Native American Beauties: Part 2

Posted on December 21, 2017 by Moko

The Indians of the Americas are admired for their freedom and independence. Although their traditional culture based on hunting has disappeared from most of the Americas, its legend will always live on.

The first photograph is of a Southern Cheyenne girl holding a bow and arrows. I estimate that the photo was taken in about 1890. To put that date in context, here are some of the things that happened in that era: by 1883 the great bison herds had been destroyed and the traditional life of the buffalo hunters was no longer possible; in 1890 the census bureau declared that the frontier, the border between the White-inhabited United States and Indian country, no longer existed; in October 1898 the last official battle of the Indian Wars of the United States was fought at Leech Lake; and on 29 August, 1911 the stone age in the United States came to an end when the last surviving Yahi Indian came to “civilization”. The demure little Cheyenne girl in the photo no doubt saw a lot of change in her lifetime.

Photographer unknown – A Southern Cheyenne Girl (c1890)

It may seem a little incongruous that the girl is holding a bow and arrows; we usually associate weapons with males. While the photo is obviously a studio portrait, and the bow and arrows may be merely a photographer’s prop, it is not necessarily inappropriate for a female to be photographed with a bow. It may be surprising, but a few of the Indian warriors were female. Nonhelema, known to the Whites as “Grenadier Squaw” first achieved renown as a Shawnee warrior during the Battle of Brushy Run in 1764. During the Revolutionary War she was a chief, and one of the few Indians to support the American side. Her service to the American Army as a guide, interpreter, and warrior were invaluable to the cause of American Independence.

The next two portraits are from the same era. Both are of Lakota Sioux girls, and both girls traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. To a person in the 21st century, it may seem strange that Indians were honored performers in a popular show at a time when the Indian War was in progress. It may also seem strange that the portrait of an Indian chief in a war bonnet was on U.S. one-cent coins during the Indian Wars. (Actually the design of the Indian head cent was based on a drawing of a 12-year old girl wearing an Indian war bonnet.)

Photographer unknown – Lizzie, Daughter of Sioux Chief, Long Wolf (c1890)

Elliot and Fry – Wa-Ka-Cha-Sha (Red Rose) The Pet of the Sioux (1887)

The next four photographs are also Sioux girls. The Sioux, more properly known as Dakota or Lakota, depending on the dialect they speak, are perhaps the most famous Indian nation in the United States. The Sioux dress, as shown in these photos, is what most people envision when they think of “Indian”. In the present, some tribes that wore quite different clothing formerly have adopted clothing based on the Sioux for ceremonial occasions. Two of the photos are by well-known photographers, John Alvin Anderson and Edward Curtis. The beaded swastikas on the dress of one of the Lakota girls represent a common symbol, widely used by many American Indian tribes long before the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party made it infamous.

John Alvin Anderson – Katie Blue Thunder, age 8, a Brule Sioux (1898)

Heyn Photo – Her Know, Dakota Sioux (1899)

Edward Curtis – Daughter of American Horse (1908)

Photographer unknown – Lakota Girls (c1900)

The following five photographs are of girls of various tribes from the United States. The first is a studio portrait of two Kiowa girls in fancy dress. The second is a postcard portrait of a pretty Mesquakie (aka Fox) girl. The third is a tinted postcard cute little girl of an unknown tribe. The fourth is a Hupa girl of California wearing elaborate beadwork. The Hupa are one of the few tribes to retain most of their land to the present time. The fifth photo shows a Seminole mother and daughters in Florida. The monochromatic image does not show the bright colors preferred by the Seminoles and related Mikasukis for their dresses.

C.C. Stolz– Kiowa Indian Girls (c1890-1907)

Photographer unknown – Mesquakie Girl (c1915)

F.A. Rinehart – Untitled (1905)

Patterson – The Fair Little Indian Maid (c1930)

Photographer unknown – Seminole Mother with Her Children Including Five Day Old Baby (1948)

The American Indians are the original people of the continents of North and South America. So far, this post has only mentioned Indians of the United States. The following photos are all of Indians outside of the United States. The first is a portrait of a Stoney girl posed in front of Tipis in Banff, Canada. The Stoney Indians are closely related to the Sioux, and speak a similar language.

Photographer unknown – Stoney Indian Girl (c1900)

The next photo is from Mexico. It may be found on the official Mexican government site for The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia here. Although the girls are not specifically identified as Indians, they have Indian features. Most Mexicans are either Indian or an Indian-White mix, and it is unlikely that girls of the Mexican elite white class would bathe outdoors in a river. The girls’ pose seems a bit unnatural, and their facial expressions seem to imply they have been chastised. I don’t know the story behind the photo, but this is my idea of what happened. Scott, the photographer, was making a photographic record of life in the area. Bathing in rivers is a typical part of life, so he felt that he must photograph the girls, perhaps when they were in the water so most of their bodies were not visible. When the girls saw the photographer, they got out of the river and posed naturally. Scott then reprimanded them for their lack of modesty, and instructed them to adopt the shy poses. This is merely my personal interpretation of the photo, but it seems to fit the poses and facial expressions.

W. Scott – Niñas Bañistas en un Río (c1904)

The next photograph is a postcard from Brazil. This photograph of an Indian mother and daughter was posed, yet appears much more natural than the previous photo from Mexico. I was not able to find the photographer or date of the picture, but when researching it I found an image of the postcard with cancelled Brazilian postage stamps affixed. This demonstrates that in Brazil, the postcard was respectable enough to be sent in the mail, in spite of the nudity of the subjects. I wonder if the postcard would be acceptable to postal authorities in this country.

Photographer unknown – Brasil Indias Kamaiuras del Alto Xingu (c1965)

[The picture above is the one the Canadian Centre for Child Protection objected to mentioned in the December 2021 ‘Maiden Voyages’] -Ron

Perhaps there is a different attitude about such things in Brazil. The following photograph of the Kuarup ceremony at the Kalapalo Indian village features nude girls dancing in the Kuarup ceremony. It is from the official web page of the government of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The photo is published here.

Photographer unknown – Celebração do Kuarup no Parque Indígena do Xingu, na Aldeia Kalapalo (2006)

Painting American Beauties: Karen Noles

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Moko

Karen Noles was born in Nebraska in 1947. She attended the Omaha School of Commercial Art. After graduation, she worked as an artist for the Hallmark Card Company. She then moved to Montana and lives near the Flathead Indian Reservation.

The Flatheads call themselves “Salish” in their native language. Neighboring tribes formerly bound the heads of infants so they would develop a pointed skull. The Flathead people did not bind the infant’s heads, so neighboring tribes called them “Flatheads”. Karen Noles’ models are from the Flathead Tribe.

She writes, “I love painting children because of their innocence, their genuine, honest, and spontaneous response to life.”

The first image is of a girl with hair in traditional braids holding a basket.

Karen Noles – Little White Dove

The next painting, of a girl in front of a teepee, is titled Little Bare Feet.

Karen Noles – Little Bare Feet

Safe and Serene is the title of the painting of an Indian girl holding a young fox.

Karen Noles – Safe and Serene

The next portrait is called Little Bear. Perhaps it is the girl’s name.

Karen Noles – Little Bear

The painting of the girl with a cat is Feathers and Fur.

Karen Noles – Feathers and Fur

The flowers in this painting appear quite large; Little Wildflower may be the name of the girl.

Karen Noles – Little Wildflower

One of my favorites is this cute girl holding a doll.

Karen Noles – Shy One

The girl and the pup both seem happy.

Karen Noles – Innocent Delight

The last painting I will post is Kiowa Babysitter. Although most of the models are of the Salish or Flathead tribe, the artist sometimes references other Indian Nations in her work. Most Kiowa live in Oklahoma.

Karen Noles – Kiowa Babysitter

Unfortunately, I was not able to find the dates each painting was completed.

Karen Noles’ web page

Native American Beauties

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Moko

In the year 1500, Pedro Cabral became the first European in recorded history to visit Brazil. He seemed particularly impressed by the beauty of the Indian girls he encountered, and he wrote,

Aly amdavam antr’eles tres ou quatro moças bem moças e bem jentijs, com cabelos mujto pretos comprjdos pelas espadoas, e suas vergonhas tão altas e tam çaradinhas, e tam limpas das cabeleiras, que de as nos mujto bem olharmos nom tijnhamos nenhuūa vergonha.

The translation, according to Alessandro Zir is,

In that place, three or four young women walked among them, very young and very heathen, with very black hair, long to the shoulder blades, and their shames so high, so shut, and so cleaned from hair that, so well we look at them, we felt no kind of shame. -Luso-Brazilian Encounters of the Sixteenth Century, a styles of Thinking Approach by Alessandro Zir, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011

The word vergonhas, which he translates as shame, was a euphemism for genitals. Four hundred years later, the Indian girls of tropical South America became a favorite subject for photography. The first photo is of two girls of the Canela tribe in Brazil. The photograph, taken between 1908 and 1946, is from the Coleção Etnográfica Carlos Estevão de Oliveira of the Museu do Estado de. Pernambuco.

(Uncredited) – Canela Tribe Girls

These Okaina girls were photographed by Thomas Whiffen in 1914 in either Peru or Colombia.

Thomas Whiffen – Okaina girls (1914)

This photo is of a South American dance. It was published in The Secret Museum of Mankind in 1935.

(Uncredited) – Snake Dance of Amazonian Girls

Indian girls impressed early European visitors to North America as well. William Strachey, secretary for the Jamestown colony in Virginia wrote, in 1612, an account of Pocahontas coming to Jamestown naked and turning cartwheels with the boys of the colony:

Pocahontas a well-featured but wanton young girle . . . sometymes resorting to our Fort, of the age then of 11, or 12 yeares…would gett the boyes forth with her into the markett place and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning their heeles upwardes, whom she would follow, and wheel so herself naked as she was all the Fort over . . . .

Although Pocahontas has been a subject of several artists, she is usually depicted as older and fully clothed.

A statue of a young Pocahontas stands in Gloucester County, Virginia. The sculpture by Adolf Sehring was completed in 1994. This photo is from a postcard by Michelle Harbour.

Adolf Sehring – Pocahontas (1994)

David McFall made a nude statue of Pocahontas Pocohontas La Belle Sauvage in 1955. However, Pocahontas appears to be about 20 years old in this statue.

In Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians
by George Catlin, first published in London in 1844, Catlin writes of his visit to the Minataree Indian village on the Upper Missouri River. He wrote:

In this manner we were conveyed to the middle of the stream, where we were soon surrounded by a dozen or more beautiful girls, from twelve to fifteen and eighteen years of age, who were at that time bathing on the opposite shore.

They all swam in a bold and graceful manner, and as confidently as so many otters or beavers; and gathering around us, with their long black hair floating about on the water, whilst their faces were glowing with jokes and fun, which they were cracking about us, and which we could not, understand.

In the midst of this delightful little aquatic group, we three sat in our little skin-bound tub (like the “three wise men of Gotham, who went to sea in a bowl,” &c.), floating along down the current, losing sight, and all thoughts, of the shore, which was equi-distant from us on either side; whilst we were amusing ourselves with the playfulness of these dear little creatures who were floating about under the clear blue water, catching their hands on to the sides of our boat; occasionally raising one-half of their bodies out of the water, and sinking again, like so many mermaids.

Catlin was a pianter, but unfortunately did not paint a picture of this incident.

The anthropologist Frederick Starr photographed this girl in Silao, Mexico, while doing research among the Indians in 1896. The image is scanned from the book Partial Recall, edited by Lucy R. Lippard (1992).

Frederick Starr – La Pinta, Silao, Mexico (1896)

Frederick Monsen was born in Norway in 1865. He immigrated to America, and became a photographer. He accompanied the Army on the expedition that captured Geronimo in 1886. He is best known for his early 20th century photographs of Indian life in the southwestern United States. The first two images were photographed in about 1907.

Frederick I. Monsen – Nude pueblo Indian girl holding small child at swimming pool (c1907)

Frederick I. Monsen – A Study in Bronze (c1907)

The third image by Monsen was taken in about 1890, and was published in National Geographic in 1921.

Frederick I Monsen - Three naked, Hopi girls sit together on a rock ledge (1921)

Frederick I Monsen – Three naked, Hopi girls sit together on a rock ledge (circa1890)

The photo of this Hopi girl is by Edward Curtis. Curtis (1868–1952) is one of the most famous photographers to specialize in American Indians. He began photographing Indians in 1895. In 1906, J.P. Morgan financed a project to photograph and document as much of the remaining traditional Indian culture as possible.

Edward Curtis – Hopi Angel (c1905)

The next two photos are of Kiowa girls, both from the early 20th century or late 19th century.

(Photographer Unknown) – Kiowa Girl (c1900)

(Photographer Unknown) - O-o-be-aka Oyebi Kiowa girl (c1894)

(Photographer Unknown) – Oyebi Kiowa girl (c1894)

A photo of an Apache girl.

(Photographer Unknown) – Apache girl (c1880)

The next photo is from the cover of a book about Cynthia Ann Parker, a white woman captured by the Comanche Indians. I could not identify the photo or the photographer, but it is not a photo of Cynthia Ann Parker herself. It is possible that it is her half-Indian, half-White daughter, but that would only be speculation.

(Photographer Unknown) – Comanche Girl (c1870)

Although documenting the photographers and dates of these photos on the internet is difficult, it is our hope that a reader who is expert on South and/or North American Indians might come forward with more definitive information. -Ron

"A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot." – Alan Marshall Beck

Tag Archives: Native American

Native American Beauties: Part 2

Painting American Beauties: Karen Noles

Native American Beauties