect to perform the multiple roles of ethnographer, anthropologist
     and historian? He did. What Curtis lacked in credentials, he made up for in confidence—the
     personality trait that had led him to Angeline’s shack and Rainier’s summit. Bird
     loved the Big Idea.
     
    When he boarded the train back to Seattle, on the same Great Northern line that had
     opened up Blackfeet land and doomed it as bison hunting ground, Curtis knew he was
     taking home photographic gold. The long hours, the respectful silences and the fair
     exchange of cash for posing had paid off. He could not wait to show the images to
     the rest of the world. A few months later, when his pictures went on display at the
     San Francisco art store of William Morris, they immediately “attracted a great deal
     of comment,” a newspaper in the city reported. In an interview, Curtis was effusive.
     He gushed about how much the Sun Dance had affected him. But the paper made light
     of what Curtis considered serious work. “There is just one feat more difficult than
     introducing an Indian to the bathtub, and that is to make him face a camera,” the
     story began. Dime-store Indians again, plenty of hokum; it was enough to make Curtis
     wonder if the public would ever care for his planned epic. Though Curtis had gone
     into considerable detail with the reporter about the glory, power and intricacy of
     the Sun Dance, the paper described the experience as “five days crammed with weird
     customs.”
    Back in Seattle, Curtis had to take domestic considerations into account. The project
     would involve so much time away from home, from the studio, from his growing family.
     Where would Clara fit in? What was her role? She had encouraged Edward to move across
     Puget Sound, to mortgage his homestead, to reach for Rainier’s summit, and at every
     step she had followed—and occasionally led. But with three children, she knew the
     family had to balance the pragmatic with the idealistic. Who would tend to the debs,
     the prosperous and pink-faced merchants, those willing to make a special trip from
     out of town, waiting months to have Curtis take their picture? Beyond the paying work,
     Curtis was already famous among those who thought a