Photographing Navajos : John Collier, Jr. on the reservation, 1948-1953
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Photographing Navajos : John Collier, Jr. on the reservation, 1948-1953
University of New Mexico Press, c2002
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In the early 1950s the great anthropological photographer John Collier Jr made nearly 1,000 photographs documenting Navajo life in Fruitland, New Mexico, near the Four Corners. Lost until recently in archives far from the Southwest, most of these photos have never before been published. The authors of this book have assembled a selection of Collier's Navajo photographs showing the changes in post-World War II reservation life. This was the period when cash-crop agriculture and wage work began to supplant the traditional pastoral life centred on raising sheep and using the wool for weaving. Ironically, the photographer was the son of the Indian commissioner who instigated stock reduction on the Navajo Reservation in 1934. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, the senior Collier is still hated by Navajos, and it is a tribute to the younger Collier's personality as well as his skill that he was able to take some of the most intimate pictures ever made of the Navajo people. The Collier photos collected here show people working, cooking, weaving, eating, washing their hair, and engaging in other activities of daily life.
The collection also includes handsome portraits, some formal, some casual. The essays set Collier's work in the contexts of Navajo tradition and history as well as provide background on the Fruitland project and Collier's role in it. Dale Mudge's account of Navajo farming practices combines with Collier's photos to present an outstanding summary of traditional Dine agriculture.
by "Nielsen BookData"