Prayer To The Great Mystery: The Uncollected Writings & Photography Of Edward S. Curtis (Paperback)

by Gerald Hausman (Editor), Bob Kapoun (Editor) "Of the Indian tribes whose ancestors came in contact with Europeans during the sixteenth century, only the Pueblo people have preserved their aboriginal customs with..." (more)
Key Phrases: summer cacique, belt ornament, corn silk, Red Wolf, Rio Grande, Nez Percés (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Edward S. Curtis was obsessed with recording information about Native Americans: he believed their culture might simply disappear without a trace. More than 100 years ago, he took his first photographs of Native Americans, and for decades he traveled extensively, snapping pictures and taking copious notes on their ways of life. Prayer to the Great Mystery contains dozens of Curtis's photos that were discovered in the files of the Library of Congress, as well as many previously known prints, some of which are considered masterpieces of photographic art. The text, taken from Curtis's voluminous writings on Native Americans provides priceless accounts of how they lived on the Great Plains, in the Southwest, and in the Pacific Northwest.

From Library Journal
Curtis traveled the West from 1906 to 1927, capturing America's Native people's on film before they "vanished." His photographs and accompanying commentaries became the 20-volume North American Indian, paired with 20 large folios of sepia-toned images. Today, these striking photographs are synonymous with a romanticized Indian past. For this small selection of Curtis's work, Kapoun, a dealer of Curtis's photographs, chose little-known images from the bound volumes, combining them with unpublished Curtis prints from the Library of Congress. Hausman (Turtle Island Alphabet, LJ 3/15/92) edited representative selections from the Curtis narrative. The result gives the flavor of Curtis's writing, but the quality of the photographs leaves much to be desired. Libraries holding books of Curtis's work (e.g., Florence Graybill and Victor Boesen's Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of a Vanishing Race, Promontory, 1994) may want to wait for better reproductions.
Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., Bronx, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312169698
• ISBN-13: 978-0312169695
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,817,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)