9.20.2008

Bone Necklace. Oglala Sioux Chief c. 1899


Photographic Print, hand colored 15.5 x 12.5

Heyn Photo, Photographer. Omaha.  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Control #2008675510.  There are many many striking photographs of Native Americans, this one of a chief and a portrait, taken at the turn-of-the-century.  The treatment of Native Americans as photographic subjects, particularly as in a case with a tribe still not fully assimilated, is strikingly different from most African American portraits.  This one is also beautifully colored. 

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I am a writer and a professor of English at the City College of New York, and the CUNY Graduate Center. My books include Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1979), Invisibility Blues (1990), Black Popular Culture (1992), and Dark Designs and Visual Culture (2005). I write cultural criticism frequently and am currently working on a project on creativity and feminism among the women in my family, some of which is posted on the Soul Pictures blog.