Short Writing Assignment 2

Curtis Hopi
Originally uploaded by jilliansayre

The photo I have chosen by Edward Curtis is entitled Hopi. I am assuming that this is the name of the Indian tribe that the subjects in the photograph are from. The genre is the labor of an old Indian tribe. The medium is a non-colored photograph. The historical context that I can gain from this photograph is that because of the medium we know that it had to have been taken in at least the early 20th century. This means that it is the much later part of the Native American era, yet we see that their civilization has not advanced itself to the times. The subject of the photograph is four Hopi Indian women. They are located inside some type of working house. It looks like a very small space and probably made out of some type of adobe or clay. There are tools or various equipments hanging in the background, implying that the subjects are not inside a home. The arrangement of the women is all four equal to each other in a single line. This shows them as all from the same caste; not one is more important than the other. They are completing some kind of task. They each have their own defined space in which they are rolling something. In front of them it looks like there is a bowl of maybe some kind of grain. Maybe they are rolling out dough.
Never the less, the women are being displayed as an inferior body. They are all on their knees and looking down, a clear symbol of submissiveness. There is no distinction between them showing a lack of individuality. They are all wearing the same clothes, which are very simple and plain. It looks like a robe with a shawl over their shoulders. However, they are completely covered, something different than what we saw with the early Native Americans. Perhaps, this was because over time the influence of the Europeans showed them it was right to cover one’s body. Their hair is also identical. It is parted down the middle with two twisted buns, one on each side of their head. Perhaps since they are working they put their hair back as to not get in the way of their work.