Return to the land of the head hunters : Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwạkạ'wakw, and the making of modern cinema

Book

Return to the land of the head hunters : Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwạkạ'wakw, and the making of modern cinema / edited by Brad Evans and Aaron Glass.

Evans, Brad, 1968- (editor of compilation.). Glass, Aaron, (editor of compilation.).

Summary:

The first silent feature film with an "all Indian" cast and a surviving original orchestral score, Edward Curtis's 1914 In the Land of the Head Hunters was a landmark of early cinema. Influential but often neglected in historical accounts, this spectacular melodrama was an intercultural product of Curtis's encounter and collaboration with the Kwakwaka'wakw of British Columbia.

In recognition of the film's centennial, and alongside the release of a restored version, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy. The volume offers unique Kwakwaka'wakw perspectives on the film, accounts of its production and subsequent circulation, and evaluations of its depictions of cultural practice.Like his photographs, Curtis's motion picture was meant to document a supposedly vanishing race. But as this collection shows, the film is not simply an artifact of colonialist nostalgia. Resituated within film history and informed by a legacy of Kwakwaka'wakw participation and response, the movie offers dynamic evidence of ongoing cultural survival and transformation under shared conditions of modernity.

Record details

ISBN: 9780295993447 (hardback : alk. paper)
ISBN: 0295993448 (hardback : alk. paper)
Physical Description: xxvii, 420 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates ; 27 cm.
Publisher: Seattle, WA : University of Washington Press, [2014]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Introduction. Edward Curtis meets the Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw : cultural encounter and Indigenous agency : In the land of the head hunters / Aaron Glass and Brad Evans -- Part One. Mediating Indians/Complicating Curtis. Edward Curtis and In the land of the head hunters : four contexts / Mick Gidley ; Images of time : portraiture in The North American Indian / Shamoon Zamir ; Indian landscapes : Pauline Johnson and Edward Curtis / Kate Flint ; A chamber of echoing songs : Edward Curtis as a musical ethnographer / Ira Jacknis ; Photo essay 1. "At the kitchen table with Edward Curtis" / Jeff Thomas -- Part Two. Head Hunters Across Two Centuries. Consuming the Head hunters : a century of film reception / Aaron Glass and Brad Evans ; Unmasking the documentary : notes on the anxiety of Edward Curtis / Colin Browne ; Indian movies and the vernacular of modernism / Brad Evans ; Musical intertextuality in Indigenous film : making and remaking In the land of the head hunters / Klisala Harrison ; Reflections on working with Edward Curtis / Barbara Cranmer (T̓łak̲wagila̲'og̲wa) ; Photo essay 2. "Old images/new views : Indigenous perspectives on Edward Curtis" / Dr. E. Richard Atleo, Pam Brown, Marie Clements, Karrmen Crey, Mique'l Icesis Dangeli, Andy Everson, Linc Kesler, David Neel, Evelyn Vanderhoop, and William Wasden Jr. -- Part Three. Reimagining Curtis Today. In the land of the head hunters : reconstruction, not restoration / Jere Guldin ; In the land of the head hunters and the history of silent film music / David Gilbert ; Performing Braham, interpreting Curtis : a conversation on conducting / Neal Stulberg, Owen Underhill, Timothy Long, and Laura Ortman ; "What the creator gave to us" : an interview with William Wasden Jr. (Wax̲a̲widi) ; Cultural interpretation / Dave Hunsaker ; The Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw business of showing : tradition meets modernity on the silver screen and the world stage / Aaron Glass -- Afterword / Paul Chaat Smith -- Appendix 1. Promotional images for In the land of the head hunters -- Appendix 2. The Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw cast and crew of In the land of the head hunters -- Appendix 3. Curtis film props in the collection of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture -- Appendix 4. Title cards from the 2008 reconstruction of In the land of the head hunters.