20 Images of Native American Life From Edward S. Curtis’ Archive

This photograph shows a Blackfoot Medicine Lodge encampment in the summer of 1899.

"A most notable gathering, and one which never will be witnessed again," wrote Curtis.

Blackfeet communities remain vibrant today, with distinct histories and cultural traditions.

“The canoe is to the Coast Indian what the pony is to the people of the plains. In these picturesque canoes, built from the trunk of the great cedars, they travel the whole length of the coast from the mouth of the Columbia to Yakutat Bay, Alaska," Curtis wrote.

Cedar dugout canoes carried people and goods along the Pacific Coast, where waterways served as important trade routes.

"A Hopi Snake Priest."

The Snake Dance drew large crowds of tourists, including President Theodore Roosevelt in 1913. Amid growing attention and disrespectful behavior, Hopi ceremonial leaders began restricting non-Hopi spectators around the 1950s.

In this image, Curtis identifies a child through his father, the Blackfeet leader Double Runner.

“A Blackfoot picture on the prairies of Montana. In the early days and closely following the acquisition of the horse, many of the Northern plains tribes carried their camp equipment on the Travaux. This form of transportation had practically disappeared by the beginning of 1900," Curtis wrote.

A travois is a simple frame made from poles that is dragged behind a dog or horse to transport belongings.

“The Hopi villages are built on a small high straight-walled mesa where water must be carried up from springs on lower levels. This shows two women at their early morning task," wrote Curtis.

The Hopi homeland is centered on three mesas in northeastern Arizona, where the Nation is located today.

“An Apache picture. One must know the desert to […] appreciate the sight of the cool, life-giving pool or murmuring stream," Curtis wrote.

“An Apache maiden. The manner in which the hair is wrapped with beaded buckskin is the custom followed by the unmarried Apache girl. After marriage the hair drops loosely down the back," wrote Curtis.

Curtis’ notes reflect his own observations about Apache hairstyles—Apache communities carried distinct cultural traditions.

According to the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Apache word sigesh means “the gifted one."

"Showing the typical baby carrier of the Apache people," Curtis wrote on the back of this photo.

“Navajo Indians emerging from the shadows of the high walls of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona typifying the transition from barbarism to civilization," Curtis wrote.

Curtis’ description reflects a colonial-era view about Navajo life. The photograph itself shows people in the Canyon de Chelly, a landscape of deep significance to the Diné people.

“The healing ceremonies of the Navajo people are locally called sings, or in other words, a doctor or priest attempts to cure a disease by singing rather than by medicine," wrote Curtis. "The healing ceremonies vary in length from a fraction of a day to the two great ceremonies of nine days and nights. These elaborate ceremonies which have been so fully described by Washington Matthews are called by him the night chant and the mountain chant."

Matthews was a U.S. Army surgeon and ethnologist who studied the Navajo language and ceremonial traditions in the late 19th century.

“A good type of the younger Navajos," Curtis wrote.

Curtis’ brief note reflects his practice of presenting individuals as representatives of broader communities. The caption provides no name or personal details.

“The Navajo blanket is the most valuable product made by our Indians," wrote Curtis. "Their blankets are now as of old, woven on the simple primitive loom, and during the bleak months of Winter the looms are placed in the Hogans or homes, but in the Summer they place them outside in the shade of a tree or under and improvised shelter of branches."

Diné weaving traditions have been passed down through generations. Woven textiles have served practical, artistic and economic purposes.

“Three Sioux mountain sheep hunters in the Bad Lands of South Dakota," Curtis wrote.

The Badlands are part of the ancestral homelands of several Indigenous nations, including the Oglala Lakota, and remain a place of cultural and spiritual significance to the Lakota people.

“A statuesque, picturesque Sioux Chief and his favorite pony at a water hold in the bad lands of the Dakotas," wrote Curtis.

In the dry landscape, a water source would have been important for people and animals traveling through the region. Curtis calls the man a chief but does not identify him by name.

“Red Cloud is perhaps as well known in Indian history, and especially in Sioux Indian history, as was George Washington in the thirteen colonies," wrote Curtis. "At the present time, he is blind, and feeble, and has but a few years before him; his mind though is yet keen in spite of the 91 yrs., he enjoys recalling details of the prouder days of his youth."

Red Cloud was an Oglala Lakota leader who resisted U.S. expansion along the Bozeman Trail during a conflict known as Red Cloud’s War. He later negotiated the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

"An Apache man."

Curtis’ title describes the man by a role but gives no name or specific Apache community. Their traditional territory—often called Apacheria—spanned Arizona, New Mexico, western Texas, southern Colorado and northern Mexico. Today, “Apache” is a broad term for several distinct Indigenous nations, each with their own history and traditions.

This traditional Hopi hairstyle is known as the squash blossom or butterfly whorl. It later inspired Princess Leia's iconic side buns in Star Wars.

The hairstyle was created with the help of wooden discs around which the hair was shaped. The style was traditionally worn by unmarried Hopi women, specifically during celebrations of the winter solstice.

The portrait identifies American Horse by name, while Curtis’ note gives only a broad tribal designation, "A Sioux man."

"Sioux" has been used to describe several related Lakota, Dakota and Nakota peoples.