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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2015)
SILETZ NEWS Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Vol. 43, No. 5 May 2015 Siletz News Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians P.O. Box 549 Siletz, OR 97380-0549 Delores Pigsley, Tribal Chairman Brenda Bremner, General Manager and Editor-in-Chief Presorted First-Class Mail U.S. Postage Paid - Permit No. 178 Salem, OR Portland Art Museum to present major exhibition of Indian photos Courtesy photo by Kathy Kentta Robinson Bella Gomez (left) and Jaretzi Alonso enjoy an Easter egg hunt for Siletz Tribal Head Start students on Government Hill in Siletz. See more photos on page 13. STAHS presents 10 baskets at Tribal Council meeting The Siletz Tribal Arts and Heritage Society acquired 10 beautiful bas- kets in February and early March. The baskets were presented to the Tribal Council and then delivered to our repository on March 20 for our future Siletz Cultural Center. STAHS works directly with our Culture Depart- ment staff to identify and acquire appropriate bas- kets. Most baskets are pur- chased or donated. STAHS is a nonprofit corporation and accepts tax-deductible donations. I n F e b r u a r y, G r a n d Ronde cultural staff gifted the Siletz Tribe with a Siletz basket recovered with other stolen property during a police raid in Marion County. Special thanks to the Grand Ronde Tribe for helping us build our collection. The Portland Art Museum is proud to present Capturing Indians: Native Pho- tographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy from Feb. 5 to May 6, 2016. This major exhibition will feature contemporary photographs by Ameri- can Indian photographers Zig Jackson, Wendy Red Star, Matika Wilbur and Will Wilson in dialogue with photographs from Edward Sheriff Curtis’ renowned body of work The North American Indian. This exhibition and associated edu- cational programming will ask visitors to consider Curtis’ continuing influence on the interpretation of American Indian culture while highlighting contemporary reactions to his complex role within the history of representation of indigenous peoples. Capturing Indians will feature mul- tiple volumes from the groundbreaking publication The North American Indian. Funded by financier and philanthropist J.P. Morgan, the 20-book set was pub- lished in a limited edition between 1907 and 1930. Curtis’ magnum opus charts the cul- tural practices, languages and traditions of more than 80 American Indian Tribes. More than 1,500 photogravures illustrate the book volumes and the portfolios hold an additional 700 large-scale images. Rich both for its artistry and histori- cal content, The North American Indian is considered one of the most significant non-indigenous records of American Indian culture ever produced and the museum possesses a complete set. Curtis, a non-Native who believed that American Indians were a “vanishing race,” produced a meaningful yet romanticized record of Tribal life at the turn of the 20 th century. The photographs he included in The North American Indian document significant aspects of daily life and mate- rial culture, and encourage nostalgia for societies under threat of elimination. This beautiful but often idealized representation of Native culture has elicited both praise and scrutiny as many photographs were posed and manipulated in order to eliminate signs of modern life and create the artifice of a pre-European snapshot in time. Yet, because of Curtis’ thorough documentation, some present-day Tribal members utilize The North American Indian to identify ancestors and cultural objects critical to their histories. In response to the current rich dia- logues surrounding Curtis’ photographs, See Photos on page 4
