If you watched any television in the 1970s, you’ll
recall the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign featuring Iron Eyes
Cody – the Indian actor whose image, with a tear rolling down his
wrinkled cheek, persuaded us to put litter in its place. His teary
eye taught our society more than was ever intended – it helped
create a distorted notion of what Native Americans look like today.
A photograph of Cody’s modern-day war bonnet, two feet tall and
replete with feathers and beadwork, is among the contemporary
culture icons featured in the pages of Powerful Images: Portrayals
of Native America, a 144-page collection of five essays and
lovingly reproduced color photographs. From their collections,
museums around the West have chosen photos of everything from
Hollywood movie posters to 100-year-old Lakota beadwork to show
what shaped our society’s understanding of Indian culture. In an
essay titled “Powerful Images: Art and Plains of the Southwest,”
Emma Hansen, a Pawnee, writes that “North American Indian languages
have no equivalent word for “art.” “””It’s an ironic revelation,
given that this book’s pages are filled with art, including photos
of a Salish cradleboard from Montana and a southern Arapaho
ghost-dance shirt of ornately painted buffalo
hide.
Powerful Images: Portrayals of Native
America, $29.95, is published by Museums West in association with
the University of Washington Press, Box 50096, Seattle, WA
98145-5096 (800/441-4115).
* Dustin
Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Picturing Native American Culture.
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