Among Unknown Tribes

Rediscovering the Photographs of Explorer Carl Lumholtz

Bill Broyles, Ann Christine Eek, Phyllis La Farge, Richard Laugharn, Eugenia Macías Guzmán

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780292754638
• eBook ISBN:
  9780292754652
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Internationally renowned as an exciting guide to unknown peoples and places, Norwegian Carl Lumholtz was a Victorian-era explorer, anthropologist, natural scientist, writer, and photographer who worked in Australia, Mexico, and Borneo. His photographs of the Tarahumara, Huichol, Cora, Tepehuan, Southern Pima, and Tohono O'odham tribes of Mexico and southwest Arizona were among the very first taken of these cultures and still provide the best photographic record of them at the turn of the twentieth century. Lumholtz published his photographs in several books, including Unknown Mexico and New Trails in Mexico, but, because photographic publishing was then in its infancy, most of the images were poorly printed, badly cropped, or reworked by "illustrators" using crude techniques. Among Unknown Tribes presents more than two hundred of Lumholtz's best photographs—many never before published—from the archives of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. The images are newly scanned, most from the original negatives, and printed uncropped, disclosing a wealth of previously hidden detail. Each photograph is fully identified and often amplified by Lumholtz's own notes and captions. Accompanying the images are essays and photo notes that survey Lumholtz's career and legacy, as well as what his photographs reveal about the "unknown tribes." By giving Lumholtz's photographs the high-quality reproduction they deserve, Among Unknown Tribes honors not only the Norwegian explorer but also the native peoples who continue to struggle for recognition and justice as they actively engage in the traditional customs that Lumholtz recorded.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• Timeline. Carl Sofus Lumholtz in Brief
• 1. Carl Lumholtz and His Photographs
• Folio One. Photographs from Carl Lumholtz’s: Unknown Mexico Expeditions
• 2. Looking for Lumholtz
• 3. What Photographs Can Tell Us: Carl Lumholtz and Shaman Rubio
• Folio Two. Photographs from Carl Lumholtz’s: New Trails in Mexico Expedition
• 4. New Trails and Entwined Legacies: Carl Lumholtz’s Sonoran Desert Photographs
• 5. A Man of Qualities: Lumholtz and the Museum
• Reflections. A Life Among Unknown Tribes
• Notes for the Photographic Plates
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index of Plates
• General Index