Beyond the Reach of Time and Change: Native American Reflections on the Frank A. Rinehart Photograph Collection (Volume 53)

by Simon J. Ortiz (Editor)

Around the turn of the twentieth century, most photographs of Indians pandered to shameless, insensitive stereotypes. In contrast, photographic portraits made by Frank A. Rinehart conveyed the dignity and pride of Native peoples. More than 545 Native Americans representing tribes from all over the country attended the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha in 1898 to be part of an event known as the Indian Congress. Rinehart, the exposition’s official photographer, and his assistant Adolph Muhr made more than 500 glass-plate negatives depicting Native Americans in their traditional dress, now housed at Haskell Indian Nations University and regarded as one of the best photographic documentations of Indian leaders from this era.

This book provides an unusual perspective on the Rinehart collection. It features one hundred outstanding images printed from the original negatives made by Rinehart and Muhr at the Congress and over the course of the next two years. It also includes 14 essays by modern Native American writers, artists, and educators—some of them descendants of the individuals photographed—reflecting on the place of these images in their heritage.

Beyond the Reach of Time and Change is not another coffee-table book of historical Indian photographs but rather a conversation between Indian people of a century ago and today. Just as the Rinehart collection offers today's Native Americans a unique connection to the past, this book offers all readers a positive understanding of continuity and endurance within the American Indian community.

Genres: Native Americans, Photography, History, Nonfiction, Essays, Cultural

184 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Simon J. Ortiz is a Puebloan writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance. He is one of the most respected and widely read Native American poets.

After a three-year stint in the U.S. military, Ortiz enrolled at the University of New Mexico. There, he discovered few ethnic voices within the American literature canon and began to pursue writing as a way to express the generally unheard Native American voice that was only beginning to emerge in the midst of political activism.

Two years later, in 1968, he received a fellowship for writing at the University of Iowa in the International Writers Program.

In 1988, he was appointed as tribal interpreter for Acoma Pueblo, and in 1989 he became First Lieutenant Governor for the pueblo. In 1982, he became a consulting editor of the Pueblo of Acoma Press.

Since 1968, Ortiz has taught creative writing and Native American literature at various institutions, including San Diego State, the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Navajo Community College, the College of Marin, the University of New Mexico, Sinte Gleska University, and the University of Toronto.

Ortiz is a recipient of the New Mexico Humanities Council Humanitarian Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and was an Honored Poet recognized at the 1981 White House Salute to Poetry.

In 1981, From Sand Creek: Rising In This Heart Which Is Our America, received the Pushcart Prize in poetry.

Ortiz received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers (the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers) and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (1993)

Reviews

[Kelsey Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Unlike many non-natives who view lineage as a line with no connection from one end to another, we see ourselves as belonging to a spiral, with ancestors and descendants ever winding, almost touching--illustrating the impact and relationship our generations have upon each other" -Bobbi Rahdler

The books structure completes a spiral and presents a conversation between the past and the present--photographs from the Exposition (Indian Congress 1898 in Omaha) situated among essays from today.

"You're in the present moment that was then" (Ortiz 3)

Perfect pairing with Wendy Red Star's "Indian Congress" at the Joslyn Art Museum

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1898-1900, Frank A. Rinehart and Adolph Muhr photographed more than 500 American Indians from about 35 tribes who had come to Omaha, Nebraska for the Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. Here, about 100 of the images preserved by the Haskell Indian Nations University are reproduced. Essays by the Haskell archivist and 14 Native authors, artists, historians, educators, and journalists accompany the collection.

Among the "coffee-table" books of early American Indian portraits that I have seen, this one is one of the most instructive, in large part because of the variety of disciplinary and personal perspectives the essayists bring to the work. Several point out the contrived nature of early photographs of indigenous people -- that backdrops, costumes, lighting, poses, and props were chosen to connote the (white) photographer's conception of what a Native person should look like, rather than capture the subject as (s)he really was. Another important theme, brought up most explicitly in James Riding In's, Geary Hobson's, and Laura Tohe's essays, is the lack of popular interest in documenting contemporary or evolving Native people, despite the government's coercive efforts to assimilate them. Notwithstanding the beauty and dignity of the persons in the photographs, some authors point out that making "expositions" of Americans Indians was sometimes an exploitative, frightening, or intrusive act (see Julie Cajune's "Beyond Loss and Pain" and Ted Jolola's "Photographs from Hell"). A few authors, such as Gregory Cajete, are descendants of the people in the photographs and add family stories to place images in context. As the reactions of Beverly Singer and Debra Earling show, seeing relatives evokes conflicting feelings of loss and pride. Others, including Ned Blackhawk, share their own stories of racial discrimination, which continues to happen because of popular culture that exoticizes and dehumanizes American Indians.

My only complaint about Beyond the Reach is its layout. The images which are referenced in the essays are not placed near the pertinent text, making it a bother to flip back and forth. For example, the image of (Pueblo) Pedro Cajete (pg. 32) is nowhere near his descendant's essay (beginning pg. 88). Similarly, the image of Cassamino Tafoya which Beverly Singer discusses in her chapter (pg. 39) is buried much deeper within the book (pg. 102) and another photograph she cites is not included at all. Although several indexes are provided, it would have been more helpful to have in-text citations to the photographs if they could not have been placed near. Nonetheless, this is an important work for anyone interested in American Indian history or the history of photography.

[Leann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully breathtaking photos and very poignant essays that make you think. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and looking through the photos of a Native American history!