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Spring 2011 ACTING FOR THE CAMERA HORACE POOLAW'S FILM STILLS OF FAMILY, 1925-1950 Hadley Jerman University of

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Jerman, Hadley, "ACTING FOR THE CAMERA HORACE POOLAW'S FILM STILLS OF FAMILY, 1925-1950" (2011). Great Plains Quarterly. 2684. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2684

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. ACTING FOR THE CAMERA HORACE POOLAW'S FILM STILLS OF FAMILY, 1925-1950

HADLEY JERMAN

[Prior to the invention of the camera], one [viewed oneself as if before a] mirror and produced the biographical portrait and the introspective biography. [Today], one poses for the camera, or still more, one acts for the motion picture. -Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934)

During the late 1920s, American technology making dramatically posed, narrative-rich historian Lewis Mumford drafted these words portraits of family members, Mumford asserted in a manuscript that would become Technics that the modern individual now viewed him or and Civilization. At the same time, pho­ herself "as a public character, being watched" by tographer Horace Poolaw began documenting others. He further suggested that humankind daily life in southwestern Oklahoma with the developed a "camera-eye" way of looking at very technology Mumford alleged altered the the world and at oneself as if continuously on way humanity saw itself. As Poolaw began display.! Among Native Americans this sense of constantly posing for a camera-usually an outsider's camera-was certainly not a new Key Words: Kiowa, motion pictures, Native Ameri­ development in 1930. writer Paul can photography, Oklahoma film history, portrait Chaat Smith compares the influence of cam­ photography, vaudeville eras and Colt revolvers on Native peoples: "If one machine nearly wiped us out ... another gave us immortality."z Certainly, the invention Hadley Jerman earned her Master of Arts in Art of Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (1787-1851) History from the in 2009. She wrote her master's thesis on Horace Poolaw's impacted Native Americans' sense of self. photography. She currently serves as graphic designer The same could be said of motion pictures. for the Sam Noble Museum in Norman, Oklahoma, In Smith's words, "We starred in scores of and as an adjunct professor for the School of Art and movies. The movies gave us international Art History at the University of Oklahoma. fame. Without them, would be an obscure chapter in Texas history books. With [GPQ 31 (Spring 2011): 105-23] them, we live forever."3 In 1930 Lewis Mumford

105 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 observed that people not only viewed them­ of self-consciously posed individuals merely selves as before a still camera but through the reinforce stereotype is to ignore the photogra­ lens of a motion-picture camera. Not merely pher's clever-even satirical-eye, the histori­ posing before a lens, humanity now acted. This cal significance, and aesthetic power of such behavioral and psychological change affected works. In fact, Poolaw's dramatically posed Americans even in the granite hills of south­ portraits often reveal the photographer at his Oklahoma, where in the decade prior artistic best. It is in these images, in particular, to the Great Depression, Horace Poolaw both that Poolaw's careful control of composition, posed in film stills and captured photographs of of lighting, and of his subjects' poses appears his kin acting for his camera. most evident. Furthermore, these family pho­ Despite Poolaw's early experience on the tographs reveal a cinematic eye honed while sets of at least two motion pictures, what has Poolaw acted in or observed the making of been written about the photographer has failed motion pictures on the Southern Plains. to acknowledge this aspect of his life or dem­ Because of their subject matter and style, onstrate the relationship between such expe­ Poolaw's dramatically posed images, rich in riences and his work. In fact, Poolaw's more implied narrative, seem to converse with and dramatic portraits, what his daughter, Linda comment on Western myth and Indian iden­ Poolaw, describes as "self-consciously posed," tity as portrayed in film during the early and have been most often explained and ultimately mid-twentieth century. They documented not dismissed by writers as inspired by vaudeville.4 only the photographer's own interests and Just as experience on film sets has been previ­ the history of his Kiowa community but also ously overlooked in Poolaw's personal history, the national changes in self-perception that serious discussions of his theatrically posed Lewis Mumford attributed to the development photographs are nearly nonexistent. Prior to of the motion-picture camera during the early the completion of Laura Smith's dissertation decades of the twentieth century. This article on Poolaw in 2008, writers typically focused on blends previously unpublished details from Poolaw's more documentary images in order to Poolaw's family history, film history, and a discuss his work as a record of Kiowa cultural stylistic analysis of the photographs themselves change, and an antithesis to stereotypical por­ to demonstrate relationships between the pho­ trayals of American Indians by Euro-American tographer's film-still-like images and two early photographers like Edward S. Curtis.5 motion pictures filmed on the Southern Plains: Poolaw's theatrically posed images may Old Texas (1916) and The Daughter of Dawn have been avoided in this discourse precisely (1920). Because Poolaw rarely spoke of his work because they fail to fit neatly within the realm and little is known of his early years behind of documentary images (Fig. 1). Because their the camera, the photographs themselves and subject matter revolves around performed family history serve as primary sources for this Indian identity, such photographs could be discussion. misconstrued as reinforcing stereotypes. The world of motion pictures was never Authors may have furthermore neglected these too distant during Horace Poolaw's youth. images because less than 20 percent of the His brother and sister-in-law were vaudeville photographer's approximately 2,000 negatives stars who "played in all of the leading Eastern consist of such dramatically posed portraits. Theatres and made a month stand at the Keith However, despite their relatively small number, Albee's New York Hippodrome Theatre, larg­ Poolaw never abandoned this type of image est in the world," and they were also celebrated making. Photographs of individuals posed as in the local Mountain View Times as destined if acting for the photographer's camera crop for the silver screen.6 Bruce Poolaw and Lucy up again and again over the entire course of "Watawasso" Nicola are significant not only his life's work. To suggest Poolaw's portraits because Horace Poolaw documented part of ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 107

FIG. 1. Horace Poolaw. Horace Poolaw, Aerial Photographer, and Gus Palmer, Gunner, MacDill Air Base, Tampa, FL, c. 1944. Horace Poolaw family collection, image courtesy of Linda Poolaw. 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011

close resemblance to film stills and contain striking lighting and shadow, implied narra­ tive, carefully constructed poses that convey arrested action, psychological tension, and the suggestion of violence or imminent danger. Poolaw's circa 1929 portrait of his three-year­ old son, Jerry, is one such image. Here, the photographer's shadow looms into the frame, dwarfing his child who appears dressed as a tiny lawman complete with shiny badge, heavy chaps, wide-brimmed hat, and looped lariat. With eyes closed and a wide grin, Jerry appears oblivious to the menacing figure facing him. 'PR I NCEi~ - Because Poolaw's body is hidden from viewers WATAWA~ O outside the frame, his shadow assumes a sinister A Full Blo oded Penohscot Indian Mezzo Soprano quality and heightens the image's implication of potential violence; it resembles a film still ~. nNIiS lm£NDS nA\M ~I£S captured precisely before the resolution of the young gunslinger's face-off with his opponent. Not only did Poolaw carefully compose the ele­ ments of the photograph to suggest a film-still­ THE PRINCESS USE.S THE "WE.BER. PIANO . like arrested narrative, Linda Poolaw believes he dressed his son for the part-not for play­ FIG. 2. Princess Watawaso [sic] brochure cover (1917). Image courtesy of the Records of the both here and in other photographs of Jerry in Redpath Lyceum Bureau, the University of Iowa costume made during the late 1920s.8 While Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. dressing, posing, and in this case acting for the camera reflect the influence of vaudeville on Poolaw's work, such elements also reflect the their lives with his camera but also because inspiration of motion pictures. Moreover, long they profoundly affected his own work. Nicola before he met Lucy "Watawasso" Nicola in the had gained nationwide fame performing Native­ mid-1920s, Horace Poolaw had participated in themed songs as "Princess Watawasso, Bright at least two motion pictures on the Southern Star of the Penobscot," an "Indian mezzo­ Plains. As early as 1916, when the young pho­ soprano" on the Chautauqua circuit during the tographer was ten years old, Poolaw witnessed 1910s and 1920s (Fig. 2). In fact, Linda Poolaw the production of a motion picture at Colonel credits the inception of performancelike, self­ Charles Goodnight's ranch in the Texas conscious poses in her father's portraits to his Panhandle. meeting with Watawasso in the mid-I920s.7 In theatrical photographs of Bruce and HUNTING BUFFALO WITH Bow AND FILM Watawasso posing as if Bruce were in midpro­ IN CHARLES GOODNIGHT'S Ow TEXAS posal, or in numerous portraits of Bruce dressed (1916) as a Hollywood style cowboy, Watawasso's stage background seems an overt influence Since the 1880s, Charles Goodnight had on Horace Poolaw's work (Fig. 3). Yet, while been raising bison on a ranch near Amarillo, vaudeville-style portraiture may explain the Texas. Later, he crossbred cattle and buffalo, use of costume and self-conscious posing in creating a small herd of "cattalo" that he Poolaw's more theatrical images, it does not tell hoped in vain would be commercially viable. the whole story. Many of Poolaw's images bear Friendship with and nostalgia for the ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 109

FIG. 3. Horace Poolaw. Bruce Poolaw and Lucy "Watawasso" Nicola Poolaw, Penobscot, Mountain View, OK, c. 1929. Horace Poolaw family collection, image courtesy of Linda Poolaw. 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011

days when Plains Indian hunters pursued bison insistence, beaded moccasins, and war bonnet on horseback led Goodnight to invite Kiowa appear juxtaposed with long johns, perhaps elders to participate in a buffalo hunt on his worn in defense against the December chill.16 ranch on October 6, 1916, more than thirty This 1916 image sheds some light on a photo­ years after the near-extinction of American graph Horace Poolaw made just over a decade bison at the hands of commercial hunters.9 The later, an image that previously has been viewed event was heralded as the "last buffalo hunt," as suggesting Watawasso's influence. and much to Goodnight's surprise, attracted Horace Poolaw's melodramatic portrait a crowd of more than 11,000 spectators who (c. 1929) of Bruce Poolaw sitting behind the arrived via wagon, automobile, carriage, mammoth head of a decapitated bison (Fig. 5) bicycle, train, and on foot. The three-day event appears simultaneously bizarre and formally culminated in a barbecued bison feast for 125 of stunning, while abounding in incongruity. Goodnight's guests. lO Both man and beast appear in profile, a double This initial hunt was filmed, photographed, portrait of sorts, with the dark entrance to a and covered in local papers. Its popularity led canvas lodge severing space behind them. Both Goodnight to invite the same group of Kiowa figures gaze in the same direction, yet the bison's hunters to his ranch two months later to per­ eye sockets are empty. Except for the startling form another hunt-this time specifically for absence of body beneath the furry neck and the motion-picture cameras of the Wiswall beard, the bison might appear to be napping. Brothers, a film production company hailing Instead, this trophy rests on an overturned from . The resulting film, Old Texas, bucket, his horns angled backward, pointing in addition to documenting the hunt, depicts toward the man's stern visage behind. Sharp Goodnight's arrival to Texas's Palo Duro forms fill the composition, reinforcing the Canyon and a Kiowa Sun Dance (which was . animal's fate: the bison's polished horns point outlawed late in the nineteenth century by at Bruce; a stake pierces the ground behind the U.S. government).l1 Ten-year-old Poolaw them. The lodge's doorway looms daggerlike, probably witnessed both of Goodnight's 1916 and each individual point of feather in Bruce's bison hunts. Linda Poolaw claims her father war bonnet gleams against softly focused grays vividly remembered the experience, describing of distant grass, fence, and foliage. it often to family members later in his life.12 Such pointed allusion to the bison's grisly Horace Poolaw had plenty reason to remember end contrasts with the pair's close proximity the action of the initial hunt and ensuing cel­ and the tonal unity of hide and cloak. In fact, ebration: a local paper recorded that his father, the pair's nearness in space and the similarity in Kiowa George, was one of the four hunters value of hide and cloak create the striking and who completed the kill.13 Also, Poolaw's family surreal impression that Bruce Poolaw rides the members believe he is likely among the Kiowa bison. Isolated in the frame, Bruce and bison children who appear throughout Old Texas appear intentionally oblivious to the camera, during the second hunt.14 as if enacting a scene from a story captured on A local paper reported after the October film. In fact, the image seems a 1929 reprise of hunt that while all four hunters' arrows hit the the 1916 still shot on Goodnight's ranch. Both mark, "it was generally conceded that Horse" men strike dramatic poses more akin to perfor­ made the critical shot.1 5 In a 1916 still snapped mance than hunt and gaze straight forward with by an unknown photographer during the pro­ stern expressions. Both men also appear iso­ duction of Old Texas two months later, "Chief lated in profile astride bison mounts, and more Hunting Horse" straddles a lifeless bison, rais­ importantly, both images detail the outcome of ing a bow and two arrows in triumph (Fig. 4). contemporary hunts staged for an audience. In the photograph, the Kiowa elder's bow and In fact, Poolaw's circa 1929 photograph arrows, employed in the hunt at Goodnight's (Fig. 5) details the outcome of a bison hunt ACTING FOR THE CAMERA III

FIG. 4. Unknown photographer. Old Horse, Kiowa Chief in movie still from Old Texas [1916J . Image courtesy of Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas. held near Mountain View at the request of his forcibly confined on reservations. A performer future sister-in-law, Lucy "Watawasso" Nicola. herself, Watawasso must have recognized that According to Linda Poolaw, Watawasso pur­ fifty years removed from the days when Plains chased the bison from the Wichita Mountain hunters followed bison herds across the western preserve near with the stipulation that Plains, the Kiowas who performed the chase Kiowas hunt it on horseback as they did decades and kill now did so as actors. earlierP Unlike most of Poolaw's portraits, here Like his predecessor at Goodnight's ranch, the viewer is allowed to see deeper in space, Poolaw documented the circa 1929 bison chase past Bruce, his shaggy companion, and the in a series of still photographs. Implied narrative lodge, into a hazy yard encircled by a stock­ and the suggestion of violence makes Poolaw's ade fence. With its subject so carefully posi­ theatrical portrait of his brother most film­ tioned in this enclosed yard of close-cropped still-like and seemingly incongruous with other grass, the photograph seems a dark comment more documentary images in the series. In one on previous generations of migratory Plains photograph made prior to the event, Indian men hunters and warriors {and their descendants} wearing war bonnets ride in an automobile.ls 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011

FIG. 5. Horace Poolaw. Bruce Poolaw, Mountain View, OK, c. 1929. Horace Poolaw family collection, image courtesy of Linda Poolaw.

Placards on the doors advertise 'These Indians documented by his lens must have reminded will kill buffalo!" In another photograph, three him of watching his father and Kiowa elders hunters pursue the bison in a rare-for-Poolaw chase down a belligerent bison in a half-mile action shot captured from above, the landscape arena ringed with automobiles. It seems no and figures filling the frame. A crowd dominates stretch to imagine that this young photogra­ a third image, surrounding the obscured form of pher also recalled the motion and still picture a lifeless animal. Bruce poses behind the bison's cameras present at Goodnight's ranch in 1916. severed head in several photographs made on He-and his brother, Bruce-may even have the occasion, women bend to scrape the hide remembered Hunting Horse straddling the in another photograph, and in the final image dead bison, and recognized their part in per­ of the sequence, strips of meat hang to dry over forming and documenting a similar event more a pole (Fig. 6). Poolaw's series, like film stills, than a decade later. simultaneously records Watawasso's hunt and At the same time, Bruce Poolaw's fictional American fascination with nineteenth-century portrayals capitalized on non-Native assump­ Plains Indian life.19 tions and expectations; he made his living Although separated by time and space, the from them. His overt and stoic "chief" pose in correlation between the bison hunts of 1916 his brother's circa 1929 photo was pure perfor­ and circa 1929 must have been apparent to mance, as was his participation in Watawasso's Poolaw, still a young man at the time of the bison hunt of the same year. In the end, both hunt orchestrated by Watawasso. The action Bruce and bison in a sense pose as Watawasso's ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 113

FIG. 6. Horace Poolaw. Dried Buffalo Meat, Mountain View, OK, c. 1928. Horace Poolaw family collection, image courtesy of Linda Poolaw.

trophies from her western tour.20 Given the national interest in western American subject prevalence of Poolaw's dramatically posed matter. Richard Abel notes that while films images of the couple in the late 1920s, it is clear of American subjects existed since the 1890s, that the exposure to Watawasso's vaudeville they leapt in popularity around 1908 and by theatrics played a role in the development of 1910 accounted for more than one-fifth of films the film-still-like posing conventions Poolaw released in the United States.21 Stories center­ employed in later portraits. Yet only a hand­ ing on Native Americans were among the most ful of years after witnessing Goodnight's bison prominent. In fact, during the early years of hunt, and nearly a decade prior to his meeting motion pictures, films with western locales and with Watawasso, Horace Poolaw made even plots were not called "Westerns" but "Indian closer contact with motion pictures and cin­ and Western subjects," and between 1907 ematic staging on the Southern Plains. and 1910, stories with Indian central charac­ ters amounted to 50 percent or more of total ThE DAWN OF OKLAHOMA FILM, 1900-1920 Western films. 22 In 1911, after a brief boom in Indian-themed Despite its distance from the national film pictures, the market became saturated and film centers of New York and , south­ journals heralded the demise of the Western.23 western Oklahoma emerged as a film location However, by the end of the 1910s the horrors long before the advent of "talkies." Early silent of World War I had reinvigorated popularity of films produced in Poolaw's environs reflected a Indian subject matter as an escape for war-weary 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011

Americans. Nostalgia for a perceived simpler wolf with his bare hands and was purportedly past continued into the Roaring Twenties, recorded for President .28 marked by the popularity of films like Robert The same company and director also produced Flaherty's 1922 documentary about an Inuit The Bank Robbery in 1908 in and around the community, Nanook of the North. During Wichita Mountains. The Bank Robbery shared this decade, as historian Lawrence W. Levine scenes with The Wolf Hunt and even included writes, mainstream American popular culture a cameo appearance by famed Comanche chief was "laced through with an emphasis on the .29 Bill Tilghman's Eagle Film self-sufficient heroes of such bygone eras as the Company delivered an even more narrative­ Old West, when good and bad supposedly were driven silent on a similar topic seven years distinguished with ease and human beings later in The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaw had the capacity to alter their environment."24 (1915), a tedious, moralistic film about a group Films produced in southwestern Oklahoma of famed Oklahoma outlaws who receive their between 1900 and 1920 reflected such themes just deserts. by constructing a dramatic, often romanticized While these films largely leaned toward past in an environment where elements of the the documentary, other Oklahoma Westerns "Old West" existed in the form of Indians, attempted to provide action-oriented, fictional bison, and mountains. storylines with characters who performed The Norman Film Company of Florida specific parts. Early Oklahoma (1912), a nine­ produced early films in Oklahoma as did the minute short produced by the 101 Ranch, made Lawton-based Film Company, which use of cowboys and Indians from the ranch filmed on location in the Wichita Mountains and its Wild West show. The movie abounds during the 191Os. The Miller Brothers' 101 in stereotype. Its Indian characters are violent, Ranch, whose action films usually featured vengeful, and untrustworthy (with no scruples cowboy and Indian performers, provided actors as to murdering children if given the chance), and settings for scores of early Hollywood no different from many other films featuring Westerns. star James Young Deer, a Indian themes in the 191Os. It was during this Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) who wrote, directed, decade of film history that Native Americans and acted in early Westerns, performed for a became, according to film historian Scott time with the 101 Ranch.25 Other film loca­ Simmon, "an expendable plot device" and tions included Chilocco Indian School and, began to be portrayed as violent antagonists near Poolaw's hometown of Mountain View, to white men.30 Such portrayals became so Oklahoma, Craterville Indian Fair in the unremittingly violent and offensive that in the Wichita Mountains.26 William F. "" mid-191Os, Native and non-Native Americans Cody's 1913 motion picture, The Indian Wars, alike objected to the demeaning depiction of made in association with Pawnee Bill's Wild Indian people in Hollywood films.3! West, included scenes that featured Comanche Other motion pictures produced during the Indians and soldiers stationed at nearby Fort same era, however, created a more romantic Sill,Oklahoma.27 and nostalgic, if no less stereotypical portrayal Among the early shorts filmed in the of Native people. The Daughter of Dawn, a rugged Wichita Mountains was The Wolf six-reeler produced in 1920 in the Wichita Hunt, a fourteen-minute short subject pro­ Mountains, departed significantly from most of duced in 1908 by Jack Abernathy's Oklahoma its predecessors (Fig. 7). According to producer Natural Mutoscene Company and filmed by R. E. Banks of the Texas Film Company, the Oklahoma's first motion-picture cameraman, narrative derived from a Comanche or James "Bennie" Kent. Directed by legendary legend.32 The film was one of the earliest silent western lawman Bill Tilghman, the film docu­ features produced completely in Oklahoma mented Abernathy's technique of catching a and, more importantly, cast entirely of Native ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 115

FIG. 7. George W Long movie still of Esther LeBarr and White Parker from The Daughter of Dawn, c. 1920. Image courtesy of the Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Americans. The film, which attempted to a lake, a bison chase, and a test of bravery as recreate a credible portrayal of Indian experi­ a means of winning the heroine's hand, all ence, capitalized on Euro-American audiences' played into mainstream nostalgia for an idyl­ romantic fascination with nineteenth-century lic Indian past.33 However, the production of Plains Indian life. The Daughter of Dawn in 1920 must have held The caricature of Native American life pre­ some excitement for Horace Poolaw, whether sented by The Daughter of Dawn consisted of a or not he considered it a positive portrayal love triangle with the added action of a bison of his people. The fourteen-year-old not only chase and a Kiowa-Comanche battle. On one witnessed the production of the film but may hand, viewers witness a romance presumably even have captured one image of the movie­ occupying a time prior to European intrusion, making on his own camera, and also appears and on the other, an action-oriented drama in film stills taken on location at the event by complete with raiding, stealing, and gruesome his mentor, landscape photographer George violence. Typical 1920s cinematic representa­ Long.34 Furthermore, Poolaw's film-still-like tions of Indian life, such as a "scout" posi­ photographs made in succeeding years refer­ tioned high on a cliff, lovers paddling across ence the conventions of performed Indian 116 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 identity he witnessed as a twenty-year-old to film portrayals of Indians in The Daughter aspiring photographer during the production of of Dawn and Old Texas but also to modes of The Daughter of Dawn. depicting Native Americans prevalent for decades in American art and popular cul­ THE DAUGHTER OF DAWN (1920) ture.38 The subtle irony evident in photographs The Daughter of Dawn opens with an image such as the diminutive Robert Poolaw's cliff­ ubiquitous in nineteenth- and early twentieth­ side pose suggests that Poolaw intended to century painting, photography, and film comment on or question performed Indian depictions of -the protagonist identity rather than merely document popular White Eagle (White Parker) perches high on nostalgic imagery. Laura Smith thinks that a boulder in the Wichita Mountains, scout­ Poolaw poked fun at popular "chief" stereo­ ing for game. He crouches slightly, puts his types in his photographs of women-and, I hand to his brow, and conspicuously acts the would add, children-wearing war bonnets.39 "lookout." The frame telescopes to a circle His photographs overtly reveal his brother and pinpointing a herd of bison, the solution to his sister-in-law to be performers, he documents Kiowa village's food shortage. Old Texas, filmed his son in the guise of child actor, and he four years earlier, opened in a similar manner captures Charlie Whitehorse's representation with an Indian figure standing on the rim of of Vanishing Race ideology at an elaborately the vast Palo Duro Canyon, peering into the staged performance of Euro-Americans' ver­ distance with his hand to brow. Poolaw, present sion of western American history staged at the during both films as a youth, also made use of site of a major peace treaty between the U.S. the cliff-top convention in theatrically posed government and tribes of the Southern Plains. photographs of Bruce Poolaw and Watawasso Although Poolaw's portraits reference and in the late 1920s. Bruce appears prominently in subtly challenge existing modes of depicting a series of vertical images isolated on horseback Native characters in films like The Daughter against the horizon garbed as both cowboy and of Dawn, other photographs in his collection Indian.35 Linda Poolaw suggests these photo­ suggest the aspiring photographer found the graphs reflect Bruce's dual performance of both imagery of the film set aesthetically compelling "chief" and trick-roping cowboy on New York (Fig. 8). In fact, the movie's lush, cinematic City stages during the late 1920s.36 compositions far exceed in artistry earlier In another photograph made more than a films produced in and around the Wichita decade later, Poolaw's tiny son Robert poses as Mountains. A night scene in the Kiowa camp, the "brave" on the mountain. He looks down one of the most beautifully arranged in the at the camera from a high vantage point at the entire film, frames the viewer's gaze with Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Pageant, mim­ receding rows of lodges on left and right. Long icking the stereotype of Indians as sentinels or shadows cast from the lodges at left crisscross silent observers to passing time. At the same the open central ground. The tepees glow in event during the 1930s, Poolaw photographed pale creamy tones against hand-dyed cerulean Charlie Whitehorse posed as a sentinel grasp­ shadows and night sky, and tower above White ing a long lance, its point greatly enlarged for Eagle as he crisscrosses the central ground. legibility at distance.37 Positioned on a ridge, he The full moon, the viewer imagines, must be towers above the elaborate performance taking just behind Dawn's tepee, the nearest on the place in the valley below and the onlookers to left and vividly painted by Native artists who the lower left. In other photographs, he points would within a decade be known worldwide as ahead or slumps forward, a living replica of the "Kiowa Five."40 James Earle Frasier's famous sculpture, End of A series of 4 x 5 negatives made at the the Trail. These photographs not only allude Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Pageant exhibit ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 117

FIG. 8. "Village" movie still from The Daughter of Dawn "Village," c. 1920. Image courtesy of the Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Poolaw's compositional use of diagonals to lead Yet the figures Poolaw captures here are small into space and share striking similarities to and distant. His photograph is about space and this village scene in The Daughter of Dawn.41 composition, not individuals. Rather, Poolaw In one photograph, a group of three tiny figures creates a space for actors in this series, a stage off center in the middle ground are dwarfed by for narrative drama. the towering lodges in the same way Dawn's suitor, White Eagle, is overshadowed during POOLAW IN FILM STILLS, POOLAW'S STILL the nocturne in Myles's film. The angle of PHOTOGRAPHS Poolaw's camera to the row of receding tepees mirrors that used on the film set. Poolaw's Horace Poolaw was certainly exposed to camera-eye depicts this real space in a manner methods of creating narrative and action-ori­ akin to cinematic space. The natural environ­ ented drama during the filming of The Daughter ment, with its band of sky, band of dark distant of Dawn in 1920. Not only was he on hand for trees, and layers of triangular shapes diminish­ the filming but he posed for film stills made on ing into space becomes a backdrop; the central location by his mentor, landscape photographer ground resembles a stage prepared for action. George Long. One of Long's surviving stills 118 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 depicts the youthful Kiowa garbed in floral Unresolved suspense, stiff poses, frozen dance dress with right arm raised high and action, long shadows, and implied narrative brandishing a weapon (Fig. 9). He confronts in Long's Daughter of Dawn photographs also Bill "Cyclone" Denton, former ranch hand visually correspond to Poolaw's melodramatic and performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West, photographs of his family composed decades who levels a pistol at Poolaw's chest. Both men later. Film-still style appears most evident assume dramatic postures that convey arrested in a double portrait made at midcentury of action. Poolaw's pose, his extended limbs delin­ Robert and Linda Poolaw dressed as cowboys eated in glaring light against a feathery forest and pointing toy six-shooters at an off-frame background, suggests aggression. Denton, too, enemy. This photograph is not simply an image poses in profile, one leg behind the other with of children playing dress-up; Linda and Robert arms up and bent at the elbows as he peers remember their father meticulously instructing down the barrel of his firearm. Both combat­ them how to pose and what to wear.46 Captured ants appear stiff, their postures unnatural and in three-quarter profile, they peer intently off arranged for best narrative effect rather than to camera, brows furrowed, in slightly different convey realism. In fact, the composition closely directions, as if facing multiple adversaries. resembles nineteenth-century stereoscopic Stark light illuminates their profiles, casting images of Native and Euro-Americans engaged half their faces in shadow. in mock combat, posing stiffly in profile with In addition to dramatic lighting, Poolaw weapons raised.42 To add further interest, Long creates tension through shallow depth of field. positioned Denton's horse halfway into the The tip of Robert's gun fades into soft focus frame, where it placidly observes the action,· near the left edge of the frame. The grass and and along with Denton, Poolaw, and off-camera distant, hazy trees form a soft backdrop fram­ trees, casts long shadows diagonally across the ing the crisply focused central figures. Robert ground. Although this and other Long stills stands stiffly, his chin on his chest almost as of Poolaw and Denton together never appear if creeping forward. His sister stands close to during the finished motion picture, Long did her brother, almost hidden behind his protec­ make other photographs that clearly represent tive frame. The half-illuminated faces of the scenes enacted during the production of The children convey a noirlike psychological depth Daughter of Dawn.43 Poolaw's clothing suggests as Poolaw successfully conveys a moment of that if he performed on camera, it may have tension in an unknown, yet familiar, narra­ been during the dance scenes.44 tive. The scene appears straight from motion Narrative posing appears in Poolaw's pho­ pictures or television, a Western tale of good tographs taken late in the 1920s of Bruce and and evil, cowboys and ... Indians? Inevitably, Watawasso, and also in portraits of Bruce viewers ask, Are Robert and Linda the "good and Justin Poolaw of the same period. Even guys?" Whom do they stalk? without the title, "Bruce and Justin Poolaw If we assume these young cowboys face off Making Signs to Trade Horses," one such pho­ against Indian foes, then Poolaw's children tograph-among those Poolaw considered his may in fact stalk Hollywood Indians. If so, this best-resembles a film still.45 In fact, Poolaw's and other cleverly constructed Poolaw portraits composition shares similarities with Long's film comprise a complicated response to performed still made nearly a decade earlier: both men Native identity in American popular culture. appear in profile, facing each other, with horses In a sense, Poolaw pushes against, targets with between them. Wearing feather war bonnets his camera, that illusionary, reductive portrayal and with gesturing hands frozen midair, Bruce of Native people in American film as violent and Justin mimic movie actors, feigning igno­ antagonists or doomed, romanticized primi­ rance of the camera's presence. tive races. His photographs of family members ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 119

FIG. 9. George Long. Bill "Cyclone" Denton (left> and Horace Poolaw, Kiowa, in The Daughter of Dawn movie still, c. 1920. Image courtesy of the Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

acting for the camera seem to address some CONCLUSION of the questions that contemporary writer Philip Deloria posed decades later in Indians in In 1919 American photography critic Paul L. Unexpected Places: Anderson described cinema as an "equalizer," capable of satisfying rural and urban, wealthy Even as twentieth-century Indian people and poor audiences' need for excitement in an came to be seen as pacified, the images inexpensive, mass-produced way.48 Anderson of Indians in and many looked forward to the day when motion pic­ Hollywood films increasingly emphasized tures would rise above their "crude production," nineteenth-century Indian violence. How lacking sound and full of unnatural lighting, and why did Indian people come to rep­ extreme gestures, and the hasty action inher­ resent themselves in these media at this ent with cramming entire narratives into brief specific moment in time? In what ways were spans of time.49 According to Anderson, films they complicit in the perpetuation of nega­ produced during Poolaw's formative years tive images? And to what extent can we see behind a still camera were visually dynamic, their lives in show business as pushing back if not realistic. It seems no coincidence, then, against the expectations that would define that Poolaw, who witnessed the emergence of them as savages?47 filmmaking on the Southern Plains and even 120 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011 posed for film stills himself, imbued many of NOTES his photographs with visual drama through these same characteristics-implied narrative, 1. Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization melodramatic gesture, and striking lighting. A (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 134),243-44. 2. Paul Chaat Smith, "Ghost in the Machine," confluence of pictorial portraiture, film stills, in Strong Hearts: Native American Visions and Voices, and a documentary approach, Poolaw's photo­ ed. Peggy Roalf (New York: Aperature, 1995),6-9. graphs are, however, far from "crude." Rather, 3. Ibid., 8. they are thematically sophisticated, capable of 4. Linda Poolaw, War Bonnets, Tin Lizzies, and implying much about the characters and time Patent Leather Pumps: Kiowa Culture in Transition 1925-1955. The Photographs of Horace Poolaw, period depicted in a visually compelling way. October 5-December 14, 1990, Stanford, CA While Poolaw's photographs reveal aspects (Stanford, CA: Horace Poolaw Photography Project, of American popular culture contemporary 1990), 12. with their making, they also seem to comment 5. See Jane Alison, Native Nations: Journeys on images of Native Americans in mainstream in American Photography (London: Barbican Art Gallery, 1998), 314; "American Gallery," American American entertainment. The performance of History Illustrated 28, no. 3 (July 1993): 8; Maggie Indian identity was no doubt familiar to the Devcich, "Horace Poolaw: Half a Century of Kiowa photographer, given his brother and sister-in­ Life," Camera and Darkroom 14, no. 10 (October law's profession and the presence of Indian 1992): 33; N. Scott Momaday, "The Photography of fairs, pageants, motion pictures, and Indian­ Horace Poolaw," in Strong Hearts: Native American Visions and Voices (New York: Aperature, 1995), themed serials published in local newspapers. 14-19. Laura Smith expands on this point in her Yet Poolaw's film-still-like photographs are also dissertation. See Laura Smith, "Obscuring the personal. Linda Poolaw recalls that her father Distinctions, Revealing the Divergent Visions: never reproduced as postcards his film-still-like Modernity and Indians in the Early Works of Kiowa images, as he did photographs of Indian prin­ Photographer Horace Poolaw, 1925-1945" (PhD diss., University ofIndiana, 2008), 7. cesses commissioned for the Anadarko Indian 6. See "Made Good," Mountain View Times, Exposition.50 Rather, he made them for him­ November 30, 1928, 1. In November 1928 the paper self. They feature loved ones in interesting and reported that Bruce Poolaw had been offered a part complicated environments that simultaneously by a leading production company, and although he reflect and ironically comment on American had declined, it would "not be surprising to see young Mr. Povlaw [sic] on the screen in our local Theatre popular culture during Poolaw's lifetime. some of these days, in the near future." The paper Furthermore, implied narratives, dramatic noted that on the stages of New York, "Poulaw [sic] gestures, striking lighting, and the suggestion made a hit at once and his pictures have been pub­ of danger all suggest that these images are lished in many of the newspapers and magazines," not merely bypro ducts of Poolaw's exposure playing a part opposite his wife, who had made "many records for the Victor Talking Machine Company." to vaudeville-style posing. Rather, in these Not only were the couple celebrities in Mountain photographs Poolaw positions his sitters as if View, Oklahoma, but also on the East Coast, where they are actors before a motion-picture camera, they lived. In 1943, for example, they appeared in the participating in narratives of his making. As New York Times in an Associated Press wire photo such, Poolaw's film- and vaudeville-inspired bestowing a "wampum headdress" on then-first-Iady Eleanor Roosevelt after performing in Camden, images invite satirical as well as documentary Maine. See "Induct First Lady as 'Ow-Du-Sees-UI,'" readings; they reflect and challenge the perfor­ New York Times, February 9, 1943. mance of Native identity. Through his intro­ 7. Linda Poolaw, War Bonnets, Tin Lizzies and spective "camera-eye," photographer Horace Patent Leather Pumps, 12. Poolaw not only documented his family and 8. Linda Poolaw, interview by author, Horace Poolaw Photography Project, Chickasha, OK, June community but also unmasked Americans' 23,2008. fascination with, and Indian performers' por­ 9. The location must have held painful sig­ trayal of, Native identity in the first half of the nificance to these Kiowa elders. Just over forty years twentieth century. earlier, in 1874, a group of Kiowas, Comanches, and ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 121

Cheyennes fled into the Palo Duro Canyon to evade in car; 57E12, crowd with dead bison; 57FPMC8, government troops. Colonel Ranald Mackenzie Bruce with bison head; 57UM8, dried buffalo meat; defeated them there and slaughtered their horses; unknown number, women working on hide. The they were forced to walk back to Oklahoma in prefix 57 indicates 5 x 7 negatives; the image of hunt­ winter. Kiowas continue to commemorate the battle ers in a car was made on a narrower-format negative. today in winter encampments in the Palo Duro Poolaw's negatives are currently archived at Nash Canyon (Linda Poolaw, telephone communication, Library on the campus of the University of Science August 19, 2008). Goodnight arrived in the canyon and Arts of Oklahoma in Chickasha, OK. area two years later and established the JA Ranch. 20. Bruce and Watawasso probably married en For information about Goodnight's bison hunts, route to New York although the location and date see Alex Hunt, "Hunting Charles Goodnight's are unknown. The couple eventually returned to Buffalo: Texas Fiction, Panhandle Folklore, and Maine where they opened a trading post and hunt­ Kiowa History," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review ing lodge. Watawasso later became the secretary of 77 (2004): 1-13. the Republican party of Maine where she helped 10. See B. Byron Price, "The View from Per­ bring voting rights to the Indian people of her state. simmon Hill," Persimmon Hill 16, no. 1 (Spring Celebrities (including Perry Como) stayed at Bruce 1988): 57; see also Mildred J. Cheney, "Probably the and Watawasso's lodge. Linda Poolaw, telephone Last Buffalo Hunt," Southwest Plainsman, October communication, February 9, 2008. 1916, n.p. 21. Simmon cites the Edison Company's films 11. A print of Old Texas was discovered in the like " Ghost Dance" of 1894 as a starting point archives of the National Cowboy and Western of the "Western" genre in motion pictures. See Heritage Museum in and com­ Scott Simmon, The Invention of the Western Film: mercially reproduced. I am grateful to Tom Poolaw A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half-Century for allowing me to view his copy in Norman, OK, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), xii, in February 2007. For a description and analysis of 3n1. the film, see Hunt, "Hunting Charles Goodnight's 22. Richard Abel, "Our Country/Whose Country? Buffalo," 6-7. The 'Americanisation' Project of Early Westerns," 12. Whether ten-year-old Horace Poolaw attended in Back in the Saddle Again: New Writings on the both 1916 hunts on the Goodnight Ranch or only Western, ed. Ed Buscombe and Roberta Pearson the December hunt is unclear, although it is likely he (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 77-95, attended both hunts. He described the celebration n87. Abel cites Eileen Bowser's claim in The following the first hunt to his children and intimated Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915 (New York: that his father played an important role in the event. Scribner's 1990), 173-77, that "Indian films" were Linda Poolaw, telephone communication, August 19, a different genre from early "Westerns." See also 2008. Simmon, Invention of the Western Film, 9. Simmon 13. Cheney, "Probably the Last Buffalo Hunt." notes that in 1908, the importance of Native 14. Tom Poolaw, personal communication, March Americans to film plots skyrocketed due in part 4,2009. to the U.S. film industry's hot competition with 15. Cheney, "Probably the Last Buffalo Hunt." French and Italian production companies. U.S. 16. William T. Hagan, Charles Goodnight: Father film companies made use of Native Americans and of the Texas Panhandle (Norman: University of Western landscapes to differentiate their product Oklahoma Press, 2007), 109. from that of foreign competitors. 17. To family, Watawasso later attributed the 23. Simmon, Invention of the Western Film, 37. bison's death primarily to exhaustion from lengthy Simmon (32-33) cites Griffith's Old California pursuit rather than a well-aimed arrow or lance. (1910) and The Twisted Trail (1910). Linda Poolaw, telephone communication, February 24. Lawrence W. Levine, "The Historian and the 9,2008. Icon: Photography and the History of the American 18. This photograph resembles the famous 1905 People in the 1930s and 1940s," in Modern Art and photograph of Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo Society: An Anthology of Multicultural Readings, ed. driving an automobile with Native American pas­ Maurice Berger (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), sengers at the Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch, near 187. Ponca City, OK. Whether Poolaw was familiar with 25. Towana Spivey, Fort Sill Museum, e-mail the earlier photograph is unclear, although he did communication, May 27, 2008; Bill Moore, Okla­ visit the 101 Ranch with Bruce and Watawasso in homa History Center, e-mail communication, May the late 1920s. 27, 2008. For James Yong Deer, see "James Young 19. The negative numbers for these images in Deer," Motion Picture World (May 6, 1911),999, cited Poolaw's collection are as follows: X201, hunters in Abel, "'Our Country'/Whose Country?,'" n90. 122 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2011

26. Several photographs taken at the 1925 (White Parker, Comanche, son of Quanah Parker) Craterville Indian Fair include a man shoot­ and vice versa, but wealthy, duplicitous Black Wolf ing motion pictures of the Indian parade. See (Jack Sankeydoty, Comanche, Sanka Dota in the Frank Rush photograph collection, University of credits) also pursues her. Meanwhile, Red Wing Oklahoma Western History Collection. Poolaw also (Wanada Parker, Comanche, daughter of Quanah photographed a man filming a group of actors. Linda Parker) endures an unrequited love for Black Wolf Poolaw suggests the image may depict the produc­ which eventually leads to her demise. Dawn's father, tion of The Daughter of Dawn. Linda Poolaw, com­ the Kiowa chief, is played by Hunting Horse (Kiowa). ments made during Horace Poolaw Photography Black Wolf and White Eagle undergo a bravery test Project, Chickasha, OK, May 2008. to prove their courage and win Dawn's hand in mar­ 27. Shorts of Cody's Wild West first appeared in riage. The final Comanche vs. Kiowa battle restores motion pictures in the late 1890s. See L. G. Moses's Dawn to White Eagle and ends in Black Wolf's death excellent chapter on the film's flaws and achieve­ and Red Wing's suicide. ments, "Filming the Wild West, 1896-1913," 223- 34. One negative in Poolaw's collection depicts 51, in L. G. Moses, Wild West Shows and the Images filmmaking in progress. Poolaw's photograph is of American Indians, 1883-1933 (Albuquerque: shot from behind a man operating a motion-picture University of Press, 1996),223-24. camera. Both cameras frame a shirtless man­ 28. Michael Wallis, The Real Wild West: The 101 presumably an actor-in the midground, who faces Ranch and the Creation of the American West (New them. Linda Poolaw suggests this photograph was York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 377-78. President made during the filming of The Daughter of Dawn in Roosevelt screened The Wolf Hunt for his cabinet 1920. However, as demonstrated later in this article, and guests at the White House in February 1909. filmmaking was not an infrequent occurrence See also The Wolf Hunt (1908) and The Bank around Mountain View, OK, and also took place Robbery (1908) in "Film and Video Reference," at the Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch, which Poolaw Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK. visited with Bruce and Watawasso circa 1930. 29. According to the "Film and Video Reference," Regardless of which movie was being made, clearly The Bank Robbery was Tilghman's effort to reenact Poolaw had an interest in documenting the event. the robbery of a bank in Cache, OK, which occurred Linda Poolaw, interview by author, June 23, 2008. during the filming of The Wolf Hunt. 35. For portraits of Bruce posing in this series, see 30. Simmon, Invention of the Western Film, 37. Horace Poolaw Photograph Collection, 57FBCHl- Simmon cites Griffith's Old California (1910) and 12, housed at Nash Library, University of Science The Twisted Trail (1910). and Arts of Oklahoma, Chickasha, OK. Bruce also 31. For Native response to Hollywood films, appears wearing a buffalo horn headdress, with a see Philip Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places baby, and posing with a drum in other staged images (Lawrence: University Press of , 2006), 90-94. from the same period. Whether these images were Native Americans were not the only viewers out­ commissioned by Bruce as publicity stills or were raged at the violent depiction of Native characters initiated by the photographer is unknown. in film. In response to W. F. Cody's The Indian Wars 36. Linda Poolaw, interview by author, June 23, (1913), Star reporter John F. Murray 2008. wrote he hoped Congress would soon pass legislation 37. See Horace Poolaw Photograph Collection, "forbidding the exhibition of scenes of cruelty" that 57LE6. might instill a negative attitude among Americans 38. For an overview of nineteenth- and early toward Native Americans. Cited in L. G. Moses, Wild twentieth-century conventions of depicting Native West Shows, 246. See also 332n77. Americans in American popular culture, see Brian 32. The opening credits of The Daughter of Dawn Dippie, "Photographic Allegories and Indian attribute the story to R. E. Banks, who had "lived Destiny," Montana the Magazine of Western History with the Indian for twenty-five years." Charles 42, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 40-57. Simone is credited with the script and the film was 39. L. Smith, "Obscuring the Distinctions, written and directed by Norbert Miles. Revealing the Divergent Visions," 31. 33. See Leo Kelley, "The Daughter of Dawn: An 40. Bill Moore of the Oklahoma History Center Original Silent Film with an Oklahoma Indian Cast," alerted me to the painting by Kiowa Five members Chronicles of Oklahoma 77, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 291. on Dawn's tepee (personal communication, May 27, The film has been recently rediscovered and restored 2008). by the Oklahoma Historical Society through a grant 41. See Horace Poolaw Photograph Collection, from the National Film Preservation Foundation. 45LE5 and 45LE23. In the film, the Daughter of Dawn (Esther LeBarre, 42. Stanley J. Morrow made a series of ste­ Princess Peka in the credits) loves White Eagle reoscopic images of mock combat between an ACTING FOR THE CAMERA 123 unidentified Dakota man and frontier scout Luther 45. Poolaw considered this image among his best. "Yellowstone" Kelly in the IS70s near Yankton, It was included in his selection of images exhibited . Long's still closely resembles at his retrospective held at the Southern Plains Morrow's "Hand to Hand," which illustrates the Indian Museum, Anadarko, in 1979 (Linda Poolaw, combatants with knives raised, and "Death Stroke," personal communication, June 14, 2009). A copy of where Kelly delivers a blow to his opponent. Unlike the print is now on display in the Horace Poolaw Morrow's narrative, in Long's presumably final Room in the Nash Library at the University of image in the series of film stills, Poolaw and Denton Science and Arts of Oklahoma, Chickasha. shake hands. I thank Byron Price for alerting me to 46. Robert and Linda Poolaw recalled that the the similarities between Long's stills and Morrow's photograph was made one afternoon just after they stereo views (Byron Price, personal communication, returned home from school. Their father gave them August 30, 2010). hats, bandanas, and pistols and directed them to 43. Although attributed to The Daughter of pose (Robert Poolaw, personal communication, Dawn, these scenes never appear during the actual February 4, 2009). A vertical portrait of Robert film. However, other scenes Long made stills of do posed as a bandit (45HPFS) from the same day shows appear during The Daughter of Dawn. Poolaw and the young boy with bandana covering his face and Denton may have been on location to act as extras pistol raised. Linda Poolaw remembers her father if necessary. Bill Moore suggests the Poolaw scenes as a "meticulous" photographer, taking pains (and could have been edited from the final version or are much time) to pose his subjects (personal commu­ perhaps misattributed to this film (personal com­ nication, February 9, 200S). munication, May 27, 200S). 47. Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places, 13. 44. Poolaw's grandson Tom Poolaw suggests his 4S. Paul L. Anderson, The Fine Art of Photography grandfather's clothing might have been considered (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1919), 216. "authentic" to the filmmakers, and was possibly 49. Ibid., 21S-20. worn for dance scenes in film (personal communica­ 50. Linda Poolaw, personal communication, tion, August 2, 2010). February 9, 200S.