(Please click on the image to view portraits )
Maggie Black Kettle—Blackfeet
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Maggie Black Kettle—Blackfeet
It was very hot and humid, I had been giving this elder water to drink all day. I was taught to take care of your elders. So during the dinner break I wandered up to talk with a couple of men who were sitting to the left of this elder woman I had been giving water to. She started to speak to me. As she spoke she told story. For over one and a half hours she told story. I then introduced myself and she told me she was Maggie Black Kettle of the Siksika tribe (Blackfeet). Maggie went on to tell me about her life and the number of children, grand children and great grand children she had. Many of the stories she told me I do not have permission to re-tell. Maggie has talked to me other times, she has laughed at me because when I stand I groan more than her. If there were a Dame of Indigenous peoples’ this would be her.
My friend KJ Obregon took this picture at
the 2003 Sycuan Pow Wow in El Cajon, California.
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Vanessa Brown—
Lakota/Iroquois
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Vanessa Brown—Lakota/Iroquois
I have begun to spend a lot of time with Vanessa and her family. She lives in Tuba City, a smaller town on the Navajo Reservation and not very wealthy. Vanessa ran with AIM during her younger years. Now she donates a tremendous amount of time to children’s activities and caring for the homeless. She runs Angel House, which takes in donated home articles such as clothes and distributes them out to many places on the reservation. It is one of, if not the, only distribution places like this in Navajo country. This picture of Vanessa was taken before the 2004 Hidden Springs Pow Wow just north of
Cameron
,
Arizona
. It really reveals who she is—a beautiful, powerful, caring woman.
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Erin Goedel Campbell—
Tulalip/
Yakima/Lumbee
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Erin Goedel Campbell—Tulalip/Yakima/Lumbee
Erin
invited us out to the 2004 BYU Pow Wow in
Provo
,
Utah
. Her grandparents would be coming out from North Carolina. Her father, Terry, and I had become friends through his Hoop Dancing. Before I did the family portraits I got into one of those fun moods and that’s when I had her do some posing. This is one of those. It was an indoor Pow Wow and I set up a studio upstairs in the cafeteria.
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Nellie Stanley—
Navajo/Creek/Ute
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Nellie Stanley—Navajo/Creek/Ute
Nellie is one of the “Fly Girls.” I call them that because in the many times I have shot Nellie and her cousins, they always get lift off the ground. One of my specialties is getting dancers in mid air. Rodeo photography really helped in shooting some of the faster dance styles. It’s all in the timing. At first Nellie didn’t like the shots I had of her. Of course, what teenage girl does? Now that she is a little older she has told me she does like them. I always enjoy watching Nellie dance.
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Eli PaintedCrow- Yaqui
Eli PaintedCrow is a warrior. She served 23 years with the Army until 2005, when she retired as a Sergeant First Class. PaintedCrow introduced herself to my friend KJ and Beth at the 2005 Gathering of Nations. KJ asked PaintedCrow if I could take pictures of her nieces for one of my children’s calendars. I contacted PaintedCrow several months later to do the portraits. She lived in Central California at the time.
“A warrior is born of the heart and finds strength, truth and is loyal to the path because this path gives purpose. A warrior has experienced battle and learns to act with impeccability and loyalty.”
Eli PaintedCrow wrote this as a letter that was published in 2004 about her feelings regarding blind faith in the Government and its policies of lying and cheating and why we fight other countries.
In my understanding of women as warriors, in Native American culture, being the last one the men ever wanted to see in battle—it had nothing to do with “couldn’t handle the killing.” If the men were losing, the women came to their defense and were fierce about the killing. The men were more scared and respectful of the women as warriors. It has been a sad day since the US Government and our “society” started looking at women as care givers only. I am not sure I would look at PaintedCrow as just a “care giver.” She is compassionate, powerful, a mother of two and Grandmother of eight—all the attributes I look for in a woman. Of course I also wouldn’t want to get on her bad side, she has the ability to “kick my ass.” In the US Army for 23 years, six were as a Drill Sergeant at the Drill Sergeant Academy.
This picture was taken in the winter of 2006 in her backyard. PaintedCrow had not had a picture taken in her fatigues. I wanted to honor her and the service she gave this country. The American flag, clichéd at best, adds the needed ambience for this picture. This book has very few references to Natives serving our country in war. Yet of all the races in this country, per capita, the Native Americans are the most represented. It is their way of continuing the warrior spirit they have lived with for thousands of years. There are several warrior societies for the men, yet the women are not recognized with a warrior society—“Yet.”
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